Adopted woman discovers biological father is on FBI Most Wanted list for killing his family
An adopted woman from North Carolina used a DNA test kit to learn more about her birth family. Not only did she discover who her biological parents were, but she found out that her father is on FBI’s Most Wanted list… for killing his own family.
In 2017, Kathy Gilchrist was able to connect with her third cousin Susan Gilmor, after taking an Ancestry DNA test. Gilmor, who happens to be an amateur genalogist, helped her cousin look for her parents.
After about a year, Gilchrist was able to discover her biological parents’ names. However, a shocking revelation came with it: her father, William Bradford Bishop Jr., is listed on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.
An amateur genealogist from Maine set out to help her newly discovered third-cousin find her biological parents. When she does, she also discovers this cousin's biological father listed among the FBI's most wanted. @newscentermaine Full story: https://t.co/lIa6mW31rI pic.twitter.com/xC82L3QbCd
— Hannah Dineen (@hannah_dineen) March 17, 2021
Bishop is wanted for murdering his wife, 37, mother, 68, and three sons, ages 5, 10, and 14 in Bethesda, Maryland, on March 1, 1976. “He then allegedly moved their bodies to Columbia, North Carolina, where he buried the bodies in a shallow grave and lit them on fire,” said a report by NEWS CENTER Maine.
Bishop was charged locally with murder by the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office in Rockville, Maryland, and then charged federally with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. Up to this day, they still couldn’t find him.
Gilchrist couldn’t believe the findings at first. "I laughed," Gilchrist said. "We have a great sense of humor in my adoptive family and I just said, 'Well of course my father is a murderer.” But knowing what her brothers and other family members went through, she felt sadness.
Meanwhile, a second-cousin from her dad’s side reached out to Gilchrist.
"The second cousin says, 'You just look just like my family,' and they are thrilled to find her. They have been living with the heartache of the loss of people they loved and now there's this bright light, a bright spot in their heartache story,” said Gillmore.
Members of the Bishop family also noticed a resemblance with Gilchrist. "Kathy looks just like him," Gillmor said.
While it is unclear whether Gilchrist met her mother, according to the report, Gillmor believes that Gilchrist's birth mother met Bishop at a college party while he was a student at Yale.