Michele R. McPhee - A Professors Rage: The Chilling True Story of Harvard PhD Amy Bishop, her Brothers Mysterious Death, and the Shooting

Dear Reader:

The book you are about to read is the latest bestseller from the St. Martins True Crime Library, the imprint The New York Times calls the leader in true crime! Each month, we offer you a fascinating account of the latest, most sensational crime that has captured the national attention. St. Martins is the publisher of Tina Dirmanns VANISHED AT SEA , the story of a former child actor who posed as a yacht buyer in order to lure an older couple out to sea, then robbed them and threw them overboard to their deaths. John Glatts riveting and horrifying SECRETS IN THE CELLAR shines a light on the man who shocked the world when it was revealed that he had kept his daughter locked in his hidden basement for 24 years. In the Edgar-nominated WRITTEN IN BLOOD , Diane Fanning looks at Michael Petersen, a Marine-turned-novelist found guilty of beating his wife to death and pushing her down the stairs of their homeonly to reveal another similar death from his past. In the book you now hold, A PROFESSORS RAGE , Michele McPhee unlocks the secrets of a particularly dramatic cold case.

St. Martins True Crime Library gives you the stories behind the headlines. Our authors take you right to the scene of the crime and into the minds of the most notorious murderers to show you what really makes them tick. St. Martins True Crime Library paperbacks are better than the most terrifying thriller, because its all true! The next time you want a crackling good read, make sure its got the St. Martins True Crime Library logo on the spineyoull be up all night!

Charles E. Spicer, Jr.

Executive Editor, St. Martins True Crime Library

For my mother, Sheila Patricia Seward McPhee

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are so many people who are deserving of thanks who cannot be named on these pages. They know who they are, and that their efforts to make this an accurate record of a shooting that took place so long ago are appreciated.

Some will call this a book of police corruption. I want to note that there were police officers who battled to investigate fully the circumstances of Seth Bishops death. Massachusetts enjoys a long and infamous reputation as a state steeped in political buffoonery and incompetence when it comes to public safety. I will leave it at that.

Thanks also to great diplomats to the media like David Traub of the Norfolk County District Attorneys Office. Also, police chiefs are inundated with minutiae, so I am grateful to Paul Frazier of Braintree and Paul Nikas for putting up with my requests for public records.

I would like to thank my agent, Jane Dystel, and my editor, Allison Strobel. And of course I want to thank Charlie Spicer for counting me among his true crime writers.

On a personal note, this book would not have been possible without the prodding and coddling that came from a great writer and a good friend, Joe Keohane.

My sister Erin Donovan shows up at every book eventthank you, along with my godparents Joan and Dick Dennis. My parents, Bruce and Sheila McPhee, and my sister Shannon have always been supportive.

And thanks to MPH.

CONTENTS

Tom Pettigrew wiped a dirty hand on his blue mechanics pants and glanced around an auto body bay at Dave Dinger Forda garage owned by a buddy of his in the working class suburb of Braintree, Massachusetts. It was December 6, 1986, and Pettigrew was jumpy, looking around, waiting for some unwelcome visitor or other to turn up. Hed been that way since he stole $25,000 from an ATM two weeks earlier. He had moved the cash around a bit until it was stashed in his toolbox at the shop.

Pettigrew was a punk twenty-year-old Irish-American guy from the South Shore of Boston. He was a good-looking, personable kid who lived with his mom and held down two jobs, but he had a knack for getting himself into trouble. He was always on the hunt for a big score. Where others saw danger, he saw opportunity.

It was kind of like a brand growing up Irish on the South Shore in those days. People like to say that Boston is segregated mainly by race, but thats not true. Its segregated first and foremost by geography. Back then, every neighborhood in Boston, and every town around it, had its own look, even its own distinct accent. Pettigrew could clearly be picked out of a lineup as a South Shore guy. He sported shell-toed Adidas sneakers. His blond, curly hair was left alone, not shaved on the side like the North Shore guys hair. South Shore guys abhorred muscle shirts, or wife beaters, and wore pastel-colored, collared Izod shirts to dress up and rock band shirts for their downtime. Pettigrew was into metalthe music that in the late 1980s had brought people from the North Shore and the South Shore togetherso he was often seen wearing T-shirts from concerts he had attended at the Centrum in Worcester: Quiet Riot, maybe, or Black Sabbath. Instead of the North Shores gold chains, guys from the South Shore wore Irish Claddagh rings upside down with the heart facing out to signal to women that they were single (even if they werent). When the North Shore and South Shore guys came together, brawls often erupted as the conspicuously dressed factions fought to properly represent their respective home turfs. Pettigrew was one of those punks, a hood rat who knew how to use his fists. Sometimes he would throw the first punch just to remind his friends of that very fact.

On that cold Saturday afternoon, December 6, 1986, Tom Pettigrew didnt need to throw any punches to assure his friends of his manhood. They were awed by him. He had practically robbed a bank. He stood inside the auto body shop, glancing around. Then he called his two buddies, Dino Malchionno and Johnny Sullivan. He needed to calm down. And there was only one way to settle that anxiety. Pettigrew pulled a fat joint from the pocket of his grease-stained pants and then leaned on the trunk of his black 1986 Thunderbird Coupe five-speed, shining in the repair bay. His baby. It was in perfect condition, with a black-on-black interior. Now that Tom had a new revenue source he was going to add some speed features that would make him unbeatable in a drag race. There was always a possibility for a drag race in a city like Braintree. He leaned in the window, popped in the cigarette lighter, and pushed the head of the joint into the orange glow. He sucked in a deep hit while Dino and Johnny, recently arrived, stood and waited.

Boys. You ready to count the take? Pettigrew asked as he took a long toke. He bulged out his eyes as he held his breath, his cheeks puffed out. He exhaled, looked at the grease under his nails, and scrubbed his palms against the rough cotton fabric of his mechanics pants again. There was something about crisp, new $100 bills that made him want clean hands. Sure, he could have counted the cash alone. But the robbery was not just about the money. It was about the moxie. And Tom Pettigrew wanted everyone in his crew to remember he had it.

Lets see what we have here.

He didnt have to ask twice. Time had slowed to an agonizing crawl since Pettigrew had come to Dinos house all sweaty and guilty looking on the dawn side of midnight a few days earlier, with a lumpy duffel bag he wanted to stash there. Dino had let him, though he and Johnny Sullivan wondered whether Pettigrews talk of the score was nothing more than braggadocio, or maybe even drug-induced wishful thinking. Dino was tempted to look in the bag, sure. He had hung around with Tom Pettigrew long enough to know that the guy was capable of almost anythingespecially with a few drinks in him. But Dino decided to leave well enough alone, lest his fingerprints become the only evidence on a bag from a crime scene. That morning, Pettigrew had come back for the bag. He took it to the garage and transferred its contents to his Diehard Toolbox. Dino and Johnny had been on pins and needles for days. It was killing them. And it was finally time to find out what was in the bag.