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Why did Ian Bishop kill his older brother?

Saturday, July 19, 2003

By Virginia Kopas Joe, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Why did a bright 14-year old boy repeatedly bash his 18-year-old brother's head with a hammer and club and leave him lying helpless in a bathtub on April 19, 2002?

A Westmoreland County jury decided on Monday that the facts are not in dispute. Ian Bishop is guilty of third-degree murder in killing his older brother Adam. But everyone associated with the case agreed that the question of why Ian Bishop committed the crime will continue to haunt people in the community.

Ian Bishop never testified during his trial, and while there was some testimony about family tensions, there was never a witness who laid out a strong motive for Bishop to kill his brother.

Some of the boys' teenage acquaintances who testified during the trial suggested that the brothers did not get along and that Ian had used illegal drugs. Others, including Adam's girlfriend, 19-year-old Jennifer Young of Greensburg, insisted the Bishops were "a picture-perfect, loving family."

The only thing certain in the case is that Karen and Jeffrey Bishop grieve for two sons -- Adam, the son who will never grow up, and Ian, the son who will grow up in prison. The Bishops retained noted Greensburg defense attorney Tom Ceraso to represent Ian. And last week, Karen Bishop testified that "I love both my sons."

A typical FridayApril 19 last year was a Friday.

It started out much like any other day in the Bishop's fashionable, two-story home on Laurentz Lane in Hempfield. Jeffrey Bishop, 50, an investment banker with National City, had the day off and was getting ready to go golfing with his three brothers at a club in West Virginia.

His last sight of his sons together was at 7 a.m. Adam was on his way out the door to the school bus stop a few hundred feet away, and Ian was lagging behind. "He was always late getting out the door in the morning," Jeffrey Bishop told jurors.

Jeffrey left, expecting Ian, a sprinter on the Hempfield High School track team, to go to an invitational meet in Butler that afternoon. Adam, he knew, had plans to go out with friends.

As she usually did, Karen Bishop kissed her two sons goodbye at the door. Then she left for work as a personal aide for a special education student at Maxwell Elementary School, just a few miles from their home.

Adam and Ian put in a full day at school, and then, around 3 p.m., boarded the bus to go home. On the bus with them was Robert Laskowski, then 15, a ninth-grader and member of the track team. Several students on the bus have said it was odd that Laskowski, who lived across town in the Wendover section of Hempfield, would be on their route that day. Laskowski got off the bus two stops before Ian. Neighbors saw Adam go into the house, with Ian behind him. Then, at some point, Laskowski showed up.

Within a few hours, the close-knit neighborhood would be indelibly changed.

Police theorize that the three boys ended up in the computer room of the house, a spare bedroom on the second floor. The room had a CEO-sized desk piled with high-tech equipment and telephones. Brand-name clothes spilled from a packed closet; shelves were piled with trophies and books. A feathered dreamcatcher hung on the back of the door and would mark the spot police first found Adam's blood.

The boys made several phone calls from the computer room and downloaded some CDs.

Then, police say, Ian -- and possibly Laskowski -- hit Adam. The first blow was hard enough to draw blood and Adam started out the door, and then either headed for the bathroom, or was carried down the beige-carpeted L-shaped hall to it.

More blows, "enough to not only fracture his skull but to tear Adam's brain," occurred at the entrance to the bathroom, testified noted forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht. The last came as Adam was draped over the tub. Police said Ian then placed his brother face down with his feet on the faucets in the bathtub, and turned the shower on.

A call for help
More phone calls were then made, one of them to Matthew Bumbaugh, 14, of Grapeville. A "hysterical" Ian asked Matthew to come over because "something happened to Adam." He also asked him to bring a gun.

Matthew's mother, Terri, decided to go along. She grabbed her son and her cell phone and drove to the Bishop's home several miles away. When she arrived, she found a surreal scene. Laskowski was standing "looking normal" at the front door, and Ian Bishop was on the inside stairwell drinking from a jug of milk. He was calm. Both boys had blood on their clothes and both were in their stocking feet.

Terri and Matthew Bumbaugh went upstairs and followed the bloody trail to the bathroom. She used her cell phone to call 911 and asked Ian to help her move Adam because she could see "bubbles in the water" and hear him struggling to breath. "We need to shut off the water or he'll drown," Terri Bumbaugh said she shouted to Ian.

"Ian said 'Maybe that would be good,' " she testified.

Paramedics and police were soon all over the house, and Adam was flown to UPMC in Pittsburgh. His parents were notified and they went to the hospital, where Adam died at 8:37 p.m. of massive head trauma.

Ian Bishop went to the mall. How he got there remains unclear, but, by early evening, a friend who worked at the food court was looking for a ride for him.

A stream of young people, ages 15 to 23, testified about exactly what Ian Bishop said and did later that night. Most said he talked openly about a fight with his brother. Heather Exton, 17, of Greensburg, who was in a car with Ian that night, said he told her that he hit Adam on the head "many times with a hammer and a club because he hated him." Exton also claimed that Ian told her he had plans "to kill his whole family."

Ian Bishop was found alone around 11 p.m. at Hempfield Middle School by troopers, who arrested him. He did not resist, and the arresting officer said Ian had "a thousand-yard stare."

The defense insisted during the trial that Adam came at Ian and he acted in self-defense, and that the killing blows actually came from Laskowski. The defense pounded away at inconsistencies in the testimony of prosecution witnesses, from blood spatter experts to teenagers who were awkward on the stand. Neither the defense nor the prosecution ever explained why Ian asked Matthew Bumbaugh for a gun.

Undoubtedly the most effective part of the defense was when Jeffrey and Karen Bishop took the stand. The only time that Ian showed any emotion was when his father and mother each recounted their "loving, normal family."

Karen Bishop told jurors, as Ian wiped tears from his eyes, that the brothers would "cuddle in bed when they were little and Adam would read to Ian." More recently, she said, that affection was shown when the boys "went everywhere together after Adam learned to drive; Adam even took him on dates."

The district attorney's office, led by Patrick Noonan, relied on police and medical witnesses and more than 150 photos that showed the bloody scene and autopsy photos that depicted the severity of Adam's injuries. Jeffrey and Karen Bishop sat through it all, heads bowed. She clutched a miniature Bible and a wad of tissue most of the time.

Bishop will be sentenced by Judge Debra A. Pezze sometime within the next three months. Before that, Pezze must decide if Ian can go home temporarily. His attorney asked the judge Wednesday to consider granting bail.

Laskowski's part in the murder will be dissected at his own trial later this year. He, too, was charged with first-degree murder and remains in Westmoreland County Jail.

Few warnings
There are no telling clues to what caused the crime in what has been described about the personalities of the boys.

Ian Bishop, still growing at 5-feet-5-inches and less than 130 pounds, was generally more introverted and more talented academically than his brother. Ian was a mostly A student whose Iowa Basic test scores were always in the 99th percentile. He was an altar server and usher at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Jeannette, played soccer as well as running track, and played saxophone in the Hempfield Jazz Band.

Adam Bishop, 6 feet tall and 154 pounds at the time of his death, was the more outgoing brother. He was a slightly above average student who liked to play the guitar.

The defense worked hard to paint a portrait of the Bishops as the ideal suburban family. A year before the murder, the family took a cruise vacation to the Caribbean. The boys seemed to have any material possessions they might want.

But there were signs of strain beneath the glowing surface.

One involved the family's suspicion that Ian was using drugs.

Jeffrey Bishop testified that the family confronted Ian about that. Adam, who had taken Prozac after experience with an acne medication had made him depressed, sided with them in that showdown, his father said, because "Adam didn't want Ian to have the same kind of problems he did."

And then there was an incident just two weeks before the murder.

While at work one day, Karen Bishop said she realized that Ian was at home alone because his teachers had an in-service training day. The Bishops had forbidden Ian to see his girlfriend without their supervision, and Karen said she realized the day off might have given Ian a chance to visit the girl.

As Karen drove the few miles from her school, she encountered Ian on his bicycle heading in the direction of the girl's house. She made him turn around and go home. Jeffrey Bishop was coincidentally returning from a nearby appointment when he spotted his wife and son on the road.

The three went home and Ian and his parents began arguing. Suddenly, Ian struck his mother and she fell to the kitchen floor. Adam, also home by then, came rushing down the steps and started to punch Ian.

The parents testified that Ian did not defend himself.

Then, less than a month later, came the violence that changed the family forever.

No matter how much prison time Ian Bishop ends up being sentenced to, when he reports to the State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill, he will be the youngest convicted murderer in the state prison system.

There may be an appeal because Ian was tried as an adult. Ceraso had argued the case should have been tried in juvenile court.

In the end, both sides' lawyers admit that no one, outside of Ian Bishop and Laskowski, may ever know what truly happened that day.

Jeffrey and Karen Bishop will pay for their son's appeal and his bail if it granted. They continue to live in the house where their other son died.