It was about 2:30 pm in the afternoon of Saturday, December 6, 1986, in New England, Massachusetts, and a couple of employees at a car dealership heard a startling loud banging from the shop’s back door. Upon opening a door, the employee, twenty-year-old Tom Pettigrew, froze as he saw a Mossberg 500A pump-action shotgun aimed right at his chest.
Wielding the weapon was a young woman with sharply cut bangs, donning a heavy blue jacket, 21-year-old Amy Bishop. Her face was dry, not a tear in sight. Amy didn’t want money, she wanted a car, having already tried unsuccessfully to carjack someone, and so, she demanded a vehicle while brandishing the shotgun threateningly. She had already used it to kill once – not that the employees knew that then – and Amy didn’t seem scared to use it again.
She told some lies about why she needed the car. But, with police already alerted and on her tail, Bishop ran away from the car dealership. Cradling her shotgun to her chest, the young woman kept on running. When she was caught Amy acted disoriented and confused, putting on a show.
Amy Bishop avoided any legal consequences or accountability for the life she had taken that day. Judy Bishop was powerful in the community, being a part of a panel that controlled how the town spent its money, and people suspect that may be why it was mainly her voice that managed to shut down the murder investigation.
The conclusion of the March 30, 1987, police report file reads:
“It was determined that due to the testimony of the members of the Bishop family and, in particular, the testimony of Judy Bishop relevant to the facts concerning the death of Seth Bishop that no further investigation into the death of Seth Bishop was warranted.
It was therefore determined that the cause of death of Seth Bishop would be listed as the accidental discharge of a firearm in the possession of his sister, Amy Bishop, and that the investigation would be concluded.”
What did Bishop do prior to 2010?
Above is the bite-sized version of Amy Bishop’s villain origin story: After an argument with her father, she went to her room, loaded a shotgun, then went into the kitchen and murdered her younger brother Seth in cold blood, ultimately getting away with it. That’s because her mother, having already lost one of her children in such a tragic manner, did not want to lose the other, even if they were the murderer. This outraged many at the time, including some in law enforcement. Amy would later name her first-born Seth.
Briefly going over two criminal actions Amy Bishop took before she would murder again and finally be put to justice: In 1993, Bishop sent “victim-activated” letter bombs to Harvard Professor Dr. Paul Rosenberg which thankfully did not explode. All evidence at the time was circumstantial – Rosenberg was sure from the start it was Amy – so Amy wasn’t charged.
A paragraph in Michele R. McPhee’s A Professor’s Rage:
“Apparently, Bishop believed that Rosenberg was going to take credit for some of the research she had conducted in his lab. […] There had even been a confrontation with Amy Bishop over other students usurping her space. She was arguing with other lab assistants, saying that they were trying to take credit for her work. Rosenberg urged Amy Bishop to move on, saying that he was running out of grant money to soften the blow. Something had told him he did not want a confrontation with her. He went as far as to urge Bishop to attend a meeting that he had set up for after he returned from his Caribbean vacation. They could discuss her future. Rosenberg was even willing to write her a letter of recommendation.”
But that was not enough to make quick-tempered Amy Bishop feel like she had been wronged and deserved vengeance.
The other instance where Bishop flaunted her erratic behavior was in March 2002. Amy – who was now working at Harvard – punched a mother in the head, who had been peacefully eating with her children until a furious “Dr. Amy Bishop” demanded to have her booster seats.
When the fight broke out, Amy’s spouse continued to do nothing. As per McPhee’s description: “Her husband James sat in the booth wordlessly. As usual. He knew enough by now not to interfere when Amy was embroiled in an argument. He knew no one could win when his wife was fired up—including him.”
Amy avoided getting anything on her criminal record or losing her job. All she had to do was stay out of trouble for six months and attend anger management classes, which her husband later claimed she never once did.
Bishop’s last rage-fueled rampage
In 2003, Bishop and her family moved from Massachusetts to Huntsville, Alabama, due to Amy’s new job position at the University of Alabama. She thus became an associate professor of biology, on a tenure-track basis, paid 66 thousand dollars a year. Her students had mixed opinions about her and her teaching methods, some of them found her too arrogant.
By April 2009 Bishop was told was the University of Alabama her employment would not continue after the end of her tenure. Even then, Amy went around effusively pleading with her colleagues to vouch for her and even lawyered up in an attempt to keep her job through the legal route. None of her efforts worked, and in May 2010 she would be effectively unemployed.
On Friday, February 12, 2010, 45-year-old Amy taught a morning class as usual and then went to a meeting with twelve other professors of the biology department. Amy was unusually quiet throughout the 45-minute meeting, something the other professors took as an understandable demeanor given the circumstances.
None of them could’ve predicted that, once the meeting was over “she stood up, pulled out the gun, a 9-mm. Ruger semiautomatic, and shot [department chair Gopi] Podila in the head. […] She fired again, hitting a department assistant, Stephanie Monticciolo. Next, Bishop turned and shot Adriel Johnson, a cell biologist. People screamed and ducked for cover, but Bishop was blocking the only door.” [per The New Yorker] Her colleague Maria Ragland Davis was Amy’s next target, whom she fatally shot.
In the end, Amy shot and killed 3 colleagues and wounded 3 others. She would have killed her colleague Debra Moriarity had the gun not jammed. Moriarity was also the one who would force Bishop out of the room, ending her rampage.
As she did in Seth’s case, Bishop acted baffled by the whole ordeal, as if she had no memory of it.
Where is Bishop as of 2024?
The trial had been scheduled for late September 2012. However, to avoid the death penalty Amy pled guilty to first-degree murder and received life without the possibility of parole. She would end up being cleared of the 1993 attempted bombing of Dr. Rosenberg for lack of evidence. She was almost tried in Massachusetts for her brother’s death over two decades prior.
Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey said: “We will not move to have her returned to Massachusetts. The penalty we would seek for a first-degree murder conviction is already in place.” (via Boston.com)
Also in August of 2012, Amy Bishop was beaten by another inmate – also named Amy – after the former confronted the latter for having interrupted Amy from confronting a guard. A witness another inmate recounted:
“Amy Bishop swung at the other Amy after she swung I didn’t see a dinner tray. The other Amy swung back hit her. I seen blood and feces in the floor.” (via WAFF 48)
In October 2015, NBC News reported Amy had written a note apologizing for the crime. Although, in a court filing she also alleged she was mentally ill at the time of her guilty plea.
In 2020, Amy and James were still married. In 2022, Bishop’s 20-year-old son Seth was killed by a friend in an “unintentional” shooting.
At the time of this writing, Amy Bishop is nearly 60 years old. She’s been incarcerated at Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women for over 14 years, and there she will remain for the rest of her life.
(Main Sources: Michele R. McPhee A Professor’s Rage (Saint Martin’s Paperbacks, 2011), Patrick Radden Keefe, “A Loaded Gun”, The New Yorker 2013.)
