Dr. Amy Bishop Murder Case Analysis | Killer Professor

hello this is dr grande today's question asks if i can analyze the mental health and personality factors that may be at work in the dr amy bishop case another question here is what is tenure tenure was a factor in this particular case just a reminder i'm not diagnosing anybody in this video only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this if you enjoy this video please like it subscribe to my channel and consider supporting me on patreon i'll put the link to patreon in the description for this video so first i'll look at the background of amy bishop i'll move to the crime the mental health and personality factors and then i'll get to the topic of tenure starting with the background amy bishop was born on april 25 1965 she was raised in massachusetts at some point she earned her bachelor's degree from northeastern university and a phd in genetics from harvard university in 1986 bishop was with her mother and brother at their home in braintree massachusetts she took a mossberg 500 pump action 12 gauge shotgun and fired one shot into her bedroom wall she operated the action walked downstairs and fired a second shot into her brother's chest killing him after the second shot she operated the action again and made her way to a local car dealership there she pointed the weapon at two employees and tried to steal a car bishop's mother told the police that the shooting was accidental no charges were filed at that time the police would later claim that no one told them about the incident at the car dealership so i guess the murder part wasn't a big deal but they could have done something about the attempted armed robbery this is like if the police saw somebody planning a bomb and said hey you're trespassing yes but there are other things they may want to be concerned about in 1993 a professor who was also a physician received a package containing two pipe bombs the pipe bombs did not explode the professor was bishop supervisor at a neurobiology lab bishop had recently received a negative evaluation from him bishop and her husband james anderson were questioned by the police but they did not cooperate with the investigation no charges were filed in 2002 bishop was eating at an international house of pancakes in peabody massachusetts when she approached another woman who had taken the last booster seat bishop verbally attacked her before punching her in the head while yelling i am dr amy bishop bishop was arrested and would plead guilty to disorderly conduct and misdemeanor assault here we see yet another example of booster seat inspired violence in 2003 she started working as an assistant professor at the university of alabama the students did not like bishop too much they said she was not an effective teacher and she was odd and unsettling bishop published articles and journals but she wasn't too productive she published one article in 2009 that listed her husband and three children as co-authors her children were minors they weren't professors this was highly unusual bishop seemed to like teaching and conducting research even though she wasn't too good at those functions but she also wrote novels she believed this would be her ticket out of academia she never published any of the three novels that she wrote all three featured a protagonist who fantasized about revenge against those who wronged them one of the novels was about a female scientist who was battling a pandemic and worried about not getting tenure because that's what a scientist fighting a pandemic would worry about not the end of the world her colleagues at the university were troubled by her behavior they referred to her as not normal out of touch with reality strange and said that she would exhibit erratic behavior like interrupting meetings with tangents that were bizarre one professor who served on bishop's tenure review committee referred the bishop as crazy bishop filed a complaint with the eoc but didn't go anywhere bishop was denied tenure in march of 2009 this meant in march of 2010 her contract would not be renewed she was going to be fired this takes us to february 12 2010 bishop taught a class before attending a faculty meeting with about 12 or 13 other employees the meeting went on for about 30 or 40 minutes at 3 56 pm bishop stood up produced a ruger p95 this is a nine millimeter semi-automatic pistol and started shooting people who were seated around the table she killed three of her colleagues and wounded three others a professor asked bishop to stop bishop pointed the gun at her head and pulled the trigger but the gun did not fire it's not clear if it malfunctioned or it was out of ammunition bishop exited the room and pulled the trigger several more times but again the weapon would not discharge the police arrived and arrested bishop outside the building they found the ruger p95 in a second floor bathroom the police were worried that bishop may have planted a herpes bomb in the building evidently she had worked with that virus as part of her studies no bomb was found thinking about this idea of a herpes bomb these are two words you don't want to see together i would think that a herpes bomb would be unpopular even among other bombs it would probably sit on the swing set by itself at recess bishop was charged with one count of capital murder and three counts of attempted murder in 2012 she was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole the case from 1986 the death of her brother was reopened now moving to the mental health and personality factors bishop told a reporter after she was arrested that she was being treated for paranoid schizophrenia this disorder is characterized by delusions hallucinations disorganized speech grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior and negative symptoms like diminished emotional expression or a volition bishop claimed she didn't remember committing the homicides she also said that it was not the first time she had this type of memory problem if she did in fact have schizophrenia that could explain a few things for example why her co-workers described her as bizarre and out of touch with reality why she said after being arrested i wasn't there it wasn't me that's what she told the police right as they took her into custody and why her work performance was poor but it doesn't explain the attack or the alleged memory loss this attack appeared to be revenge based the symptoms of schizophrenia would be more associated with an attack based on delusional thinking or hallucinations more random from an outside perspective she didn't appear to believe anything unusual about her victims like they were aliens out to destroy the world working for the cia she didn't think they were demons in a premeditated crime bishop attacked people that she felt wronged her it would appear she knew who they were when she fired her weapon various people who encountered bishop described her as being confrontational aggressive socially awkward and needing to be right we see a number of behaviors that seem to connect to narcissism for example bishop bragged that she had attended harvard she did not want people to know she drove an older beat-up car and her husband was named jimmy anderson but she told him to use the name james she said jimmy was too low class the personality profile for the persona that bishop projects is probably something like high and openness to experience mid-range conscientiousness low extroversion low agreeableness and above average neuroticism her behavior is really difficult to explain many have struggled the idea that a professor could in any moment start shooting people even her attorney seemed confused even though he would later apologize for his choice of words he referred to her as wacko he may have a law degree but he doesn't have a degree in subtlety i mentioned before how one of her colleagues called her crazy that colleague stood by his claim even after bishop complained about him after bishop was arrested she attempted to bring an end to her own life using a razor blade she said that she tried to do this because she had hallucinations and delusions and she could not take being indicted for her brother's accent so she referred to the act of putting a shotgun at him and pulling the trigger as an accent in prison bishop still writes she hopes to sell the novels she had written before as well as a diary that she's writing in prison outside of any of the mental health discussions surrounding this case it has brought attention to the idea of tenure bishop's reaction to not getting tenure was terrible she had a homicidal reaction there but that doesn't mean that she was automatically treated fairly her bad act doesn't make the university's behavior good and that's really what this discussion is about is tenure a good idea does the system unnecessarily antagonize people so let me start with a description of tenure tenure is really a word that means different things to different universities in general what it means is this if a professor works for a university for between three and seven years usually they may get considered for a new rank typically associate professor so they start as an assistant professor and they can move to associate which means it becomes more costly for the university to fire them it's really not job security in a classic sense as much as the ability to have a more substantive claim if one is fired the truth is that any employer can fire any employee at any time and they often do many tenure professors get fired the difference is that a professor with tenure has an additional claim against the university so if there was no employment claim like discrimination or retaliation the professor can still say the university broke a contract essentially tenure is nothing more than an employment contract employment contracts are used in many fields not just academia there are two strange things about the way this particular employment contract tenure is structured first at many universities if a professor doesn't get tenured they are fired that was the case with amy bishop with other universities a professor may simply never get it they may simply continue to be an assistant professor for the rest of their career the universities that fire people who don't get tenure put a lot of pressure on professors also failing to get tenure when it was expected means another university may be reluctant to hire that professor it's difficult for professors to change careers there's a massive investment in a very specific education unfortunately former professors are often considered overqualified for other jobs so they can't even move easily to a lower paying job the second strange thing about the way tenure is structured is that with some universities colleagues serve on a tenure committee for the professor who is being considered for tenure therefore in theory they help make that decision the reality is though that administrators make decisions in universities not ordinary ranked professors so a lot of people think oh this is a decision made by colleagues but really functionally it's not they're essentially just there to make the system seem like more of a democracy what's interesting in the bishop case is that she shot several people who actually supported her tenure stepping back and looking at tenure i think the tenure system is broken i don't think it's healthy for professors or universities but there is no reason to believe that it should lead to homicide there is some benefit to not getting too wrapped up in one's career identity a job can be lost at any moment for any reason in the case of amy bishop she murdered people because she believed they had a hand in denying her a job that she didn't even truly want one lesson to be learned in this case with all the discussion about how unusual amy bishop was she did shoot somebody years earlier before these murders at the university it's amazing that she was not charged in the shooting death of her brother when it was committed and she wasn't charged in that attempted armed robbery either often those who will someday commit homicide leave subtle and not so subtle warning signs bishop left the most obvious sign of all and it was ignored those are my thoughts on the amy bishop case please put any opinions and thoughts in the comments section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always i hope you found my analysis of this topic to be interesting thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 108,648

Keywords:

Id: vhTuFsIZzhs

Length: 13min 14sec (794 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 04 2020