Alabama shooting suspect shot brother in 1986

The Harvard-educated biology professor charged with gunning down three colleagues, including her Indian-American boss, during a faculty meeting in an Alabama university had in 1986 "accidentally" shot dead her 18-year-old brother, media reports said.

Andhra Pradesh-born professor Gopi Podilla, chairman of the biological sciences department at the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH) and two of his colleagues -- Maria Davis and Adriel Johnson, both associate professors -- were allegedly killed by 44-year-old Amy Bishop on Friday.

Though police did not give the reason behind the incident, local television WAFF, citing authorities, said Bishop shot at her colleagues during a faculty meeting after learning that she would not be granted tenure.

Her husband, James Anderson, was detained and questioned by police but has not been charged.

A day after the incident, US media reported that Bishop, who had just months left as a teacher at the University of Alamba, killed her teenage brother, Seth Bishop, with a shotgun at their Massachusetts home on December 6, 1986.

She was never charged for that shooting, which police ruled accidental at the time, Boston Globe reported.

It quoted a local police chief and the Norfolk district attorney's office giving differing accounts of the incident that killed Seth Bishop at the siblings' Braintree home, raising questions about the handling of the case.

The Braintree town's current chief, Paul H Frazier, said police were prepared to arrest and charge Amy immediately after the shooting but were ordered to release her by the chief at the time, who called the death accidental.