2010 University of Alabama in Huntsville shooting
At the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UA Huntsville) in Huntsville, Alabama, three people were killed and three others wounded in a shooting on February 12, 2010. During the course of a routine meeting of the biology department attended by approximately 12 individuals, a professor stood up and began shooting those closest to her with a 9-millimeter handgun. Amy Bishop, a biology professor at the university and the sole suspect, was charged with one count of capital murder and three counts of attempted murder.
On September 11, 2012, Bishop pleaded guilty to the above charges in order to avoid the death penalty. The jury heard a condensed version of the evidence on September 24, 2012, as required by Alabama law. Amy Bishop was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on September 24, 2012.
In March 2009, Bishop had been denied tenure at the university and was beginning her last semester there per university policy. Due to the attention Bishop has attracted as a result of the shooting, previous violent incidents that were somehow related to her have been reevaluated. She previously drew the attention of law-enforcement officials in 1986 when she shot her brother to death in Braintree, Massachusetts, in an incident officially ruled an accident. She, along with her husband, were questioned in a 1993 pipe-bomb incident directed toward her lab supervisor.
Shooting
The day of the shooting, Bishop taught her anatomy and neurosciences class. According to a student in Bishop's class, she "seemed perfectly normal" during the lecture.
She then attended a biology department faculty meeting in Room 369 on the third floor of the Shelby Center for Science and Technology, which houses the UA Huntsville Biology and Mathematics departments. According to witnesses, 12 or 13 people attended the meeting, which was described as "an ordinary faculty meeting." Bishop's behavior was also described as "normal" just prior to the shooting.
She sat quietly at the meeting for 30 or 40 minutes, before pulling out a 9 mm handgun "just before" 4:00 p.m. CST, according to a faculty member. Joseph Ng, an associate professor who witnessed the attack, said: "[She] got up suddenly, took out a gun and started shooting at each one of us. She started with the one closest to her, and went down the row shooting her targets in the head."
According to another survivor, Debra Moriarity, dean of the university's graduate program and a professor of biochemistry, "This wasn't random shooting around the room; this was execution style." Those who were shot were on one side of the oval table used during the meeting, and the five individuals on the other side, including Ng, dropped to the floor.
After Bishop had fired several rounds, Moriarity said that Bishop pointed the gun at her and pulled the trigger, but heard only a "click," as her gun "either jammed or ran out of ammunition." She described Bishop as initially appearing "angry," and then following the apparent weapon malfunction, "perplexed." Ng said Moriarity then attempted to stop Bishop by approaching her and asking her to stop, and then helped the other survivors push Bishop from the room and block the door. Ng said "Moriarity was probably the one that saved our lives. She was the one that initiated the rush.
The suspected murder weapon, a 9 mm handgun, was found in a bathroom on the second floor of the building. Bishop did not have a permit to carry a concealed weapon, as required by state law. She was arrested a few minutes later outside the building. Shortly after her arrest, Bishop was quoted as saying, "It didn't happen. There's no way." When asked about the deaths of her colleagues, Bishop replied, "There's no way. They're still alive."
Police interviewed Bishop's husband, James Anderson, after it was determined that she had called him to pick her up after the shooting; they did not charge him with a crime. In addition, a neighbor revealed, in later interviews, that he saw the couple leaving their home with duffel bags on Friday afternoon, prior to the shooting. Anderson revealed that his wife had borrowed the gun used in the shooting, and that he had escorted her to an indoor shooting range in the weeks prior to the incident.
Shortly after Bishop's arrest, people at the university's biology department expressed concern to police that she had "booby trapped the science building with a 'herpes bomb'" intended to spread the virus. She had previously worked with the herpes virus while completing her post-doctoral studies, and a novel she wrote described the spread of a virus similar to herpes throughout the world "causing pregnant women to miscarry." However, the police had already searched the premises, finding only the handgun used in the shooting.
Victims
Three faculty members were killed, and three others were injured. Only a few students were present in the building at the time of the shooting, and none were harmed. A memorial service was held at UA Huntsville on Friday, February 19, 2010, with 3,000 people in attendance.
NamePositionCondition Gopi Podila chairman of biology department deceased Maria Ragland Davis biology professor deceased Adriel D. Johnson, Sr. biology professor deceased Luis Rogelio Cruz-Vera biology professor released from hospital 2/4/10 Joseph G. Leahy biology professor released from hospital 4/14/10 Stephanie Monticciolo staff assistant released from hospital 3/29/10
Perpetrator
Amy Bishop (born: April 24, 1965 (age 44 at the time of the shooting)) is married to James Anderson and is the mother of four children. She grew up in Massachusetts, and completed her undergraduate degree at Northeastern University in Boston where her father, Samuel Bishop, was a Professor in the Art Department. She earned her Ph.D. in genetics from Harvard University.
Bishop's 1993 thesis at Harvard was titled The role of methoxatin (PQQ) in the respiratory burst of phagocytes, and was 137 pages in length. Her research interests include induction of adaptive resistance to nitric oxide in the central nervous system, and utilization of motor neurons for the development of neural circuits grown on biological computer chips. She published at least four scientific articles between 1994 and 1998 as a lead or co-author.
She joined the faculty of the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alabama (UA) in Huntsville as an Assistant Professor in 2003 and was teaching five courses prior to the shooting. Previously, she was an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Bishop and her husband competed in a technology competition and developed a "portable cell incubator", coming in third and winning $25,000. Prodigy Biosystems, where Anderson is employed, raised $1.25 million to develop the "automated cell incubator," although some scientists consulted by the press declared it unnecessary and too expensive.
According to a friend and fellow member of a writing group in Massachusetts, Bishop had penned three unpublished novels, one of which featured a female scientist working to defeat a potential pandemic virus, and struggling with suicidal thoughts at the threat of not earning tenure. She is the second cousin of the novelist John Irving and was a member of the Hamilton Writer's Group while living in Ipswich, Massachusetts in the late 1990s and apparently saw writing as "her ticket out of academia." She had a literary agent and members of the club said she "would frequently cite her Harvard degree and family ties to Irving to boost her credential as a serious writer." Another member described Bishop as smart but abrasive in her interactions with the other members and as feeling "entitled to praise."
Multiple colleagues of Bishop had expressed concern over her behavior. She has been described as interrupting meetings with "bizarre tangents ... left field kind of stuff," being "strange," "crazy," "did things that weren't normal" and she was "out of touch with reality." One of these colleagues was a member of Bishop's tenure-review committee. After Bishop's tenure was denied and she learned that this colleague referred to her as "crazy," she filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), alleging gender discrimination, with the professor's remark to be used as possible evidence in that case. The professor did not retract his comments: "The professor was given the opportunity to back off the claim, or to say it was a flippant remark. But he didn't. 'I said she was crazy multiple times and I stand by that,' the professor said. 'This woman has a pattern of erratic behavior. She did things that weren't normal ... she was out of touch with reality.'"
In 2009, several students say they complained to administrators about Bishop on at least three occasions, saying she was "ineffective in the classroom and had odd, unsettling ways." A petition was signed by "dozens of students," which was then sent to the department head. The complaints, however, did not result in any classroom changes.
Bishop was suspended without pay retroactively on the day of the attack, and later, in a one-paragraph letter dated February 26, 2010, she was fired. Bishop received a letter of termination from Jack Fix, Dean of the College of Sciences, which did not state a reason for doing so. Her termination was effective February 12, the day of the shooting.
Tenure denial and appeal
As explained by University president Williams, Bishop was denied tenure in March 2009 and expected not to have her teaching contract renewed after March 2010. She appealed the decision to the University's administration and without reviewing the content of the tenure application itself, they determined that the process was carried out according to policy and denied the appeal. The faculty meeting that was under way when Bishop opened fire was a routine meeting unrelated to her tenure.
Anderson, Bishop's husband, said that the denial of her tenure had been "an issue" in recent months describing the tenure process as "a long, basically hard fight." He said that it was his understanding that she "exceeded the qualifications for tenure," and that she was distressed at the likelihood of losing her position barring a successful appeal. She approached members of the University of Alabama System's Board of Trustees, and hired a lawyer who was "finding one problem after another with the process." One sticking point was a dispute over whether two of her papers had been published in time to count toward tenure.
Previous incidents
Bishop had previous encounters with law enforcement officials due to "an outburst or violent act" on her part. In each instance, she remained "unscathed" and did not come to the attention of the UA-Huntsville administration or other employers. She shot her brother with a shotgun, killing him in 1986, in what was initially ruled an accident based on her mother's testimony and was therefore not charged. In 1994, she and her husband were questioned regarding a letter-bomb incident involving a doctor at a facility at which she had previously been employed. She was charged with assault after striking a woman in the head during a dispute at a restaurant in 2002, but was never officially found guilty.
Brother's shooting
When she was 21, Bishop fatally shot her 18-year-old brother, Seth Bishop, on December 6, 1986, at their home in Braintree, Massachusetts. The incident, in which Bishop fired at least three shots from a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun (one into her bedroom wall, then one into her brother's chest while they were in the kitchen with their mother, and one into the ceiling of a room in her house while fleeing the scene), then later pointed the weapon at a moving vehicle on the adjacent road and tried to get into the vehicle, was classified as an "accident" by Braintree police. In statements to Braintree police that day, both Amy Bishop and her mother, Judy Bishop, described the shooting as accidental.
After a brief inquiry into the incident by the state police in 1986 (reported in 1987), they repeated the Braintree police department's initial assessment that the shooting was accidental and district attorney Bill Delahunt, later a U.S. Congressman, decided not to file charges. Detailed records of the shooting had disappeared mysteriously by 1988, Braintree police chief Paul Frazier said on February 13, 2010 that "The report's gone, removed from the files."
After speaking with officers involved with the case in 1986, Frazier called the "accident" description inaccurate, and said that then-chief John Polio ordered Bishop released to her mother, a member of the Braintree town meeting who reportedly had demanded to meet with Polio personally after the arrest, instead of being charged for the shooting. Frazier was not on duty during the incident, but recalled "how frustrated the members of the department were over the release." The now-retired Polio denied that there had been a cover-up. Frazier's 2010 account and the 1987 Massachusetts State Police report differ in several key details, including whether Bishop had been arguing with her brother or with her father before the shooting.
On February 16, 2010, it was announced that the files previously declared missing had been located by Braintree officials and turned over to Norfolk County prosecutors. Norfolk County District Attorney William Keating concluded, based upon these files, that probable cause existed in 1986 to arrest and charge her for crimes committed after she fled the house. She had taken the shotgun to a nearby auto dealership shop and brandished it at two employees in an attempt to get a car. She could have been charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, carrying a dangerous weapon, and unlawful possession of ammunition. The statute of limitations has expired on each of these charges, and the most serious charge considered in 1986 was manslaughter.
Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts, has ordered the state police to review their efforts in the investigation saying, "It is critical that we provide as clear an understanding as possible about all aspects of this case and its investigation to ensure that where mistakes were made they are not repeated in the future." An investigation has been opened in which the state will cooperate with the current Norfolk County District Attorney's office to assess the state and local police and then-DA's handling of the case.
On February 25, 2010, District Attorney Keating sent a letter to District Court Judge Mark Coven, to start a judicial inquest into the 1986 shooting. Keating said that recently enlarged crime scene photos from Bishop's bedroom reveal a news article in which a similar crime was reported and that this article may relate to Bishop's intent. Keating did not identify the specific news article, but The Boston Globe wrote that an internet search revealed that "two weeks earlier, the parents of Patrick Duffy, the actor who played Bobby Ewing on the popular television show Dallas, were killed by an assailant wielding a 12-gauge shotgun, who then held up a car dealership, stole a pickup truck, and fled."
On March 1, 2010, former Massachusetts State Police Detective Brian Howe broke his silence about the case. Howe, who retired in 2009 and no longer lives in Massachusetts, was the lead investigator for the state police in the Bishop case. He said he looks forward to addressing the judicial inquest into the shooting, and stands by his 1987 report and his agreement with the now-deceased Braintree lead investigator, Captain Theodore Buker, that the shooting was accidental. Howe said that he was assigned to the case nearly two hours after the shooting and then immediately called Braintree, whereupon he learned from Buker he would not be needed that day and that Bishop had already been released into her parents' custody. Howe stated that Braintree police never informed him that Bishop had allegedly accosted employees at a car dealership at gunpoint, demanding a car. Howe stated that he repeatedly requested the December 6 incident reports from the Braintree police, but never received them.
On March 1, 2010, Norfolk District Attorney William Keating announced that an inquest would be held April 13–16, 2010. Judge Mark Coven, first justice of Quincy District Court, was scheduled to hold the inquest.
On June 16, 2010, Bishop was charged with first degree murder in her brother's death nearly 24 years after his shooting. Keating commented, "I can't give you any explanations, I can't give you excuses, because there are none. Jobs weren't done, responsibilities weren't met and justice wasn't served."
Pipe-bomb incident
According to investigators, Bishop and James Anderson, her husband, were suspects in a 1993 letter-bomb case. Paul Rosenberg, a Harvard Medical School professor and physician at Children's Hospital Boston, received a package containing two pipe bombs that failed to explode.
Rosenberg was Bishop's supervisor at a Children's Hospital neurobiology lab; Bishop had allegedly been concerned about receiving a negative evaluation from Rosenberg, and reportedly "had been in a dispute" with Rosenberg. Bishop resigned from her position at the hospital because Rosenberg felt she "could not meet the standards required for the work." According to documents based upon witness interviews, Bishop was "reportedly upset" and "on the verge of a nervous breakdown" as a result.
Anderson reportedly told a witness that he wanted to "shoot," "stab" or "strangle" Rosenberg prior to the attempted bombing. Anderson denied he had ever threatened Rosenberg saying, "I wouldn't know the guy if he walked into a bar. And allegedly this tip came into a tip line, and the validity of the witness was never ascertained." Per investigators, the USPIS-ATF investigation "focused" on Bishop and Anderson, but closed without charges filed due to lack of evidence. At one point during the investigation, the couple refused to cooperate with investigators, refusing to open their door, to searches of their home and to take polygraph tests.
The chief federal prosecutor in Boston, U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, reviewed the case following the shooting but ultimately decided Bishop would not be charged in the bombing attempt. She determined that the initial investigation in 1993 was "appropriate and thorough"; the case remains unsolved.
International House of Pancakes assault
In 2002, Bishop was charged with and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault plus disorderly conduct, and received probation, for punching a woman who had received the last booster seat at an International House of Pancakes in Peabody, Massachusetts.
According to the police report, Bishop strode over to the other woman, demanded the seat, and launched into a profanity-laced rant. When the woman would not give the seat up, Bishop punched her in the head, all the while yelling "I am Dr. Amy Bishop." Bishop's victim was identified as Michelle Gjika, and in in the aftermath of the 2010 shooting, she declined to comment on the restaurant incident saying, "It's not something I want to relive." In addition to probation, prosecutors recommended that Bishop attend anger management classes, although it is unclear whether the judge in the case ordered her to do so. Her husband said she had never attended anger management classes.
Charges
Bishop was charged with one count of capital murder and three counts of attempted murder. The police confiscated a large binder containing documents pertaining to her "tenure battle", her computer, and the family van. She secured an unnamed attorney, and was held at the Madison County, Alabama jail without bail. Her court-appointed attorney was Roy W. Miller. Bishop was eligible for either the death penalty or life in prison, according to Alabama law.
On February 15, during a closed-door hearing presided over by an Alabama judge, the charges were read to Bishop. Following the hearing, Bishop was on suicide watch, a standard procedure in such cases. Her husband said she called him prior to her arraignment and they spoke for approximately two minutes and said, "She seems to be doing OK." On March 12, while executing a search warrant on Bishop's residence, the police discovered a "suspicious device" prompting an evacuation of the nearby neighborhood and later identified by the bomb squad as non-explosive.
Miller visited her in jail and said she does not remember the shooting and was "very cogent" but seeming to recognize that "she has a loose grip on reality." Initially he said Bishop has severe mental health issues that appear to be paranoid schizophrenia, but later retracted that statement saying "he had spoken out of turn." He acknowledged Bishop's role in the attack saying, "This is not a whodunit. This lady has committed this offense or offenses in front of the world. It gets to be a question in my mind of her mental capacity at the time, or her mental state at the time that these acts were committed." Miller also said he would be enlisting the help of one or more psychiatrists to examine his client who said this was not the first time she had no recollection of something that had happened. He said he did not know if Bishop was insane and that determining whether she was culpable for her actions would be left to a psychiatrist and that she was "very sorry for what she's done."
On June 18, two days after Bishop was indicted for the murder of her brother in a re-opened case, she attempted suicide in the Huntsville jail. She survived and was treated at a hospital and then returned to jail; her husband complained that authorities did not inform him of the incident.
In November 2010, survivors Leahy and Monticciolo filed lawsuits against Anderson and Bishop to recover damages. In January 2011, attorneys representing Davis' and Johnson's families filed wrongful death lawsuits against Bishop, Anderson, and the University. In September 2011, Bishop pleaded not guilty by means of the insanity defense.
In 2012, the spouse of one the murdered researchers wrote a letter to the judge presiding over the case. In this letter, the writer indicated that the researcher's family had greatly suffered from its loss due to Bishop's actions, but that the family did not see a benefit from the loss of another life. In response to this letter, Bishop's lawyers offered to change her plea to guilty in exchange for the prosecution not seeking the death penalty. On receiving this offer, chief prosecutor Robert Broussard contacted and learned from the nine survivors that none of them wanted the death sentence for Bishop. On the basis of these opinions, Broussard decided not seek the death penalty, and Bishop changed her plea to guilty. On September 24, 2012, Bishop was sentenced to life in prison.