Witness: Alabama Shooter's Husband Made Violent Threats

Feb. 23, 2010 — -- The husband of the professor accused of methodically executing three colleagues on an Alabama campus earlier this month made his own violent threats against one of his wife's former colleague 17 years earlier, according to a witness in a report obtained by The Boston Globe.

The witness said that in 1993, Amy Bishop's husband, James Anderson, said he wanted to "get back at" a professor who had given Bishop a poor job review -- by shooting, bombing, stabbing or strangling him, according to Globe's description of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives report.

Weeks later, two pipe bombs were found in the mailbox of the Harvard Medical School professor, who was apparently the target of the remarks, Dr. Paul Rosenberg.

Anderson and Bishop were questioned in connection with the attempted bombing, but not charged.

Jimmy Anderson, Anderson's father and family spokesman, told ABC News the report was "a crock of bulls**t."

"He's my son. Of course we talked about it," Anderson said. "No, he did not do that. No, that statement was wrong. No, there was no witness."

Rosenberg told investigators that he had played a role in Bishop's resignation from her job at Boston's Childrens hospital neurobiology lab by giving her a poor evaluation, according to the Globe. He said "she was not stable" and she had "exhibited violent behavior."

Bishop stands accused of murdering three colleagues and injuring three others in a sudden shooting rampage during a meeting at the University of Alabama at Huntsville Feb. 12. Though police have not declared a motive, Anderson told "Good Morning America" her long, losing battle over tenure was likely "a factor."

"Only someone who's been intimately involved in that fight understands," James Anderson told ABC News' "Good Morning America" last week. "It's a tough, long, hard battle. ... That, I would say, is part of the problem. It's a factor."

In an earlier telephone interview with ABCNews.com, Anderson maintained the academic community at the university shares some of the blame for the shootings.

"I have worked around Ph.D.s before, and they are pretty much the same," Anderson said. "Psychologically, they run hot and cold. That's why we are asking the news media to investigate that whole world that no one knows of. We are referring to an isolated group, like monks, and no one knows what goes on there."

In addition to the pipe bombing in 1993, Bishop was questioned by police in the fatal shooting of her brother in 1986. The incident was declared an accident.

Amy Bishop Punched a Woman Over a Restaurant Booster Seat

In 2002, Bishop admitted in court to punching a mother in the head after the woman was given the last booster seat in an International House of Pancakes restaurant in Peabody, Mass., the AP reported.

Bishop apparently wanted a booster seat for her own young child and yelled at the woman, "I am Dr. Amy Bishop," according to the police report.

Peabody police Capt. Dennis Bonaiuto said Bishop admitted to the assault in court and the case was adjudicated, meaning the charges eventually were dismissed.

Finally, in 2009, dozens of Bishop's students signed a petition to remove her after appeals to school administrators failed to get her out of the classroom.

One of the letters was addressed to the biology department chairman, Gopi K. Podila, but in a subsequent meeting with the students Podila dismissed their complaints, student Caitlin Phillips told the Associated Press. Podila was the first person shot when Bishop allegedly began her shooting spree last Friday.

In at least three complaints to administrators, the students said Bishop had unsettling ways, never looked students in the eye, and frequently talked about her alma mater, Harvard University.

"We could tell something was off, that she was not like other teachers," Phillips told the AP.

ABC News' Susan Donaldson James contributed to this report.