Amy Bishop Murder Spree

Discussion in 'Justice for JonBenet Discussion - Public Forum' started by LurkerXIV, Feb 14, 2010.

  1. LurkerXIV

    LurkerXIV Moderator

    The Burke-did-it Theory popped into my head again after reading about Amy Bishop, the prof who murdered three of her colleagues at U. of Alabama the other day.

    Turns out that 20 years ago she shot her brother in cold blood. It was covered up as an "accident" with both her parents offering statements to show it was such.

    Except that the shotgun "went off" not once but three times!

    The Bishops were prominent citizens of Braintree, Mass. where the first murder occurred. Police reports were scrubbed from the records. The Bishops' daughter Amy was not to kill again until last week when she was denied tenure at the University!

    Burke...hmmmm....
     
  2. DeeDee

    DeeDee Member


    Tick-tick-tick-tick.....(sound of time bomb waiting to go off)
     
  3. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    Wow, Lurker. I haven't read about that aspect of this tenure-spurned spree killer yet. A-googling I go!

    Found this astonishing report on this killer, and boy, does it remind me of issues in Boulder:

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100214/ap_on_re_us/us_ala_university_shooting_brother_8



     
    Last edited: Feb 15, 2010
  4. Barbara

    Barbara FFJ Senior Member

    It has also just been reported that Amy Bishop and her husband were investigated in a 1993 (?) pipe bombing, but were CLEARED...hmmm

    Maybe John was right. When they are 40 (ish), is when it hits home!

    Food for thought?
     
  5. LurkerXIV

    LurkerXIV Moderator

    Burke

    I remember many of us discarded the Burke-did-it theory (except a few tenacious people who wrote thousands of posts about it)...but most of us said, "What parents in their right mind would cover up the murder of a beloved child by a sibling?"

    Answer: Mr. and Mrs. Bishop of Braintree, MA.
     
  6. DeeDee

    DeeDee Member

    There are probably many parents who would do this. Especially with a 9 year-old killer. They love their son, too. After losing a 6-year old daughter (who they also loved), who would want to see their surviving child deal with the aftermath of being named her killer?
    Especially as this was not a premeditated murder.
     
  7. Thor

    Thor Active Member

    Burke has never been off my radar, but I'm probably wrong.
     
  8. heymom

    heymom Member

    The thing that always hangs me up about a BDI theory is that Burke was sent off that day with the Whites...wouldn't John and Patsy have wanted to keep him close by in case he said something off-hand and gave the game away?? Even if he didn't realize that he'd hurt JonBenet, he could have said something like "I hit her and then went to bed," or whatever.

    I don't know, maybe the story is believable except for that one little flaw. I always thought that both John and Patsy had something to do with it, at least the cover-up, but for either of them to actually hit JonBenet that hard....I could easier believe that Burke did it accidentally in a temper fit.
     
  9. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    Yeah, that's a very strong theory, to me.

    I used to get hung up on the Ramseys sending Burke away, too. But then, remember he was sent away with their good friends, the Whites.

    Also, it could have been that they were between a rock and a hard place: keep him there and have him witness the "finding" of JonBenet's body, and possibly blurting something out that the kidnapping party would hear, as well as the detectives; or send him with the Whites, hoping he'd remember the admonishments not to talk about it on pain of being taken away from them, and if he did say something, counting on the Whites to protect their good friends better than LE would under the circumstances...?

    It's a theory. I doubt we'll ever know exactly who did what, but Burke sure doesn't seem to be worried about any intruder, considering he has left his daily activities, as well as vacation travel plans, on his public Twitter page for the last year, down to the hour he was leaving for what airport, maps, photos, etc. Well, public until very recently. Seems finally someone inspired him to make it private. I guess they told him it doesn't look good, considering that "someone is out there...." So much for holding your babies close. Not that Burke was ever held close, as he was soon seen skateboarding around Atlanta and Charlevoix with his friends, and NO worries about any foreign faction. The state-of-the-art security system in the new Atlanta home first purchased by the Ramseys after the murder apparently was to keep the MEDIA at bay, as Patsy herself talked about turning the cameras on the street for that reason.

    Oh well, la di da. More evidence the Ramseys have never been afraid of any "foreign faction" intruder.
     
  10. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    Good lord.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100217/ap_on_re_us/us_ala_university_shooting

     
  11. Elle

    Elle Member

    This may well be exactly how it happened heymom (?). . More believable than their concocted intruder story. I wonder if we will ever hear Burke's story!(?).
     
  12. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    You know, because of this Alabama professor's shooting of her colleagues, and the subsequent news that she'd shot and killed her brother when she was 19 and the investigation was buried pronto and she wasn't charged, we're hearing some very relevant things to the Ramsey case, IMO. So let's start a thread on this, since we've wandered afar from the "Lawyer" thread's topic.

    [Thanks so much for doing this for us, Moab. YOU ROCK!]
     
    Last edited: Feb 18, 2010
  13. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    "The parents want the cases to go away."

    The spree killing of her colleagues by Alabama professor Amy Bishop has brought up news of her prior history of shooting and killing her brother with a shotgun when she was 19 and he was 18. We have learned that Bishop's story, as well as her mother's story about the shooting, and her actions afterward were sufficient for her to have been arrested on a number of charges, but she was released from custody before she was even charged and booked. The details coming out about this reek of cover up.

    On last night's Joy Behar Show, all this was discussed and some interesting discussion took place on why the killing of Bishop's brother might have been covered up by her parents. So I'm going to put that part of the transcript of that show here for us, because it could shed light on a lot of questions we've had about the Ramsey murder for years.


    http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1002/17/joy.01.html

    This is really chilling.
     
  14. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    Here is the link to a video news report, very well done, on this case. It's the report referenced on Behar's program, where Mr. Pettigrew talks about how Bishop came into his shop after shooting her brother and assaulted him, trying to steal his car:

    http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/clues-alabama-campus-shooting-9849407

    It's interesting the Bishop's husband says everyone loved Amy, but that's not what many others are saying. In fact, she seemed to feel she was VERY entitled and had no respect for the needs or rights of others, from what is being said about her complaints to LE over kids playing sports in her neighborhood, even wanting the ice cream truck banned because her children couldn't partake. Her husband calls the shooting of her brother "all these closed things" and resents them being brought back up, though he seems to have NO compassion for the victims she just murdered and their families suffering. Amazing denial.
     
  15. fr brown

    fr brown Member

    This is only tangential to the thread topic, but it is about Amy Bishop. Apparently her research is a big fat fraud:

    "According to her last UAH Department web page, Dr. Bishop's claims three publications in 2009:

    1. Anderson, L. B., Anderson P. B., Anderson T. B., Bishop A., Anderson J., Effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors on motor neuron survival (2009) International Journal of General Medicine. In press
    2. Bishop A., Green-Hobbs K., Eguchi A., Pennie C., Anderson J.E., Estévez A. Differential sensitivity of oligodendrocytes and motor neurons to reactive nitrogen species: a new paradigm for the etiology of Multiple Sclerosis (2009). Journal of Neurochemistry. (109) 93-104.
    3. 

Bishop A, Gooch R, Green-Hobbs K, Cashman N. R., Demple B., Anderson J. E., Estévez A.,. Mitigation of nitrotyrosine formation in motor neurons adapted to nitrooxidative stress. (2009) Journal of Neurochemistry. (109) 74-84. 



    The first article "Effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors on motor neuron survival" claims to have been written by "Anderson, L. B., Anderson P. B., Anderson T. B., Bishop A., Anderson J." and going to press in the "International Journal of General Medicine." If you track the article down what you discover is that the authors full names are Lily B Anderson, Phaedra B Anderson, Thea B Anderson, James Anderson and Dr. Bishop. Another way to describe the purported authors are that they are Dr. Bishop, her husband James 'Jimmy' Anderson and three of their children. Mr. Anderson and his children are all identified as employees of "Cherokee Labsystems" in Huntsville.

    The website for Cherokee Labsystems -- www.cherokeelabsystems.com -- has a notice "Please stand by. We are currently updating our site and will be on-line shortly" and also shows the web address defaults to http://cherokeelabs.com/

    According to the wayback machine this web address -- http://cherokeelabs.com/ -- was only active October 16, 2003 through January 30, 2005, but all the archived pages for that period show a website that relates to Cherokee Labrador dogs, not a genetic research laboratory...."


    http://afamilyofshepherds.blogspot.com/2010/02/is-accused-murderer-dr-amy-bishop.html
     
    Last edited: Feb 18, 2010
  16. fr brown

    fr brown Member

    I think there are a couple of problems with the idea that Burke smacked JonBenet on the head.

    If one or both parents were covering for Burke then why are there things in the ransom note that point directly to the Ramseys, particularly John Ramsey? The ransom amount is too small and very close to Ramsey's bonus. Why choose that amount?

    Why was JonBenet wiped with John's shirt? That was a choice.

    It seems like Patsy, clever cuss that she was, had a Plan A and a Plan B. Plan A was to steer police to an intruder. If that failed, police would be led to suspect John.

    But maybe Patsy was even cleverer than that. She might've consciously constructed Plan A in such a way that the police would be bound to see through it. She was probably too sophisticated not to realize that "small foreign faction" sounds phony.
     
  17. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    Well, in working this theory, one has to move to the idea that the writing of the ransom note was done at the height of a tense and terrifying situation, as an idea carried out as quickly as possible with little time to contemplate all the elements with any real scrutiny. They simply used the movie references buried in their pop culture memories of movies involving kidnapping. Think of the list of movies that have been related to lines from this note.

    This would explain why it also has so much in it, unlike an authentic ransom note, which they wouldn't have been aware of that reality of kidnap notes. So many elements thrown in that are so perplexing were born of a creative attempt to sound like movie villains.

    I once heard one of those former FBI experts say on TV that ransom notes that are faked indicate the fears of the author in his/her life. With their money and Lockheed Martin CEO profile, it's hard to believe that the Ramseys never would have thought of kidnapping before that ransom note. Patsy even said the maid "asked" Patsy if she wasn't worried about someone trying to kidnap JonBenet--which I doubt actually happened without some impetus from Patsy initially.

    Former Lockheed Martin exec Norm Early said on TV that Lockheed Martin had a protocol set in place in 1996 for its employees in the case of kidnapping. Kidnapping for ransom was and is an international INDUSTRY, in fact, particularly in other countries, with many large companies even holding kidnapping INSURANCE on their execs who travel internationally. Militant factions commonly kidnap foreigners to supply their groups with money for weapons, etc. That's why Mercedes has a bulletproof class of vehicles, after all, like the one Princess Diane died in--E Class, I think?

    Of course I can't prove what the Ramseys did or did not know before the murder, but Lockheed Martin is one of the largest defense contractors in the world, so it's not a leap to think the Ramseys used the "foreign faction" idea because they were exposed to it through John's business.

    In that context, the note was written on the fly to appear to be aimed at John Ramsey by a cruel and viciously indifferent "foreign faction"--"she will be beheaded" and "she dies" X 3; because who ELSE would kidnap JonBenet, for what reason, and yet brutally murder her in the house while her family was right there? They had a lot to explain, and why the body was left behind wasn't the least of it. John, in fact, was the one who traveled internationally and headed a company owned by Lockheed Martin. Of course it all was a ruse to confuse the police and provide a red herring, so the Ramseys could escape to their lawyers, who would protect them before it all unraveled. In this theory, anyway.

    You know, we don't know how that happened. Maybe John really didn't know about fibers left behind at crime scenes. Maybe he grabbed a towel or rag and had it against his shirt, then wiped her with that. One thing we have never heard is that LE found JonBenet's blood on anything used to wipe her. Did they and we don't know? Or did that disappear, too?

    Remember, our current crime investigation techniques were not splashed across the TV every night 14 years ago. I doubt John spent a lot of time pondering crime scenes and evidence before this happened. Patsy probably didn't know that much about it, either.

    Well, if you're speaking of the PDI theory, involving some carefully planned murder, that's another can of worms. I personally have seen nothing but theory based in speculation to support this, so it's just another theory to me. I don't think Patsy was that complex, myself. She knew how to manipulate people very well, I agree, but the ransom note's main point to me is "John is our target because of his business connections." That is why the "foreign faction" was chosen, the work bonus amount, and "VICTORY! S.B.T.C." It was a crude and hokey attempt to mislead LE: they'd search the house, find the body, and think she was murdered by SOMEONE ELSE in a kidnapping gone wrong, which is the SAME IDEA the Ramseys have planted themselves from the beginning in their own statements.

    Well, these are just my thoughts. Too many, as usual. :violin:
     
  18. fr brown

    fr brown Member

    The thing is the note wasn't written on the fly. Thomas said that the "practice" note with "Mr. and Mrs. l" on it had bleed-through that indicated that there was another practice note before that one. In all, nine pages were torn out of the pad before the "practice" note. That is, potentially, three 3-page ransom notes. I think there's evidence that the ransom note was labored over so why was the bizarre amount of $118,000.00 chosen?

    I guess it's possible that John and Patsy didn't understand about trace evidence transfer. But Patsy did wear her "crime suit" out of the house. John didn't wear his. I wouldn't leave that behind.

    I'm not arguing that Patsy planned to murder JonBenet. I think it was an impulsive act by a frustrated, exhausted and angry parent. But having done it, it must've occurred to her that she would be John's first suspect. She couldn't be sure how he would react. If he turned on her, she could at least be sure that some physical evidence would point to him.
     
  19. heymom

    heymom Member

    The flashlight that had been wiped *completely clean,* including the batteries, yet left out in the open, does make me think that it may have been the weapon used to strike JonBenet. It might have been left out intentionally so that LE might find it and assume it was the intruder's, or that it was the weapon, but obviously not handled by a Ramsey. It's a very suspicious article.

    You know, the more I think of it, maybe Burke really did do it. John and Patsy may have talked to him and made it plain that he'd better not talk about JonBenet ever again, or said she's been kidnapped and you don't have to worry about it but don't say anything else, or whatever. He might have said something suspicious if he'd stayed, especially if he saw the body. Maybe Fleet White knows more than he's ever said...

    The BDI theory explains a few things...but then there is the sexual contact to consider...hmmmm....maybe that was done by him also...I pretty much crossed this theory off my list when I first considered the crime, but I will have to think more about it...
     
  20. Moab

    Moab Admin Staff Member

    This case has gained my interest as well KK...such discrepancies like the husband's opinion vs everyone else's opinion of Amy, but I totally agree with you on the Bahar show - and parents instincts to cover for a child, and I find this the most telling part of the transcript...
    WELNER: They have lost a child. They don`t want to sit through a trial. They don`t want to lose another child. So you have a witness who comes and says she pointed a gun at my chest and then you have the parents who are invested and if they`re invested they will say anything.
     
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