Tuesday, February 16, 2010
By now you've heard all about the University of Alabama shooter, Amy Bishop, the shooting rampage, the old murder she got away with (the "cover-up" and the connection to now retiring Congressman Bill Delahunt), the letter bomb she likely sent...
Turns out I have a tenuous connection to this woman. You see she used to be the next door neighbor of a good friend of mine in Ipswich (a north shore Boston suburb) for a few years. At the time I used to hang out at his house quite a bit. This was one of those typical suburban neighborhoods with little traffic, lots of kids, smallish houses fairly close together without a lot of fences.
I remember when the previous neighbor moved out it wasn't long before my friend started complaining. He had a deck in the back of his place that was effectively on the second floor making it very visible to the neighbor's yard and house. So one day I go over to find that he had erected a wooden privacy fence on the side of the deck facing their yard -- and only on that side. So I'm like, "Uhh...isn't that a little uncomfortable. I mean it's obvious you put that there just to block only those people." He tells me he does...not...care. He doesn't want to look at them, and he doesn't want them to look. He hates them, as does the entire neighborhood. Here are some slightly edited reminiscences I just received:
They were there for 4 or 5 years and then moved to Alabama. When they left we all said "Those poor folks in Alabama"...
...She was such a trouble maker. I disengaged from them early on. I literally did not have any conversation or interaction with either her or her husband (also a nutball) for over 3 years. Nothing...
...She made a big stink about the kids playing basketball in the neighborhood. On the day they first moved into the house they drove their moving truck into the basketball post that was situated between our two driveways and under the streetlight. For years all the neighborhood kids played ball there (and so did some of the Dads). When they ran the post down we thought it was just a dumb-ass accident. We soon found out that they did it on purpose.
One of the other neighbors put up a new hoop on his property and she complained about the kids. It was a protracted fight that involved multiple calls to the police. The end result was that the kids in the neighborhood couldn't play ball after 7pm at night. She also complained about street hockey, skate boarding, tag, etc., etc...
Why move into a neighborhood if you don't want to hear kids playing??? That's the whole point of living in a neighborhood so kids have others to play with.
What pissed me off was the loony venom and fury that accompanied her attacks. She alleged that the basketball players were smoking pot at night and causing other trouble. Totally untrue. Look at the newspaper, the Ipswich Police were in the Globe today calling her a "regular customer". She complained about everything.
She nearly got into a fistfight one night with one of the Moms who was defending her son's right to play.
She complained so much the ice cream truck stopped driving through our street. If the kids wanted ice cream they had to go over to the next street and stop the truck.
Just this past Sunday morning as we were watching the news my son said, "Remember how she wouldn't let us have ice cream?" He was about 8 at the time and thought that it really sucked. All the kids knew that she was the cause.
There were a couple of neighborhood block parties in the last 2 years that she and her family weren't invited to because she had caused too many issues with people there. I remember there were probably 100 people at one party and they were the only ones not there. Everybody hated them. At one point someone let the air out of her tires.
The day they moved out I was getting home as their moving van pulled away and went up the street. I got out of my car and a bunch of the neighbors were outside and I yelled "Ding Dong the witch is dead!" and a cheer went up all around. Soon after the new people showed up to clean the house and move some things in and the whole street celebrated with a pizza party. We welcomed the new folks with open arms. It was like the sun finally came out again.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: My Brush With the Alabama Shooter's Psycho History - Amy Bishop Was Ipswich Pariah.
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I am speechless: In March, 2002, Bishop walked into an International House of Pancakes in Peabody with her family, asked for a booster seat for one of her children, and learned the last seat had gone to another mother. Bishop,... Read More
She should have lived in Salem.
http://www.salemwitchmuseum.com/
One of my dreams is to go to the museum - wearing a garland of garlic.
Something about the Amy Bishop story reminds me of the Shirley Jackson novel "We have always Lived in the Castle" about homicidal, agoraphobic sisters who creep out everyone in their town. She even looks like the drawings on the book...
Your friend should be thankful that Bishop did not treat him as she has others who somehow displeased her, that is blown him away with a shotgun, as she did her 18-year-old brother back in '86, sent him a pipe bomb in the mail, as she probably did the Harvard professor back in '93, or gunned him down, as she did those six UAH colleagues this month.
Boston area schools have certainly produced some remarkable female neuroscientists in Siddiqui (MIT and Brandeis) and Bishop (Northeastern and Harvard). Remarkable expressions of genetically XX individuals.
This gal sounds a lot like my ex-wife.
And now, just look what you've driven her to.
All because she didn't share your predictably bourgeois, plain-vanilla suburban value system (I notice though, you did leave out the picket fences). You must have attended a state university. Seriously: basket ball?
Many tragedies could be averted, if the little people could just just be made to show respect to their betters. You'll learn.
Hear that y'all. comatus believes psychopathic murderers are your "betters".
comatus, I bet anything you voted for Obama and you still think he is doing a good job. Right? Forget it, I already know the answer.
comatus,One more question. Do people like yourself know your crazy? I mean, when you are sitting around masturbating in your own feces while watching Rachel Maddow do you just stop and say "Wow, it is amazing how crazy I am"?
What I would pay to see this chick fry in the chair.
Ummm, Gman, comatus was obviously being sarcastic. Comatus is one of us, not the enemy. There are plenty of them to tear into.
Ohhh. heh sorry. My first time at this site. Sadly I have seen comments where that would be real.
Came here from Ace. Love the site. Bookmarked it.
Crazy Bitch. Sounds like the wacky school bus driver over on Spring Street! Wonder if their related?
If her husband is as bad as she is then I'd like to know why CPS isn't doing its job.
They have four children last time I heard. Those children are undoubtedly suffering from emotional if not physical abuse and should be taken into care.
When I was a kid I had a friend who used to live next door to a psycho family. The kids were actually very nice and very smart, and ended up pretty normal, surprisingly, though there was some obvious genetic problem in them there DNAs.
We used to piss through the chain link into their yard just to watch the old man go apoplectic.
When my children were small a woman like Amy Bishop tried to take over our PTSA. She knew better than everyone else about everything on the planet. She tried to shut down any activity she didn't participate in, and pushed her own and everyone elses' kids around until the school required her to have an escort anytime she was on the grounds.
Of course she was a RABID Clinton supporter. Later she was convicted of fraud and money laundering in a charity scheme. Her kids all moved out of her house, like clockwork, on the days they turned 18. Wherever she is now, I bet she's a huge Obama fan!
Surely it's only proper to suggest that Amy is a typical progressive.
Megalomania is reserved for elites because they know they deserve it. I wonder how many progressive sleeper cells named Veruca Salt are out there.
Consider a person who believes that their superior intellect has placed them above their fellow man.
They will seek to control. They will seek to lead. They will become more and more control-fixated as their attempts at control, in the name of improving everything around them, are rebuffed.
It can become panic, even fear, as they realize that their superior view does not grant them control of very much at all, that other people remain stubbornly free from their control, and that they, perhaps, are not captains of their fate, much less Moses's, leading the huddled masses to the Promised Land.
Liberals and intellectuals both have this common thread. Liberal intellectuals, well, that's just doubling up on the crazy.
But enough about Obama. This Bishop nut is no bargain, either.
Do they use the needle or the hot seat in Alabama?
Folks, this case has absolutely nothing to do with national politics or Obama. You're really reaching.
This nut reminds me so much of my Obama-lovin', global warming-believin' sister-in-law. Like so many loving, caring, holier-than-thou "progressives," she is a thoroughly miserable and overbearing creature who alienates her co-workers, neighbors, family, etc. We never go with her to any restaurant due to her habit of loudly (very loudly) and rudely berating the help and complaining about every damn thing, to the point I have felt compelled to leave extra-large tips while apologizing to management on her behalf.
For the life of me, I can't understand how we continue to allow these twisted, sick, and maladjusted people to sell themselves as caring and wonderful people, when the truth is so completely opposite.
Sorry, but I'm not buying the fact that this has nothing to do with national politics. But I would add this to modify my last comment: This type of behavior is probably true of most extremists, on BOTH sides. Garden-variety Conservatives and liberals would do well to stop pretending that these types don't exist on our side and that they are exclusively on the other side. Extremists are eating this country away like termites and we had better wake up to it before the house comes down.
How is this remotely related to politics? She is a psychopath who acted upon her psychotic impulses when her colleagues denied her tenure (no doubt for the obvious reason that she is a psychopath).
How is this remotely related to politics?
Well, it is remotely related to politics because this psycho should not have been walking the streets. She should have been jailed, or at least under the strict supervision of professionals after she (apparently) murdered her brother. Since this incident was not properly investigated, innocent lives were endangered for years.
If a 19 year old man had shot and killed his brother after first firing one shot into an upstairs ceiling, and if that same man had run into the street attempting to carjack a passenger, pointing the same gun that he had just used to kill his brother at the driver, would the police have believed a claim of self-defense?
Why wasn't this psycho in jail and why didn't anyone investigate her history after the bombing incident and the Pancake rage incident? Some sort of misguided politics are to blame...
It's related to local politics in Braintree and to Bill Delahunt, sure. But that's it.
Just went this weekend -- the outside is the most impressive part. Inside is a presentation with wax/fiberglass figures, and then a lecture.
Hell I would have arrested her just for her haircut.
Your friend is a moron.
"Why move into a neighborhood if you don't want to hear kids playing???"
Uh, let's see - because neighborhoods are where the houses are and people like to live in houses? That doesn't mean they want to listen to your screaming brats all the time.
Amy should have shot 'em all.
Great story. Wait for the Alabama neighbor's reminiscences to come out. I wonder if the faculty will talk.
An honest person knows why this story has national political implications. In the description of her, they said she was a left wing zealot who was so obsessed with Obama that it was offputting. If she were a Republican, that wouldn't be the last throw-away line in the article. The headline would be about rabid right wing violence incited by Glenn Beck and Rush. You know it's true.
What does this have to do with politics? Nothing unless you consider the liberals got Obama in the White House with the promise the "smart people" being in charge.
I worked for fifteen years in University research administration in the Boston area and I guarentee you that folks in academia are more loony and intolerant than not. More viscous than kind and not almost 100% socialist. We would do well to keep them as far from power as we can.
A short trip down liberal academic memory lane: faking hate crimes to gain power and money for their hate studies programs, faking climate research to enact a radical environmentalist agenda, Lacrosse players at Duke, banning free speech and thought as "hate", etc.
Back to Amy. She is the type but on steroids.
As we recall the homicidal lunatic academics who have come out of Boston area ivory towers, let us not forget the Mackdaddy: Unabomber Ted Kaczinsky, who went to Harvard undergrad.
I'd have loved to see a date between him and Amy B.
Just wondering how much "Northeastern University" is a factor here. Northeastern is a notoriously working-class school and was even more so in the '80's when Ms. Bishop attended. To have selected Northeastern for undergrad--presumably above all other undergrad schools in the US--"indicated" that one truly wanted to appear working-class, with tastes like basketball, hockey, rough rock music (today: rap), and beer.
It's possible that Ms. Bishop wasn't aware that the school had such a reputation until she got there: may have picked Northeastern for its co-op program plus proximity to Boston high culture.
Given this, understandable why she (1) wanted the basketball hoop destroyed and (2) continually bragged about her grad work at Harvard. I've known Northeastern graduates to obsess over covering up any connection with Northeastern, and to constantly feel pressure to appear "cultured" and not working-class.
Right wingers are crazier than Bishop. Good god, any feeble excuse to criticize the left, when their right wing politicians are the ones screwing this country over.
Amendment to my previous post: turns out, Ms. Bishop's father was a professor at Northeastern. (Can't find what department, though.) So, the kids would probably have gotten free tuition.
Wonder if Amy and her brother were given no other choice but to go to Northeastern.
>kokoloni -- Interesting comments about the Northeastern - Harvard difference. Seems high intelligence, arrogance, and social difficulties go together in some killers (Bishop, Kaczynski, Andrew Cunanan--the killer of Gianni Versace, Philip Markoff, the craigslist med-school student, etc.).
Read a different perspective on Bishop from commenter, Zorean, who knew Bishop personally in college. Her comments can be found on this blog: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/abraham/detail?entry_id=57209&o=1&rv=1266165290897>a=commentslistpos#commentslistpos
#25 GoAmy | February 17, 2010 4:45 PM
Hmmm. The man hates dogs and children. Can't be all bad. — W.C. FieldsOnly Fields played a self-absorbed misanthrope. It was a put-on for comic effect. He doesn't creep you out. Amy Bishop is another story. And spooky as Hell.
GoAmy probably would complain if a neighbor kept chickens and had a rooster. GoAmy would be ill-advised to move into deluxe waterfront condos near the USS Constitution where some yuppy-puppy neighbors have complained about the cannon shots.
You know Zounds (#31), most Left wingers are as crazy as Bishop. Good god, any feeble excuse to criticize the right, when their left wing politicians are the ones screwing this country over. Ya know, just saying .....
Purportedly, Amy was ab Obamabot:
http://tinyurl.com/y8qqwkk
"A family source said Bishop, a mother of four children - the youngest a third-grade boy - was a far-left political extremist who was “obsessed” with President Obama to the point of being off-putting."
You're so desperate for any crumbs of traffic that you'll relate a pathetic story like this? I'm surprised you didn't claim she was anti-Israel as well.
My daughter moved into a house, took one look at the neighbor's dogs and said: They'll have to go!
She moved to a tourist town and guess what she complains of? yep! TOURISTS Funny thing, she only has a high school diploma but acts like she graduated from harvard! Any attempt to disagree with her and she goes ballistic and spews venomous slander. Luckily for me she doesn't talk to me anymore! But I feel sorry for her henpecked husband and her kids.
Super Conservative (#36). Great, just another right wing parrot, can't think of anything original to say, so just repeats what he heard. Good going