Nearly four decades ago, William Bradford Bishop, Jr. seemed an unlikely person to ever make the FBI's notorious top 10 list, but an April FBI press release announces he now has that distinction. At the time of the gruesome murders, Bishop was serving as a State Department Foreign Service officer, a job that involved many travels abroad and knowledge of several foreign languages.
The then-39-year-old clean-cut husband and father had an American Studies degree from Yale University and a Master's Degree in Italian from Vermont's Middlebury College. A former intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, he lived on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. in Maryland with his wife and three sons, ages five, 10, and 14.
On March 1, 1976, Bishop told his colleagues he wasn't feeling well and left work early, stopping on the way home to purchase a hammer and gas can. At his Bethesda home, he allegedly bludgeoned his wife to death with the hammer, then allegedly did the same to his mother when she returned from walking the dog, according to a description of events from The Washington Post.
Then, Bishop used the hammer to kill his sleeping sons, authorities believe. That night, Bishop drove the bodies 275 miles to North Carolina, where he threw the bodies in a ditch and set them on fire.
Since then, very little is known about where Bishop went. He is known to have purchased sneakers at a North Carolina sporting goods store the next day, and two weeks later his car was discovered at a campground near the border of Tennessee and North Carolina.
After that, the trail went cold. Acquaintances claim spotted Bishop in a Stockholm park in 1978, an Italy restroom in 1979, and at Switzerland train station in 1994.
Nowadays, investigators believe Bishop may be hiding in plain sight, and they hope Bishop's addition to the top 10 fugitives list will attract attention leading to a tip from someone who recognizes Bishop's face. Last year, authorities created a task force aimed at finally tracking Bishop down, led by the FBI, the Department of State, and the Maryland Montgomery County Sheriff's Office.
To help the public get an approximate idea of what Bishop may look like at age 77, a forensic artist has created age-enhanced images, along with the originals.
AP Photo/FBI
One explanation for Bishop's disappearance is that he is dead. But the FBI isn't relying on that possibility. Steve Vogt, an FBI special agent on the case, said extensive searches and interviews at the scene of Bishop's abandoned vehicle revealed no evidence of his death, or any trace of him for that matter.
Investigators have acknowledged that Bishop could be hiding overseas, given his Department of State experience traveling abroad and his ability to speak several foreign languages fluently. However, Vogt emphasizes that maintaining a fake identity abroad is difficult even for someone with Bishop's experience. He wants the public to be aware of the legitimate possibility that Bishop is hiding under a fake identity in the U.S., where he could blend in easier among other Americans.
"The reality is, he could be anywhere," Vogt said in the FBI's press release. "But we don't want people to assume that he's out of the country and overlook the fact that he might be living in their community. People might see someone who looks like him and think, 'It couldn't be him.' Well, it could be him. That's why we need the public's help."
To this day, there's no clear motive for the crime, though Bishop's failure to receive a promotion on the morning before his family's disappearance may have set him off. A State Department co-worker claimed Bishop voiced his dissatisfaction that a colleague received a promotion that should have gone to him, before the left early for the day, Bethesda Magazine reported.
For some reason, Bishop didn't kill the family dog when he allegedly murdered the rest of his family, according to Bethesda Magazine. Eyewitnesses claim they saw him with a woman and a dog at the sporting goods store and a convenience store in the days immediately after the crime.
Bishop suffered from insomnia, was under psychiatric care, and took medication for depression, according to an FBI description of Bishop. "Bishop was described as intense and self-absorbed, prone to violent outbursts, and preferred a neat and orderly environment," the description says.