Chapter 1: What tragic event occurred in April 1990 involving Nancy Bishop and Richard Langert?
The journey of the last 25 years has really tested my faith. Palm Sunday, 1990. I'm in my choir robe at the back of my church where I still sing in the choir today. This glorious music is playing. The church is full. Everyone is singing. It's this joyful procession.
And the last thing I expected was to have the church secretary come to me and put her hand on my arm and say, you have a phone call. And that's when my heart started to pound because I thought something's wrong, really wrong. And it was my father on the phone. And the first thing he said to me is that Nancy and Richard have been killed. And he said someone killed them.
This happy young couple with everything to live for, with no enemies, with no reason that anyone in the world should want to take their lives. And right before she died, she drew this message in her own blood. By his body, there's the shape of a heart and the letter U. Love you. My name is Jean Bishop, and I'm the sister of Nancy Bishop Langert and the sister-in-law of Richard Langert.
Who could have looked at Nancy's eyes, the beautiful light shining there, and pulled the trigger? Why? Why them? Why Nancy and Richard Langer? It took 23 years to get the answer of why. You can't see too far in front of you. It really is kind of taking one step, but then another step, and another step. It's about a two hour drive down I-55. Then I go just about every other month.
Nancy is always in my heart when I make this drive. This is my one story and it's been incredibly healing. When I first started in this journey, I had no way of knowing that I would be in the place I am now. We're in front of Pontiac Prison, where I come to visit the person who killed my family members. I can't close him off. He is part of this story. So you believe he deserves a second chance.
He deserves an opportunity. Yes. To perhaps get out. Yes. I knew the first time I went there to see him in that prison that I'd be shaking the hand that held the gun that killed her. Winnetka is this village on the North Shore of Chicago, right along the lakefront.
More than 25 years after the brutal murder of her sister Nancy and brother-in-law Richard, Jean Bishop still lives in the wealthy Illinois suburb they grew up in. It was such a happy childhood. I was the middle of three girls, my younger sister Nancy and my older sister Jennifer.
It's a community where many Chicagoans move to raise their families, and it was used by filmmaker John Hughes for movies like Home Alone to convey picture-perfect middle America. It looks pretty idyllic when you're walking down the street. It's a real quiet, safe community. That's what made the sound of sirens so shocking that Sunday in April 1990.
Nancy's father, Lee, went to check on his pregnant daughter and her husband.
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Chapter 2: Who was identified as the killer of Nancy and Richard, and what was his background?
She was the comedian. And when she got older, she was kind of the one who could get away with anything. oldest sister, Jennifer. She was fun. Fantastic sense of humor. My mother is a very, very classy, well-mannered, elegant lady. And Nancy would be the one that could just make her laugh to the point where she would say, oh, that's awful. Oh, that's awful.
Joyce Bishop says her daughter Nancy was also a gifted performer, excelling at Winnetka's competitive New Trier High School. But Nancy's aspirations stayed rooted in family. She wanted to be a wife and a mother. Exactly. And have a home. That was all she wanted. And she was on her way. In her early 20s, Nancy met Richard Langert.
I thought he was just this perfect match for Nancy because he was this tall, handsome jock, and he would just be kind of basking in this glow that she cast. He would kind of look at her like, isn't she the most wonderful thing? I would look outside, and he would be out mowing our lawn without having been asked, now, is that a good guy? That is a good guy. That is a smart guy.
I declare that Richard and Nancy are husband and wife.
They married in 1987 and were soon working together for a growing coffee company. Every month she was hoping and praying and wishing that she would get pregnant. Within a few years, Nancy found out she was pregnant. She actually said in 1990, this is going to be our year because they had been married three years. They were expecting their first child. They were moving into their first house.
She was so happy. But until their dream house was ready, Nancy and Richard were temporarily living in this townhouse owned by her parents. They really were just living out of the suitcase, more or less. On Saturday, April 7th, the family got together at a restaurant in Chicago to celebrate Lee's birthday and Nancy's big news. Nancy and Richard were just in their heyday. They loved it.
I had a baby gift already for Nancy, and we were just the happiest family you can imagine. What do you remember being the last words that you said to her that night? Oh, I remember exactly. Because I never say them now. I hugged her goodbye and I said, I'll see you tomorrow. And I never say that to anyone anymore because you don't know that that will be true.
When Nancy and Richard returned to the townhouse that night, their killer was already inside waiting. The husband was executed, shot once in the head with his hands handcuffed behind his back. The wife was shot three times in the upper body. Everything in me stopped. If you had sliced my wrist, I would not have bled. I was frozen. I didn't cry. I didn't feel a thing. It's surreal. It's surreal.
I didn't cry until the next day. The news of a double murder hit at the heart of this quiet community. Whoever killed them broke into the house while the couple was away. As neighbors waited for answers, investigators at the crime scene had many questions about the killer. There was nothing taken. Nothing. No jewelry, no electronics, $500 of cash strewn on the ground.
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Chapter 3: What was the significance of the message left by Nancy in her own blood?
Planned, that it was planned, methodically planned. Yes. A multi-town police task force was assembled, and Sergeant Gene Calvados was put in charge of solving the murders.
It was hard to understand. As much as some things look professional, other things just look so amateur.
One thing they did quickly determine was how the killer came and went undetected.
In the backyard, right near the point of entry to the patio door, there's a fence there. Once you're over the fence, there's a bike trail down there, and you can go all the way to basically Chicago on it.
Rumors spread about an outsider bringing big city violence to Winnetka. But the question of why them remained.
You do a check on everybody. I mean, when you have no suspect, everybody is suspect.
But what if it turned out there was a connection between the suspect and someone in the Bishop family? Everyone and everything is fair game. I understood that and so did my family. What troubled me was the notion that my sister's investigation was hijacked for some other purpose. I knew that if someone killed them, that evil had intruded into our lives like nothing that we had ever known before.
In the days after the murders, the Bishop family learned from investigators chilling details of what happened in the last moments of the couple's life. Richard died first. The gun was put to the back of his head. He was shot once execution style. Nancy was shot twice in her side in Amteman. And then I think at some point she must have realized she was dying.
And so she dragged herself by her elbows over to Richard's body where he lay. The last thing that she did before she died was to leave us a message in her own blood. She took her finger in her own blood and she drew a heart and a U. Love you. Well, it's probably the most heartbreaking thing that you could ever imagine. When I saw that heart there, mine broke.
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Chapter 4: How did Jean Bishop seek closure after her sister's murder?
I felt at the time that they were considering me uncooperative, and that's a thing that you never want to be. But that's how the media in Chicago was playing it.
Winnetka police have indicated that Jean Bishop, shown here with other family members, has not cooperated with authorities in the investigation of the double slaying.
And so on the news, they actually did this kind of little spotlight around me, you know, as if, like, there she is. And I thought, really, if you believe that my life was being threatened and I'm still a target for whoever didn't succeed in killing me, and now you're highlighting my picture on the news? But the IRA story and a connection to Jean never checked out.
As the weeks dragged on, it looked like the killer actually might get away with it. Did you get to that point that you thought we may never know who did this? Yes, although my heart didn't want to accept it. I mean, I just felt so strongly that, you know, it would be this terrible, you know, shadow over my mother and my father and my sister and myself.
Meanwhile, Gene Calvados was still holding out for that one perfect tip to come in.
I was just hoping that somewhere along the line that we'd get the break that we needed.
After following a series of false leads, dead ends, and spending about a million dollars, the task force had been shut down. Then, nearly six months to the day of the murders, two teenagers walked into the Winnetka Police Department with an incredible story and blew the case wide open.
So I called Gene Kilvitas, and I said, Gene, you're not going to believe this, but a kid just came in here and told me he knows who killed the Langers.
Thank you.
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Chapter 5: What led to David Biro's arrest and what evidence was found?
I know the Biros. David Biro's father worked for my husband at one point. I thought, well, that's a mistake, I'm sure. Every year, the bureaus would send a Christmas card to my family with a picture of them, the parents and the kids. And I thought, oh my God, I've seen a picture of this killer.
But as information trickled out, Jean learned more about who that kid on the Christmas card had become. What did you find out or hear about him? Very disturbing things, that there had been a history of violence, that he had fired out of his window with a BB gun at passersby, that he had lit somebody on fire. David was going down the road of a sociopath.
True crime writer Jerilyn Kolarik wrote a book about the case and described a deeply disturbed David Biro, who at age 14 tried to poison his family. His brother and sister are sitting down at the table for lunch and they drink some milk and the milk is tainted. Somebody put wood alcohol into the milk. Within hours, Biro's parents checked him into a psychiatric hospital for juveniles.
But after less than two months, they let him come home against doctors' recommendations for continued treatment. He convinces his father and mother not to let him go back. And they didn't even bother doing any follow-up psychiatric with him. That was it. That's all he ever did. That's it. That's it.
A hospital assessment written just after Biro left read, at the time of his leaving the hospital, we believed that he was dangerous to himself or to others. His parents didn't agree. I hold them partially responsible. They knew he was dangerous, and they let him walk around unsupervised with a padlock on his bedroom door. Behind that padlock, a gun. He sought thrills. They gave him a rush.
Now three years later and awaiting his murder trial, Birol's behavior remained arrogant and cocky.
The authorities now believe the Langrits were chosen as victims less because of who they were than where they live, the motive they believe, and attempt to commit the perfect crime.
In the fall of 1991, Biro went to trial with prosecutors using that perfect crime motive. Their case was strong. They had Biro's confession to his good friend and all that evidence found in his bedroom, including the murder weapon. It was one of the most sensational murder cases in recent history. As the trial begins, many questions remain about the murders.
But in a surprise move, Biro would take the stand. He's accused of two murders, but he's taking the witness stand in his own defense. 18-year-old David Biro is speaking out in public for the first time. Biro stuck to his original story, that he was just holding the gun for another student who had actually committed the murders. Prosecutors and investigators dismissed the claim outright.
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Chapter 6: What was the outcome of David Biro's trial for the murders?
There was only one person who knew the answers to the questions that I had, and that was David Bureau himself.
But now I see
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It's almost like a university on a siege. Listen to and follow Campus Files, available now wherever you get your podcasts.
Long before David Biro's arrest and conviction, Jean Bishop was consumed by one extraordinary thought. I knew instantly that I didn't want to hate anyone. And I said those words, I don't want to hate anyone. When Nancy and Richard were killed at such a young age, I saw how short life is. How it can be taken from you at any minute. And I thought, oh my God, I'm wasting this life that God gave me.
And what can I do with it? What Jean and her sister Jennifer did was transformative. You both changed your lives and your livelihood because of this and after this. Both women began to work as outspoken advocates for gun control and against the death penalty by lobbying and speaking around the country about Nancy and Richard's story.
I have done a great deal of good work trying to change our violent culture and to help victims of violence. You're right here. Look at Nancy on the top of that pyramid. Amazingly, both Gene and Jennifer had forgiven David Biro, even though he never admitted he was the killer. Yeah, I think here's what my forgiveness was like. It's like this. I forgive you.
And now I'm wiping you off my hands like dirt. It is not for you. It's not about you. It's for me. I'm sad for him. I'm sad for how cold and empty his life must have been. And I am not going to hate him. In fact, Jennifer reached out to Biro, inspired by a movement known as Restorative Justice, which encourages reconciliation between offender and victims and their families.
And I said in a very short letter, here's my address, I would welcome a letter from you if you would like to talk to me. That's all I said. That letter, written about 13 years after the murders, was not exactly embraced by Biro the way Jennifer had hoped. And he said, I'm not going to confess to this crime, but I'd love to be your pen pal. It would be fun. Those were his words.
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Chapter 7: How did Jean Bishop's perspective on forgiveness evolve over the years?
I would call him the killer, the intruder, the murderer, because what I wanted was for Nancy and Richard's name to live and for his to die. That all changed after she met Mark Osler, a law professor who was on the opposite side of the juvenile justice issue. Osler's mission is to seek reduced sentences and often clemency.
She had a moral platform, and that was, this life was taken from my family. That he didn't even accept responsibility for what he did. And something remarkable happened.
Jean may have forgiven Biro, but now she felt called to do more. It was really... My Christian faith being challenged that caused me to see David as a person, to say his name, to start to pray for him, to realize I had to move beyond just forgiving him and wiping him off my hands to engaging with him. She started by writing her own letter to Nancy's killer in 2012.
I didn't even think about the outcome as I was writing it. I just knew that I had to. And I thought, oh my gosh, I have been sitting back for decades waiting for this young man to apologize to me. I'm going to go first. I'm going to say, I forgave you a long time ago, and if you want me to come see you, I will. Several weeks later, an envelope landed in her work mailbox. This is the envelope.
There's this name. Well, that must have stopped you in your tracks. Oh, I froze. To know it's his name and that's his handwriting. Right. And my heart started hammering because I thought, this is it. She couldn't open it just then. She waited 48 hours, then passed it to Mark Osler.
And I opened it. It's 15, 18 pages. And it was remarkable.
He said, it's good. And I just sank down in the chair beside him in relief. The letter contained the one piece of information she had been waiting more than two decades for. I think the time has come for me to drop the charade and finally be honest. I am guilty of killing your sister, Nancy, and her husband, Richard.
I also want to take this opportunity to express my deepest condolences and apologize to you. And I started to cry. I never thought I would receive that. And to have it was such a burden lifted. It was just like this rock being lifted off of me. For him to understand the magnitude of what he took and to own it. Then the man who murdered her sister agreed to meet her face to face.
Five months later, Jean made the two-hour drive to Pontiac Prison. Well, at first it was kind of a shock. The last time I had seen him, he was the skinny 16-year-old boy. The person I saw walking through the door was a 40-year-old man. It would be the first of dozens of visits. This video, taken by a newspaper photographer, captured one of their more mundane conversations.
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of David Biro's potential resentencing?
Yeah, and when he said that word, it, I thought in that first meeting, oh my God, that it you're talking about is my sister and her husband. And that's been part of the reward and the blessing of this journey of these visits with him is having my sister and her husband transformed from an it to these people.
In June of 2012, a few months before Jean's letter to Biro arrived, there was a major U.S. Supreme Court decision deeming mandatory life sentences for juveniles as cruel and unusual punishment. That means that David Biro could qualify for a reduced sentence or even be released. Jean Bishop is now advocating that her sister's killer get a chance at a second chance.
He methodically gunned down two people in your family even though he knew your sister was pregnant and she was begging for her life. He just doesn't strike me, Jean, with all due respect, as the poster child for second chances. Does he deserve another chance? Yes, I think he does. Why? Because I think everyone does.
I think that it's utter hubris for us to say to any human being, this one thing you did was so bad that we're going to freeze it in time forever. All you will ever be is killer. And our punishment for you will be endless until you die. But, as you might imagine, not everyone agrees. It all boils down to one thing.
Are there some people for whom permanent separation from the rest of society is sadly necessary? Is David Barrow that person? Yes, he is. Did you ever think that you would be here discussing the possibility of him being resentenced and possibly seeing the light of day again? No, it never occurred to us.
It's November 5th, 2015, almost 24 years to the day from when David Biro went on trial for the Langer murders. And Nancy's sister Jennifer and mother Joyce are back at the same courthouse as a legal hurdle to Biro's case is argued. I think it's an exercise in futility myself. But if he's going to go down there, I'm going to go down there.
Are both sides ready to proceed?
All right, you may proceed with your argument. Barrow, who was not in court, has denied our requests for an interview. As you stated, Your Honor, this... The Supreme Court ruling guarantees that David Barrow will be resentenced for the two mandatory murder convictions, which means he could get a reduced sentence, be released, or it could stay exactly the same, life in prison.
It's only mandatory sentences that have been struck down by the Supreme Court.
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