5:51am UK, Sunday February 14, 2010

James Jordan, Sky News Online

The biology professor charged with killing three of her colleagues, shot her brother more than 23 years ago, police said.

Shooting in 1986 was recorded as an accident

Amy Bishop was never charged in her brother’s death, Police Chief Paul Frazier said.

Police records detailing the 1986 incident are missing, and a log of the incident lists it as an accidental shooting, he said.

An officer involved in the case told him that Anderson shot her brother after an argument, Chief Frazier said.

Bishop has been charged with capital murder after the shooting at University of Alabama in Huntsville, which means she could face the death penalty if convicted.

A man, thought to be Bishop’s husband, is also in custody.

Huntsville Police Chief Henry Reyes said Bishop, 45, was attending a faculty meeting on the third floor of the sciences building Friday afternoon when she shot six colleagues, killing three.

Bishop, a professor and researcher at the university, was arrested as she was leaving the building.

Police said a 9 mm handgun was recovered from the second floor of the building late Friday.

She reportedly had been involved in a tenure dispute on the campus.

Bishop, a Harvard-educated neurobiologist who became an assistant professor at the school in 2003, was taken in handcuffs to the county jail.

As she got into a police car, she said, “It didn’t happen. There’s no way. … They are still alive.”