Is Body Exhumed in Alabama That of Bethesda 'Family Annihilator'?

Could the body of a vagrant John Doe buried in Alabama actually be that of fugitive Bethesda diplomat William Bradford Bishop Jr., sought for the murder of his wife, three sons and mother with a hammer in 1976?

No one has seen Bishop, dubbed a “family annihilator” by the FBI, four nearly four decades. For years investigators assumed Bishop used his experience in the diplomatic corps to live overseas, likely in Europe.

But that assumption may have been thrown out Thursday after the FBI, which added Bishop to its Most Wanted list in the spring, floated a new theory. Federal investigators suggest Bishop never left the rural South after burying his family in North Carolina. Instead, he may have lived as a homeless vagrant until he was killed by a hit-and-run driver in Alabama in 1981, the Associated Press says in a WTOP story.

The John Doe in the Alabama case bears a strong resemblance to Bishop, so authorities have dug up the unidentified remains in Scottsboro, AL, to see if they match Bishop’s DNA, the AP reports. FBI officials said the results could be known soon.

Hundreds of Leads Go Nowhere

Over the years, more than 350 people have been identified to possibly be “Brad” Bishop, as hundreds of new tips flood in for possible Bishop sightings after he made the FBI’s “ Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list, according to Gazette.Net. There is a $100,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.

A Montgomery County grand jury indicted Bishop in 1976 for the murders of his mother, wife and sons, ages 5, 10 and 14. Authorities have no sightings of him and say they don’t know whether he is still alive or if he has died in the past four decades. But they want to resolve the brutal slayings.

Investigators believe Bishop killed his family on March 1, put their bodies in the family station wagon, along with the family’s golden retriever, then drove to North Carolina where he buried them in a shallow grave and set their bodies on fire.

The last confirmed sighting of Bishop was one day after the murders when he purchased a pair of sneakers at a sporting goods store in Jacksonville, NC.

“Nothing has changed since March 2, 1976, when Bishop was last seen, except the passage of time,” said Special Agent Steve Voct of the FBI’s Baltimore field office.

FBI’s Most Wanted

Since Bishop made it to the FBI’s Most Wanted list earlier this year, about 350 possible sightings have been reported, according to Gazette.Net. Vogt said he could not discuss the details of the leads, but some have included a floating corpse off the coast of Mexico and look-a-likes in Cambodia and New York. All three have proved to be false sightings.

Bishop’s appearance on the Most Wanted list coincided with producers of CNN’s “The Hunt with John Walsh,” a show that profiles fugitives, to feature the case on an episode, Gazette.Net reports.

“That’s when we started getting a tremendous number of leads,” Montgomery County Sheriff Darren M. Popkin told the news outlet.

Many of the hundreds of leads are not useful, Popkin said, but some have turned in photographs and addresses of places where the could-be suspect may work.

Timeline of events

On March 8, 1976, a neighbor called police because she was concerned about the lack of activity at the Bishop home at 8103 Lilly Stone Drive in Bethesda. The neighbor had not seen anyone at the home for about a week. When Montgomery County Police officers entered the residence, they found a gruesome, bloody crime scene in several rooms.

Montgomery County detectives had been contacted earlier in the week by North Carolina authorities about five burned bodies that had been found in a wooded area. A shovel at the scene was purchased at a hardware store in Montgomery County.

Once police went to the Bishop home, investigators linked the two crimes, believing the burned bodies in North Carolina to be the missing family members. Dental records, jewelry, and clothing descriptions were used to positively identify the bodies found in the shallow grave as Bishop’s family.

As part of the investigation, detectives developed a timeline of Bradford Bishop’s activities before and after the murders. He had purchased a small sledgehammer and a gasoline can from the Sears at Montgomery Mall on March 1. That same day, he had also purchased gasoline at the Texaco station adjacent to the mall.

A vehicle similar to Bishop’s had been observed in the area of the fire. Bishop was last seen about 5:30 p.m. on March 2, when he bought a pair of tennis shoes at a sports store in Jacksonville, NC.

On March 18, 1976, Bishop’s vehicle was found by a park ranger at the Elkmont campground in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park near Gatlinburg, TN. Bloody clothing and an ax were inside the station wagon.

Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of William Bradford Bishop is asked to call 1-800-CALL-FBI. A reward of up to $100,000 is being offered for information that leads to his arrest.

Log onto www.fbi.gov to view more detailed information about the Bishop case, study the age-progressed photos, and view other related images that may help to identify Bishop.

Previous Patch Stories about Bishop:

• ‘Family Annihilator’ from Maryland Named to FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List
• Bethesda Father Sought for Killing Family Likely in Italy Says WTOP
• FBI: Bethesda Father Sought for Killing Family Likely in California
• 350 Tips in Hunt for Bethesda ‘Family Annihilator’