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Ex-Alabama prof won’t be tried in brother’s death
FILE – This Feb. 13, 2010, file booking photo provided by the Huntsville, Ala., Police Department shows college professor Amy Bishop, charged with capital murder in the Feb. 12, 2010 shooting deaths of three faculty members at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Bishop pleaded guilty to capital murder charges in an agreement that will send to her prison for the rest of her life and make her ineligible for the death penalty. A judge scheduled jury selection for Monday, Sept. 24, 2012, as a trial is still required under Alabama law because Bishop admitted to a capital charge of murder. (AP Photo/Huntsville Police Department, File)
BOSTON (AP) — A former Alabama professor convicted of fatally shooting three colleagues won’t face a Massachusetts murder trial in the 1986 death of her brother after prosecutors withdrew their indictment.
The announcement Friday by the Norfolk district attorney follows Amy Bishop’s sentencing this week to life in prison without parole for the killings at the University of Alabama-Huntsville in February 2010.
In a statement, Michael Morrissey said the life sentence his office would have pursued in the killing of 18-year-old Seth Bishop was identical to the punishment she received after her guilty plea in Alabama, so there was no need to move forward.
‘‘We will not move to have her returned to Massachusetts,’’ Morrissey said. ‘‘The penalty we would seek for a first degree murder conviction is already in place.’’
The office withdrew the indictment ‘‘without prejudice,’’ meaning Morrissey could reinstate it if something went wrong in the Alabama sentence, though he said he considered that unlikely.
Amy Bishop, convicted of killing three colleagues at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, appears on the cover of the January 2009 cover of the Huntsville R&D Report.
Bishop said Read the rest of this entry »
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