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This week, U.S. Rep. William Delahunt spoke publicly and took questions, for the first time, about his decision not to charge Amy Bishop with a crime in connection with the shooting death of her brother, Seth, back in 1986. Rather than taking responsibility, Delahunt pointed the finger of blame at Braintree cops, claiming it was their fault he knew nothing about the fact that after Bishop shot her brother to death, she ran to a nearby auto body shop and aimed the weapon at an employee. Delahunt said he would have filed weapons charges against Bishop, had he known, so...

Saying he had questions about the original investigation, Norfolk District Attorney William Keating today requested an inquest into the death of Seth Bishop, who was killed by his sister, Amy, in 1986. The incident, ruled an accident at the time, has been under scrutiny since Amy Bishop allegedly went on a shooting rampage at the University of Alabama. Keating said this afternoon that he filed a request for the inquest at Quincy District Court. He said he was seeking the inquest because he was not getting cooperation from Bishop's parents, Judith and Samuel Bishop. "They have refused upon our efforts...

The Amy Bishop debacle has gone from horrifying to humiliating over the past week - and it’s getting worse by the day. Amid the cacophony and the finger-pointing, somebody needs to play the role of the adult. Braintree and State Police were corrupt, or incompetent, or perhaps both, when they let Bishop walk completely free after she shot her younger brother in the chest in 1986 and ran around town with a shotgun under her arm. Now that Bishop has allegedly killed three of her colleagues at the University of Alabama and critically wounded two others, an embarrassing blame-game is...

QUINCY — U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, the former district attorney whose office investigated the fatal 1986 shooting of Seth Bishop by his sister Amy, said Monday he does not feel his office “bears any responsibility” for Bishop being freed without charges. In a telephone interview with the Patriot Ledger, the Quincy Democrat said State Police Trooper Brian Howe correctly concluded that Amy Bishop shot and killed her 18-year-old brother, Seth, by accident. But Delahunt said he has “very serious concerns” that Braintree police never alerted Howe or his prosecutors that, after the shooting, Amy Bishop fled with a loaded shotgun...

BOSTON -- Amy Bishop's intelligence was never debatable. Even as a child, she didn't hesitate to tell people when they were wrong. As she grew older, earned a Harvard Ph.D and claimed a genius IQ of 180, her brilliance could come with a bluntness, condescension and volatile self-righteousness. It was all on display in 2002 when she yelled, "I am Dr. Amy Bishop!" as she belted a woman at a Massachusetts restaurant in a fight over a child's booster seat. Eight years later, the neurobiologist was denied tenure at an Alabama university, a failure her husband and her attorney said...

. . . Delahunt’s people have offered one ridiculous excuse after another for his weeklong silence. The congressman, they have said, is traveling in Israel. He was, but it isn’t as though there are no phones there. He doesn’t remember much, they say. Talk to the Braintree police . . . Look, I’ve known Delahunt for years, and I’m not, at this point, reading too much into his actions. But Bishop’s alleged slayings constitute a huge tragedy, and how they happened is a matter of urgent business. There were not just red flags that she was criminally dangerous; there were...

An Alabama college professor accused of killing three colleagues during a faculty meeting is likely insane, and she can't remember the shootings, her attorney said. Roy W. Miller, the court-appointed attorney for Amy Bishop, told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday that his client has severe mental problems that appear to be paranoid schizophrenia. Miller discussed the case hours after hundreds of mourners attended the first funeral and memorial services for Bishop's slain co-workers.

Federal law enforcement officials did not send Amy Bishop and her husband a letter telling them they were cleared in the 1993 mail bombing investigation of a Harvard Medical School professor, an official said today, contradicting statements Bishop's husband has made to the media since his wife was charged in an Alabama shooting rampage. "No letter was ever sent,'' said the law enforcement official, who is not authorized to speak publicly on the case. Bishop's husband, James Anderson, has acknowledged the couple were both questioned by federal investigators after a package containing two pipe bombs was sent to the Newton...

The Norfolk district attorney ramped up his criticism of the 1986 investigation of Seth Bishop’s death yesterday, saying that it was “glaring’’ and “striking’’ that local police accounts of Amy Bishop’s armed standoff at a local business were not included in the State Police report or considered as part of the prosecutor’s decision about whether to pursue charges.

U.S. Rep. and former Norfolk District Attorney William Delahunt yesterday backed off earlier claims he didn’t recall the 1986 shooting death of Amy Bishop’s brother, with a top aide now saying police downplayed the need for further investigation. Mark Forest, Delahunt’s chief of staff, said both state and local police told the former top prosecutor they believed Amy Bishop, then 20, had accidentally blasted her 18-year-old brother, Seth, with their father’s shotgun. “They pretty much found the death was accidental and there was no need for further action,” Forest told the Herald. But Republican Joe Malone, a former state treasurer...

An 18-year-old man was killed by a shotgun blast to the chest in his Hollis Avenue home yesterday afternoon, and police last night declined to say who fired the gun.