Family paints pilot as being 'regular' teen

He had summer plans, ambitious goals and an upbeat attitude, the family's lawyer says.

By ROBERT FARLEY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 12, 2002

ST. PETERSBURG -- As family members grimly prepared for the funeral of Charles Bishop,their attorney portrayed the 15-year-old pilot as a curious but outwardly normal teen with a passion for flying.

Bishop, who crashed a Cessna into a Tampa high-rise a week ago today, was an honor roll student who liked classical music, followed the stock market and once played first-chair alto saxophone in his middle school band, the attorney said Friday.

He belonged to the Young Republicans Club, had read all of Tom Clancy's books, liked to travel and took pride in caring for his three dogs -- Buddy, Deanna Troi and Yukon Cornelius, named after a character in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

His passion for aviation began when he was 11 years old, when he first saw a flight simulator. An avid computer user, he learned as much as he could about aviation, then began training to become a licensed pilot. He talked of becoming a military pilot one day.

This is the Charles Bishop presented in a "family remembrance" released by his mother and grandmother. Although they have still not talked to the media, Charles' mother, Julia Bishop, and his grandmother, Karen Johnson, hired attorney Pam Campbell to speak on their behalf at a news conference in St. Petersburg on Friday afternoon.

Campbell spent most of that news conference trying to balance the picture painted by authorities of a troubled teen, a loner who went on a suicidal mission, crashed an airplane into a bank building in downtown Tampa and left a note expressing sympathy to Osama bin Laden.

"This was a really positive and upbeat person," she said. "He had a lot of goals and aspirations and dreams. He was a regular American teenage boy."

Neither his mother nor grandmother saw any signs that Charles was unhappy or suicidal, Campbell said.

Campbell also said Charles did not know that his mother and father attempted suicide two years before his birth. Campbell said Julia Bishop thought she had put the incident behind her.

"She thought that the worst was over, until last Saturday," Campbell said.

To his family, Charles Bishop was a boy who had a promising future.

He had been selected to participate in the People to People Student Ambassador Program, featuring a trip to New Zealand and Australia this summer. He was one of 18 East Lake High students chosen for a German language skills competition in Daytona Beach.

He and his family were supposed to have a celebratory dinner Saturday night to commemorate Charles' first night flight, and to mark the end of Julia Bishop's job as a graphic artist the day before, Campbell said.

As for reports that Charles left behind a note sympathizing with bin Laden, Campbell said that didn't fit.

"He was a patriotic American," Campbell said. "He was very upset by the events of Sept. 11."

Just last summer, Charles took a trip to Washington, D.C., with his grandmother. And because he had moved around so much in his life -- from Massachusetts to Georgia and then to Tampa Bay -- he had an appreciation for cultural differences, she said.

The reports of Charles being a loner also don't fit, Campbell said.

"If he's a loner because he doesn't have a lot of friends, I guess people are going to have to draw their own conclusions," Campbell said. "He had just started at this school."

"Charles, in the family's eyes, was a very honorable, perfect son," she said.

Campbell declined to discuss reports that Charles had been prescribed Accutane, an acne drug that has been linked anecdotally to depression and suicide.

"I think information about that will just have to be described later on in some other forum," she said.

Campbell said a number of people who testified in prior Accutane cases have contacted the family.

Vernard Adams, Hillsborough County chief medical examiner, said that along with requesting the normal toxicology tests, his office has sent out a separate sample to test for the presence of Accutane.

Campbell said the family may speak to the public directly after the private funeral for their son this weekend.

- Staff writers Tamara Lush and Graham Brink contributed to this report.

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