MD MD - Bishop Family murders, Bethesda, 1 March 1976

[PommyMommy]

OCT 31, 2024

https://www.wate.com/news/lonely-bones/5-missing-persons-cases-remain-unsolved-in-the-great-smoky-mountains-national-park/

There is also at least one additional person who is believed to have disappeared into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park who still has not been found that is not included in the NPS’ list: William Bradford Bishop Jr.

Bishop disappeared in March of 1976, and he was added to the FBI’s Most Wanted list in 2014. According to the FBI, just one day before he was last seen at a sporting goods store in Jacksonville, North Carolina, Bishop allegedly bludgeoned his wife, mother, and three sons to death in Bethesda, Maryland.

 

[GoldenEagle]

Thanks! That's a good article. Interesting that Brad Bishop's cousin, who knew him rather well, said he was the definition of a narcissist.

There is an interesting crime podcast with Kathy Gilchrist. It was the 6/24/21 episode of “Ivy League Murders”. In it, Gilchrist and the podcast hosts discuss their recent conversations with an anonymous man who claims to have been neighbors with Bishop who was living under a different name in northern Wisconsin. The man went as far as to share pictures of this person who was supposedly Bishop to the hosts and Gilchrist. They didn’t specify what years or timeframe it covered, just that it was after the murders.

 

[mothwings]

There is an interesting crime podcast with Kathy Gilchrist. It was the 6/24/21 episode of “Ivy League Murders”. In it, Gilchrist and the podcast hosts discuss their recent conversations with an anonymous man who claims to have been neighbors with Bishop who was living under a different name in northern Wisconsin. The man went as far as to share pictures of this person who was supposedly Bishop to the hosts and Gilchrist. They didn’t specify what years or timeframe it covered, just that it was after the murders.

That's interesting. Where in northern Wisconsin? I grew up there. Definitely a great place for fugitives to hide for sure. I could see Bishop living there.

 

[Pirdie21]

He’s obviously DB Cooper

 

[Slater612]

There is an interesting crime podcast with Kathy Gilchrist. It was the 6/24/21 episode of “Ivy League Murders”. In it, Gilchrist and the podcast hosts discuss their recent conversations with an anonymous man who claims to have been neighbors with Bishop who was living under a different name in northern Wisconsin. The man went as far as to share pictures of this person who was supposedly Bishop to the hosts and Gilchrist. They didn’t specify what years or timeframe it covered, just that it was after the murders.

So,

I can’t stop looking at Franklin Delano Floyd and Seeing William Bradford Bishop.. Does anyone else see it? It couldn’t be, right? They would test Floyd’s DNA by now… right???

 

[Slater612]

I think the DNA needs to be compared for sure between Franklin Delano Floyd, and William Bradford Bishop… He may be off the streets after all, and that pesky chore of collecting serial killers dna or different jurisdiction (though fbi is all jurisdictions as far as I know…) was holding up justice in the first cases, eh ? It could not be possible, right???

 

[Slater612]

I think the DNA needs to be compared for sure between Franklin Delano Floyd, and William Bradford Bishop… He may be off the streets after all, and that pesky chore of collecting serial killers dna or different jurisdiction (though fbi is all jurisdictions as far as I know…) was holding up justice in the first cases, eh ? It could not be possible, right???

Someone please tell me this cannot be…

 

[iamshadow21]

So,

I can’t stop looking at Franklin Delano Floyd and Seeing William Bradford Bishop.. Does anyone else see it? It couldn’t be, right? They would test Floyd’s DNA by now… right???

Except when this happened, he was on the run with a very young Suzanne Sevakis.

MOO

 

[annemc2]

Except when this happened, he was on the run with a very young Suzanne Sevakis.

MOO

And he had a history of multiple arrests and incarcerations. You'd hope that the prints had been checked somewhere along the way. I think Bishop likely possessed a sophistication due to his background and education that FDF could not even hope to emulate. It would be very hard to keep up a charade as a sexually-deviant uneducated drifter when his actual background was that of a ivy league educated US foreign service officer and family annihilator. Would be an insane twist, though!

 

[Jets4Life]

So,

I can’t stop looking at Franklin Delano Floyd and Seeing William Bradford Bishop.. Does anyone else see it? It couldn’t be, right? They would test Floyd’s DNA by now… right???

Floyd was a career criminal and conman, who was in and out of jail since the late 1950s. Bishop was a respected US Foreign Service Worker, who worked in the Army, then was posted in many countries from the late 50s, onward. In other words, they are not the same person, considering Floyd would have been in prison when Bishop was overseas.

 

[dotr]

Jun 16, 2025
Bradford Bishop is a high ranking state department official accused of killing his entire family and disappearing without a trace.