Latest / The Path Went Chilly / William Bradford Bishop Pt. One

Transcript

William Bradford Bishop Pt. One · The Path Went Chilly

0:32
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path with Chili. This week is
0:34
Speaker 1: just going to be myself and Jules because Ashley is
0:37
Speaker 1: just starting a new career as a school teacher, so
0:39
Speaker 1: she's quite busy right now, so we've had to do
0:42
Speaker 1: a couple episodes without her, but she'll be back in
0:44
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks to discuss another case. So in
0:47
Speaker 1: Ashley's absence, I'm going to follow our usual format where
0:50
Speaker 1: I tell Jeules the details about a case she's not
0:52
Speaker 1: familiar with and hasn't learned anything about before, and she
0:55
Speaker 1: will give off her reaction. And this is going to
0:58
Speaker 1: be a unique one because this is a horrible crime
1:01
Speaker 1: where there's no real mystery of who the perpetrator was.
1:04
Speaker 1: We just don't know what happened to them, because we're
1:07
Speaker 1: going to be talking about one of the most notorious
1:09
Speaker 1: wanted fugitives in the history of North America who has
1:12
Speaker 1: still never been caught. So, Jules, do you know the
1:15
Speaker 1: name William Bradford Bishop.
1:18
Speaker 2: I do. I know the basic details of this case,
1:21
Speaker 2: but I don't know like the ins and outs. So
1:25
Speaker 2: it'll be really good to hear from you and get
1:27
Speaker 2: the timeline how this thought happened. Who were the victims,
1:31
Speaker 2: so we can learn a little bit more about them
1:34
Speaker 2: and then learn about how William Bradford Bishop has managed
1:38
Speaker 2: to evade authorities for all these years.
1:40
Speaker 1: Yes, in Kate, you're not familiar with them. William Bradford
1:42
Speaker 1: Bishop murdered his entire family and has not been found
1:46
Speaker 1: for nearly fifty years. And this is kind of different
1:49
Speaker 1: than your average wanted fugitive case because a lot of
1:52
Speaker 1: the time, there really isn't much mystery to talk about.
1:54
Speaker 1: You know, exactly what happened. The only unanswered question is
1:57
Speaker 1: where the fugitive is now. But there are just so
2:00
Speaker 1: many weird details surrounding this entire case that we're definitely
2:04
Speaker 1: gonna have a lot to talk about.
2:06
Speaker 2: I always find family annihilators to be the absolute worst.
2:11
Speaker 2: I mean, you can almost understand when somebody is in
2:14
Speaker 2: so much pain that they decide to end their own lives,
2:17
Speaker 2: and I don't get when they decide to take their
2:20
Speaker 2: families with them. But I find it even more egregious
2:23
Speaker 2: when somebody decides to annihilate their entire family and then
2:26
Speaker 2: they stay living like a Chris Watts for example.
2:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's the key difference with this is that
2:32
Speaker 1: Opinions are sharply divided about whether he might have killed
2:35
Speaker 1: himself shortly thereafter and has never been found, or if
2:38
Speaker 1: he's been living a new life somewhere for the past
2:40
Speaker 1: fifty years. So the story itself begins in nineteen seventy
2:45
Speaker 1: six in Bethesda, Maryland, which is located just northwest of Washington, DC,
2:50
Speaker 1: and at the time, William Bradford Bishop Junior, who went
2:54
Speaker 1: by the name Brad, was thirty nine years old and
2:56
Speaker 1: was working for the State Department as the Assistant Chief
3:00
Speaker 1: in the Division of Special Activities and Commercial Treaties. His wife,
3:04
Speaker 1: Annette Bishop, was thirty seven years old. They had been
3:07
Speaker 1: married for seventeen years at this point, and they had
3:10
Speaker 1: three sons of fourteen year old William Bradford Bishop the
3:13
Speaker 1: third who also went by Brad, ten year old Brent,
3:16
Speaker 1: and five year old Jeffrey, and they were also living
3:19
Speaker 1: with Brad's sixty eight year old mother, Lobelia Bishop, because
3:23
Speaker 1: Brad's father had died in nineteen sixty nine, so Lobelia
3:26
Speaker 1: volunteered to move in and help out with the family
3:29
Speaker 1: because Brad was working so much and on the surface,
3:32
Speaker 1: they seemed like they were the ideal family because he
3:36
Speaker 1: had a good job. They were in a nice house.
3:39
Speaker 1: Brad was the only child of his mother and father,
3:42
Speaker 1: so of course he was quite close to his mother.
3:44
Speaker 1: And he spent some time working in the army and
3:47
Speaker 1: encounter intelligence and became fluent in like no less than
3:51
Speaker 1: five different languages, including English, Italian, French, Spanish, and Serbo Croatian.
3:57
Speaker 1: And he had lived in a whole bunch of different
3:59
Speaker 1: countries over the years, because when you work with the
4:01
Speaker 1: State Department and the Foreign Service Program, they will post
4:04
Speaker 1: you in a whole bunch of different embassies in such
4:06
Speaker 1: countries as Italy, Ethiopia, and Botswana. But here you can
4:11
Speaker 1: kind of sense that Brad was becoming disenchanted because he
4:14
Speaker 1: had been living in Bethesda for the past two years.
4:17
Speaker 1: He was still working at the State Department headquarters in Washington,
4:21
Speaker 1: d C. But you can tell there was some tension
4:24
Speaker 1: there because I think Annett was getting tired of moving
4:27
Speaker 1: around a lot and moving her children around. She was
4:29
Speaker 1: getting into this comfortable suburban life and wanted to stay put,
4:33
Speaker 1: whereas Brad was the type of person who wanted to
4:35
Speaker 1: move around a lot, keep going to new postings, and
4:38
Speaker 1: he just wasn't having much luck. He was hoping to
4:40
Speaker 1: get a new posting somewhere soon in another country, but
4:43
Speaker 1: it wasn't happening, and some people can notice that his
4:46
Speaker 1: personality was changing and he was getting gradually more unhappy.
4:50
Speaker 2: When you give his background as far as his employment goes,
4:54
Speaker 2: it sounds like a spy, but he's a polyglot. He's
4:57
Speaker 2: worked in all these different countries. It sounds like there's
5:01
Speaker 2: an element of his personality that craves that intrigue and
5:06
Speaker 2: the dynamic nature of being able to move around to
5:09
Speaker 2: all these different places and to be able to communicate
5:12
Speaker 2: in all these different languages, and perhaps being stateside and
5:17
Speaker 2: the monotony of that and just the regular home life
5:21
Speaker 2: isn't what it was cracked up to be for him personally.
5:25
Speaker 1: Yes, I think he was a guy who really wanted
5:28
Speaker 1: to give off the impression that he was some sort
5:30
Speaker 1: of spy and worked an espionage work, but that really
5:33
Speaker 1: wasn't the reality of his life. He mostly did work
5:35
Speaker 1: inside an office at a desk, and that was a lot,
5:40
Speaker 1: usually due to the fact that he was given some
5:42
Speaker 1: unflattering security evaluations early in his career because he would
5:45
Speaker 1: do stuff like fail to secure classified documents and just
5:49
Speaker 1: leave them around and would say, Oh, it's just too
5:51
Speaker 1: much bother, I don't want to do it. So during
5:54
Speaker 1: one evaluation, he was graded as having being weak at judgment, flexibility,
5:59
Speaker 1: and an ability who apply common sense and good judgment.
6:03
Speaker 1: So while he was skilled at certain aspects of his job,
6:06
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound like he was skilled enough to do
6:08
Speaker 1: any high security espionage work. It's almost like we did
6:12
Speaker 1: our episodes a few weeks ago about the disappearance of
6:14
Speaker 1: Justin Bergwinkle, another guy who liked to give off the
6:17
Speaker 1: impression to friends and family that he was doing this
6:19
Speaker 1: very important secret intelligence work with the army when he
6:22
Speaker 1: was actually nothing more than a cook.
6:25
Speaker 2: I was hoping you were going to bring that up,
6:27
Speaker 2: because that's exactly what it triggered. He was going to
6:29
Speaker 2: go train at that language institute, so they have that
6:32
Speaker 2: parallel there, and then it's sort of like he needs
6:35
Speaker 2: to project this image into the world that he is
6:39
Speaker 2: more important and relied upon than he actually is. And
6:42
Speaker 2: it seems somewhat like Justin Bergwinkle, who was really impulsive.
6:46
Speaker 2: William Bradford Bishop, so he's really intelligent. We know that
6:50
Speaker 2: he's capable of pretty much anything. But he isn't conscientious.
6:54
Speaker 2: The thing that it's like, oh, I'm too lazy to
6:58
Speaker 2: secure these classified documents when that is within the purview
7:02
Speaker 2: of my work. It just seems like you're going to
7:04
Speaker 2: do the bare minimum and then you aren't going to
7:07
Speaker 2: respect authority when it's told to you that this is
7:10
Speaker 2: what needs to be done. You're not willing to do it.
7:13
Speaker 2: You're going to set your own parameters. So I can
7:16
Speaker 2: see why he was flagged for security reasons early on.
7:19
Speaker 1: Oh definitely. And we talked about that with Justin Bergwinkle,
7:22
Speaker 1: is that he did have some skills he was taking
7:24
Speaker 1: he was in the Korean language institute, but then he
7:27
Speaker 1: pretty much screwed up his entire career when he decided
7:30
Speaker 1: to shoplift at a video store, and they thought, yeah,
7:33
Speaker 1: that kind of shows that you're unreliable, you're impulsive, so
7:35
Speaker 1: you're never going to rise above the rank of private
7:38
Speaker 1: And I think it was the same thing with Brad,
7:40
Speaker 1: where it's like he just didn't do the little things
7:42
Speaker 1: that are required. So even though he got some good jobs,
7:45
Speaker 1: he was never going to rise higher than he really was.
7:48
Speaker 1: And that's what they said about the State Department, is
7:51
Speaker 1: that it was pretty much your reputation back then that
7:53
Speaker 1: if you were in the same job for a couple
7:55
Speaker 1: of years and stopped moving around, that was pretty much
7:58
Speaker 1: it like you were never going to rise any higher.
8:01
Speaker 1: And I think he was going to become frustrated by that.
8:04
Speaker 2: I can only imagine that knowing that you have this
8:07
Speaker 2: innate intelligence and this incredible potential to be able to
8:11
Speaker 2: do pretty much anything, but to know that you're only
8:14
Speaker 2: going to scratch the surface because of your own impulsive
8:18
Speaker 2: actions or inability to color within the lines in that
8:21
Speaker 2: job description has to be incredibly frustrating, and I think
8:26
Speaker 2: that would eat away at you over the years.
8:29
Speaker 1: I think so. Yeah, And he was almost forty years old,
8:32
Speaker 1: so I think he was suffering from some sort of
8:34
Speaker 1: midlife crisis, and there was a lot of stuff going
8:36
Speaker 1: on in his personal life that not many people knew
8:39
Speaker 1: until after the crime took place. Brad had a history
8:42
Speaker 1: of insomnia and depression and had been seeing a psychiatrist
8:45
Speaker 1: twice a week who gave him the anti anxiety medication Syrax.
8:50
Speaker 1: And I don't think his coworkers knew that because I'm
8:53
Speaker 1: sure back in the seventies they felt if you're having
8:55
Speaker 1: issues with your mental health, then we're not going to
8:57
Speaker 1: rely on you to do like top secretpionage work. And
9:01
Speaker 1: I'm sure he was paranoid that if anyone found out,
9:03
Speaker 1: he could potentially lose his job.
9:06
Speaker 2: We've all seen the show Homeland where Carrie has to
9:09
Speaker 2: hide the fact that she has bipolar disorder because she's
9:12
Speaker 2: afraid that she would be looked at as unreliable and
9:14
Speaker 2: not be able to do her work at the CIA,
9:17
Speaker 2: and that was set in the two thousands, and we've
9:20
Speaker 2: got the nineteen seventies here where On one hand, I
9:24
Speaker 2: think it's incredibly brave that he's seeing a psychiatrist and
9:27
Speaker 2: that he's trying to deal with his issues that he has.
9:31
Speaker 2: And I don't know if the anti anxiety medication helped
9:34
Speaker 2: him or didn't help him, but you can see how
9:38
Speaker 2: having insomnia and dealing with that level of anxiety can
9:41
Speaker 2: exacerbate any pre existing mental health condition, and it can
9:45
Speaker 2: almost create new ones, because if your brain can't rest
9:48
Speaker 2: and it can't detox, you're going to create a whole
9:51
Speaker 2: host of issues and that's going to bleed into every
9:54
Speaker 2: area of your life.
9:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm glad you brought up Homeland, because that was
9:57
Speaker 1: the first thing I thought of is that you watch
9:59
Speaker 1: the show and she has to cover it up for
10:01
Speaker 1: years because even though she's really good at her job,
10:04
Speaker 1: she knows that if anyone finds out about her bipolar
10:07
Speaker 1: disorder and her mental health issues, that she's going to
10:09
Speaker 1: lose her job. And that was probably the same type
10:12
Speaker 1: of thing with Brad. But there were a lot of
10:15
Speaker 1: problems going on at home at the time. Because Brad
10:17
Speaker 1: was pretty old school he wanted to do all the
10:20
Speaker 1: work while Annette remained a stay at home mom. But
10:23
Speaker 1: so when his mother, Labelia, moved in, she pretty much says, oh,
10:26
Speaker 1: I'll help out with the household responsibilities. I'll do stuff
10:29
Speaker 1: like drive the kids to school so that Annette can
10:31
Speaker 1: pursue her outside interests. And I don't think Brad liked
10:34
Speaker 1: that too much because she was doing stuff like studying
10:37
Speaker 1: art at the University of Maryland, and like I said earlier,
10:41
Speaker 1: she seemed very content to stay put and settle into
10:44
Speaker 1: the suburban lifestyle and not jump around from country to country,
10:48
Speaker 1: and Brad really didn't like that. And even though they
10:51
Speaker 1: looked like a successful family on the surface, it would
10:54
Speaker 1: later come out that they were suffering from financial problems.
10:57
Speaker 1: And that the IRS was about to give them an audit.
11:00
Speaker 1: I know Brad was unhappy because the cost of living
11:03
Speaker 1: near Washington, d c. Was higher than the cost of
11:05
Speaker 1: living overseas, so he had a hard time affording his
11:09
Speaker 1: house and his lifestyle. And I know that Lobilia had
11:13
Speaker 1: even provided the family with a thirty thousand dollars down
11:16
Speaker 1: payment to purchase their home. But the Moni was starting
11:19
Speaker 1: to run out because she had pretty much inherited her
11:21
Speaker 1: husband's sports and after he passed away, but she was
11:25
Speaker 1: not generating any income, and now they were reaching the
11:27
Speaker 1: point where Brad would have to financially take care of
11:30
Speaker 1: the entire family. And because he was living in a
11:33
Speaker 1: high cost of living area and he was not getting
11:35
Speaker 1: any promotions or any pay raises, it sounded like the
11:38
Speaker 1: whole facade was about to collapse.
11:42
Speaker 2: We see this often in family annihilator cases. There's often
11:45
Speaker 2: that pressure point, and it typically is something financial. And
11:49
Speaker 2: we saw it with that guy in France, what was
11:52
Speaker 2: the name.
11:53
Speaker 1: Xavier DuPont de Laganis, which was also on Unsolved Mysteries.
11:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was on Unsolved Mysteries, and he murdered his
12:00
Speaker 2: entire family and it was over the fact that he
12:03
Speaker 2: was essentially destitute and he was some kind of like
12:07
Speaker 2: aristocrat or he came from like a long line of
12:12
Speaker 2: like moneyed and like what would you call him? Would
12:15
Speaker 2: he lear an aristocrat?
12:17
Speaker 1: I think so?
12:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, okay, so you see what you saw it.
12:20
Speaker 2: In that case, it's either that it's either money or love.
12:23
Speaker 1: Right.
12:23
Speaker 2: You see with Chris Watts, it's because he wants to
12:25
Speaker 2: start a whole new life with somebody new. And in
12:29
Speaker 2: this case, you see somebody who's not sleeping, who's got
12:32
Speaker 2: an incredible amount of anxiety, who I don't really understand.
12:36
Speaker 2: When you're having financial issues, if you're going to take
12:39
Speaker 2: issue with your wife wanting to pursue other interests, you
12:42
Speaker 2: would think that you would want her to go out
12:44
Speaker 2: into the workforce because you've got lubilia at home, who's
12:47
Speaker 2: able to look after your children. Why not become a
12:50
Speaker 2: two income household rather than try to shoulder all of
12:53
Speaker 2: the responsibility yourself. It's like he wants to be this
12:57
Speaker 2: rock star jumping around from country to country, and he
13:00
Speaker 2: just wants a net to be his groupie and just
13:02
Speaker 2: follow him around from place to place.
13:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, because it seems obvious in retrospect that he
13:07
Speaker 1: was a narcissist, and like you said, it would have
13:09
Speaker 1: been much easier just to allow a net to get
13:12
Speaker 1: a job contribute income to the family, but he wanted
13:15
Speaker 1: to be seen as the sole caregiver and a net
13:17
Speaker 1: to stay at home. And it's like if he had
13:19
Speaker 1: just adjusted his attitude, maybe what happened wouldn't have happened.
13:23
Speaker 2: It's like you'd rather lose your house and lose your
13:25
Speaker 2: entire family than admit that you need help.
13:28
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to talk more about this later on,
13:30
Speaker 1: but I'm sure you've heard of John List, the notorious
13:32
Speaker 1: family annihilator, right, yes, yeah, And it was the same
13:36
Speaker 1: type of thing where he got laid off from his
13:38
Speaker 1: job and he would spend months like leaving the house
13:41
Speaker 1: as usual in the morning, pretending he was going to
13:44
Speaker 1: work when an actuality, he was just going to try
13:47
Speaker 1: to get new jobs, but spend the day just sitting
13:50
Speaker 1: at the train station reading the newspaper and would not
13:52
Speaker 1: tell his family he was unemployed. And then it reached
13:55
Speaker 1: the point where their money was running out, so he
13:57
Speaker 1: just decided to murder his entire family and go on
14:00
Speaker 1: the run and start over rather than try to seek help.
14:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's wild when you see people do that. It's
14:07
Speaker 2: like all you needed to do was ask for help
14:10
Speaker 2: and to be honest. But admitting failure and asking for
14:14
Speaker 2: help seems much more out of reach than murdering those
14:19
Speaker 2: that you love most. It is just such an absurd
14:21
Speaker 2: concept to people that aren't narcissists.
14:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's just so weird to the rest of
14:27
Speaker 1: the world. But for people who can do that, they
14:29
Speaker 1: just don't have the same thinking pattern them most people do.
14:33
Speaker 1: So it's believed that the big turning point took place
14:36
Speaker 1: on March the first, nineteen seventy six, because that's when
14:39
Speaker 1: the State Department's annual promotion list came out and Brad
14:42
Speaker 1: was hoping that he would receive a promotion and possibly
14:45
Speaker 1: a new posting in a new country. But when he
14:47
Speaker 1: looked at the list, his name wasn't on it, and
14:49
Speaker 1: he was very disappointed. He soon told his supervisor that
14:53
Speaker 1: he was not feeling well and would leave work early,
14:56
Speaker 1: and while he was exiting the building, he crossed paths
14:58
Speaker 1: with a fellow co worker, a Foreign Service officer named
15:01
Speaker 1: Roy Harrell, where he once again expressed his frustration for
15:05
Speaker 1: not making the list and getting the promotion, and he
15:08
Speaker 1: told Roy that I believe I'm getting the flu. I'm
15:11
Speaker 1: just going to go home, and the two men parted ways.
15:14
Speaker 1: But this is believed to be the last confirmed sighting
15:16
Speaker 1: of Brad Bishop before he committed a horrible crime, and
15:20
Speaker 1: it's believed that he was a taking time bomb. But
15:22
Speaker 1: seeing the promotion list and then seeing that his name
15:25
Speaker 1: was not on there was pretty much his breaking point.
15:28
Speaker 2: I suppose that was it for him. It was like, well,
15:31
Speaker 2: I'm not there's no upward mobility where I am. And
15:35
Speaker 2: you'd think the thoughts that could enter his mind that
15:38
Speaker 2: would be more rational. And I mean he was already
15:41
Speaker 2: seeking help from a psychiatrist if he thought about ending
15:44
Speaker 2: his own life. I mean, I could understand that, But
15:47
Speaker 2: just the jump to I'm going to kill my entire
15:51
Speaker 2: family because of my perceived failure is just wild to me,
15:56
Speaker 2: Like it just doesn't even compute, like how that could
15:59
Speaker 2: be the very next step. And I guess everything, like
16:03
Speaker 2: we said, it is just like a pressure cooker. He's
16:05
Speaker 2: not sleeping, he's taking the Santai anxiety medication. We don't
16:09
Speaker 2: know what kind of side effects it was or it
16:10
Speaker 2: wasn't having He's got an incredible amount of anxieties talking
16:15
Speaker 2: to a psychiatrist. He's frustrated that his wife is pursuing
16:20
Speaker 2: interest studying art and that his mom is there. She
16:23
Speaker 2: contributed that money, but she's no longer able to contribute
16:26
Speaker 2: money because the money is running out and they probably
16:29
Speaker 2: can't afford the house that they're living in, and just
16:32
Speaker 2: the solution is, okay, well, I'm just going to kill
16:34
Speaker 2: my family and go on the run.
16:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was pretty much it. Like I'm sure he
16:39
Speaker 1: was probably thinking of something like that for a while,
16:41
Speaker 1: but it's just a weird that a switch would go
16:43
Speaker 1: off where you get up one morning, go to work
16:45
Speaker 1: and are just having an ordinary routine morning. Then you
16:48
Speaker 1: see that your name's not on a promotion list and says, well,
16:50
Speaker 1: that's it for my life Like this, I'm just gonna
16:52
Speaker 1: kill my family and then I'm gonna start over somewhere.
16:55
Speaker 1: Like most normal people just cannot fathom a thought like that.
16:59
Speaker 1: So us was the last time anyone heard from anybody
17:02
Speaker 1: from the Bishop family for an entire week, and it
17:05
Speaker 1: was March the eighth, exactly seven days later, when the
17:07
Speaker 1: Montgomery County Police Department were called to the residents after
17:11
Speaker 1: receiving a concerned call from the bishop's next door neighbor.
17:15
Speaker 1: The neighbor agreeted the Lieutenant Joe Sergeant and said that
17:19
Speaker 1: I noticed that the family. They have two vehicles, but
17:21
Speaker 1: they're nineteen seventy four Chevrolet Malibu station wagon is gone.
17:25
Speaker 1: The entire family is gone, and their family dog, a
17:28
Speaker 1: Golden Retriever named Leo, was also nowhere to be found.
17:31
Speaker 1: And the neighbors said that it wasn't uncommon for the
17:34
Speaker 1: bishops to sometimes leave on vacations, but if they did so,
17:37
Speaker 1: they would contact their neighbors to say, could you collect
17:40
Speaker 1: our newspapers? Could you collect our mail? But she noticed
17:43
Speaker 1: that the newspapers were piling up at the house the
17:45
Speaker 1: mail was piling up at the mailbox, so she thought
17:48
Speaker 1: something was seriously wrong. So Lieutenant Sergeant decided to go
17:52
Speaker 1: check the residents and then immediately notice blood droplets on
17:55
Speaker 1: the front step and when he went inside, there was
17:57
Speaker 1: like blood everywhere, like in multiple rooms that made it
18:00
Speaker 1: look like a massacre had taken place, but there was
18:03
Speaker 1: no sign of the family anywhere. And this case was
18:06
Speaker 1: once featured in an Unsolved Mysteries and the Reenactment where
18:10
Speaker 1: Lieutenant sargent walks into the house, they play the ominous music,
18:13
Speaker 1: and then he just sees like a blood stained hallway.
18:16
Speaker 1: I remember as a kid watching that on TV and
18:18
Speaker 1: thought it was one of the creepiest, most disturbing things
18:21
Speaker 1: that ever seen. But right away they didn't assume that
18:24
Speaker 1: something really bad happened to the entire family.
18:27
Speaker 2: I can only imagine being an investigator and walking into that.
18:31
Speaker 2: You don't know what you're gonna find, but you know
18:33
Speaker 2: what you're gonna find isn't good. And so you know
18:37
Speaker 2: that this is a house where a family lives, so
18:40
Speaker 2: there's a potential that there could be children. There's three children.
18:44
Speaker 2: That's something that I don't think any investigator ever wants
18:48
Speaker 2: to come across, is children that have been murdered or
18:51
Speaker 2: dead kids. And so I can imagine the apprehension once
18:56
Speaker 2: you see that blood everywhere, and you're just hoping and
19:00
Speaker 2: that that's not what you're going to find, But in
19:02
Speaker 2: your heart of hearts, you would likely know that there's
19:06
Speaker 2: a massacre here because of this sheer amount of blood.
19:08
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Like Lieutenant Sergeant was interviewed on Unsolved Mysteries
19:11
Speaker 1: and said something like, I've been a cop for twenty
19:14
Speaker 1: five years, and this is the most amount of blood
19:16
Speaker 1: I had ever seen at a crime scene. And what
19:18
Speaker 1: was particularly disturbing is that the bedrooms where the children
19:21
Speaker 1: slept had pretty much more blood than any other rooms.
19:24
Speaker 1: So that was pretty much a sign that they probably
19:27
Speaker 1: were the victim of an horrific crime. But at the time,
19:30
Speaker 1: because Brad wasn't there, they didn't initially suspect that he
19:33
Speaker 1: was the one who did it. They figured that maybe
19:35
Speaker 1: the entire family was wiped out by an outside intruder. So,
19:39
Speaker 1: but it wasn't long before they kind of figured out
19:42
Speaker 1: what really happened, because it turned out that on March
19:44
Speaker 1: the second, which was the day after Brad left the
19:47
Speaker 1: State Department building for not making the promotion list, at
19:50
Speaker 1: around twelve forty pm that day, a park ranger responded
19:54
Speaker 1: to a brush fire in a densely wooded swamp area
19:57
Speaker 1: in Tyrrell County, North Carolina, which is about two hundred
20:01
Speaker 1: and seventy five miles southeast of Bethesda, and when they arrived,
20:04
Speaker 1: they realized that was coming outside of a freshly dug hole,
20:08
Speaker 1: and when the fire was put out, the ranger was
20:10
Speaker 1: horrified to discovered that there were five bodies inside, and
20:14
Speaker 1: even before they identified he was able to tell that
20:16
Speaker 1: because three of them were smaller than usual, that three
20:19
Speaker 1: of the victims were children. And they also found a
20:22
Speaker 1: whole bunch of items next to the hole, including an
20:25
Speaker 1: empty gas can, a pitchfork, and a shovel. So whoever
20:29
Speaker 1: did this made no attempt to cover up their crime,
20:32
Speaker 1: And at the time, there were no missing persons reports
20:35
Speaker 1: in the area and the bishops had not been reported missing,
20:38
Speaker 1: so they could figure out who these victims were. But
20:41
Speaker 1: after the bishop's residence was discovered to be soaked in
20:44
Speaker 1: blood on March the eighth, that's when they put two
20:46
Speaker 1: and two together and discovered and realized that the victims
20:49
Speaker 1: in the hole were Annette, Lubilia and the three boys.
20:53
Speaker 2: It seems odd that you would even bother to take
20:56
Speaker 2: them off the premises, to leave them kind of out
21:00
Speaker 2: in the open like that.
21:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is what I've always wondered about this, is
21:04
Speaker 1: that if Brad had buried his entire family and put
21:07
Speaker 1: them in a hole, then it would have taken a
21:09
Speaker 1: lot longer for anyone to figure out what happened, Like
21:11
Speaker 1: people would have initially thought that maybe Brad was a
21:14
Speaker 1: victim too, But because he was the only person not
21:17
Speaker 1: in the hole and they were able to discover the
21:19
Speaker 1: bodies immediately, they instantly figured out that he was the perpetrator.
21:23
Speaker 1: And he didn't attempt to cover it up because his
21:26
Speaker 1: fingerprints were found on the gas can found at the hole,
21:28
Speaker 1: so he left the evidence behind. So people have always
21:31
Speaker 1: speculated that, yes, even though I'm going to become a
21:34
Speaker 1: wanted fugitive and everyone will know as a murderer, I
21:37
Speaker 1: want these bodies to be found. I want them to
21:39
Speaker 1: be set on fire and for the whole world to
21:42
Speaker 1: know what I've done. So until he has captured someday,
21:45
Speaker 1: we may never know his reasoning for doing this, Why
21:47
Speaker 1: he would take his family two hundred and seventy five miles,
21:50
Speaker 1: put them in a hole, and then set their bodies
21:52
Speaker 1: in fire for the entire world to see.
21:55
Speaker 2: It almost feels like he had further plans. Maybe he
21:59
Speaker 2: planned and to plan to light them on fire towards
22:02
Speaker 2: all of the evidence and then bury them. But then
22:06
Speaker 2: perhaps he was interrupted and somebody came upon the site
22:09
Speaker 2: where he was doing this, and he got spooked and
22:12
Speaker 2: so he left. Because I just can't think that you
22:15
Speaker 2: would take these bodies so far away, just leave them
22:18
Speaker 2: out in the open and exposed, when that seems like
22:22
Speaker 2: a great deal of effort because it exposes you your
22:25
Speaker 2: fingerprints are there, when you could have just left them
22:28
Speaker 2: at the house and got a head start. Because this
22:30
Speaker 2: just takes extra time hauling dead bodies into a vehicle
22:35
Speaker 2: and like going through the process of them taking them
22:38
Speaker 2: out driving this distance. I don't understand what his motivation
22:42
Speaker 2: was there. I have to think that he was interrupted somehow.
22:45
Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking, because I know that when the
22:46
Speaker 1: park ranger arrived, he sensed that someone had been He
22:49
Speaker 1: saw the fire almost immediately, so he missed bishop by
22:53
Speaker 1: like only minutes before he left. So it makes me
22:55
Speaker 1: wonder if someone else passed by and then he decided, oh,
22:58
Speaker 1: I better leave before I figure the job, before I'm found.
23:01
Speaker 1: But he technically was not seen at the murder scene.
23:05
Speaker 1: But because the station wagon was missing, it seemed obvious
23:08
Speaker 1: that he had used them to transport the bodies. But
23:11
Speaker 1: when you look at the timeline, you realize that he
23:14
Speaker 1: had to murder his entire family, put their bodies in
23:16
Speaker 1: a station wagon, and pretty much drive two hundred and
23:19
Speaker 1: seventy five miles all night without any sleep before he
23:23
Speaker 1: wound up at this location and then just decided to
23:25
Speaker 1: dig a hole and set them on fire. And it's like,
23:28
Speaker 1: that's just something that most people can never process. How
23:30
Speaker 1: you could drive that long with your the murder, with
23:33
Speaker 1: the bodies of your wife, your mother, and your three
23:36
Speaker 1: children in the back of your car.
23:39
Speaker 2: I mean, I would think that committing murders in that
23:43
Speaker 2: manner would be like, do you remember that show with
23:46
Speaker 2: Chason Statham that came out years ago, Crank the movie?
23:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And.
23:51
Speaker 2: So they like keep on having to hit him with
23:53
Speaker 2: things that are going to like raise his adrenaline and
23:56
Speaker 2: to keep him alive. I feel like it's a life
24:00
Speaker 2: for death thing here. You know that in order to survive,
24:04
Speaker 2: I need to get rid of these bodies, and I
24:06
Speaker 2: need to dispose of them. And I would think that
24:08
Speaker 2: his original plan would be what you said, bury the bodies,
24:11
Speaker 2: get rid of them, and then if he's missing as well,
24:15
Speaker 2: they're going to assume that he's wherever the rest of
24:17
Speaker 2: the family is, and they're not going to assume that
24:19
Speaker 2: he's the perpetrator. So it would give him, it will
24:22
Speaker 2: least buy him some time, but it just doesn't. It
24:26
Speaker 2: doesn't make sense to me.
24:29
Speaker 1: So after the bodies were discovered and they put two
24:32
Speaker 1: and two together, they started to trace Brad's movements after
24:35
Speaker 1: he left the State Department headquarters on March the first,
24:38
Speaker 1: and once they did this, it became obvious that he
24:41
Speaker 1: was the perpetrator because that afternoon he went to a
24:44
Speaker 1: bank and emptied out his family's account by withdrawing four
24:47
Speaker 1: hundred dollars. Then they tracked his credit card and found
24:50
Speaker 1: out that he had gone through an apartment store to
24:52
Speaker 1: purchase a ballpeen hammer and an empty gas can, and
24:56
Speaker 1: he also stopped at a gas station to fill up
24:58
Speaker 1: his fuel tank and the gas can, presumably, and then
25:01
Speaker 1: he went to a hardware store to buy the pitchfork
25:03
Speaker 1: and the shovel. And once they looked at the bodies,
25:06
Speaker 1: it was apparent that all five family members have been
25:10
Speaker 1: bludgeoned to death with the ballpeen hammer. Based on the
25:13
Speaker 1: evidence of the crime scene, they suspected that Brad killed
25:16
Speaker 1: Annette first while she was reading in the study, because
25:19
Speaker 1: there was a lot of blood there, and there was
25:22
Speaker 1: blood on a notebook she had been writing in at
25:24
Speaker 1: the time. That night, witnesses had recalled seeing Lobilia out
25:29
Speaker 1: walking the family dog. So they suspected that Brad killed
25:32
Speaker 1: Annette while Lobelia was gone, and then when she walked
25:35
Speaker 1: into the house, she might have been cornered in a
25:37
Speaker 1: bathroom and was killed second. And this detail has always
25:41
Speaker 1: disturbed me. But they have said that Lobilia's injuries were
25:44
Speaker 1: not as severe as the other victims, so they have
25:46
Speaker 1: suspected that Brad may have actually smothered her to death,
25:49
Speaker 1: or alternatively, that she might have literally been frightened to death,
25:53
Speaker 1: that she was in such shock from seeing her son
25:55
Speaker 1: trying to kill her with a ballpeen hammer that she
25:58
Speaker 1: may have literally died of fright suffered a fatal heart
26:01
Speaker 1: attack before he can bludgeon her too many times.
26:03
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that is horrific, this poor woman said.
26:08
Speaker 2: No mother should ever experience their son as a killer.
26:12
Speaker 2: But to know that your son is annihilating his entire
26:15
Speaker 2: family and he's coming at you with a hammer. Even
26:18
Speaker 2: if she was smothered, she had to know in her
26:21
Speaker 2: last moments what he was trying to do to her.
26:24
Speaker 2: And I can't imagine what that must have felt like
26:26
Speaker 2: to die like that at the hands of your own son.
26:29
Speaker 1: Exactly like I'm sure she was aware that her son
26:31
Speaker 1: had problems and that there were issues in the marriage,
26:34
Speaker 1: but she probably never thought that he would do something
26:36
Speaker 1: as extreme as annihilate his entire family. So it could
26:40
Speaker 1: have been a thing where she returned home with the
26:42
Speaker 1: dog and discovered and that's bloody body in the study
26:45
Speaker 1: and then decided to go into the bathroom to hide
26:47
Speaker 1: from him, and while he was attempting to attack, or
26:50
Speaker 1: she just suddenly died of fright and suffered a fatal
26:52
Speaker 1: heart attack.
26:54
Speaker 2: If I remember correctly about this case, isn't there something
26:57
Speaker 2: with the dog like that we find out later?
26:59
Speaker 1: The dog is still an unsolved mystery. It's suspected that
27:02
Speaker 1: Brad took the dog with him when he left, but
27:04
Speaker 1: what ultimately happened to him we still don't know. But
27:07
Speaker 1: that's kind of another disturbing detail that he has no
27:10
Speaker 1: qualms about murdering his entire family, but he apparently was
27:13
Speaker 1: very fond of Leo the dog, so he likely took
27:15
Speaker 1: him with them when he left. Just one of those
27:17
Speaker 1: weird cases we see sometimes where murderers have no qualms
27:21
Speaker 1: about killing people but will draw the line at harming animals.
27:25
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess if you look at it from
27:27
Speaker 2: the perspective of you can have dominion over an animal
27:30
Speaker 2: in a way that you couldn't over another human. The
27:33
Speaker 2: humans will fight back, whereas dogs people treat them horribly
27:37
Speaker 2: at times, but they still love you and they will
27:40
Speaker 2: still be loyal. And so somebody who is clearly a narcissist,
27:46
Speaker 2: we see this in his behavior, Obviously we're not diagnosing him,
27:49
Speaker 2: we're just basing it off of his behavior. Then we're
27:53
Speaker 2: going to see somebody who is going to like that
27:55
Speaker 2: constant attention that he's going to get from the dog,
27:58
Speaker 2: and the dog will never criticize him. The dog will
28:00
Speaker 2: never make him feel like he isn't enough. So from
28:04
Speaker 2: that perspective, I can understand how he would spare the
28:07
Speaker 2: dog and end the lives of his family because he
28:10
Speaker 2: obviously felt like a failure, and he was probably projecting
28:14
Speaker 2: those feelings onto everybody around him, so that he was saying, oh,
28:18
Speaker 2: they're making me feel this way, but the reality was
28:21
Speaker 2: he was making himself feel that way.
28:23
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that is what everyone has always assumed. That
28:26
Speaker 1: he probably got criticized by his mother and his wife
28:29
Speaker 1: or for having these financial problems and for not doing
28:32
Speaker 1: better at work and for not allowing anet to get
28:35
Speaker 1: a job. But he probably thought to himself, well, the
28:37
Speaker 1: dog will never criticize me like this, It will never
28:39
Speaker 1: talk back to me. So I got no problems with
28:41
Speaker 1: taking him with me.
28:42
Speaker 2: And do you know anything about his spending habits? Like
28:46
Speaker 2: we know we had financial issues, but did he like
28:49
Speaker 2: overspend in certain areas because it just seems like they
28:53
Speaker 2: have this normal life And the mom gave him this
28:56
Speaker 2: thirty thousand dollars for a down payment. So at the time,
29:00
Speaker 2: I'm thirty thousand dollars in the nineteen seventies, that's a
29:03
Speaker 2: lot of money that would be like, I don't know what,
29:06
Speaker 2: like eighty thousand dollars now one hundred thousand dollars now
29:10
Speaker 2: probably one hundred.
29:11
Speaker 1: I think so. Yeah, because his salary at the State
29:14
Speaker 1: Department I think was twenty five thousand dollars a year,
29:17
Speaker 1: which doesn't seem like much now but was probably worth
29:20
Speaker 1: a lot more then. I don't know a lot about
29:23
Speaker 1: his spending habits, but I think he probably overpaid for
29:25
Speaker 1: the house and got too much financial assistance from his
29:28
Speaker 1: mother and couldn't make the mortgage payments. And he would
29:31
Speaker 1: sometimes leave to go to places like Europe on business trips,
29:35
Speaker 1: and I usually if you're employed by the government, you
29:37
Speaker 1: get reimbursed expenses, but I'm not sure if maybe he
29:40
Speaker 1: was still spending lavishly over there. But when you find
29:43
Speaker 1: out that he withdrew his emptied out his entire family's
29:47
Speaker 1: entire bank account, and it was only four hundred dollars,
29:49
Speaker 1: and you're like, yeah, that's not an awful lot for
29:51
Speaker 1: a guy who's got three children and has a government job.
29:55
Speaker 2: No, And you also have to wonder if he was
29:57
Speaker 2: going solo on these trips to Europe, and we know
30:00
Speaker 2: that he liked to project this image of success and
30:03
Speaker 2: that you know, potentially he was a spy. Maybe he
30:06
Speaker 2: was meeting women when he was overseas, or entertaining clients
30:11
Speaker 2: or entertaining business associates and paying for everything, trying to
30:17
Speaker 2: look like he was a big shot when in reality
30:20
Speaker 2: he wasn't. And these types of things that maybe the
30:23
Speaker 2: government wouldn't reimburse because he would likely have a stipend
30:26
Speaker 2: where you know, you can spend X amount of dollars
30:28
Speaker 2: per day on lodging, on food, on entertainment. I don't
30:32
Speaker 2: know what his setup was, but I think there is
30:35
Speaker 2: a very real possibility that he could have been overspending
30:38
Speaker 2: in that capacity, trying to live this life and be
30:41
Speaker 2: this big shot that he truly felt like he deserved
30:44
Speaker 2: to be, but it wasn't it wasn't materializing in his
30:47
Speaker 2: own life.
30:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would make sense to me because I work
30:50
Speaker 1: for Global Affairs Canada for the government, and I don't
30:53
Speaker 1: go on these business trips, but I know plenty of
30:55
Speaker 1: lawyers who do, and I can tell you that they
30:57
Speaker 1: ought it. Everything that you do over there that if
30:59
Speaker 1: you want to be reimbursed expenses, you have to provide
31:02
Speaker 1: receipts and justifications for why you spent so much. So
31:06
Speaker 1: if Brad was spending beyond his means, he definitely would
31:09
Speaker 1: not be reimbursed everything. So another disturbing detail is that
31:13
Speaker 1: it's believed that his three children were sleeping at the
31:16
Speaker 1: time that Brad killed Annette and Lobelia, because they found
31:20
Speaker 1: massive amounts of blood in their bedrooms. Brad Junior, the
31:23
Speaker 1: oldest one, had his own room, and Brent and Jeffrey,
31:27
Speaker 1: the two youngest, shared a room and had bunk beds.
31:30
Speaker 1: And one of the most disturbing details of the crime
31:32
Speaker 1: scene is that they found marks from the ballpeen hammer
31:36
Speaker 1: in the ceiling above the top bunk bed where one
31:39
Speaker 1: of his sons slept, So that meant that he probably
31:42
Speaker 1: killed him in such a fit of rage that he
31:44
Speaker 1: swung his hammer so high that he actually was hitting
31:46
Speaker 1: the ceiling while coming down to bludge in one of
31:49
Speaker 1: his children. And people just see that detail and were like,
31:52
Speaker 1: what drives a father to do something like that to
31:54
Speaker 1: his own son.
31:57
Speaker 2: It's absolutely horrific. And I mean, I guess it depends
32:01
Speaker 2: on how high that bunkbed is, because I'm trying to
32:03
Speaker 2: think of like friends who had bunk beds when I
32:05
Speaker 2: was a kid, and like some of them are higher
32:08
Speaker 2: so that you might not be able to get an
32:10
Speaker 2: adult arm to swing backwards to hit without hitting the ceiling.
32:15
Speaker 2: So I think that that is also possible that it's
32:19
Speaker 2: just a regular swing. But either way, it doesn't really
32:23
Speaker 2: matter the fact that you were able to do this
32:25
Speaker 2: to your small, sleeping children while they're in their bunk
32:28
Speaker 2: beds and not think twice about it and just go
32:32
Speaker 2: through with this like this is a normal action. It's
32:36
Speaker 2: so chilling.
32:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, And we'll probably never know if these children were
32:39
Speaker 1: aware of what happened, if they were still sleeping, or
32:41
Speaker 1: if they were woken up by the noise downstairs of
32:44
Speaker 1: him killing a Natin lobelia. But it's very possible that
32:48
Speaker 1: they were just sleeping and then we're just like taken
32:50
Speaker 1: by complete surprise when their father just stood over them
32:53
Speaker 1: and decided to bludgeon them to death.
32:56
Speaker 2: I would think that the first one that he killed
33:00
Speaker 2: likely didn't know what was coming, but whatever child that
33:04
Speaker 2: he killed second, I would think would have been aware
33:07
Speaker 2: of the disturbance. They might not have heard a cry,
33:10
Speaker 2: they might not have heard anything specific, but they would
33:13
Speaker 2: have noticed a presence. And I would think that you
33:16
Speaker 2: couldn't just like kill one kid in the bunk. I
33:18
Speaker 2: don't know which one you would do first, if that
33:20
Speaker 2: was like what your objective was, if you would go
33:23
Speaker 2: to the higher bunk and then go to the lower bunk,
33:25
Speaker 2: or kill the elder of the two and leave the
33:29
Speaker 2: younger one because it would be easier. I don't know
33:32
Speaker 2: what his thought process was, but I would think that
33:35
Speaker 2: the second one who was killed would have been awake
33:37
Speaker 2: for it.
33:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I'm thinking as well, that there's no
33:40
Speaker 1: way that one of the kids stayed awake while he
33:42
Speaker 1: was killing the other one. In the bunk beds. So
33:44
Speaker 1: it's just an horrific thought to think that they were
33:46
Speaker 1: aware of their own father doing that.
33:49
Speaker 2: Poor little babies.
33:51
Speaker 1: So they kept checking Brad's credit card and the last
33:54
Speaker 1: official transaction took place on March the second, after he
33:58
Speaker 1: had stopped in Terrell County to bury and burn his
34:01
Speaker 1: family's bodies, he drove one hundred and thirty miles south
34:04
Speaker 1: to a sporting goods store in Jacksonville, North Carolina, and
34:08
Speaker 1: used his credit card to buy a pair of tennis shoes.
34:11
Speaker 1: And because his signature was on the credit card receipt
34:13
Speaker 1: and a match Brad's handwriting, and the store owner looked
34:16
Speaker 1: at a photo and said that, Yep, this was definitely
34:18
Speaker 1: the guy who made the purchase. And technically this is
34:21
Speaker 1: the last confirmed eyewitness sighting of Brad. There will be
34:25
Speaker 1: other sidings of him later on, but this is the
34:27
Speaker 1: first time where you could say that, yes, he was
34:29
Speaker 1: definitely alive at this particular point. And what's interesting is
34:33
Speaker 1: that the owner said that he saw a woman whom
34:35
Speaker 1: he described as dark skinned, standing outside the store with
34:39
Speaker 1: a dog on a leash, and even though the owner
34:41
Speaker 1: thought that the dog was an Irish setter, and the
34:44
Speaker 1: Bishop family dog, Leo, was a Golden Retriever. Leo also
34:48
Speaker 1: had a dark red coat, and so it's been suspected
34:50
Speaker 1: that the owner could have mistaken a Golden Retriever for
34:54
Speaker 1: an Irish setter. And the owner can't be be a
34:57
Speaker 1: one hundred percent convinced that Brad and this woman worked together,
35:01
Speaker 1: but he said that he saw them interacting and got
35:04
Speaker 1: the impression that they were a couple. But to this day,
35:07
Speaker 1: no one has been able to figure out the identity
35:09
Speaker 1: of this woman or say with absolute certainty that she
35:13
Speaker 1: was with Brad at that time.
35:16
Speaker 2: It really wouldn't surprise me if there was a woman
35:19
Speaker 2: involved in the mix, because like we saw with Chris Watts,
35:23
Speaker 2: and you see it with a lot of other family annihilators,
35:26
Speaker 2: usually financial or to do with a woman or both,
35:29
Speaker 2: I would think that it would be an even stronger motivator.
35:32
Speaker 2: But I think what this does show us is that
35:35
Speaker 2: maybe he was thinking about doing this for a long
35:37
Speaker 2: period of time. But he's a really smart guy. And
35:41
Speaker 2: even back then, it's known that you can be traced
35:45
Speaker 2: through credit card payments, So the fact that he didn't
35:48
Speaker 2: buy all of this stuff before he left, that he
35:51
Speaker 2: waited until days after those bodies were discovered, and then
35:55
Speaker 2: he used his credit card. Tells us that he didn't
35:58
Speaker 2: pre plan this all.
36:00
Speaker 1: Well, pretty much, yeah, because he could have just gotten
36:03
Speaker 1: the shoes while he was still in Maryland or Washington.
36:06
Speaker 1: We don't know why he did it. It's possible that
36:09
Speaker 1: maybe he had blood on his shoes and just needed
36:11
Speaker 1: a change before anyone noticed, but he does eventually. His
36:15
Speaker 1: car is eventually found in a national park, so maybe
36:17
Speaker 1: he wanted the tennis shoes to go hiking. We still
36:20
Speaker 1: don't know. But you mentioned the Chris Watts case, and
36:23
Speaker 1: now he had a mistress who was completely unaware of
36:26
Speaker 1: what I know. A lot of people like to accuse
36:29
Speaker 1: her of being complicit in the murders, but they've never
36:31
Speaker 1: found any evidence of that. And because we don't know
36:34
Speaker 1: the identity of this dark skinned woman seen in Jacksonville,
36:37
Speaker 1: we have no idea if she knew at the time
36:39
Speaker 1: if Brad had murdered his family. But there's the possibility though,
36:43
Speaker 1: that if she did find out that Brad could have
36:45
Speaker 1: killed her too, possibly disposed of her body somewhere. And
36:48
Speaker 1: no one has been able to put two and two together.
36:50
Speaker 1: But no one has ever found any evidence that Brad
36:53
Speaker 1: was conducting any affairs at that point. But he did
36:56
Speaker 1: go on a business trip to Switzerland about a month
36:59
Speaker 1: or two before the murders and was apparently seen on
37:02
Speaker 1: the ski slopes with a woman. No one has been
37:05
Speaker 1: able to establish if it was the same woman scene
37:07
Speaker 1: in Jacksonville, but I do think there is a possibility
37:10
Speaker 1: he was conducting an extramarital affair and no one ever
37:13
Speaker 1: found out about it.
37:14
Speaker 2: That would definitely line up with my idea that he
37:17
Speaker 2: was over spending money, potentially on women and trying to
37:22
Speaker 2: be this big shot, and that was one of the
37:24
Speaker 2: things that was a major contributing factor to his financial problems,
37:28
Speaker 2: because everything on paper looks like they live a fairly
37:31
Speaker 2: simple life and that you know, the kids are just
37:34
Speaker 2: doing regular kid things and they're supporting a household. But
37:38
Speaker 2: he has a good job, makes good money, there's a
37:40
Speaker 2: good down payment on that house, which means that his
37:43
Speaker 2: mortgage payment shouldn't be that high. That he has to
37:46
Speaker 2: be spending money somewhere, so him, you know, coorting around
37:50
Speaker 2: the slopes in Switzerland with some mystery woman would seem
37:54
Speaker 2: to line up with the picture that is slowly forming
37:58
Speaker 2: of William Bradford Bishop.
37:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, they would not surprise me at all. And there's
38:01
Speaker 1: going to be another revelation later on in this episode
38:03
Speaker 1: which shows that he was capable of cheating on his wife.
38:06
Speaker 1: So it would not surprise me in the least if
38:08
Speaker 1: he was having an affair at that time. So they
38:11
Speaker 1: would eventually discover the abandoned Bishop family station wagon on
38:16
Speaker 1: March the eighteenth, which was about seventeen days after the
38:19
Speaker 1: murder took place, and they found traces of blood still inside,
38:22
Speaker 1: and they also found the anti anxiety medication brad had
38:26
Speaker 1: been taking at the time, called Seirax, which some people
38:29
Speaker 1: have taken as a sign that maybe he was planning suicide,
38:33
Speaker 1: because you would think that if he wanted to go
38:35
Speaker 1: on the run, he would still want his medication with him.
38:38
Speaker 1: So it was found in a parking lot of the
38:41
Speaker 1: Elkmont Campground near Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and it was a part
38:45
Speaker 1: of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It was about
38:48
Speaker 1: five hundred miles west from the spot where the Bishop
38:51
Speaker 1: family's bodies have been found. And even though the car
38:54
Speaker 1: was abandoned, there are no confirmed sightings of Brat from
38:57
Speaker 1: any eyewitnesses who could recall having seen him in the park.
39:01
Speaker 1: And this can be interpreted in different ways because when
39:03
Speaker 1: they checked the bishop residence, they found out that the family,
39:06
Speaker 1: because they traveled a lot, all of them had diplomatic passports,
39:10
Speaker 1: so Brad's was missing. So some people have taken that
39:13
Speaker 1: as a sign that he was planning to skip the
39:15
Speaker 1: country and go somewhere to start a new life. But
39:18
Speaker 1: on the other hand, they found out that a gun
39:20
Speaker 1: Brad owned was missing as well from the house and
39:22
Speaker 1: has never been found. So opinions are still sharply divided
39:26
Speaker 1: about whether he skipped the country or because he had
39:29
Speaker 1: been to Smoky Mountains National Park before, he seemed to
39:33
Speaker 1: like it. People have wondered if he just decided to
39:35
Speaker 1: go into the woods, into a remote area and complete
39:38
Speaker 1: suicide and they still have not found his remains because
39:41
Speaker 1: the park is so large.
39:44
Speaker 2: I mean, that's entirely possible. You could say that he
39:47
Speaker 2: brought the gun because it was his objective to eventually
39:50
Speaker 2: end his own life. But I think if he wanted
39:52
Speaker 2: to end his own life, he could have done it
39:54
Speaker 2: at the house after he killed his entire family. I
39:57
Speaker 2: personally don't believe that that was his j active I
40:00
Speaker 2: think that he wanted to continue to live and continue
40:03
Speaker 2: to do things. Whether or not he used that passport,
40:06
Speaker 2: he kept it as an option by grabbing it. If
40:09
Speaker 2: he was just like, I'm going to go end my
40:10
Speaker 2: own life, why bring your diplomatic passport?
40:13
Speaker 1: Exactly? I mean, that's the thing is that, like you said,
40:16
Speaker 1: if he wanted to kill himself, he could have just
40:18
Speaker 1: done it at the house, or he could have done
40:20
Speaker 1: it at the spot where he buried his family's bodies.
40:22
Speaker 1: And it also makes no sense for him to go
40:24
Speaker 1: and purchase tennis shoes if he's planning to go end
40:27
Speaker 1: his own life a short time later. And I do
40:30
Speaker 1: personally think he was too narcissistic in order to end
40:32
Speaker 1: his own life. And because he had a lot of
40:35
Speaker 1: experience traveling overseas and he was fluent in different languages,
40:40
Speaker 1: he pretty much fits the profile of a fugitive who
40:42
Speaker 1: would be capable of like disappearing into a new life
40:45
Speaker 1: in a new country on the other side of the world.
40:48
Speaker 1: March the nineteenth, the day after the station wagon was discovered,
40:51
Speaker 1: a grand jury finally indicted Brad on five counts of
40:54
Speaker 1: first degree murder, and he became he wanted fugitive, but
40:57
Speaker 1: at this point, he pretty much had an eighteen head start,
41:01
Speaker 1: and because traveling overseas back then was so much more
41:05
Speaker 1: loose than it is now, I think it would have
41:07
Speaker 1: been perfectly easy for him to escape the country and
41:10
Speaker 1: already been somewhere else by the time he became a fugitive.
41:15
Speaker 2: I agree. I think that there's a strong likelihood that
41:18
Speaker 2: he used his knowledge, his ability to you know, speak
41:23
Speaker 2: several different languages, and all of his training to his advantage.
41:27
Speaker 2: And the thing is, if it was today, the technology
41:30
Speaker 2: would so easily be able to find him right away
41:33
Speaker 2: if he used that passport. But back in the nineteen seventies,
41:37
Speaker 2: we're looking at like pre Internet era. There's no computers
41:41
Speaker 2: connecting everything, So if he used that passport, I guess
41:45
Speaker 2: we'll just never truly know, Like they can't go back.
41:48
Speaker 2: I guess in every single country, you would have to
41:50
Speaker 2: go back and go through records manually, would you not.
41:54
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, definitely. Back in the nineteen seventies, and he
41:57
Speaker 1: had a diplomatic passport, so he was known for travel,
42:00
Speaker 1: so if he went to another country, it wouldn't arouse
42:02
Speaker 1: any suspicion at all. And the news of the murders
42:06
Speaker 1: didn't make it out there until weeks after the fact,
42:08
Speaker 1: so they're not going to know that he's a wanted
42:10
Speaker 1: family annihilator. They're just going to see he's a State
42:12
Speaker 1: Department employee who travels a lot and has a diplomatic passport.
42:16
Speaker 1: So they'll pretty much say, sure, go on in, We're
42:18
Speaker 1: not going to question you at all. There's nothing to
42:20
Speaker 1: arouse suspicion at all.
42:22
Speaker 2: I would think that if he planned to kill his family,
42:25
Speaker 2: that he thought that he deserved the best. That he
42:27
Speaker 2: deserved this life where he was mistering, you know, kind
42:30
Speaker 2: of James Bond and living this glamorous lifestyle, and he
42:34
Speaker 2: was unencumbered and getting to achieve these heights of success,
42:39
Speaker 2: and he wanted to project that into the world. I
42:41
Speaker 2: can't imagine that if he was going to go to
42:44
Speaker 2: I'm sure what he would think of to the trouble,
42:46
Speaker 2: to murder his entire family and to go on the run,
42:50
Speaker 2: that his objective would be anything different than getting to
42:53
Speaker 2: live the life that he thinks that he deserved.
42:57
Speaker 1: So that about brings an ind to part one of
42:58
Speaker 1: our series on the Bishop family murders. But be sure
43:01
Speaker 1: to join us next week for Part two, Robin, do
43:04
Speaker 1: you want.
43:04
Speaker 3: To tell us a little bit about the Trail Went
43:06
Speaker 3: Cold Patreon?
43:07
Speaker 1: Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
43:10
Speaker 1: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
43:13
Speaker 1: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
43:17
Speaker 1: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
43:20
Speaker 1: with us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars
43:22
Speaker 1: tier tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
43:26
Speaker 1: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
43:30
Speaker 1: the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to
43:32
Speaker 1: Patreon and if you join our highest tier tier three,
43:36
Speaker 1: the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer
43:39
Speaker 1: is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries,
43:43
Speaker 1: where you can download an audio file and then boot
43:46
Speaker 1: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
43:50
Speaker 1: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
43:53
Speaker 1: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
43:56
Speaker 1: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
44:00
Speaker 1: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
44:02
Speaker 1: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
44:05
Speaker 1: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
44:08
Speaker 1: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor then be sure to join
44:11
Speaker 1: Tier three.
44:12
Speaker 3: So I want to let you know a little bit
44:14
Speaker 3: about the Jeweles and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad
44:17
Speaker 3: free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've bought our
44:19
Speaker 3: Pathwent Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so
44:23
Speaker 3: they're not very mini, but they're just too short to
44:25
Speaker 3: turn into a series and we're really enjoying doing those,
44:28
Speaker 3: so we hope you'll check out those patreons. We'll link
44:30
Speaker 3: them in the show notes.
44:32
Speaker 1: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
44:34
Speaker 1: any chance you have to share us on social media
44:36
Speaker 1: with a friend or to rate and review is greatly
44:39
Speaker 1: appreciate it. You can email us at The Pathwentchili at
44:41
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. You can reach us on Twitter at
44:44
Speaker 1: the Pathwin. So until next time, be sure to bundle
44:47
Speaker 1: up because cold trails and Chili pass call for warm clothing.
44:51
Speaker 2: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy