Mysteries Compound for University of Alabama Shooter Amy Bishop Anderson

The mysteries continue to compound for the University of Alabama Huntsville teacher Amy Bishop Anderson. Amy Bishop Anderson is charged with the murder of three professors in the Science Department of the university, and the wounding of three others.

A previous AC article on the Alabama murders alluded to a Fox News story revealing that Amy Bishop Anderson had been released to the custody of her mother after killing her brother in what was termed an accident. That story has now been updated with a family narrative that will be scoffed at by people familiar with the case.

According to the updated Fox News version, Amy Bishop claimed she was trying to unload the shotgun her father had loaded for protection after an alleged break-in. Why was she trying to unload it? And why, if she had no knowledge of weapons, had she "brought it downstairs" to unload?

As comedy, the account is perhaps less grim as the story Amy Bishop told when she raised the shotgun and "someone said something to her and she turned and the gun went off." It happened just as her brother was walking through the kitchen.

It is not comedy, unfortunately; one of the three shots hit her brother in the chest and killed him. Yahoo News quotes the current Braintree Mass. police chief in saying that three shots were fired from the shotgun which killed Amy Bishop's 18 year old brother.

The magically disappearing Braintree, Mass. police records do not help matters much. Various persons give difference accounts of what happened, though Amy Bishop was not questioned until 11 days later, according to the Fox report. Police officers covering the killing were reportedly upset, raising suspicions that their chief covered up for Amy Bishop out of deference to her mother, who had apparently served on the police board. The notion of a coverup was disputed by 87 year old former police chief John Pollio, who still lives in Braintree, Mass.

Whatever the investigation turns up, it appears that an academic credential and a Harvard degree seem to have partly shielded Amy Bishop Anderson from the kind of pressure experienced by common criminal suspects. The University of Alabama Huntsville biology teacher was subject of an investigation into a Harvard bombing plot.

In that 1993 investigation, a Boston Children's Hospital doctor and Harvard professor Dr. Paul Rosenberg, received a package containing two pipe bombs. Amy Bishop Anderson and her husband were questioned in that case, though charges were never filed against the two.

During the course of that investigation, investigators found a fictional work on a computer. Presumably written by Amy Bishop Anderson, the story detailed a plot about a "female scientist who had killed her brother and was hoping to find redemption" by becoming a great scientist. The Andersons had come under suspicion because Amy Bishop Anderson was angry at being given a poor evaluation on work she had done toward her doctorate, according to the MSNBC account.

Two of the wounded shooting victims are still in critical condition. A third surviving victim, Luis Cruz-Vera, has been released.