Former Braintree police official: Amy Bishop was ‘very calm’ after shooting her brother

By Peter Schworm and Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

Amy Bishop was “very calm” as she answered questions at Braintree police station after she fatally shot her brother in 1986, but the interview was cut short when her mother arrived, a retired deputy police chief testified in a 2010 inquest.

James R. Sullivan said he had already written down “murder” and other charges on a booking sheet when Bishop was brought in, according to transcripts of his testimony in the inquest.

He said he began to interview Bishop, but her mother arrived and intervened. Bishop was never booked on the charges and just 20 minutes later, she was released, according to other inquest witnesses. The death of Seth Bishop would later be officially ruled an accident, a finding that would stand for the next 24 years.

Transcripts of the inquest, which ultimately led to a 2010 murder indictment against Bishop, were released Tuesday, offering new perspectives into the long-ago shooting and investigation. But the documents, which contained numerous redactions, left some key questions still unanswered -- such as why Bishop was released so quickly and not charged at the time.

The inquest was held after Bishop allegedly murdered three colleagues at a faculty meeting at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in February 2010. That case brought new scrutiny to the 1986 case in Massachusetts.

Sullivan testified that on the day of the shooting he had asked Bishop, who was 21 at the time, if she had shot her brother on purpose, and she said she had not, according to the inquest transcripts.

Sullivan said Bishop started to tell him there had been a “spat” between her and her father earlier that day. She told him she “believed that there had been robbers in the neighborhood and that’s why she had loaded” the shotgun used in the fatal shooting. She also told him she had accidentally fired a shot in the bedroom before she went to ask her mother how to unload the gun, Sullivan said.

But when Bishop’s mother, Judith, was brought to the booking room, Sullivan said, she told Amy she didn’t want her to answer more questions, and Amy said she “was going to listen to her mother.”

Kenneth Brady, a retired police lieutenant who responded to the Bishop house, recalled speaking with Judith Bishop as two officers performed first aid on her son.

He said the mother was upset but he thought she was “amazingly in control of herself.”

He went to the hospital with her, then drove her to the police station after her son was declared dead.

Brady said the mother asked him to immediately contact then-police chief John V. Polio, but he did not. A second officer also testified at the inquest that she had asked to see the chief.

Judith Bishop, a Town Meeting member, denied in her testimony that she had ever asked to see Polio.

On Feb. 23, 2010, Braintree Police Chief Paul Frazier held a news conference in which he questioned how the investigation was handled at the time and seemed to suggest that Judith Bishop’s position in the town may have influenced Polio to release her daughter the day of the shooting. Police waited 11 days from the shooting to interview the family.

Polio was interviewed during the inquest, but has since died. His testimony was among the portions that were redacted from the transcripts.

When Amy Bishop was released that day, she and her mother hugged, Brady said.

“Mrs. Bishop stated that she had lost her son today and she didn’t want to lose her daughter, too,” Brady testified.