Former University of Alabama professor Amy Bishop and the suspect arrested for Alabama Shooting and killing incident, is going to be trialled for a capital murder charge and today she is going to be there in the Madison County Circuit Court and a hearing would be conducted to determine whether there is enough evidence against her.
Bishop, has been accused of killing her colleagues by shooting them down in a faculty meeting on February 12th. Bishop who was a biology professor has been charged with murder and also been charged of attempted murder in the campus of the University of Alabama. She is going to appear in Madison County Circuit Court for an initial hearing before Judge Ruth Ann Hall.
Prosecutors will call other witnesses and police officers under the Alabama law. If there is sufficient evidence against Bishop then the case will go to a grand jury.
Bishop’s lawyer which has been appointed by the court itself, Roy Miller, has suggested that the case will focus on Bishop's mental state.
According to Miller, Bishop was under suicide watch in jail. A gag order has been issued, and both parties declined to comment.
Bishop, who is a Harvard-trained geneticist, after being denied further tenure at Alabama, started shooting after a biology department faculty meeting, according to some of the survivors of the massacre.
The victims were Gopi Podila, chairman of the biological sciences department; Maria Davis, associate professor of biology; and Adriel Johnson, associate professor of biology. There were 3 other victims who were wounded. She was then arrested as she was leaving the building.
A 9 mm handgun was recovered from Bishop. She also had previous run-ins with the law. Bishop was facing criminal charges on account of another controversial incident at a Massachusetts restaurant some eight years ago, police said.
The police report also came out with Bishop’s behavior when she had become angry after there was no booster seat available for her child, she started screaming at a woman who took the last one in fact striking her on the head.
She was also accused of shooting her brother, Seth, in 1986. Bishop, had then claimed that it was just an accident and she was just trying to unload a shotgun, according to police reports.
During that time the district attorney had ruled the death as accidental and no charges were pressed against her. However, the current district attorney in Braintree has ordered to re-examine the incident and asked the authorities to ascertain whether it was an accident or not.
Bishop and her husband, Jim Anderson, were also questioned in 1993 for attempting to mail bomb a Harvard Medical School professor, reported The Boston Globe.
Bishop can face a death penalty if the capital murder is proved.
