CANTON, Mass., June 17 (UPI) -- Amy Bishop, a biology professor accused of killing three colleagues this year, was indicted in the 1986 death of her brother at their home outside Boston.
The indictment in the death of Bishop's 18-year-old brother, Seth, was handed up four months after the 45-year-old college professor was charged in a shooting rampage at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, killing three colleagues and injuring three others.
The 1986 death was originally ruled accidental, and Braintree, Mass., police released Bishop, then 21, without completing an investigation.
District Attorney William R. Keating said Wednesday his office reopened the case after Bishop was charged in the Alabama shootings.
But Alabama's case would take priority over the new Massachusetts charge, he said.
If she is convicted and gets a heavy sentence in the Alabama case -- she could face the death penalty if convicted -- Bishop may never stand trial in Massachusetts, he said.
Bishop's parents called the reopening of the Massachusetts case "an enormous waste of public resources that does not in any way provide a benefit to the public."
"We know that what happened 24 years ago to our son, Seth, was an accident,'' the Bishops said in a statement cited by The Boston Globe.
At the time of Seth Bishop's Dec. 6, 1986, death, Amy Bishop told police she accidentally fired her father's shotgun at her brother's chest while trying to figure out how to unload it -- a statement corroborated by her mother.
Bishop was released within hours and faced no charges.
A grand jury was convened two months ago to hear evidence in the case.
