William Bradford Bishop Jr. (born August 1, 1936) is a former United States Foreign Service officer who has been a fugitive from justice since allegedly killing five members of his family in 1976. On April 10, 2014, the FBI placed him on the list of its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.
Video Bradford Bishop
Biography
William Bradford Bishop Jr. was born August 1, 1936, in Pasadena, California to Lobelia and William Bradford Bishop Sr. He received a BS in history from Yale University and an MA in international studies from Middlebury College. Alternatively, he has been reported to have a bachelor's degree in American Studies from Yale and a master's degree in Italian from Middlebury College. He also holds a master's degree in African Studies from UCLA.
After his graduation from Yale in 1959, Bishop married Annette Weis, his high school sweetheart. The couple later had three sons. He then joined the U.S. Army and spent four years in the counterintelligence area. Bishop also learned to speak four foreign languages fluently: Italian, French, Serbo-Croatian, and Spanish. After leaving the Army, Bishop joined the U.S. State Department and served in the Foreign Service in many postings overseas. This included postings in the Italian cities of Verona, Milan, and Florence (where he did post-graduate work at the University of Florence) from 1968 to 1972. He also served in Africa, including posts in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and in Gaborone, Botswana, from 1972 to 1974. His last posting, which began in 1974, was at State Department Headquarters in Washington, D.C. as an Assistant Chief in the Division of Special Activities and Commercial Treaties. He was living in Bethesda, Maryland, with his wife, three sons, and his mother Lobelia.
Bishop and his wife were both psychiatric patients. Bishop suffered from depression and insomnia and was taking the medication Serax (oxazepam).
Maps Bradford Bishop
Killings
By early 1976, Bishop was anticipating a promotion at work. On the afternoon of March 1, 1976, he learned he would not receive the promotion he had sought. After learning of this, Bishop told his secretary he did not feel well and left work early. Shortly thereafter, police believe that he first drove from Foggy Bottom (the neighborhood where he worked at the U.S. State Department headquarters) to the bank where he withdrew several hundred dollars. He then drove to Montgomery Mall and bought a sledge hammer and gas can at Sears. He then filled the gas can and family station wagon up at a gas station next to the mall. From there, he drove to Poch's Hardware, which at the time was located next to Safeway, at the intersection of River Road and Falls Road. This is where police believe he purchased a shovel and pitchfork. He returned to his home in Bethesda between 7:30 and 8 p.m. after the children were put to bed. The police investigation shows that his wife was probably killed first. His mother, who was returning home from walking the family's golden retriever, was killed next. Finally, his three sons (aged 5, 10, and 14) were killed while they slept in their beds in an upstairs bedroom.
With the bodies loaded into the station wagon, Bishop allegedly drove 275 miles (443 km), about a six-hour drive, to a densely wooded swamp off North Carolina Highway 94, about 5 miles (8.0 km) south of Columbia, North Carolina. There, on March 2, he dug a shallow hole where he piled the bodies, doused them with gasoline, and set them ablaze. Later the same day, a North Carolina forest ranger was dispatched by a spotter in a fire tower to an area where smoke was rising from the trees; the fire spread over three acres (1.2 ha). The ranger discovered the burned bodies along with a gas can, a pitchfork, and a shovel with a label of "OCH HDW", which was tracked to Poch's Hardware a week later.
It was later confirmed that Bishop visited a sporting goods store in Jacksonville, North Carolina, that same day, where he used his credit card to purchase tennis shoes. According to witnesses, he had the family dog with him on a leash and was possibly accompanied by a woman described as "dark skinned".
According to police reports, a week later on March 10, a neighbor of the Bishops grew concerned about the family's absence, claiming she had not seen them for about a week. The neighbor contacted local police, who dispatched a detective to the neighborhood. After meeting the neighbor, who had a key to the Bishop home, the detective entered the premises to see if anything was wrong. As he approached the front door, he found blood droplets on the front porch and entered the house to discover spattered blood on the floor and walls in the front hall and bedrooms. Dental records were used to confirm that the bodies found in North Carolina were of Bishop's family.
On March 18, Bishop's 1974 Chevy station wagon was found abandoned at an isolated campground in Elkmont, Tennessee at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a few miles from the Appalachian Trail and about 400 miles (640 km) from the Columbia-area pyre. The car contained dog biscuits, a bloody blanket, a shotgun, an ax and a shaving kit with his medication ; the spare-tire well in the trunk was full of blood. According to a witness, the car had been there since March 5-7. Police theorized that Bishop joined the flow of hikers on the Appalachian Trail. They attempted to follow his scent with bloodhounds without success. The following day, a grand jury indicted Bishop on five counts of first degree murder and other charges.
Psychology
Motives and stressors
There has been a great deal of speculation about Bishop's motives in the decades since the murders, with various factors identified as possible stressors. Despite the extensive speculation, Bishop's motives have never been fully confirmed or explained.
A 1977 article in The Washington Post reported that there was "no evidence of infidelity, or financial or job problems." Although Bishop had been passed over for a promotion, there was no history of work-related issues; his being passed over has been described "the first glitch in the storybook tale".
It has been reported that Bishop's career had caused some marital tension. Bishop was unhappy at his desk job and interested in another foreign posting, but his wife Annette was reluctant. She had begun to study art at the University of Maryland despite Bishop's desire for her to remain a stay-at-home mom.
Most sources agree that the Bishops were experiencing some financial issues, but there has been disagreement as to their severity. The Washington Post reported in 1986 that the issues were "mild" and "familiar to most upwardly mobile families." John E. Douglas described them as "nothing terribly unusual for people in their thirties living in that kind of neighborhood." In 2013, Bethesda Magazine reported that the Internal Revenue Service had been auditing the family's taxes due to financial troubles. The existence of an audit has not been confirmed by the FBI or the IRS.
Profile
The FBI states that Bishop was an avid outdoorsman who enjoyed camping and hiking. He had a pilot's license from when he was stationed in Africa. He enjoys riding motorcycles and working out every week. He suffered from depression and insomnia and was taking Serax (oxazepam) at the time. He is fond of dogs. He also enjoys scotch, peanuts, and spicy foods. He has a six-inch vertical scar on his lower back from surgery and has a cleft chin and mole on his left face cheek. Bishop may have had his father's Smith & Wesson M&P .38 Special revolver with the serial number C981967 and his Yale class ring with him when he vanished. He is also believed to have taken his diplomatic passport with him, as the family's diplomatic passports were all found at their home but his was missing.
Possible sightings
Bishop had approximately one week of advance time before the authorities began looking for him. It has been suggested that he could have traveled on his diplomatic passport. FBI Special Agent in Charge Steve Vogt stated in 2014 that neither Bishop's wallet nor passport have ever been found. It has also been speculated that Bishop may have had intelligence training in the 1960s which may have helped him evade detection in 1976.
Since 1976, Bishop has allegedly been sighted a number of times in various European countries, including Italy, Belgium, England, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, Greece, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. The three most credible sightings noted by the United States Marshals Service are:
- In July 1978, a Swedish woman, who said she had collaborated with Bishop while on a business trip in Ethiopia, reported she had spotted him twice in a public park in Stockholm during a span of one week. She stated she was "absolutely certain" that the man was Bishop. She did not contact the police at the time because she had forgotten he was wanted for murder in the U.S.
- In January 1979, Bishop was reportedly seen by a former U.S. State Department colleague in a restroom in Sorrento, Italy. The colleague greeted the bearded man, whom he personally believed to be Bishop, eye-to-eye, asking the man impulsively, "Hey, you're Brad Bishop, aren't you?" The man panicked suddenly, responding in a distinctly American accent, "Oh no." He then ran swiftly out of the restroom and fled into the Sorrento alleyways.
- On September 19, 1994, on a Basel, Switzerland, train platform, a neighbor who had known Bishop and his family in Bethesda was on vacation and reported that she had seen Bishop from a few feet away. The neighbor described Bishop as "well-groomed" and in a car.
Current whereabouts and new information
As of 2010, authorities believe he is alive, living in Switzerland, Italy or another location in Europe. Alternatively, he may still be in the U.S. in California and may have worked as a teacher or become involved in criminal activities. In 2010, U.S. Marshals revealed on America's Most Wanted that, before the murders, Bishop had been corresponding with federal prison inmate Albert Kenneth Bankston in United States Penitentiary, Marion. It is unknown why or how they were in contact. America's Most Wanted posted the last letter, sent the day of the murders, on their website.
False sightings
On October 9, 2014, the body of an unidentified man who resembled Bishop, who had been killed in a hit-and-run walking along an Alabama highway in 1981, was exhumed by the FBI in Scottsboro to have the DNA, teeth and fingerprints analyzed. The DNA test indicated the deceased was not Bishop.
In 2011, WUSA aired a story that there were reports Bishop had died in Hong Kong and then in France, but police used fingerprints to confirm that those reports were false.
2014 age-progression sculpture
In 2014, at the request of the FBI, forensic artist Karen Taylor created an age progression sculpture to suggest Bishop's projected appearance at about age 77. Using Taylor's sculpture, several alternate images were created by Lisa Sheppard to show the addition of facial hair and glasses.
In the media
After the initial national headlines, the Bishop case was the subject of articles in national publications like Reader's Digest and Time Magazine at milestone anniversaries. It was followed intermittently on an ad hoc basis by the Washington Post, the Washington Star, and the Washington Times as well as local Washington D.C. television stations. The case was featured on television shows such as NBC's Unsolved Mysteries, ABC's Vanished and Fox's America's Most Wanted. Bishop was profiled on AMW website 33 years to the day since his family's bodies were discovered, with a new age-enhanced bust of him with facial hair.
A German TV show, Aktenzeichen XY ... ungelöst, also featured the case in its 250th episode on November 6, 1992, to find possible evidence of Bishop living abroad.
Ballet dancer Jacques d'Amboise revealed in his 2011 autobiography that, as a teenager, he had lived with the Bishop family in South Pasadena, California for a while. He described Bishop as very intelligent, reticent and intense. He remained in regular contact with Bishop's mother Lobelia throughout the 1960s and 1970s. In February 1976, as d'Amboise was scheduled to perform at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Lobelia invited him and his wife Carrie to spend Sunday night, February 29, at the Bishops' home in Bethesda. D'Amboise cancelled his appearance at the last minute due to a foot injury, but failed to notify the family. About a week later, he saw a newspaper report of the five burning bodies in North Carolina; it occurred to him that Lobelia had not contacted him to express concern about his absence. D'Amboise subsequently wondered whether his planned visit on February 29 and March 1 would have prevented the murders or resulted in he and his wife being killed as well.
In early April 2014, WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. launched a webpage to display multiple investigative reports and extensive information on the Bishop case. This included samples of Bishop's handwriting, fingerprints, dental records and previously unseen Bishop family videos.
On July 27, 2014, the search for Bishop was a featured story on The Hunt With John Walsh on CNN.
See also
- Crime in Maryland
- John List, New Jersey man who killed his family at home in 1971 and remained at large under a new identity for 18 years
References
External links
- Agents, Investigators Search Underground, Across the Country, and Around the World for FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive, FBI
- March 2006 Washington Post Article marking the 30-year anniversary of the Bishop murders
- Bradford Bishop's FBI Ten Most Wanted Poster
- Bethesda Magazine May-June 2013 article on Bishop
- NBC Washington Special Report on Bradford Bishop
Source of article : Wikipedia
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