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Hempfield youth accused of beating brother to death

Saturday, August 17, 2002

By Ernie Hoffman, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

A psychologist told a Westmoreland County court yesterday that a 14-year-old boy accused of beating his brother to death with a hammer would be better off if he were to be tried and convicted as a juvenile.

Ian Bishop of Hempfield is charged as an adult with first-degree murder in the April 19 killing of his 18-year-old brother Adam, but his defense attorneys have asked Common Pleas Judge Debra A. Pezze to transfer the case to juvenile court.

Besides psychologist Judith Rein, Bishop's parents and several educators testified during the first day of the hearing on Ian Bishop's transfer request.

The boy's father, Jeffrey Bishop, said Ian had a physical confrontation with his mother a week before Adam was killed and a school principal said an anonymous caller warned school officials last fall that Ian was likely to hurt someone.

Rein testified that Bishop is intelligent but emotionally arrested and that treatment in adult facilities in Pennsylvania would be counter-productive to his rehabilitation.

Rein said more than 20 hours of interviews and tests in recent months showed Ian Bishop needs the kind of mental treatment he could obtain in a juvenile center.

"The testing suggests he has problems with anger management," Rein said.

Rein, who was hired by defense attorneys to examine Ian Bishop, was the last of a string of witnesses who testified during the first day of a hearing on their bid to move his case to juvenile court.

To have the case transferred to juvenile court, the defense needs to show that it would be in the best interests of the community, Pezze said.

State police also have charged Ian Bishop's friend, 15-year-old Robert M. Laskowski, also of Hempfield, as an adult with first-degree murder in the case.

Both boys have been held without bail in the Westmoreland County Prison since shortly after the killing.

Police said the boys also planned to kill Ian Bishop's parents that day, but the plan was aborted when Adam Bishop did not die immediately and Ian called a friend and asked him to bring a gun to the house to help finish the job.

The friend brought his mother instead and she called police.

According to educators and his father, who testified earlier, Ian Bishop was enamored with Nazi history and spoke favorably about organizations like the Ku Klux Klan.

Although Ian Bishop was a good student and in many advanced classes, they said his behavior was a growing problem over the past couple of years.

Ninth-grade Principal Mark Grbach said Hempfield Area officials were told last year that Ian Bishop was a bully obsessed with Adolf Hitler and he frequently used various racial epithets.

"He wants to be the next Richard Baumhammers," the anonymous caller to the Safe School Hotline said in a call made Oct. 26.

"He said he wants to kill people that aren't like him," the caller said. "He spit on a black kid, made fun of him and that kid later went home crying."

Ian Bishop was called to the school office and his belongings were searched, Grbach said. A notebook with several offensive drawings, including a lynched black man and a swastika, was found.

School officials called the boy's father in, but took no other action. Jeffrey Bishop said he "had a discussion about it" with Ian.

Despite that and several other searches in school, officials never found any drugs belonging to Ian Bishop, Grbach said.

A transcript of that call was entered into evidence by the defense.

Other witnesses said one of the first incidents occurred in the fall of 2000 when the boy was in eighth grade at Wendover Middle School and a teacher found a swastika on one of his book covers.

When he moved to the ninth grade at Hempfield Area High School for the 2001-02 school year, he was disciplined twice within 10 days for wearing black boots with white or red laces to school.

Grbach said those color combinations were prohibited at school because they represent white supremacy ideology.

Grbach and other school employees testified that Hempfield Area disciplined Ian Bishop and notified his parents on several occasions.

Jeffrey Bishop said that on those occasions he would have "discussions" with Ian about the problems and he generally was satisfied with the boy's responses.

The father said he and his wife had contemplated getting professional help for Ian Bishop because of his deteriorating behavior.

A week before, Jeffrey Bishop said he and his wife, Karen, caught Ian on his way to his girlfriend's after he had told them he was going somewhere else.

Jeffrey Bishop said that during a confrontation in their kitchen, Ian swore at his mother, she slapped him and Ian pushed her to the floor before Jeffrey grabbed his son and threw him up against a wall.

Still, Jeffrey Bishop said he would take his son back from prison in a minute if he could. "I love him. He's part of my life," he said.

Ian Bishop's mother spent only a minute or so on the stand yesterday.

"I'm just confused. I still love Ian with all my heart," was all that Karen Bishop said.

District Attorney John W. Peck, who opposes the transfer, was not able to cross-examine Rein or present any prosecution witnesses before yesterday's hearing was recessed. It will resume on a date to be announced.

Ernie Hoffman can be reached at ehoffman@post-gazette.com or 724-836-2655.