Inquest Reexamines 'Accidental' Death of Seth Bishop

Massachusetts inquest will look at circumstances of 18-year-old's shooting.

ByABC News
February 15, 2010, 8:19 PM

April 12, 2010— -- Authorities in Massachusetts will begin this week taking a second look at the 1986 death of the brother of Amy Bishop, the scientist accused of killing three of her colleagues in a shooting rampage at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in February.

Norfolk County District Attorney William R. Keating had ordered an inquest into the death of Seth Bishop, who was 18 when his older sister admitted to shooting him accidentally in their Braintree home.

The inquest, a closed-door hearing that is invoked under Massachusetts law in cases of suspicious deaths, is to begin Tuesday and expected to run until Friday.

Keating has said the DA's office found "gaps in reports" and "contradictory witness statements" and "questions of criminality" that prompted them to call for an inquest.

David Traub, spokesman for the Norfolk D.A.'s office, said prosecutors made the decision to order an inquest one week after Bishop's arrest on the day of the Feb. 12 incident.

"An inquest is not an accusatory proceeding, it is not a trial," Traub said. "We are trying to get to the circumstances of the death."

Quincy District Court Judge Mark S. Coven will gather facts to determine the "material circumstances attending the death" and whether an "unlawful act or negligence" of someone else contributed to it.

Coven is expected to call numerous witnesses and question them under oath, including Bishop's parents and Braintree police officers who responded to the scene of the 1986 shooting.

"There is a strong likelihood that the public will be able to review the information," said Keating at a press conference several months ago.

The inquest report will be submitted to the district attorney, who has the option of presenting the case to a grand jury for indictment.

Suspicions ran high after Bishop was arrested for allegedly shooting six of her colleagues at a faculty meeting on the Huntsville campus Feb. 12. A gag order has been issued in the Alabama murder case.

Massachusetts authorities discovered the death of Bishop's brother, who died Dec. 6, 1986. Then 22 and a student at Northeastern University, Amy Bishop was set free by police the same day.

According to news reports at the time, Bishop told police she was learning how to unload a shotgun when it went off and killed her brother.

It was later revealed that Bishop shot her brother with a 12-gauge shotgun during an argument with her father, then fled on foot. Police later handcuffed Bishop and took her to the station.

After that, the case file disappeared, according to Braintree Police Chief Paul Frazier, who was a patrolman at the time of the incident, but did not respond to the home after the shooting.

''I don't want to use the word 'cover-up,''' Frazier told the Boston Globe. ''I don't know what the thought process was of the police chief at the time.''

At first, former Braintree police chief John Polio, now 87, defended the handling of the shooting of Seth Bishop. He said Bishop wasn't immediately questioned because she was too emotional.

Local and state police questioned Bishop and her parents individually 11 days after the shooting.

According to the investigation report, Bishop argued with her father, who left on a shopping trip. She returned to her room and decided to teach herself to load the shotgun her family had bought for protection after a break-in.