Amy Bishop

Amy Bishop (born April 24, 1965; age 44 at the time of the shooting) is married to Jimmy "James" Anderson and is the mother of four children.

She grew up in Massachusetts, attended Braintree High School, and completed her undergraduate degree at Northeastern University in Boston, where her father, Samuel Bishop, was a professor in the art department.

She earned her Ph.D. in genetics from Harvard University.

In 1986, she had shot and killed her brother in Braintree, Massachusetts, in an incident that was, at the time, officially ruled an accident.

She was also questioned, along with her husband, after a 1993 pipe bomb incident was directed at her lab supervisor.

The day of the shooting, Bishop taught her anatomy and neurosciences class at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).

A student later said Bishop "seemed perfectly normal" during the lecture.

Bishop then attended a biology department faculty meeting on the third floor of the Shelby Center for Science and Technology.

According to witnesses, 12 or 13 people attended the meeting, which was described as "an ordinary faculty meeting."

Bishop's behavior was also described as "normal" just before the shooting.

Bishop sat quietly at the meeting for 30 to 40 minutes before pulling out a Ruger P95 9mm handgun just before 4:00 p.m. A witness said that she "got up suddenly, took out a gun and started shooting at each one of us. She started with the one closest to her, and went down the row shooting her targets in the head."

Another survivor said, "This wasn't random shooting around the room; this was execution style."

Those who were shot were on one side of the oval table; the five on the other side dropped to the floor.

After Bishop had fired several rounds, Debra Moriarity, a biochemistry professor, said that she pointed the gun at her and pulled the trigger, but heard only a "click," as her gun "either jammed or ran out of ammunition."

She described Bishop as initially appearing "angry," then "perplexed."

Joseph Ng, an associate professor, said Moriarity attempted to stop Bishop by approaching her and asking her to stop, and helped the other survivors push Bishop from the room and block the door.

Ng said, "Moriarity was probably the one that saved our lives. She was the one that initiated the rush."

The suspected murder weapon was found in a bathroom on the second floor of the science building.

Bishop did not have a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

She was arrested a few minutes later outside the building.

Shortly after her arrest, Bishop was quoted as saying, "It didn't happen. There's no way."

When asked about the deaths of her colleagues, Bishop replied, "There's no way. They're still alive."

Police interviewed Bishop's husband, Jimmy Anderson, after it was determined that she had called him to pick her up after the shooting; they did not charge him.

The couple were seen leaving their home with duffel bags on Friday afternoon before the shooting.

Anderson said that Bishop had borrowed the gun used in the shooting and that he had escorted her to an indoor shooting range in the weeks before the incident.

Shortly after Bishop's arrest, there was concern that she had "booby trapped the science building with a 'herpes bomb'" intended to spread the virus.

She had worked with the herpes virus during her postdoctoral studies, and had written a novel describing the spread of a virus similar to herpes throughout the world.

The police had already searched the premises, finding only the murder weapon.

Three faculty members were killed and three others injured.

Only a few students were in the building at the time of the shooting, and none were harmed.

Bishop's 1993 dissertation at Harvard was titled "The role of methoxatin (PQQ) in the respiratory burst of phagocytes."

In March 2009, Bishop had been denied tenure at UAH, making spring 2010 her last semester there, per university policy.

Due to the attention Bishop attracted as a result of the shooting, previous violent incidents in which she had been involved or implicated were reevaluated.

On February 12, 2010, three people were killed and three others wounded in a shooting at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) in Huntsville, Alabama, United States.

During a routine meeting of the biology department attended by approximately 12 people, Amy Bishop, a biology professor at the university, began shooting those nearest her with a Ruger P95 handgun.

Bishop was charged with one count of capital murder and three counts of attempted murder.

A memorial service was held at UAH on February 19, 2010, with 3,000 people in attendance.

On September 11, 2012, she pleaded guilty to the charges after family members of victims petitioned the judge against use of the death penalty.

The jury heard a condensed version of the evidence on September 24, as required by Alabama law.

The same day, Bishop was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.