In the quiet town of Braintree, Massachusetts, the life of 18-year-old Seth Morrison Bishop, a Caucasian male, was cut tragically short on December 6, 1986. What was initially reported and ruled as a terrible accident would, decades later, be re-examined as a potential homicide, casting a long shadow over his family and the initial investigation.
On that December day, Seth was fatally shot in the chest in his family home. The person holding the shotgun was his 21-year-old sister, Amy.
In the immediate aftermath, Amy Bishop claimed the shooting was an accident, that the gun had discharged unintentionally while she was unloading it. The authorities at the time accepted this version of events, and the death was officially ruled an accident. For years, this remained the accepted narrative of Seth's untimely death.
However, the story took a dramatic and dark turn in 2010. Amy Bishop, then a biology professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, was arrested and charged with capital murder for opening fire on her colleagues, killing three and wounding three others. This violent outburst prompted law enforcement officials in Massachusetts to take a new look at the cold case of Seth's death.
Upon re-examination, a more troubling picture of the events of 1986 began to emerge. It was revealed that after shooting her brother, Amy Bishop had fled the home with the shotgun. She then allegedly went to a local car dealership, where she brandished the weapon and attempted to commandeer a vehicle. She only surrendered the shotgun after being repeatedly ordered to do so by police officers who had been dispatched to the scene. This crucial information, which suggested a deliberate and desperate state of mind rather than that of someone involved in a tragic accident, had not been forwarded to the district attorney's office at the time. The only other eyewitness to the shooting was Amy and Seth's mother, Judith Bishop.
In light of this new information and the events in Alabama, a grand jury was convened in Norfolk County, Massachusetts. In June 2010, nearly a quarter of a century after Seth's death, Amy Bishop was indicted on the charge of first-degree murder in the death of her brother. The initial ruling of an accidental death was overturned, and the once-closed chapter of Seth Morrison Bishop's life was rewritten as a suspected homicide, with his own sister as the alleged perpetrator.
