Accused Ala. Shooter Bishop Likely Insane: Lawyer

The lawyer for an Alabama college professor accused of killing three colleagues during a faculty meeting said today he believes the teacher is insane, and that she says she can't remember the shooting. Amy Bishop, who has taught at the University of Alabama in Huntsville since 2003, has severe mental problems that appear to be paranoid schizophrenia, said Roy W. Miller, her court-appointed attorney.

Bishop's failure to obtain tenure at the University of Alabama in Huntsville was likely a key to the shootings last Friday, Miller said. Miller said the Harvard-educated Bishop apparently was incensed that a lesser-known school rejected her for what amounted to a lifetime job. "Obviously she was very distraught and concerned over that tenure," Miller said. "It insulted her and slapped her in the face, and it's probably tied in with the Harvard mentality. She brooded and brooded and brooded over it, and then, 'bingo.'" (More Amy Bishop stories.)