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The Mysterious Death of the Bishop Family · This is monsters

0:01
Speaker 1: On March 8th, 1976, the police in Bethesda, Maryland were
0:05
Speaker 1: called by a concerned person claiming they hadn't seen their
0:08
Speaker 1: neighbor in some time. The police sent an officer out
0:11
Speaker 1: to do a welfare check, and once they arrived on
0:13
Speaker 1: the scene, they saw what appeared to be blood on
0:16
Speaker 1: the driveway leading to the front door, which gave them
0:19
Speaker 1: cause to enter the house. Once inside, they found not
0:22
Speaker 1: only blood, but brain matter on the walls and floor
0:26
Speaker 1: in multiple rooms of the house. Nobody was in the
0:29
Speaker 1: house at the time, but it was clear that something
0:31
Speaker 1: horrific had happened to the Bishop family. This is Monsters.
0:35
Speaker 1: Monsters William Bradford Bishop II was living the American dream,
1:06
Speaker 1: at least on the surface. Brad, as he preferred to
1:10
Speaker 1: be called, played football in high school and fell in
1:12
Speaker 1: love with a cheerleader named Annette Weiss. Though many high
1:15
Speaker 1: school sweetheart relationships don't work out, they stayed together when
1:19
Speaker 1: Brad graduated a year ahead of her. He moved from
1:23
Speaker 1: his hometown of Pasadena, California, all the way across the
1:26
Speaker 1: country to attend Yale University, and the two never stopped
1:29
Speaker 1: planning their future together. Though he'd worked hard to get in,
1:33
Speaker 1: Brad started to struggle a bit in college. His grades
1:37
Speaker 1: were inconsistent, and he was more of a C student.
1:40
Speaker 1: A C student at an Ivy League school, of course,
1:42
Speaker 1: but an underachiever compared to his peers. In addition to
1:46
Speaker 1: struggling academically, Brad had a tough time paying for school,
1:50
Speaker 1: as he came from a family that was not nearly
1:52
Speaker 1: as well off as many of his classmates. His father
1:55
Speaker 1: was a geologist who worked for himself taking various consulting
1:59
Speaker 1: jobs in the oil market of Southern California, so the
2:02
Speaker 1: family's income was inconsistent. His mother, Lobiella Marilis St. Germain Bishop,
2:08
Speaker 1: was a housewife, so the family was entirely dependent upon
2:11
Speaker 1: his father's business. Going into his senior year, Yale raised
2:15
Speaker 1: its tuition considerably and Brad had to take a year
2:19
Speaker 1: off to work and save up. While his classmates all graduated,
2:22
Speaker 1: he dug ditches, then went back in for his final
2:25
Speaker 1: year when most of his friends had already left. Brad's
2:29
Speaker 1: roommate his senior year recalled him speaking openly about struggling
2:33
Speaker 1: with depression, then the next day saying his depression had
2:36
Speaker 1: cleared up. Brad experienced wild mood swings often. Brad had
2:41
Speaker 1: been born in 1936, so he'd been too young to
2:44
Speaker 1: serve in World War II, but growing up in volatile
2:47
Speaker 1: times had inspired him to serve in the military. Shortly
2:51
Speaker 1: after he graduated, he married Annette, then enlisted the next day.
2:55
Speaker 1: It's also possible his patriotism was inspired by his poor grades,
3:00
Speaker 1: as the army would be a steady paycheck, and as
3:02
Speaker 1: a college graduate, he would come in as an officer.
3:06
Speaker 1: As a Yale graduate, Brad was made an intelligence officer
3:09
Speaker 1: right away with the Army Security Agency in 1959. He
3:13
Speaker 1: was already proficient in Spanish, French, and a bit of Italian,
3:17
Speaker 1: and in the Army, he started learning Serbo-Croatian as well.
3:20
Speaker 1: Even though he'd struggled academically, he was still very smart
3:23
Speaker 1: and picked up other languages quickly. Brad and Annette welcomed
3:27
Speaker 1: their first son as Brad prepared to ship off, and
3:30
Speaker 1: they named him William Bradley Bishop III. They later gave
3:33
Speaker 1: him the nickname Pino, as he would grow up mostly
3:36
Speaker 1: in Italy. The bishops were sent to Verona, Italy. For
3:40
Speaker 1: Brad's first assignment, he was given the task of listening
3:43
Speaker 1: in on broadcasts and intercepting military transmissions coming from Yugoslavia.
3:48
Speaker 1: It was a cushy job, but Brad was technically something
3:51
Speaker 1: of a spy. What exactly Brad might have done during
3:54
Speaker 1: that time is all very secretive and vague, but that
3:56
Speaker 1: posting would mark the start of a mysterious, adventurous, and
4:00
Speaker 1: ultimately bloody and tragic life. Since Brad was an accomplished skier,
4:04
Speaker 1: he would later claim the military wanted him to cozy
4:07
Speaker 1: up with the Yugoslavian ski team as part of his assignment.
4:11
Speaker 1: The team would occasionally cross the border and come to Italy.
4:14
Speaker 1: Brad was meant to try and befriend the players and
4:17
Speaker 1: attempt to recruit some of them to spy for America.
4:19
Speaker 1: Yugoslavia was allied with the Soviets in the Cold War,
4:24
Speaker 1: but as a new and volatile country, there were factions
4:26
Speaker 1: and groups within the nation who opposed that. People who
4:30
Speaker 1: knew Brad at the time would later say he succeeded
4:32
Speaker 1: to some degree in his spy mission, while others who
4:35
Speaker 1: knew him only later in life said that Brad himself
4:38
Speaker 1: would claim he'd failed on his mission. There is compelling
4:41
Speaker 1: evidence both ways. In some letters detailing those early years,
4:46
Speaker 1: Brad was praised for working missions of a particularly difficult
4:49
Speaker 1: and sensitive nature. Those letters also hinted that he had
4:53
Speaker 1: been given a great deal of responsibilities. to the point
4:56
Speaker 1: it seemed like excessive and overly specific praise for simply
4:59
Speaker 1: listening to radio broadcasts. Brad would later also claim that
5:04
Speaker 1: during that time he worked as a liaison for the
5:06
Speaker 1: CIA base in Germany, which would lend credence to the
5:09
Speaker 1: theories he may have done more boots-on-the-ground spy work. There
5:13
Speaker 1: is documentation of him occasionally working in Germany and being
5:17
Speaker 1: praised by his superiors for his work there, but what
5:20
Speaker 1: work he did exactly is vague. Whatever he did in
5:23
Speaker 1: Verona in Germany, he worked on that assignment for two
5:26
Speaker 1: years and was awarded a Certificate of Achievement. But his
5:30
Speaker 1: record wasn't perfect. Brad's co-workers described him as intense and competitive,
5:35
Speaker 1: but carefree in the wrong ways. Apparently, while in Verona,
5:40
Speaker 1: Brad had less than stellar security practices and slacked off
5:43
Speaker 1: on property locking up documents and making sure paperwork always
5:47
Speaker 1: went through the proper channels. He also was quick to
5:50
Speaker 1: anger and didn't care who knew it. He left his
5:53
Speaker 1: assignment in 1963 to begin the path to become a
5:57
Speaker 1: foreign service officer. His family stayed in Florence, so Brad
6:01
Speaker 1: could further study history and the Italian language, and he
6:04
Speaker 1: eventually earned his master's. However, during that time, something rather
6:08
Speaker 1: strange happened. In the spring of 1964, just a year
6:13
Speaker 1: after he'd left his assignment spying on Yugoslavia, he made
6:17
Speaker 1: the bizarre decision to go on vacation there. His vacation
6:21
Speaker 1: lasted 16 days, and whether or not he took his
6:24
Speaker 1: family with him is unclear. A colleague stationed nearby reported
6:28
Speaker 1: his concerns right away. Because Brad had been spying on Yugoslavia,
6:33
Speaker 1: the possibility of the government detaining him and trying to
6:36
Speaker 1: keep him to trade for other spies was very real,
6:39
Speaker 1: and he was reprimanded and written up for his vacation.
6:42
Speaker 1: Despite that, he managed to secure a posting as a
6:45
Speaker 1: Foreign Service officer. Brad became a diplomat in 1965. He
6:51
Speaker 1: welcomed his second son, Brent, as he prepared for his
6:54
Speaker 1: new career. His first posting was going to be in Ethiopia,
6:58
Speaker 1: and as they prepared for the move, Brad bought a
7:00
Speaker 1: diary and wrote the opening to Walt Whitman's Song of
7:03
Speaker 1: the Open Road on the first page. It's a rather
7:06
Speaker 1: long poem, but the beginning has both a sense of
7:09
Speaker 1: wanderlust and personal responsibility. Brad seemed excited to begin his adventure.
7:15
Speaker 1: That diary was very nearly lost to history. To skip
7:19
Speaker 1: ahead a bit, it was formally found on March 19th
7:22
Speaker 1: of 2000 when a North Carolina woman named Lorene Klepacki
7:26
Speaker 1: bought an old diary at a flea market. It had
7:29
Speaker 1: been auctioned off at an estate sale decades prior. It
7:32
Speaker 1: covered Brad's life from October of 1965 to October of 1971.
7:38
Speaker 1: Brad's family found a lot that they liked about Ethiopia.
7:42
Speaker 1: There was a large diplomatic community and Ethiopia was a
7:45
Speaker 1: stable country at the time, so they felt safe. Brad
7:48
Speaker 1: was stationed in the capital and their family enjoyed hosting
7:51
Speaker 1: lavish parties and events for politicians from all over the globe.
7:55
Speaker 1: The castle-like architecture of Ethiopia was reminiscent of Europe and
7:59
Speaker 1: Brad was especially fond of the food. However, his diary
8:03
Speaker 1: from those first few years spoke of a troubled mind.
8:07
Speaker 1: One entry in 1967 read, quote, Toxic degenerative psychotic with confabulation.
8:13
Speaker 1: Chronic low-level maniac. Involutional megalomania. Whatever that entry meant was
8:19
Speaker 1: unclear as it was somewhat removed from the context around it.
8:23
Speaker 1: But whatever was troubling him, he did seem to recognize
8:26
Speaker 1: that something was wrong and that he wanted to get better.
8:29
Speaker 1: one entry written that same year read, quote, I am
8:32
Speaker 1: getting better. I am on the threshold. I recognize now
8:36
Speaker 1: that to twist my accursed confines, I must develop a
8:39
Speaker 1: continuing and constant sense of surging for confidence, awe, and
8:44
Speaker 1: becoming in love. This is my greatest challenge. After two
8:49
Speaker 1: years in Ethiopia, the bishops went back to Italy, this
8:52
Speaker 1: time to a posting in Milan. They took up some
8:55
Speaker 1: of their old hobbies, skiing and tennis, and seemed happy.
8:58
Speaker 1: But those around them noticed they seemed to live above
9:01
Speaker 1: their means, but only in certain ways. Annette had fancy
9:05
Speaker 1: jewelry and furs, and they would go on lavish vacations.
9:08
Speaker 1: But their home was sparsely furnished, except for an eccentric
9:12
Speaker 1: art collection. Strangely enough, Brad would often blame Annette when
9:16
Speaker 1: the family was struggling financially. Despite Annette coming from a
9:20
Speaker 1: wealthier family than him, colleagues often noticed him making remarks
9:24
Speaker 1: about how she was from the wrong side of the tracks,
9:27
Speaker 1: or making jabs that she just didn't understand the finer
9:30
Speaker 1: things in life and how to manage money. But whatever
9:34
Speaker 1: trouble was happening in their marriage and personal lives, it
9:36
Speaker 1: seemed to be largely Brad's fault. He had at least
9:39
Speaker 1: one affair that Annette knew about by then, and was
9:42
Speaker 1: not shy about flirting with other women on business trips.
9:46
Speaker 1: He was also slacking off at work, co-workers remember Brad
9:49
Speaker 1: often skipping work in the afternoons to go play tennis.
9:54
Speaker 1: Brad wrote sparingly in his diary during that time. He
9:57
Speaker 1: mentioned his sons a few times, but never mentioned Annette.
10:00
Speaker 1: He wrote a bit about dealing with severe insomnia. He
10:04
Speaker 1: would eventually go to a doctor who prescribed him Cerax.
10:07
Speaker 1: That helped a great deal with his insomnia, but he
10:10
Speaker 1: was openly frustrated that he felt the medication made him sluggish.
10:14
Speaker 1: His diary entries became shorter as the handwriting became more wild.
10:19
Speaker 1: Near the end, he wrote in his diary, quote, I
10:22
Speaker 1: cannot reconcile the total absolute indifference of God to me.
10:26
Speaker 1: He eventually stopped writing in his diary for a long time.
10:30
Speaker 1: The bishops left Italy in 1970 and went back home
10:33
Speaker 1: to California. The State Department was putting Brad through school
10:37
Speaker 1: to get another master's degree, this time in African Studies
10:41
Speaker 1: at UCLA. The State Department needed more diplomats in Africa,
10:45
Speaker 1: and his posting in Ethiopia had been successful enough that
10:48
Speaker 1: they had faith in him. In October of 1971, shortly
10:53
Speaker 1: after the birth of his third son, Jeffrey, Brad wrote
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Speaker 1: one last entry in his diary where it said, Your
11:00
Speaker 1: family grows more beautiful, and you still stand on the threshold. Outwardly,
11:05
Speaker 1: your accomplishments are great. He then proceeded to list some
11:09
Speaker 1: promotions and medals he'd received, but continued on with, quote, Eventually,
11:21
Speaker 1: Brad earned his degree and started applying for postings. Despite
11:24
Speaker 1: the need for more diplomats in Africa, Brad was having
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Speaker 1: trouble getting another assignment. The more stable parts of Africa
11:31
Speaker 1: where his family could have more modern amenities were all
11:34
Speaker 1: going to his colleagues, so eventually he volunteered for what
11:38
Speaker 1: is known as a hardship post. That's a posting where
11:41
Speaker 1: only the basic survival amenities are available, so signing up
11:45
Speaker 1: for the post showed that he was a hard and
11:47
Speaker 1: adventurous worker. Brad's father had passed away by that point,
11:51
Speaker 1: so his mother decided to move with them as well.
11:54
Speaker 1: So they were a family of six preparing to go
11:56
Speaker 1: to the newly formed nation of Botswana at a posting
11:59
Speaker 1: that had really only been set up to sustain one person.
12:03
Speaker 1: Brad was placed in charge of diplomacy in nearby Lesotho
12:07
Speaker 1: and Swaziland as well. The countries were relatively small and
12:10
Speaker 1: the U.S. government didn't see a need to give them
12:13
Speaker 1: their own postings. While in Botswana, Brad and Annette were
12:17
Speaker 1: both seeing therapists and both struggling. There was not much
12:21
Speaker 1: to do, and that posting was more dangerous than their
12:23
Speaker 1: previous ones. They went on a lot of safaris and
12:27
Speaker 1: big game tours to get away from the monotony. But still,
12:30
Speaker 1: Annette was bored and anxious and dealing with frequent panic attacks.
12:35
Speaker 1: Brad tried to be somewhat productive and took flying lessons
12:38
Speaker 1: during that time. However, he also got a herniated disc
12:41
Speaker 1: and had to fly out of the country to get
12:43
Speaker 1: it treated. That left him with a prominent surgery scar
12:46
Speaker 1: on his back. The Bishops were rotated back to Washington
12:50
Speaker 1: after two years in 1974. There was an affluent suburb
12:54
Speaker 1: in the woods near Brad's office called Carderock Springs, and
12:58
Speaker 1: the Bishops moved in. However, they were only able to
13:01
Speaker 1: afford the house because Brad's mother paid the down payment.
13:04
Speaker 1: The boys enjoyed living back in the States, and the
13:06
Speaker 1: older two took up tennis and swimming. Brad wanted to
13:10
Speaker 1: try applying for more overseas postings, but Annette wanted to
13:13
Speaker 1: stay in the States for a while. Brad and Annette
13:16
Speaker 1: were hitting the point where they wanted different things in life.
13:19
Speaker 1: She was studying to get an art degree and wanted
13:21
Speaker 1: to find a life beyond just a diplomat's wife. Brad
13:25
Speaker 1: was hell-bent on making Admiral before the age of 50
13:28
Speaker 1: and saw his career as his whole life. Those close
13:31
Speaker 1: to Brad and Annette noticed tension between the two of them.
13:34
Speaker 1: Annette once told Brad's secretary on a visit that, after 35,
13:39
Speaker 1: a man is no more good. Remarks like that were
13:42
Speaker 1: seldom recorded, but likely not rare coming from both sides
13:45
Speaker 1: of the marriage. Once, when applying for a credit card,
13:49
Speaker 1: Brad had to list Annette's job. Instead of writing, stay-at-home mom,
13:53
Speaker 1: he wrote, chief slave. In March of 1976, the yearly
13:59
Speaker 1: promotion list was going to come out for Brad's department,
14:02
Speaker 1: and Brad desperately needed to be on it. Foreign service
14:05
Speaker 1: officers operate in a strict and structured way modeled largely
14:09
Speaker 1: after the U.S. Navy. Rather than trying to maintain the
14:12
Speaker 1: same positions, they need to constantly be promoted. If they
14:16
Speaker 1: don't get a promotion every five years, ideally more often,
14:20
Speaker 1: they're let go. Brad was just months away from hitting
14:23
Speaker 1: five years without a promotion, so the March promotion list
14:26
Speaker 1: was actually his last chance at staying employed. Of course,
14:30
Speaker 1: he could have applied for a hardship posting or even
14:33
Speaker 1: just a less desirable promotion and possibly gotten a second
14:36
Speaker 1: chance that way, but Annette wasn't having it. They had
14:39
Speaker 1: three young kids and she was finally making something of herself.
14:43
Speaker 1: Two weeks before the list came out, Brad was given
14:46
Speaker 1: the news in advance that he was not going to
14:48
Speaker 1: be promoted. It was essentially a two-week to three-month notice
14:52
Speaker 1: that his career was coming to an end. After he
14:55
Speaker 1: got the news, Brad ran into a colleague, Peter Murphy,
14:59
Speaker 1: and complained about the system. Peter tried to reassure Brad
15:02
Speaker 1: that the promotions weren't always fair and that he was
15:05
Speaker 1: a hard worker, but Brad was inconsolable. The two had
15:08
Speaker 1: been chatting at the bus stop, and eventually Peter asked
15:11
Speaker 1: Brad what he was doing in the part of town
15:13
Speaker 1: they were in, and Brad said he was going to
15:15
Speaker 1: see his therapist because, quote, my job is horrible. My
15:19
Speaker 1: kids and my mother are driving me crazy. He was
15:22
Speaker 1: still on Sarex at the time, and his therapist was
15:24
Speaker 1: a mysterious man named Frank Caprio, who would later refuse
15:28
Speaker 1: to cooperate with authorities and claimed that he and Brad
15:31
Speaker 1: were good friends, even outside of a doctor-patient relationship. Everything
15:35
Speaker 1: in Brad's life was in chaos, but a lot of
15:38
Speaker 1: it was due to his own choices. His marriage was
15:41
Speaker 1: on the rocks, but over the course of their marriage,
15:43
Speaker 1: Brad had had at least two affairs and was even
15:46
Speaker 1: cheating on Annette in the spring of 1976. Whether he
15:50
Speaker 1: wanted to leave her or simply wanted to have mistresses
15:53
Speaker 1: is unclear. Things weren't great for the rest of the
15:57
Speaker 1: family either. Brad often expressed feeling embarrassed about his mother
16:01
Speaker 1: and her support, but at the same time didn't seem
16:03
Speaker 1: able to keep the family afloat financially himself. That winter,
16:08
Speaker 1: Lobelia had been helping out, but things were tight. She'd
16:11
Speaker 1: even started trying to sell her favorite fur coat. In
16:14
Speaker 1: addition to that, the family was being audited by the IRS.
16:18
Speaker 1: The day the promotion list came out, March 1st, was
16:21
Speaker 1: a Monday. There were supposed to be a few other
16:24
Speaker 1: people in the Bishop household that fateful day. A Spanish
16:27
Speaker 1: exchange student named Gabriela, who'd been living with them just
16:31
Speaker 1: left days before. Jacques d'Amboise, a famous dancer and family friend,
16:36
Speaker 1: was supposed to spend the night with the family, along
16:38
Speaker 1: with his wife, but the two cancelled because Jacques hurt
16:41
Speaker 1: his knee. So March 1st began and ended, with the
16:44
Speaker 1: Bishop family having the house to themselves. It was a
16:48
Speaker 1: nice day, so Brad rode his motorcycle to work. He'd
16:51
Speaker 1: booked an appointment that morning to replace a crown on
16:54
Speaker 1: his tooth, so he had a bit of a breather
16:56
Speaker 1: from the office, but it wasn't enough. He knew the
16:59
Speaker 1: news was coming, but now all of his co-workers knew
17:02
Speaker 1: he was basically being fired too. He told everyone he
17:06
Speaker 1: was feeling sick and was going to go home early.
17:09
Speaker 1: His secretary offered to call Annette for him, but he
17:11
Speaker 1: said he'd be okay taking his bike home. On the
17:14
Speaker 1: way back, he stopped at an ATM and drained the
17:18
Speaker 1: $ 400 the family had in their savings account. When he
17:21
Speaker 1: got home, it would have been just his mother there,
17:23
Speaker 1: if anyone. Annette had Jeff enrolled in a kindergarten program
17:27
Speaker 1: that she volunteered at and the other boys were off
17:30
Speaker 1: at school. Shortly after he got home, he left again
17:33
Speaker 1: in the family station wagon. A neighbor who happened to
17:37
Speaker 1: be looking outside thought that was a bit odd, as normally,
17:40
Speaker 1: Annette drove the station wagon and Brad had a Volkswagen
17:43
Speaker 1: when he wasn't riding his motorcycle. He went to Sears
17:47
Speaker 1: first and bought a mall hammer, which is a bit
17:49
Speaker 1: heavier but also more compact than a framing hammer. Then
17:53
Speaker 1: he swung by a gas station on the way home
17:55
Speaker 1: to fill up a gas can. The next stop was
17:58
Speaker 1: a hardware store in a nearby strip mall where he
18:01
Speaker 1: picked up a shovel and a pickaxe. He got home
18:04
Speaker 1: around 9 p.m., The family had all eaten dinner and
18:08
Speaker 1: Pino was taking up the family phone line talking to
18:10
Speaker 1: his girlfriend. Brad got on the extension and harshly told
18:14
Speaker 1: him to wrap it up and go to bed. It
18:16
Speaker 1: seemed that, between 9 and 10 o'clock, the family was
18:20
Speaker 1: preparing to go to sleep. At around 9.30, a neighbor
18:24
Speaker 1: spotted Lobelia walking the family dog Leo around the block
18:28
Speaker 1: in her beloved fur coat. Annette set up a futon
18:31
Speaker 1: downstairs with her books to study and the boys all
18:34
Speaker 1: went to bed. The next day, a neighbor went to
18:37
Speaker 1: visit the family, but found they'd vanished. They'd often go
18:40
Speaker 1: on last-minute ski trips, but to do so on a
18:43
Speaker 1: Tuesday would be strange. She went into the house through
18:46
Speaker 1: a side door, saw a pot of oatmeal on the stove,
18:50
Speaker 1: and called out, but didn't hear anyone home, so she left.
18:53
Speaker 1: That same morning, the Bishop family station wagon would be
18:57
Speaker 1: spotted 300 miles south in the town of Columbia, North Carolina.
19:02
Speaker 1: The car was spotted at 9.30 and again at 10
19:05
Speaker 1: by two different witnesses who lived on the outskirts of Taun. Then,
19:09
Speaker 1: in the early afternoon, a nearby fire watcher spotted smoke
19:13
Speaker 1: in the area and radioed Forest Ranger Ron Brickhouse to investigate.
19:18
Speaker 1: Because the fire was still small, he was able to
19:20
Speaker 1: contain it and after he put out the blaze, he
19:23
Speaker 1: went to see what had started it. He later said
19:26
Speaker 1: he thought he'd stumbled upon someone burning hog parts, but
19:29
Speaker 1: when he realized he'd stumbled upon a mass human grave,
19:32
Speaker 1: he called the police. Police didn't know it yet, but
19:35
Speaker 1: they'd found what was left of the Bishop family. The
19:38
Speaker 1: bodies were buried from youngest to oldest. Lobelia was laid
19:42
Speaker 1: on top of Annette, with her sons buried in descending
19:45
Speaker 1: order below her, and Jeffrey at the bottom of the pile.
19:49
Speaker 1: Brad's body was not amongst the carnage. A gas can
19:53
Speaker 1: and a shovel had simply been left at the scene,
19:55
Speaker 1: and investigators could even make out car tracks and a
19:58
Speaker 1: dog's paw prints in the sand, so they had a
20:01
Speaker 1: lot to go on to kickstart the investigation. The town
20:04
Speaker 1: of Columbia was overrun with investigators, and police started canvassing
20:08
Speaker 1: the nearby logging roads. The coroner would clean up the
20:11
Speaker 1: faces of the bodies as best he could after the autopsy,
20:14
Speaker 1: and everyone but Pino was photographed to send their likenesses
20:18
Speaker 1: to other departments to try to identify them. Pino was
20:21
Speaker 1: not photographed, as his injuries were gruesome enough that his
20:25
Speaker 1: face was not in any way recognizable. The main clue
20:28
Speaker 1: police had to go on was a tag still left
20:31
Speaker 1: on the shovel from a hardware store up in Maryland.
20:34
Speaker 1: They drove up to the store and left a flyer
20:36
Speaker 1: there with the faces of the victims. A week after
20:40
Speaker 1: the murders, on March 1st, the Bishop's neighbors called the police.
20:44
Speaker 1: Authorities instantly noticed blood on the driveway leading up to
20:48
Speaker 1: the front door. The neighborhood was spread out with a
20:51
Speaker 1: lot of natural forest left intact, so no one nearby
20:54
Speaker 1: could really see the house from the road, which is
20:57
Speaker 1: why alarms weren't raised sooner. Their next-door neighbor was an
21:00
Speaker 1: occasional babysitter for Jeff, so she lent the police her
21:04
Speaker 1: spare keys to do a wellness check. The house was
21:07
Speaker 1: covered in blood, bone fragments, and brain matter. The kitchen
21:11
Speaker 1: by the side door was mostly untouched, which is why
21:14
Speaker 1: the neighbor who checked on them a week earlier didn't
21:17
Speaker 1: realize what was wrong. When local police started processing the scene,
21:21
Speaker 1: they quickly pieced together what had happened when they saw
21:24
Speaker 1: the flyer in the hardware store for the bodies found
21:27
Speaker 1: down in North Carolina.
21:28
Speaker 2: We have evidence there's blood in the three bedrooms upstairs
21:33
Speaker 2: and blood in the master bedroom downstairs. We also have
21:38
Speaker 2: evidence that the homicide of these five people took place
21:42
Speaker 2: at this residence as we have blood that bleeds from
21:46
Speaker 2: the home out to where the parking lot is. This
21:50
Speaker 2: is where we stand right now. We have investigators going
21:52
Speaker 2: to North Carolina. They're en route now to coordinate the
21:56
Speaker 2: efforts of our department with the North Carolina law enforcement people.
22:01
Speaker 2: What about Mr.
22:01
Speaker 1: Bishop?
22:02
Speaker 2: Mr. Bishop, at this time, we don't know where Mr.
22:05
Speaker 2: Bishop is. He's missing. So is a 1974 Chevrolet that
22:09
Speaker 2: belongs to the family. Teletype has been sent from Montgomery
22:13
Speaker 2: County all points in reference to the station wagon to
22:17
Speaker 2: try and locate the station wagon. Is he a suspect?
22:19
Speaker 2: We have no suspects in the crime at this time.
22:22
Speaker 1: Investigators in North Carolina had found a fingerprint on the
22:26
Speaker 1: gas can and a quick search matched it to Brad.
22:29
Speaker 1: Because locals had seen his car, he was suspect number one.
22:34
Speaker 1: Of course, police did briefly consider the possibility that Brad
22:37
Speaker 1: had been kidnapped and was also the victim of foul play,
22:40
Speaker 1: but as the days and weeks wore on, the evidence
22:43
Speaker 1: painted a very clear picture of a man on the run.
22:46
Speaker 1: When the coroner's report in North Carolina was put together
22:49
Speaker 1: with the slaughterhouse in Maryland, investigators were able to piece
22:53
Speaker 1: together what they thought was the most likely scenario. They
22:57
Speaker 1: determined that Annette was likely killed first. A considerable amount
23:01
Speaker 1: of her blood was on the futon, surrounded by her books.
23:04
Speaker 1: Her skull had been caved in from numerous blows to
23:07
Speaker 1: the front and right side of her head. The murder
23:10
Speaker 1: weapon appeared to be the hammer Brad had purchased that
23:13
Speaker 1: same day. Lobelia had locked herself in the bathroom, but
23:17
Speaker 1: the doorframe was cracked and broken in. She was not
23:20
Speaker 1: beaten to death, rather she was struck once in the head,
23:24
Speaker 1: but it only left a bruise, and then she died
23:26
Speaker 1: either of being smothered or of heart failure. Pino had
23:30
Speaker 1: been beaten to death in his bed and didn't appear
23:33
Speaker 1: to have any defensive wounds, so he had likely slept
23:36
Speaker 1: through the other killings and was taken by surprise. He
23:39
Speaker 1: was only 14, but was approaching 6 feet tall and
23:42
Speaker 1: his father may have judged him to be the most
23:45
Speaker 1: capable of putting up a fight. Perhaps that's why his
23:48
Speaker 1: injuries were so much more gruesome than the rest of
23:50
Speaker 1: the family. But really, the entire family except Brad's mother
23:54
Speaker 1: was beaten so severely that most of the blows were
23:57
Speaker 1: after they were likely already dead. Brent and Jeff shared
24:01
Speaker 1: a room with bunk beds. Brent was 10 at the
24:04
Speaker 1: time of his death and slept on the top bunk.
24:06
Speaker 1: The coroner's report included the phrase, Pulpification of brain in
24:11
Speaker 1: his autopsy report, and there were hammer marks on the
24:14
Speaker 1: ceiling from the attack. Jeff was only five and beaten
24:17
Speaker 1: just as viciously as the rest of the family. Brad's
24:21
Speaker 1: bloody pajamas were found discarded on a closet shelf, so
24:24
Speaker 1: it appeared as though he'd gotten ready for bed that
24:27
Speaker 1: night as if everything was normal, then killed his family
24:30
Speaker 1: in his pajamas. After that, investigators determined that Brad cleaned
24:35
Speaker 1: himself up and packed a suitcase with clothes and a
24:38
Speaker 1: shaving kit. He then loaded all of the bodies into
24:41
Speaker 1: the station wagon. He covered them with blankets and put
24:44
Speaker 1: Leo in the front seat. Why he spared the dog
24:48
Speaker 1: is anyone's guess, but some have theorized that he kept
24:51
Speaker 1: Leo in the front seat so anyone looking into his
24:53
Speaker 1: car would be distracted by the dog and not look
24:56
Speaker 1: too closely at the poorly covered bodies in the back.
25:00
Speaker 1: By 9am the next morning, he'd arrived in Columbia, just
25:03
Speaker 1: shy of 12 hours after the murders likely happened. The
25:07
Speaker 1: town is near the Outer Banks and surrounded by sandy
25:09
Speaker 1: forests and old logging land. Brad drove along the logging
25:13
Speaker 1: roads a few miles south of town, and police have
25:16
Speaker 1: pointed out that the logging roads are very easy to
25:18
Speaker 1: get lost on, so he'd likely driven them before. Also,
25:23
Speaker 1: Columbia is across the inlet from Harvey Point, a training
25:26
Speaker 1: facility used by the CIA, FBI, and ATF. which some
25:30
Speaker 1: people have speculated may be relevant. Brad eventually drove to
25:34
Speaker 1: a secluded spot in the woods and tried to dig
25:37
Speaker 1: a grave. He'd brought a saw to cut through any roots,
25:41
Speaker 1: so he'd been prepared to hide the bodies in a
25:43
Speaker 1: forest somewhere, but he hadn't planned for how close he
25:46
Speaker 1: was to the ocean. The soil was mostly sand and
25:49
Speaker 1: just filled back in as he dug. He'd also brought
25:53
Speaker 1: a pickaxe, which didn't seem to get used. At some
25:56
Speaker 1: point in the early afternoon, he had dug a shallow
25:59
Speaker 1: but wide pit and started dragging the bodies over from
26:02
Speaker 1: the car on a quilt. He then splashed the pile
26:05
Speaker 1: of bodies with gasoline, lit it on fire, and fled
26:08
Speaker 1: the scene. The murder weapon has never been found, so
26:12
Speaker 1: it's possible he disposed of it at some point during
26:14
Speaker 1: his trip down. The fire Brad lit was not very
26:18
Speaker 1: efficient and didn't really destroy any evidence. All it did
26:22
Speaker 1: was attract attention. The bodies were burned less than a
26:25
Speaker 1: mile or one and a half kilometers from a fence
26:28
Speaker 1: that marked land owned by the CIA training facility. So
26:32
Speaker 1: if he hadn't burned the bodies, it's likely no one
26:35
Speaker 1: would have ever found them as people are not supposed
26:37
Speaker 1: to venture that close to anything owned by the training facility.
26:41
Speaker 1: The most damning evidence that Brad was responsible for the
26:44
Speaker 1: murders was a sighting that occurred shortly after he burned
26:47
Speaker 1: the bodies. Brad drove to Jacksonville, North Carolina, and bought
26:51
Speaker 1: a new pair of shoes at a store near a
26:53
Speaker 1: military base. The store owner remembered Brad because he had
26:57
Speaker 1: a female companion that he said looked and sounded Caribbean,
27:00
Speaker 1: and the two had brought in Leo. Brad appeared well
27:04
Speaker 1: put together and was even wearing a suit, so he'd
27:07
Speaker 1: had a chance to get cleaned up since burning the bodies.
27:10
Speaker 1: the identity of the woman he was with remains a mystery.
27:13
Speaker 1: In addition to that sighting, Brad called an old friend
27:17
Speaker 1: in California twice during that first week, but his friend
27:21
Speaker 1: was not home both times, so whatever he wanted to
27:23
Speaker 1: say is yet another mystery. Brad's car was eventually discovered
27:28
Speaker 1: on March 18th near the Elkmont Campground in the Great
27:31
Speaker 1: Smoky Mountain National Park in Tennessee. In the car, police
27:35
Speaker 1: found various blood-stained sheets and blankets, dog biscuits, a shotgun,
27:40
Speaker 1: a box of shells, and Brad's shaving kit. He had
27:44
Speaker 1: left behind various trail maps of the park, his suitcase
27:47
Speaker 1: of clothes, and his medication. Dogs were able to track
27:51
Speaker 1: his scent for about 300 yards on a nearby hiking
27:54
Speaker 1: trail before it vanished. Search and rescue officers and police
27:58
Speaker 1: combed the forest. Backpackers were warned away from the Appalachian Trail,
28:02
Speaker 1: and campers were told to be vigilant. Someone reported that
28:05
Speaker 1: they'd seen a man who looked like Brad in a
28:08
Speaker 1: visitor center near Elkmont, and the dogs hit on Brad's
28:11
Speaker 1: scent again, but the trail went cold in the parking lot.
28:14
Speaker 1: Dwight McCarter, a ranger who knows the Smokies extensively, helped
28:18
Speaker 1: with the search. Someone told him about a fresh grave
28:21
Speaker 1: they'd noticed off of a hiking trail, and when he
28:23
Speaker 1: went to investigate, he found a small grave covered with
28:27
Speaker 1: rocks with a cross made of sticks. The stones and
28:30
Speaker 1: sticks were being held together with a military paracord. McCarter
28:34
Speaker 1: didn't dig up the grave, but he wondered if it
28:36
Speaker 1: had been Leo's. Another account says someone reported a lost
28:40
Speaker 1: golden retriever roaming a hiking trail nearby, so Leo may
28:44
Speaker 1: have been set loose. The search of the Smoky Mountains
28:47
Speaker 1: ended on March 26th. McCarter still thinks Bishop died in
28:51
Speaker 1: the Smokies, and he's not the only one. Had Brad
28:54
Speaker 1: killed himself in the dense forest or simply gotten lost,
28:57
Speaker 1: it's likely his body would never be found. As is
29:01
Speaker 1: to be expected of an international mystery, there have been
29:04
Speaker 1: dozens if not hundreds of sightings and tips called in
29:07
Speaker 1: over the years, but only a few that have been
29:09
Speaker 1: deemed credible. In July of 1978, a Swedish woman who'd
29:14
Speaker 1: worked at the embassy with Brad in Ethiopia thought she
29:17
Speaker 1: saw him twice during the same week wandering a park
29:20
Speaker 1: in Stockholm. Apparently, he had a beard and she felt
29:24
Speaker 1: like he was trying to follow her without being noticed.
29:27
Speaker 1: One of the other most famous sightings was also reported
29:30
Speaker 1: by one of Brad's coworkers and was even reenacted on
29:33
Speaker 1: Unsolved Mysteries. That man claimed he'd seen Brad in a
29:37
Speaker 1: bathroom and confronted him, but Brad escaped. That was later
29:41
Speaker 1: discredited when police discovered the man who reported it was
29:45
Speaker 1: caught making up false information to get media attention. Ray Kite,
29:50
Speaker 1: the sheriff of Montgomery County, Maryland, decided to revive the
29:53
Speaker 1: case in the 90s. In 1992, on a whim, he
29:57
Speaker 1: decided to look up Brad's social security number on a
30:00
Speaker 1: credit bureau database to see if there were any new hits.
30:04
Speaker 1: He found that there was a man in Sacramento, California
30:07
Speaker 1: who had been using Brad's social security number, but the
30:11
Speaker 1: man had passed away before the search and pictures of
30:14
Speaker 1: him didn't have any kind of resemblance to Brad. That
30:17
Speaker 1: lead inspired Sheriff Kite to dig deeper, though. He assigned
30:20
Speaker 1: Deputy Robert Kiefer and Detective John Cady to go through
30:24
Speaker 1: the old files and see what they could turn up.
30:27
Speaker 1: In some of Brad's old mail, they found a letter
30:29
Speaker 1: that was sent to him from the federal penitentiary in Marion, Illinois,
30:33
Speaker 1: which instantly caught their attention. The letter was from Albert
30:37
Speaker 1: Kenneth Bankston, a bank robber and kidnapper who'd already managed
30:41
Speaker 1: to escape custody once. The letter was marked number 6
30:45
Speaker 1: and referenced previous letters sent between Albert and Brad. The
30:49
Speaker 1: letter mentioned several spots near a lake in Columbia, very
30:53
Speaker 1: close to where the bodies were eventually burned. In the letter,
30:57
Speaker 1: Albert pointed Brad to a man named David Paul Allen
31:01
Speaker 1: and another man identified only as Sonny. Albert said both
31:05
Speaker 1: men might be able to help Brad with his problems
31:08
Speaker 1: and that they knew the area in North Carolina well.
31:11
Speaker 1: He also referenced that Brad had made some kind of
31:14
Speaker 1: inquiry in a previous letter and that the answer was
31:17
Speaker 1: that there was a woman in a North Carolina prison
31:20
Speaker 1: who might be able to help him. However, the letter
31:23
Speaker 1: was dated March 15th, after the murders had already happened
31:27
Speaker 1: and made the news. So it's possible Albert was just
31:30
Speaker 1: trying to pretend the two had a rapport so he
31:33
Speaker 1: could try and use the inside knowledge to get some
31:36
Speaker 1: kind of plea deal. Investigators had looked into the letter
31:40
Speaker 1: in 1976 and dismissed it because Albert wrote letters to
31:44
Speaker 1: pretty much anyone whose address he could find that was
31:47
Speaker 1: even tangentially involved in the legal system or government. He
31:51
Speaker 1: sent out hundreds of letters and had pretended to have
31:53
Speaker 1: insider knowledge about cases before where his claims were eventually disproven.
31:59
Speaker 1: Albert Bankston had died in 1983, but Sheriff Kite wanted
32:03
Speaker 1: to try and talk to this sunny person and David
32:06
Speaker 1: Paul Allen. The man known as Sonny was already in
32:11
Speaker 1: jail and admitted to having some kind of knowledge about
32:13
Speaker 1: murder plots arranged by the Aryan Brotherhood and the Dixie Mafia. However,
32:18
Speaker 1: Sonny said he didn't have anything to do with the
32:20
Speaker 1: alleged plot to kill the bishops, but if he had
32:23
Speaker 1: known something or been involved, it was against his code
32:26
Speaker 1: to kill children. David Paul Allen initially claimed that he
32:30
Speaker 1: was not directly involved, but that he did hear that
32:33
Speaker 1: someone had been paid $ 25, 000 and some jewelry to help
32:37
Speaker 1: Brad kill his family. Apparently, Brad wanted to arrange for
32:41
Speaker 1: the murders to happen when he was on a business
32:43
Speaker 1: trip in Geneva between January 27th and February 6th. David
32:48
Speaker 1: would eventually confess to having some kind of direct knowledge
32:51
Speaker 1: of the plot and gave a bit more information. Apparently,
32:55
Speaker 1: Brad was hoping to have the murders go down while
32:57
Speaker 1: he was out of town to completely deflect suspicion that
33:00
Speaker 1: he was involved. After his family was killed, he was
33:03
Speaker 1: hoping to get a sympathy promotion to get his career
33:06
Speaker 1: back on track. He and Annette were planning Jeff's birthday
33:09
Speaker 1: party already as it was on the 12th, so his
33:12
Speaker 1: little boy being killed just days before his birthday was
33:15
Speaker 1: meant to be extra tragic. Brad said that he would
33:18
Speaker 1: tell his family that while he was away, he'd scheduled
33:21
Speaker 1: some men to come and do some work on the gutters.
33:24
Speaker 1: That way, the family would let the men inside. Allegedly,
33:27
Speaker 1: two men were hired for the job and decided instead
33:30
Speaker 1: to scam Brad. They took his money and jewelry and
33:33
Speaker 1: then vanished. The whole thing had supposedly been put together
33:36
Speaker 1: by a woman in jail in North Carolina. Police could
33:40
Speaker 1: never find the woman who was said to have arranged
33:42
Speaker 1: the whole thing. While he was on his ski trip,
33:45
Speaker 1: whether or not he'd actually been planning to murder his
33:48
Speaker 1: family already, Brad certainly did not seem worried about them.
33:51
Speaker 1: He was openly courting and going on dates with another woman,
33:55
Speaker 1: and multiple people said that he and this woman were
33:57
Speaker 1: known to be promiscuous on business trips. The Hitman plot
34:01
Speaker 1: was never conclusively proven or disproven either way, and in
34:05
Speaker 1: any case, the validity of it didn't really bring investigators
34:08
Speaker 1: any closer to finding Brad. In 2012, Sheriff Ray Kite retired,
34:13
Speaker 1: but he and the new sheriff, Darren Popkin, would talk
34:16
Speaker 1: about the case occasionally. A new task force was eventually
34:20
Speaker 1: formed to keep the investigation alive. An informant with a
34:24
Speaker 1: Virginia motorcycle gang spoke with investigators in 2013 about an
34:28
Speaker 1: interesting theory that involved Brad having connections to a motorcycle gang.
34:33
Speaker 1: That source was someone living in the Witness Protection Program
34:37
Speaker 1: who had always given reliable information to authorities. The informant
34:41
Speaker 1: claimed he knew a woman who worked at the State
34:44
Speaker 1: Department with Brad who was having an affair with him. Apparently,
34:48
Speaker 1: that same woman was involved with a motorcycle gang. After
34:51
Speaker 1: the murders, she helped Brad escape with the help of
34:54
Speaker 1: two other gang members, and Brad stayed at her place
34:57
Speaker 1: for a while in Falls Church, Virginia, near D.C. They
35:00
Speaker 1: hid him until he had documents forged to leave the country,
35:04
Speaker 1: then they helped smuggle him out. That would have cost
35:07
Speaker 1: around $ 50, 000, but was in the realm of services the
35:10
Speaker 1: gang provided. But where Brad got the money is a mystery.
35:14
Speaker 1: He only left with $ 400 in traceable money. If that
35:18
Speaker 1: account is true, Brad may not have had money to
35:21
Speaker 1: barter with, but it's quite possible he could have paid
35:24
Speaker 1: his way by making false passports. Brad had access to
35:27
Speaker 1: the materials used to make new passports and could have
35:30
Speaker 1: stolen enough to trade passports that were as good as
35:33
Speaker 1: real in exchange for helping escape. He also still had
35:36
Speaker 1: his own Foreign Service officer passport and could have fled
35:39
Speaker 1: the country before the bodies were identified. In April of 2014,
35:44
Speaker 1: Brad Bishop was added to the FBI's most wanted list
35:47
Speaker 1: to get publicity for the case. That brought in hundreds
35:51
Speaker 1: of new leads, the most promising of which was a
35:53
Speaker 1: possible connection to a John Doe who looked shockingly like Brad.
35:58
Speaker 1: In 1981, a homeless man had been hit by a
36:01
Speaker 1: car and killed on a rural highway in Alabama. He
36:04
Speaker 1: was buried as a John Doe, but his face bore
36:07
Speaker 1: an impressive resemblance to Brad Bishop. The connection was made
36:11
Speaker 1: when a local cop near where the man was killed
36:13
Speaker 1: posted his autopsy photo in an attempt to revive the
36:16
Speaker 1: case and find out who the man was. The man
36:19
Speaker 1: even had his hair and sideburns styled the same way
36:22
Speaker 1: Brad did. The body was exhumed and everyone was hopeful
36:26
Speaker 1: they might finally have answers, but the DNA results came
36:29
Speaker 1: back negative. Twice there were tips called in about men
36:33
Speaker 1: who looked remarkably like Brad acting suspicious, one in Mexico
36:37
Speaker 1: and one in Texas. Both men were arrested and both
36:40
Speaker 1: turned out to be hiding from the law, but for
36:42
Speaker 1: other reasons. One was wanted for mail fraud and the
36:46
Speaker 1: other an arsonist, and neither one had a surgical scar
36:49
Speaker 1: on their back. A promising lead came in from France
36:52
Speaker 1: when someone called in a tip on a man who
36:54
Speaker 1: looked like Brad coming out of a house owned by
36:57
Speaker 1: his uncle. It turned out to be Brad's cousin, who
37:00
Speaker 1: bore a strong resemblance to him. Those leads were just
37:03
Speaker 1: a small handful of the ones investigators followed over the
37:07
Speaker 1: decades since Brad vanished. Though police have openly stated that
37:11
Speaker 1: they do believe Brad killed his family and it's considered
37:14
Speaker 1: a closed case, there are some who doubt that narrative.
37:18
Speaker 1: Some of his friends growing up have come forward to
37:20
Speaker 1: say that they don't believe he could have ever done
37:22
Speaker 1: something so violent. Some have even put forward the theory
37:26
Speaker 1: that Brad was a spy and his family was killed
37:29
Speaker 1: as revenge, and he was either kidnapped or killed at
37:32
Speaker 1: another location. To delve into that theory a bit, Brad's
37:36
Speaker 1: work listening to Yugoslavian radio broadcasts might technically constitute spy work,
37:42
Speaker 1: but that's a far cry from doing actual undercover work
37:45
Speaker 1: and really being considered a spy in the traditional sense.
37:49
Speaker 1: But there were all of his mysterious commendations and letters
37:52
Speaker 1: of praise that seemed to hint at more, so it's
37:55
Speaker 1: easy to see where that theory comes from. By the
37:58
Speaker 1: turn of the century, the country of Yugoslavia no longer
38:02
Speaker 1: existed and had broken up into several other countries. During
38:06
Speaker 1: the time Yugoslavia was a country, though, they had a
38:09
Speaker 1: secret police force known as the State Security Administration. That
38:14
Speaker 1: secret police force was active from the end of World
38:17
Speaker 1: War II up until 1991 when the country was about
38:21
Speaker 1: to officially separate. The secret police committed numerous high-profile assassinations
38:26
Speaker 1: during the Cold War, and their preferred method of killing
38:30
Speaker 1: was to bludgeon their victims with a hammer. Modern-day Montenegro
38:34
Speaker 1: has the bulk of the classified documents regarding the State
38:37
Speaker 1: Security Administration, but has not released them despite the other
38:41
Speaker 1: countries that were part of Yugoslavia largely declassifying their World
38:46
Speaker 1: War II and Cold War-era documents. Montenegro is still a
38:50
Speaker 1: very new nation, and the country's leaders have recently said
38:53
Speaker 1: they do not want to risk any kind of destabilization
38:56
Speaker 1: and do not currently have plans to declassify their documents.
39:00
Speaker 1: So if there is any kind of connection there, who
39:02
Speaker 1: knows if or when more details will ever come out.
39:06
Speaker 1: It's certainly interesting that Brad's family was killed in the
39:09
Speaker 1: way that the spies he was working against favored. But
39:12
Speaker 1: some people have also put forward the theory that Brad
39:15
Speaker 1: himself was a spy working for the Soviets. His vacation
39:19
Speaker 1: to Yugoslavia so soon after he was assigned to spy
39:22
Speaker 1: on them is certainly strange, as is the fact that
39:26
Speaker 1: details on what exactly he did there are sparse. Also,
39:30
Speaker 1: during his time in Botswana, he received some kind of
39:33
Speaker 1: reprimand for unauthorized contact with the Soviets, but the details
39:37
Speaker 1: on that are vague. Why he would kill his family
39:40
Speaker 1: based on that narrative is unclear, though. Sheriff Kite has
39:44
Speaker 1: his own theories. He's openly speculated that Brad may have
39:48
Speaker 1: been involved to some degree in the CIA's MKUltra experiments.
39:53
Speaker 1: To give a brief overview, MKUltra was a series of
39:56
Speaker 1: secret operations conducted by the CIA from 1953 to 1973.
40:02
Speaker 1: Much of the documentation on those experiments has been destroyed,
40:05
Speaker 1: but in broad strokes, the experiments involved testing drugs and
40:09
Speaker 1: doing various psychological experiments on American citizens. Some of the
40:14
Speaker 1: test subjects were in the military or worked directly for
40:17
Speaker 1: the CIA and knew they were signing up for testing.
40:20
Speaker 1: Others were prisoners or other vulnerable people who often had
40:24
Speaker 1: no idea they were being experimented on. Sheriff Kite leans
40:28
Speaker 1: towards Brad having been part of experimental drug trials, possibly
40:32
Speaker 1: involving LSD. He thinks it's even possible Brad was on
40:35
Speaker 1: drugs when he killed his family. That theory hinges on
40:39
Speaker 1: Brad having been a CIA operative at the time of
40:42
Speaker 1: the experiments, though, and there are some hints that Brad
40:45
Speaker 1: would not have been an effective spy. Giving Brad a
40:48
Speaker 1: high-level position like the one he had in Botswana would
40:51
Speaker 1: go against standard protocol. Plus, he also had several write-ups
40:55
Speaker 1: for handling classified documents poorly. Sheriff Kite was hell-bent on
41:00
Speaker 1: proving a connection with the CIA when he was investigating
41:03
Speaker 1: the case and even filed a few Freedom of Information
41:06
Speaker 1: Act requests over the years. The CIA eventually sent him
41:10
Speaker 1: a letter saying his request was denied and all other
41:13
Speaker 1: inquiries would be ignored. Some of Kite's evidence was interesting, though. Allegedly,
41:18
Speaker 1: one of Brad's therapists said Brad was involved with the CIA.
41:23
Speaker 1: There was also a matchbook in Brad's desk at the
41:26
Speaker 1: State Department that had a phone number written in it
41:28
Speaker 1: from Langley, Virginia. Langley is the community on the outskirts
41:32
Speaker 1: of D.C. that houses the CIA headquarters, and people will
41:36
Speaker 1: often just say Langley as a code term for the
41:38
Speaker 1: CIA itself. Sheriff Kite also believed the FBI was involved. Apparently,
41:44
Speaker 1: in the early days of searching the Smokies, the FBI
41:47
Speaker 1: were working with the National Guard to block off certain
41:50
Speaker 1: areas from being searched. There's also the fact that for
41:53
Speaker 1: a time, the Albert Bankston letter vanished from the case
41:56
Speaker 1: file after the file had been checked out by someone
41:59
Speaker 1: claiming to work for the FBI, but who no one
42:02
Speaker 1: could identify. The FBI also apparently blocked Kite from investigating
42:07
Speaker 1: a lead he thought was promising in Spain. Much of
42:10
Speaker 1: that evidence, though, was provided solely by Kite and not
42:13
Speaker 1: substantiated much elsewhere. But Kite isn't the only one to
42:17
Speaker 1: point out the possible FBI involvement. Jean Wadsworth had lived
42:22
Speaker 1: next to the bishops at one point and recounted a
42:24
Speaker 1: sighting she'd had in Basel, Switzerland in 1994. She was
42:29
Speaker 1: waiting on the platform and looked into a train about
42:32
Speaker 1: to depart and saw Brad. She said he noticed her
42:35
Speaker 1: look at him and shifted a newspaper he was reading
42:38
Speaker 1: up over his face. Then, when the train left the station,
42:41
Speaker 1: he set the paper down and appeared to be laughing.
42:44
Speaker 1: She reported that to the FBI, who said they would
42:47
Speaker 1: contact authorities in Basel, but when later contacted, Basel police
42:51
Speaker 1: said the FBI never spoke with them. Perhaps the strangest
42:55
Speaker 1: but also hardest to prove anecdote about potential government involvement
42:59
Speaker 1: came from a woman named Carolyn Banks. Carolyn was a
43:02
Speaker 1: successful fiction writer who wanted to make her debut in
43:05
Speaker 1: true crime by writing about Bradford Bishop, but her publisher
43:09
Speaker 1: would not greenlight a story without an ending, so she
43:12
Speaker 1: decided to just write a fiction book inspired by the case.
43:17
Speaker 1: In 1980, she published The Dark Room about a fictional
43:20
Speaker 1: William Holland who killed his family in part because the
43:23
Speaker 1: CIA had used experimental drugs on him. Carolyn was open
43:27
Speaker 1: about the book being extremely inspired by the Bishop case
43:31
Speaker 1: during the book's release. Shortly after The Dark Room came out,
43:35
Speaker 1: a drifter showed up on her property. The man seemed
43:38
Speaker 1: nice enough and inquired about an outbuilding she had on
43:41
Speaker 1: her land. He asked if he could do some work
43:44
Speaker 1: around her land in exchange for housing in the outbuilding.
43:48
Speaker 1: He only stayed for a week or so, but was
43:50
Speaker 1: friendly to Carolyn and befriended her son. Then, he said
43:53
Speaker 1: he needed to move on and asked her to drive
43:56
Speaker 1: him somewhere. He directed her to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia,
44:01
Speaker 1: got out, and bid her farewell. Ray Kite has been
44:04
Speaker 1: the biggest proponent of all these conspiracies. In 1998, he
44:09
Speaker 1: even went on the Today Show to talk about it.
44:11
Speaker 1: He said, quote, I can only surmise that Bishop had
44:15
Speaker 1: some help from very high-up people in the CIA and
44:18
Speaker 1: they're very possibly hiding him out. However, it's important to
44:21
Speaker 1: keep in mind that while Kite presents some compelling evidence,
44:25
Speaker 1: his ideas also appear to be based somewhat on his
44:28
Speaker 1: disbelief that a man could slaughter his family in such
44:31
Speaker 1: a brutal way. He said to one newspaper that Brad
44:35
Speaker 1: had to be on drugs because, quote, But family annihilators
44:38
Speaker 1: are not uncommon. In fact, over 50% of all mass
44:39
Speaker 1: murder cases are familicide. Brad's own journals certainly revealed a
44:52
Speaker 1: deeply unstable man. In the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, they
44:57
Speaker 1: still have Brad's wanted poster up as well as a
44:59
Speaker 1: bookshelf full of binders about the case. Kite has been
45:03
Speaker 1: retired for over a decade now, but says he still
45:06
Speaker 1: personally looks into any leads that come his way. If
45:09
Speaker 1: Brad Bishop is still alive, he would be approaching 90
45:12
Speaker 1: years old. He's since been taken off the FBI's most
45:16
Speaker 1: wanted list due to his age. But whether he's alive
45:19
Speaker 1: or dead, the fact that there's still a task force
45:22
Speaker 1: on the case and that new information is coming forward
45:25
Speaker 1: is promising. In September of 2021, the news broke that
45:30
Speaker 1: a long-lost daughter of Bradford Bishop was found. Her name
45:34
Speaker 1: is Kathy Gilchrist, and she would have been born during
45:37
Speaker 1: Bishop's time at Yale. She always knew she was adopted
45:40
Speaker 1: and decided to take a test through 23andMe to finally
45:43
Speaker 1: see if she could find anything about her birth families.
45:47
Speaker 1: Very little is known about the circumstances surrounding her birth
45:50
Speaker 1: and her birth mother has since passed away. But the
45:53
Speaker 1: fact that Brad had a daughter no one knew about
45:56
Speaker 1: is intriguing and helped to reignite interest in the case.
46:00
Speaker 1: Perhaps as years or even decades pass, more information about
46:04
Speaker 1: whatever became of Brad Bishop after he slaughtered his family
46:07
Speaker 1: might come to light. Maybe as more Cold War era
46:11
Speaker 1: documents are declassified, we'll learn more about the mysterious part
46:14
Speaker 1: of his life. Or perhaps he started a new family
46:18
Speaker 1: somewhere and more of his long-lost children will be found
46:21
Speaker 1: when his kids or grandchildren take a DNA test. Or
46:25
Speaker 1: maybe he ended things in the Smokies and a hiker
46:28
Speaker 1: will stumble upon his remains one day. If new leads
46:31
Speaker 1: are still coming in, anything is possible, and hopefully one
46:35
Speaker 1: day we'll have answers as to what happened to this monster.
46:56
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47:01
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47:13
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