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Braintree promises search for records in Bishop case

E-mail|Link|Comments () February 14, 2010 06:34 PM

By Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

The mayor of Braintree said today that the town and its police department would work with the Norfolk County district attorney's office to locate all materials relating to the 1986 fatal shooting by Amy Bishop of her brother, Seth Bishop, a case that is drawing new interest because Amy Bishop was charged with shooting six people on Friday in Alabama.

The town and the police recognize "the importance of transparency ... The Braintree Police Department will conduct a thorough audit of all its records to identify if there were deficits in its past record keeping process," Mayor Joseph C. Sullivan said today in a statement.

The statement came after Braintree Police Chief Paul Frazier on Saturday raised troubling questions about the handling of the case in his town, saying that a police report on the Dec. 6, 1986 shooting was missing and that the officer who prepared it remembered the shooting as happening during an argument, even though the State Police later ruled it was an accident.

More than two decades later, Amy Bishop now stands accused of shooting six of her colleagues – three of them fatally – at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Sullivan promised that the results of the review would be shared with the public and with law enforcement agencies.

John Guilfoil of the Globe staff contributed to this report.