CAROLINA SHORES, N.C. — A North Carolina woman, who always knew she was adopted, had no idea just how different her life would’ve been if her birth mother hadn’t made the decision to give her up after she was born.
According to WECT, Kathy Gillcrist decided she wanted to take a DNA test to find out more about her biological family. It led her to a third cousin in Maine who’s a genealogist.
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The two of them then searched for Gillcrist’s father, William Bradford Bishop Jr. It turns out, he’s accused of killing his entire family in the 1970s.
The US government has been trying to track down William Bradford Bishop since the 1970s. He’s accused of brutally murdering his wife and three children. After the murder, the killer drove 300 miles to Columbia, North Carolina.
In 2014, he was named to the FBI’s most-wanted list.
“[My cousin] said, ‘OK, I found your father. All I’m going to do is give you his name,’” said Gillcrist, recalling the day she found out. “I said, ‘Is it someone famous?’ She said, ‘Um, yeah.’ I just laughed. We have a great sense of humor in my adoptive family and I thought, ‘Of course my father’s a murderer.’”
Gillcrist was raised by her quiet and reserved adoptive parents who nurtured her into becoming a teacher and a generally happy person -- but she says nature is what’s to blame for her driven personality, something she credits her birth father for passing along.
Bishop would be in his 80s now. There have been claims of him being spotted in Europe and Gillcrist said she believes he’s still alive and on the run.
She documented her journey to find her family in a memoir, “It’s in my Genes.”
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