She was a Harvard-educated neurobiologist, married, and the mother of four children. In February 2010, she became the perpetrator of one of the worst mass shootings in Alabama. Hidden in her past, was a chain of violence - including the alleged murder of her own younger brother. This is the violent and twisted history of Amy Bishop: Alabama professor and cold-blooded killer.
The Meeting
Amy Bishop sat quietly at a routine Biology Department meeting on February 12, 2010, on the campus of her employer, the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH). Twelve of her colleagues were seated with her around the conference table. After 30 or 40 minutes, and without warning, Amy Bishop stood up, pulled a Ruger P95 9mm handgun from her purse, and began shooting her colleagues one by one. Her actions left three colleagues dead and three more seriously injured. A surviving coworker later told reporters that when Amy pointed her gun at her and pulled the trigger, the gun didn't fire. It had jammed. The uninjured employees were then able to push Bishop out of the room, barricade the door, and attend to their coworkers who had been shot. In the chaos that followed, police found Amy calmly waiting for her husband outside the building. Apparently, she had called him as if nothing had happened, and asked him to come pick her up. She had cleaned the blood splatters off her skin in a second story restroom and discarded her gun in a garbage can. As police escorted her to a patrol car, she denied that any of her colleages were dead and calmly said, "It's not true. They're not dead."
Revenge
It's believed that Amy Bishop acted out of revenge. She had been embroiled in a long fight for tenure at UAH. Tenure is similar to a promotion after a long probationary term that guarantees an instructor a permanent position at the school. It's determined, in part, by a review from colleagues and administrators. Amy Bishop had worked at UAH for nine years and was up for consideration for tenure in 2009. She was denied. She appealed the decision and was denied again. She was especially upset that one of her colleagues had given her a scathing review and called her "out of touch with reality" and downright "crazy." Amy was livid over that particular review and filed a complaint with the EEOC, claiming that she had been discriminated against as a female instructor. After months of appeals, complaints, and demands, the realization was inevitable that her employment with UAH would come to an end in a few short months. As for the colleague who gave her the negative review, an article in the Journal of Higher Education said,
"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."
Target Practice
Vengeance and violent thoughts must have simmered for a while at the very core of Amy Bishop. Investigators discovered that in the weeks prior to the mass shooting, Amy had obtained an unregistered handgun and gone to target practice several times. Her husband told the media that he knew his wife had acquired a gun, but had no idea how or where she got it. He also admitted that he had accompanied her to target practice on several occasions. Although Bishop never admitted that the shooting was premeditated, it seems obvious that the gun and her target practice was not simply a coincidence. Amy Bishop had a hidden history with guns and violence. She had allegedly used one to kill her own brother. The worst part: she had gotten away with it. That was all about to change after her rampage at UAH.
Her Brother's Murder
After the mass shooting at UAH, the media began looking at Amy Bishop's past. So did law enforcement in Braintree, Massachusetts, where Amy Bishop grew up. A case was revisited that involved the 1986 death of Seth Bishop, Amy's younger brother. Seth Bishop was fatally shot in the chest with a shotgun—a shotgun that was in the hands of Amy Bishop. Seth was 18 at the time, and Amy was 21 and they both lived at home with their parents. Amy's father was a tenured professor at NorthWestern University, and her mother was a councilwoman in Braintree. A year before the death of her brother, their house was burglarized. This led Amy's dad to purchase a shotgun to keep at the house for protection. On the day that Seth was shot, her parents said that Amy had loaded the gun while she was home alone out of fear. After her mother and brother returned home, Amy brought the gun down from her bedroom with the intent of getting Seth to help her unload it. As he reached for the gun, it supposedly went off. Amy's mother insisted that Amy's finger was not even on the trigger. Their story, however, along with Amy's actions that day, did not add up.
The Coverup
As it turned out, Amy had already fired the shotgun upstairs in her bedroom, reloaded it by herself, and tried to cover up the damage to her walls. She knew how to load and unload the gun. Police speculated later that Amy and her father had been arguing and that her father was the one she intended to shoot that day. In a fit of rage, she mistakenly shot her brother. Amy then ran away with the shotgun to a nearby car dealer. She held two employees at gunpoint and demanded that they give her a car. She also concocted a story that she was trying to escape an abusive husband. The police soon arrived, and Amy was detained for questioning. During her interrogation, her mother barged in the room and told Amy to "stop talking." Her mother then had a private meeting with Chief Polio of the Braintree Police. Apparently, Amy's mother had helped the police chief get elected that year and held quite a bit of political power in the town. She and the chief were also personal friends. The police chief suddenly closed the investigation, and the shooting of Seth Bishop was ruled "accidental." Amy was also never charged with her attempted armed robbery of the nearby car dealership. Upon review of the case after the UAH shooting, authorities in Braintree called the 1986 conclusion a miscarriage of justice and a coverup perpetuated by Amy's family and Chief Polio. When the case was revisited in 2010, Amy Bishop was indicted by a grand jury in Braintree for the murder of her own brother.
The Pipe Bombs
In 1993, Dr. Paul Rosenberg, a Harvard professor, received a package in the mail that contained two pipe bombs. Fortunately, the bombs did not detonate. Amy Bishop, along with her husband, James Anderson, were both key suspects in that case. Once again, the motive would have been revenge. Shortly before Dr. Rosenberg received the package, he had been instrumental in Amy Bishop losing her job as a postdoctoral research fellow in his lab. In interviews, Dr. Rosenberg said that he felt Bishop "could not meet the standards required for the work." Another witness told authorities that her husband, James Anderson, had stated that he wanted to "get back" at Dr. Rosenberg and that "he wanted to shoot him, bomb him, stab him, or strangle Rosenberg." Although the ATF listed Bishop and her husband as key suspects, they were never arrested or charged. After the Huntsville shooting, that case was also revisited by authorities, but no further action was taken. A spokesperson for the ATF told the press that, unfortunately, the statute of limitations on the case had passed. That was still not the end of Bishop's violent incidents.
The IHOP Attack
In 2002, approximately a year before Amy Bishop was hired at UAH, she was arrested for attacking a woman at an IHOP restaurant. Bishop and her family, entered an IHOP in a suburb near Boston, Massachusetts. Bishop requested a booster seat for one of her children. The IHOP hostess informed Bishop that another customer had taken the last booster seat. At that point, Bishop became unhinged. She approached the customer, a single mom with two small children, and demanded the booster seat. When the woman refused, Bishop began screaming and cursing. When the other mother grabbed her children and tried to get away, Amy bishop physically attacked the woman. She punched her in the head while screaming, "I am Doctor Amy Bishop!" Bishop was arrested and pled guilty to two misdemeanors. Having pulled herself together for court, however, she used her degree and prestige to coax the judge into giving her probation. In an interview on ABC News, Bishop's husband said that the court recommended that Amy attend anger management classes. He also said that Amy never followed the court's recommendation.
The Death of Two Seths
In a sadly odd twist of fate, Amy's youngest son, named Seth after her brother, was killed in Huntsville in 2022 in what was called an "unintentional shooting." He was only 20 years old. The young man charged with the shooting was a friend of Seth's from Huntsville. An Al.com article stated,
The shooting happened in a vehicle as a group of friends hung out together that night. Police arrested Harmon and charged him with murder, alleging he handled the gun recklessly and accidentally killed his friend.
Where is Amy Bishop Today?
In 2012, Amy Bishop pled guilty to capital murder in lieu of the possibility of receiving the death sentence. The case was presented to a jury in an abbreviated trial as required by Alabama state law. Bishop had originally plead not guilty by reason of insanity. Reports said that her parents had a big hand in her decision to accept the plea deal. In an interview, her lawyer said, "She wanted to go to death row and had to be convinced by her parents to accept a plea deal that spared her life." Amy Bishop was sentenced to life in prison and is currently serving her sentence in medium security at the Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Alabama. She has exhausted all appeals and challenges to her sentence. There is nothing left for Amy Bishop now, but time. She will never hold the priviledge or respect of being Doctor Amy Bishop again. For the rest of her life, she will simply be known as ADOC inmate #00285694.
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