Going West: True Crime - Amy Bishop // 19

Episode Date: April 8, 2019

In 2010, a professor opened fire in a biology faculty meeting at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and, when police catch the woman behind it all, they realize that she has a dark past. In 1986, she had "accidentally" shot her brother in their family's Massachusetts kitchen, but was hardly questioned on the incident at all. When police re-open her brothers case and dive even deeper into her history, they also realize that she has been a suspect in multiple bombings. This is the case of Amy Bishop. **GOING WEST DOES NOT OWN ANY OF THE NEWS CLIPS PRESENTED** CBS News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_25XuHxHPA0 ABC News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR5umfcHDas CBS News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iJ_K-lvq9c Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's going on True Crime fans, I'm your host Heath, and I'm your other host, Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. Thank you so much to everybody who gave us a super nice review on Apple Podcast this week. A couple of those people include Don from Pittsburgh, California, Nikecall from Utah, and Courtney from Oregon. Thank you so much for listening guys, and thank you for reviewing. We also want to say thank you so much to our latest Patreon members, Erin Murphy, Jared E, and Rebecca White. You guys are awesome. And if anybody else wants to subscribe to our Patreon, it's just $5 a month and you get bonus episodes. And if you also want to shout out in the show, make sure you go

over to Apple Podcast, leave us a five-star review, but make sure you leave your name and your location. We've got a really good case for you guys today, so let's get into it. This morning, Amy Bishop of the Professor charged with killing three colleagues in Alabama back in February. It's now charged with killing her brother in 1986. I don't know why, I don't know what, I don't know who. Amy Bishop was just 21 and looking to complete a graduate degree at Harvard University when she claimed to have accidentally killed her brother while unloading her father's

shotgun. Amy Bishop is a Harvard-educated neurobiologist, PhD, and his mother of four. Now she's charged with capital murder. On Friday, Bishop allegedly opened fire in a faculty meeting, killing three fellow professors. She was recently denied academic tenure and was reportedly upset. Amy Bishop was born on April 24, 1965 in Iowa City, Iowa to parent Sam and Judy who met at the New England School of Arts in Boston. Sam was raised by Greek immigrants and was previously in the Air Force before settling down with his family. He was a painter by day and a janitor by night.

Amy was the first born child and was always bright yet assertive, and when she was very young, her family moved back to Massachusetts, where Sam got a teaching job in the art department at Northeastern University. After settling in Braintree, Massachusetts in 1968, Amy's brother Seth was born. Braintree is a middle-class suburb south of Boston, and while living there, Judy became very involved. She joined the town meeting in local governing body and even started drawing editorial cartoons for the local paper. Everyone thought of her as the town spokesperson. She could answer any question you had. As a child, Amy suffered from asthma and often ended up in the

emergency room. She had a deep interest in science early on and wanted to find the cure for everything, just like her brother Seth. The two were very close as kids and they often played violin together and did science experiments. A few years ago, I went to Massachusetts by myself and I went to Salem and this really, really cute town called Marblehead and then I went to Boston and I had all this time to kill before my flight

on my last day and I remember driving through Brain Tree because I was just driving like all over that area because I just wanted to see like what Massachusetts looked like and the upraintree is like this little tiny historic town. Yeah, I mean there's probably a ton of those like small historic towns in that area like outside of Boston. Oh Yeah, there's definitely a lot especially since it's on the East Coast I feel like the East Coast has a lot of those cute historic towns that the West Coast kind of lacks. I've actually never been to Massachusetts.

It's really cute. I say them is adorable and marble head. If you guys have not heard of marble head, go look it up It's this really adorable colonial town and it's so cute and I stated this really old like 1792 built colonial house Airbnb, and it was awesome. I think if I was gonna go to Massachusetts, probably the one place I'd really wanna go, I think is Martha's Vineyard. Definitely to go check out where they filmed jaws, of course. Oh, I didn't know it was filmed at Martha's Vineyard. I'm down, let's go. Yeah, I'm totally down. Anyways, so as Amy and Seth grew up, they also grew apart a bit.

Amy remained a loner while Seth seemed to make friends a bit easier. One night in 1985, when Amy was 20 and Seth was 17, the family returned home from Sam's father's funeral to find their house broken into. The place was ransacked and Judy's wedding ring and grave silver cups and many other valuables were stolen. Naturally, the bishops were incredibly upset by this and Judy even wrote a letter to the local newspaper pleading for their items back. After this event, Sam, the dad, picked up a 12-gauge shotgun from a sporting goods store because he felt that's what he needed to do to keep his family safe.

Amy and Judy apparently didn't feel comfortable at all about having a gun in the house, but Sam kept it anyway. He stored it and his and Judy's bedroom closet unloaded. The following year on December 6, 1986, at around 2pm, something tragic happened in the Bishop household. Amy Bishop fired three shots from a 12-gauge shotgun, one going into her bedroom wall, one into her brother Seth's chest while they were in the kitchen with their mom Judy, and another into the ceiling while she was fleeing the scene. Judy frantically called the police, explaining that her son was dying dying and that the entire incident was a tragic accident.

Seth had just started his freshman year at North Eastern University to study electrical engineering. He was 18 years old. The police station was just about two miles away from the Bishop home, so they arrived pretty quickly. Judy was waiting for police by the front door and her clothes even had some spots of Seth's blood. She took them to the kitchen where Seth lay on the floor bleeding out. Paramedics immediately tried to revive him but didn't have any luck. Judy told police that Seth had just returned from the grocery store when Amy came downstairs carrying her father Sam's shotgun. Apparently, Amy said, I have a shell in the gun and I don't know how to unload it. Judy told Amy not to point the gun at anybody, but apparently she swung it around to show

her brother and it fired. She shot him point blank in their small kitchen, and as soon as he collapsed, Amy ran. This doesn't make sense to me why she ran because if it was an accident and you shot your brother why would you run away to try to escape when you stop and try to help him? Yeah definitely. You're not going to just shoot somebody and then take off running. That's something that someone who's guilty would do. Or if she meant to murder him she would have run to try to get away from the situation or to try to escape and not get caught. But if I accidentally shot my brother, I would collapse on the floor with him, you know, like,

you don't run away. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, the first thing I would do is go grab the phone and call 911 and just like try to stop the bleeding, do whatever you can. Another thing that doesn't really make sense to me about Judy's story is that she never mentioned the fact that Amy shot a hole in her ceiling and that was definitely done first. So if Amy shot a hole in her ceiling, she would have had to have reloaded and pumped the shotgun again

and then go downstairs and ask her brother how to unload the gun. And then she accidentally shot again. That just doesn't make sense to me. Yeah, it doesn't make sense. She would have to definitely pump the shot gun in order to fire off another round, in which we know that there was three rounds fired off, so that means she pumped that gun three times. Exactly, and also you don't pump it again and then say, hello, how do I get this out and the family would have been like, what the hell happened? Like you just blew a hole in your

ceiling, you know, that's like a big deal. Right, if you're not familiar with a shotgun, I would say, if you shot a hole in your in your wall or in your ceiling, like at that point you would just be like, all right, I'm not fucking touching this thing anymore, I'm gonna put this thing down. It's just weird to me that in their stories they say, it was an accident she came down to see if Seth could unload the gun for her. After she already accidentally fired one, it just doesn't add up.

Police immediately put out a bulletin when they couldn't find Amy at the house. She was quickly picked up outside of an auto body shop in town and was taken to the police station where she was interviewed. Her story went like this. She stated that she loaded the shotgun because she had been worried about rovers coming into the house. Seth had once showed her how to load the gun, but not unload it. She loaded several shells, but while trying to figure out how to remove it, she accidentally fired a shot, which shattered the mirror in her bedroom and put a giant hole in her ceiling. When she heard Seth come home, she went downstairs

with the gun and asked for his help on how to unload it, which is when the gun went off. When asked if she shot her brother on purpose, she said no. Her father Sam hadn't been home at the time, he was at the mall. He had left the house around 11.30 a.m. because he and Amy had gotten into a disagreement over a comment she made. It's unknown what that comment was, but regardless, he arrived home later that day to find his driveway covered with emergency vehicles. Around 3.08pm, Sam rushed to the hospital where Seth was pronounced dead. Sam actually stated, they keep saying he was dead, but he didn't seem dead to me.

He looked at me. So they basically assumed since Amy and her mom Judy stated that it was all an accident and because she seemed remorseful, it must have been an accident. And apparently while the family was at the hospital and then the police department, some neighbors had gone to their house and scrubbed Seth's blood from the kitchen so they didn't have to come home to that. The Bishop home was a Victorian-style house that had a big covered porch. It was built in the 19th century by a dentist who actually ran his practice from a cottage on the property. A nurse

named Deb was renting the cottage from the bishops at the time of Seth's death. She joined Judy in the kitchen trying to comfort her while Sam went into his study, and Amy climbed into her parents' bed. Deb, whose grandfather had been a police officer, was incredibly surprised that Amy was released so quickly. Judy explained what had happened while Deb noticed some specks of blood and muscle tissue still on some of the kitchen appliances. She told Judy that she shouldn't be in there and took her to her bedroom. The whole neighborhood was incredibly supportive of the bishops during this hard time. They

would bring over Chinese food and pay their respects. Sets' wake was held at the church of all souls, and many attended the open cascus service. Sam and Judy clung to Amy during the wake, and many reported that Amy looked completely catatonic, like a zombie. A medical examiner ruled Seth's death and accident and police reported that every part of this story led them to believe it was all a tragic accident. In a final report made on March 30, 1997, a state trooper named Brian Howe, who had been working with the DA's office at the time, stated that Seth Bishops' death was the result of the accidental discharge of a firearm.

At this point, with the story the police have heard by the entire family and the sense of remorse and regret, it kind of makes sense that the police would believe it. You know, like why would they think a young girl would want to murder her brother? And they were both smart kids and came from a nice family. They had no idea who Amy Bishops would come to be. So it's easy for us to look back now and say, are they crazy? But even to this day, Amy says she was horrified by her brother's death and still insists it was an accident. It wasn't until 2012 that the documents regarding Seth's death were released by police. They explained that when Seth fell to the floor, Amy ran out of the kitchen and out the

back door, still holding the shotgun. She cut through a wooded area and ended up in an alley that was adjacent to an auto dealership. However, it being a Saturday, the shop was closed, yet there were some off-duty mechanics hanging around outside. According to these men, Amy came up to them holding the shotgun, explaining that she needed a car. She demanded that they give her keys, but the men ran. That's when police found her, noting that she looked frightened and disoriented, and that

she kept both of her hands on the shotgun. After Seth's death, Amy continued to live at the Bishop's home, often sleeping in bed with her parents for comfort. She rarely left the house to see friends, she just pretty much became a shut-in. Amy eventually continued her education at Northeastern University in Boston, but still lived at home in brain-tree for a little bit, leaving her with a short 30-minute commute by car. Although she didn't drive herself, her father would take her to and from campus when he worked.

Amy achieved excellent grades and graduated from Northeastern before enrolling in the PhD program in genetics at Harvard. While attending Northeastern University, Amy met a young man named Jim Anderson, who was also a biology student. They both were a part of a group on campus revolving around dungeons and dragons and other similar games. They dated for a few years before getting married in 1989 at the same church where Seth's wake was held, kind of creepy. Within a couple years, and at the age of 26, Amy was pregnant with her first child. In 1991, she gave birth to a girl named Lily. After Lily, she quickly had two more daughters, Thia and Fadra. People described Amy as a very loving mom who took great care of her children. She bought organic food for the house and encouraged

the kids to get involved in playing music, just like she and her brother had. After she had kids, she was still managing to continue the PhD program, but was finding it very difficult. Nonetheless, in 1993, she finished her thesis and got a degree. Many people who were a part of the program with her mentioned later that she should have never gotten a degree and that Amy was a weak doctoral candidate. Amy, her husband Jim and her children actually lived in the cottage on her family's property in Braintree for a time. Amy only trusted her mom Judy to babysit, so the arrangement worked out well for her.

However, in 1996, Sam and Judy finally sold their home and moved to Ipswich, Massachusetts, which is a coastal town about 40 miles north of Braintree. A few years later, in 2001, Amy had her her first son and she named him Seth. Weirdly enough, he was born on Seth's birthday. At that time, Seth Bishop would have been 33 years old. Alongside studying science, which was her main passion, Amy also enjoyed writing poetry while she was in college. Years later, she decided to begin writing again, but this time, she focused on fiction novels. She wrote three novels, all of which were dark thrillers, and a lot of details in

her books included parallels of her real-life tragic events and thoughts. Some aspects clearly reflected on the loss of her brother, and others on the struggle of seeking an elite career as a woman while also caring for four children. However, none of them were ever published. She always enjoyed mentioning that a literary agent was working on getting her a book deal, but it never came to fruition. Many people described Amy as being eccentric and operating at a high frequency. Although she could be considerate and had a quick wit. She was very erratic and bizarre. One morning in 2002, Amy, Jim and the kids went to a local eye-hop for some breakfast. The restaurant was incredibly crowded and once the family was seated, they requested a

high-chair for Seth to sit at, since he was just about one at the time. The server told Amy that the last one had been given to another party, and Amy screamed, but we were here first, before rushing over to the other table, where a woman and her children were also eating breakfast, and she kept yelling, I am Dr. Amy Bishop, while punching the woman in the head. I found one source that mentioned Amy also shouted, I'm on a 10-year track you fucking cunt and I'll give you fucking herpes, but it's unclear how accurate that is. So basically at this point we're seeing that Amy clearly has some anger management issues that need to be addressed. Yeah, I mean that's just a very dramatic reaction to not being able to have a high-chair for your son.

I know that's annoying because he needs to sit somewhere, but you don't go punch the lady in the head who took the last one. It's not her fault. Yeah, I feel like she just has these really angry impulses that she can't control. So she just seems very impulsive. And I think that's really showing even here in her just a regular day when she's going to breakfast with her family. Definitely a loose cannon. And Amy was asked to leave the restaurant by the manager and the police were called. Amy was actually arrested for this, but the charges were dropped, so they never appeared on her record.

Amy appeared to be the sole breadwinner of the house. Her husband Jim worked here and there, but never really had a consistent long-term job. When he did work, it was often laboratory jobs that he got with the help of Amy. She told her colleagues that Jim was too smart to work, but in one of her novels, the heroine of the story is married to a computer programmer who can't hold a job in his field, so he ends up working at a radio shack. She describes him as Ambition Challenged and a flaccid bed loving loser. But in real life, he's probably playing D&D with his friends.

I actually think that's really funny, a flaccid bed loving loser. That's pretty good. Yeah, that is pretty good. She's very descriptive with her words. The Anderson struggled with money, but in 2003, Amy was offered a tenure-track job at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. So the family moved, hoping this job would bring financial stability. At this time, Jim and Amy were working on a project, an automated cell incubator, which I guess was supposed to replace the Petri dish. The president of the University of Alabama predicted it would change the way biological

and medical research is conducted. However, this invention was taking a lot of time out of Amy's schedule, which was risking her chance of tenure because, instead of writing papers and working on her publication record, she was working on the project. She was also seemingly ignoring warnings that said if she failed to publish more, it could jeopardize her chances of tenure. So she basically knew that this was risky and she continued to do it. Not to mention she was awful in her classrooms. She often told her students that they weren't as bright as Harvard students, and she would

randomly cut people from her class, if they pissed her off. Many students also requested to transfer out of her class. I actually read on ratemyprofessor.com, I think it is. She has a 3.6 rating, which really isn't that bad, but a lot of people said that she was smart and she knew what she was talking about, but she got confused easily and she was kind of all over the place as a teacher. Yeah, and she was definitely pretty stiff as a person. Like I was reading some articles that was saying when they lived back in brain tree that she would get super pissed off if kids were playing basketball after like 830 at night. And she would actually get into confrontations with other neighbors at that time.

And I remember reading one article that said that one of the neighbors had mentioned that they didn't invite the Anderson's to like a neighborhood block party because Amy was just too confrontational. Yeah, she's definitely uptight. There's no doubt in my mind that Amy is incredibly smart. She just really lacks social skills, I think, and maybe lacks some empathy as well. I definitely think for a teacher it's obviously important to be knowledgeable, but it's also important to be a cool person.

Like who wants to learn from someone who has a dud personality or who's kind of mean? Yeah, I mean some of the best teachers you've ever had in school are kind of relatable. They're like cool down to earth, like they're super funny. Yeah, willing to talk to you and willing to work with you, and I think Amy was so uptight that people maybe even felt intimidated by her. Also, Amy had claimed that her and her husband both had an IQ of 180, which I don't believe that. That's just interesting that she said that because 0.4% of people have over a 140 IQ and 140 plus is considered highly gifted.

So to be 180 and for both of you to happen to be 180, that just seems kind of unlikely. And like we mentioned earlier, people said that she was a weak candidate for a doctorate. So I think she was smart, but I don't know if she was that smart. Yeah, I don't buy it. In spring of 2009, Amy's tenure was denied, which meant her job would soon come to an end. At least one of the members of her committee told the Chronicle of Higher Education that she was crazy and they were worried about her mental health, which was apparently an obvious issue with her from the first impression.

Amy filed a series of appeals and eventually hired a lawyer. One day, Amy and Jim went to a firing range in Alabama to do some target practice. They brought along Jim's 9mm rouger that Jim had acquired years earlier from a friend. A week later, tragedy struck. And we'll get into that story after this quick break. after this quick break. Hello friends, we are the Ladies of Strange. I'm Ashley, I'm Tiffany, and I'm Rebecca. Have you ever wondered if Ginny's head really did fall off when they removed the green ribbon? Or if aliens are hiding in the tails of comments waiting to take us away?

Or if there's any scientific bases to the Weedee board? Well, then don't risk your search history and join us each Thursday as we discuss the history of mystery and theory. Evolving's questionable odd and theory. For links to where you can stream episodes and see blog posts on the subjects we cover, head over to our website at theladyzestrange.com. Keep it streamed hopefully. My name is Hunter. And I'm Haley, and we're your host of... Murder and Search. A podcast about true crime,

serial killers, and other dark subject matter. Join us while we fill your ear holes with some crappy comedy and disgusting tales. You can now find us on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, PodD, and all of your pod catcher services. You can like us on Facebook, Instagram, and follow us on Twitter at Merger and Such. Hope to hear from you guys soon. Bye! And we're back. On February 12, 2010, Amy Bishop went to the University of Alabama in Huntsville and

taught her anatomy and neuroscience class. At this point in time, she's 45 years old. Some of her students later reported that she seemed perfectly normal during her lecture. After her class, she attended a biology department faculty meeting with about 12 other people, as usual. For the first 40 minutes of the meeting, she was incredibly quiet, which was strange for her because she was usually very vocal about her feelings on the different matters that were discussed. Amy was still clearly very upset about her being denied tenure.

She expressed this to her friend and colleague, Deborah Moriarty, who was a biochemist. Deborah remembered Amy saying that her life was over. During the meeting, Deborah could tell that Amy was likely thinking about the fact that she would have to find a new job soon, and Deborah even made a mental note to ask Amy how her search was going. Deborah was also a mother and as of recently a grandmother. Deborah was always incredibly comforting towards Amy during this hard time and they really

had developed a nice friendship. Just as the meeting was coming to a close, Amy stood up, pulled Jim's 9-millimeter Ruger semi-automatic pistol out of her purse, and shot Gopipadia, the department chair, in the head. Amy then shot Stephanie Monticeolo, the department assistant. Then, Adriel Johnson, a cell biologist. Everyone was screaming and ducking for cover under the table. No one could leave the room because Amy was blocking the only exit. Amy's fourth victim was Maria Raglan Davis, another colleague of Amy's. At this point, Deborah was hiding under the conference table when Amy approached her. Deborah wrapped herself around Amy's legs, pleading for her life.

Amy looked her right in the eyes and pulled the trigger, but the gun didn't go off. Amy pulled the trigger again as it stared Deborah in the face, but it was jammed. Deborah used this opportunity to flee the room, but Amy followed her while repeatedly squeezing the gun's trigger. While Amy was attempting to fix the gun, Deborah ran back into the conference room and helped a colleague barricade the door. At this point, six people had been shot and three of them were dead. The entire occurrence lasted about one minute.

Amy then went to the bathroom where she wiped the gun off and threw it in the trash can. She also removed her blood stained blazer and got rid of that as well. Amy then casually walked to a different part of the building and asked to borrow a student's cell phone. She dialed Jim and told him that she was done and to come pick her up as he often did. When Amy was leaving the building out the back, she was apprehended by police.

As news trucks arrived to cover her arrest, Amy is seen saying, it didn't happen. There's no way. They're still alive. When police discovered that Amy had called Jim directly after she shot her colleagues, they interviewed him, but quickly discovered that he was not involved. Apparently, Amy reported that shortly after her brother Seth's death, she began hearing voices, and that in the months before the shootings in Alabama, she was under a great deal of stress and it caused her to hallucinate

In an interview that I watched with Jim He actually was saying that he didn't see any signs of mental illness with Amy and he didn't see any reason for her to see a psychiatrist or anything like that So or he may have just been trying to protect his wife But either way he's denying the fact that she had any mental health issues. If you guys watch his interview with ABC News, you'll see he seems very distraught and teary-eyed and honestly very confused by the whole ordeal,

like he has no idea how the woman he loves and his wife could do something like that. So that's really interesting to see. In the interview, you know, he explains he just wants to know what he wants to know how he wants to know who and why. I read some articles as well that included interviews with some of Amy's different friends who said that Jim was kind of passive and if Amy was upset about something, he wasn't really comforting or helpful with any of that kind of stuff. So I think she left her issues to discuss with her few friends and her colleagues

and not really go to her husband. And if you watch the interview, you can tell that Jim is kind of a flat person. There's not a whole lot of emotion going on there. I mean, he does look kind of upset in the interview, but at the same time, his answers are very short. They're very like to the point, and he's just kind of monotone, so I mean, that really doesn't mean anything. That doesn't make a big difference, but like what you're saying, if she didn't want to disclose her feelings with him,

maybe it's because she just felt like she couldn't communicate with him in that way. One of the surviving colleagues in the meeting reported that no one liked Amy because she was very difficult to get along with. They mentioned she once ranted for almost an hour at a meeting, saying that everyone hated her. People attempted to be friend her, but found it incredibly hard because she was quick to threaten them. In one occurrence, a colleague tried to compliment her page boy haircut.

Okay, the Lord Farquad, if anyone out there has seen track. Definitely the Lord Farquad haircut. Anyways, which turned into an argument and Amy ended up threatening to break into their house and inject nitric oxide into his genitals while he slept. That's a really extreme thing to say to someone who's trying to give you a compliment. Yeah, that's definitely like the opposite reaction you should have when someone says, hey, I like your hair. And I think that's kind of the point that it was hard to talk to her without something like that happening. Like she was just very extreme. Zero social skills.

that happening like she was just very extreme. Zero social skills. Once Amy was arrested, a few people at the University of Alabama's Biology Department told police that they believed Amy created a Herpes bomb in the science building with the intent of spreading the virus. When Amy was completing her postdoctoral studies, she was working with the Herpes virus,

and one of the novels she wrote, described a situation where a virus similar to Herpes was spread throughout the world. This information is still unconfirmed since police never actually found any Herpes bombs. So it's unknown why so many people believed this. It's pretty unlikely because Herpes is a fragile and rarely deadly virus, and no other terrorist group has ever made a Herpes bomb as far as we know. Also, Chicken Pox is the only common member of the Herpes family that can go airborne, so it just seems unlikely that this happened.

But I wouldn't put it past her to concoct something like this. Also, looking back at the 2002 IHOP incident where Amy Bishop punched a woman in the head for taking the last booster seat while apparently yelling, I'll give you fucking herpes. So that is kind of an interesting connection there. It's especially not surprising that Amy is questioned for this potential herpes bomb because in 1993, Amy and her husband Jim were suspected of mailing a pipe bomb. 1993 was the year Amy really struggled with completing her education, although she received a degree, and she was referred to as a weak candidate. After getting

her degree, Amy was working as a researcher for children's hospital in Boston doing post-doctorate research and worked along fellow scientist Dr. Paul Rosenberg. Paul was the man who received the pipe bomb shortly after Amy left her job that year. During the investigation, Dr. Paul Rosenberg told authorities that Amy's exit wasn't very positive. Paul had been fairly vocal towards Amy that she shouldn't be working there because he didn't feel she could meet the standards required for the work. A witness reported that Jim said he wanted to get back at Paul and shoot him, bomb him, stab him

or strangle him. Somehow, after an interview, Amy and Jim were dismissed as suspects and to this day, the case remains unsolved. It seems that Amy and Jim would have been educated on how to create a bomb since they were both scientists and inventors, and the circumstances revolving around Amy leaving her job and Jim's threat. It seems unlikely to me that this would have been done by anyone else. I definitely agree with you on this. It seems like something that Amy would do.

We already know that she's a very impulsive person, and I think she's got anger issues for sure. So, with the bad blood between her and Paul Rosenberg, it just seems like this is probably them. On February 15, 2010, Amy was charged with one count of capital murder and three counts of attempted murder. The police confiscated Amy's computer, the family's van, and a large binder containing documents pertaining to her tenure battle. When her attorney visited her in prison, he noted that Amy said she did not remember the shooting and that she had a loose grip on reality. Although it was initially determined that Amy appeared to have paranoid schizophrenia, this was later retracted, but she was still treated for it with hallow parrital.

After the shootings, police dove back into Seth Bishop's death and were now looking at it from a completely different perspective. At the time of his death, Amy came across as this horrified guilty young girl who made an awful mistake. They assumed it had to have been an accident because they didn't know what Amy was capable of and weren't aware of her mental health issues. Now that they knew that she was capable of multiple murders by gun along with two potential bombings, they were looking at a whole new Amy Bishop. On June 16, 2010, so about four months after the University of Alabama Huntsville shootings, Amy Bishop was charged with first-degree murder in her brother Seth's death, almost 24

years after it happened. District Attorney William Keating said, I can't give you any explanations. I can't give you any excuses because there are none. Jobs weren't done, responsibilities weren't met, and justice wasn't served. Her mom, Judy, stated, we cannot explain or even understand what happened in Alabama. However, we know what happened 23 years ago to our son, Seth, was an accident. Oddly enough, in one of Amy's unpublished novels, she writes a fictitious situation, where a girl attempts to frighten her friend

after an argument, but instead accidentally killed her friend's brother. Patrick Radden Keefe, who is a writer and investigative journalist, read the book and review the evidence surrounding Seth's case, and speculated that Amy had meant to frighten or shoot her father since they had gotten into a bad argument just two hours prior to shooting Seth, but instead shot Seth by mistake. I definitely see her taking inspiration from her own life in the situation, and this could have kind of been a way for her to discuss what

really happened in 1986, but without confessing. Since her dad had left the house around 11.30am and Seth had left for groceries a little while later, it's possible that she had wanted to shoot or scare her dad, and that when she heard the front door open, she just assumed it was him since she knew he wasn't home. But at the same time, she must have seen Seth's face before she pulled the trigger. So I don't know if maybe she just swung around the gun too quickly and pulled the trigger, not really thinking about it, but regardless, whoever was in that house, whether it was Judy or her father or Seth, you shouldn't be swinging a gun around in the house and just

pulling the trigger,, nilly. Oh, absolutely. And I mean, it's possible if she did, in fact, want to shoot or scare her dad. She thought it was her dad, but when she went downstairs with the gun, she actually did accidentally shoot her brother. But I just don't know. And that's kind of crazy to, you know, say that that's how you're gonna scare somebody. Like, obviously scaring your friend is one thing like jumping from behind a door or something like that,

or, you know, even worse than that, but coming downstairs with a gun so that you can scare your dad, that seems a little over the top. And whether or not she was trying to scare someone, why did she have a giant shotgun in her room? Anyway, like, why was she playing with a gun to begin with? What really scares me about this case is that if the shootings didn't happen in Alabama at the university, we may not ever have seen justice for Seth's murder. So obviously it's unfortunate that that happened, but it's kind of strange to me that after so long they're able to go back and connect the dots, like why weren't they able to do that

back then or even a few years later. See, but even the police admit that they dropped the ball. Like they know that they messed up. Yeah, absolutely. And I totally get that. Well, especially because Amy's mom was such a figure of the community. Like we mentioned earlier, you know, that probably had a lot to do with it for the police.

They were like, this is a respected family of our community. Why would they do this on purpose? So they just let it slip through the cracks. Yeah, and I think we also mentioned earlier as well that because Judy was a public figure in brain tree, a lot of people believe that she may have paid off the police department to rule this as an accident.

So that's just one theory that's out there. It's interesting to me that her mom still maintains that it was an accident, you know, even after what Amy did at the college in Alabama, that she still stands by the fact that she thinks it was an accident. And we have evidence that Amy is capable of shooting someone, so why wouldn't Judy believe that Amy was capable of shooting her brother back in 1986? And obviously the police believe this as well because they convicted her of murder. So it's like they would have had to have had some pretty damning evidence to take a case from

1986 and go back and overrule that initial ruling on the case and say that this was in fact a murder. And we've seen this in a lot of other murder trials where the parents kind of stand behind their children. And I honestly think that's kind of natural. Like you this child you in part take responsibility for their action so obviously you're not gonna be like my child's a murderer and so it makes sense that they're kind of backing her but at the same time your child did something horrible and even like you said even if it's crystal clear that this person committed a murder a lot of parents will be like nope they didn't do it, they'll live with that for the rest of their life. So two days after Amy was indicted for the murder of her brother, she attempted suicide

in jail. She was treated at a nearby hospital and then sent back to jail in Alabama. On September 24, 2012, Amy was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to her charges. That same year, Amy was hospitalized once again when she attacked another inmate in which the victim defended herself by hitting Amy with a cafeteria tray, according to a witness. The day before this, Amy was involved in an altercation with a prison guard. Amy still remains at the Julia Tutwiler prison for women in Wattamka, Alabama. Our hearts really go out to the victims of the Alabama Huntsville shooting and to anyone

who was affected by Amy's violent behavior. And of course, Amy's younger brother Seth Bishop. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. We'll have an all-new case for you guys to dive into next Monday. And if you want more episodes, check out our bonus episodes on patreon.com slash going west podcast. All you need to do is subscribe $5 a month and you get ad free bonus episodes. And for some reason I haven't plugged this yet, but we actually do have a Facebook page. So go check us out at Going West True Crime.

Let us know what you think. And as always, go check us out on Instagram at Going West Podcast and on Twitter at Going West Pod. So for everybody out there in the world, keep it real, and stay weird. Cheerio! you