William Bradford Bishop, Jr.

BA, Yale University

Brad Bishop graduated from Yale in 1959, collected a couple of MAs—in Italian from Middlebury, in African Studies from UCLA—got married, and took a job in counterintelligence for the US Army. Later, with his espionage experience and five languages plus English, he went to work for the State Department. There were many overseas postings in Africa and Europe. He did some more graduate work, this time at the University of Florence, in Italy. Finally, this Ivy League cold warrior came home to State Department headquarters in Washington, DC, as an assistant division chief. He, his wife, their three sons, and his mother lived together in swank, pleasant Bethesda, Maryland.

Bloodcurdling, isn’t it? And yet our story is only beginning.

In 1976 Bishop learned that he would not get the promotion he was expecting. He was disappointed. Why wouldn’t he be, with his Yale pedigree, his languages, his advanced degrees, and his record of service to his country? So he did what any of us would have done in a similar situation: he left work early, cleaned out his bank account, bought a small sledgehammer, a shovel, and a pitchfork, gassed up his station wagon and filled a gasoline can, went home, brutally bludgeoned his wife, kids, and mother with the sledge, packed their bodies into the station wagon, drove six hours to a swamp in North Carolina, dug a shallow hole, dumped the bodies, emptied the gasoline can, and started a big fire.

Excessive? Perhaps. Like we said: he was disappointed. Apart from that, who knows why he did it? One wants to confront the man and say, “Don’t they teach you in Ivy League colleges not to massacre your family?” Although maybe they do, and his instruction just didn’t take. In any case, as a character in Jean Renoir’s classic film The Rules of the Game says, “The awful thing about life is this: everyone has their reasons.”

Whatever Bishop’s reasons were, he kept them to himself. He did his thing, and then he disappeared. As of this writing, William Bradford Bishop is still on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Over the years he’s allegedly been spotted in England, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium… let’s just say “somewhere in downtown Europe.” Which is to say, he may have been spotted but he’s never been captured—a fact that speaks well of the tradecraft of our nation’s espionage service. Forging passports and birth certificates is not that big a deal for a former spy; with those, along with dyed hair and a grown or shaved-off beard, he could be anywhere. He could be in Africa. He could be studying odontology at the Université de Montpellier. (Somebody must be. Why not Bishop?) He could be long dead.

Which raises the question: Might there be a special, ultra-exclusive, highly coveted, ivy-bedecked chamber of hell? If you end up there, reader, ask for Brad Bishop, and get back to us.