The lawyer for a woman charged with killing three university colleagues in Alabama says a new murder charge brought against her for the 1986 shooting death of her brother could be used in an insanity defense in the Alabama case.

Roy Miller said Thursday that if the insanity defense is used in Alabama, Amy Bishop's life would become "an open book." If that happens, he says the Massachusetts killing of her 18-year-old brother, Seth, would definitely play a role.

But District Attorney Robert Broussard in Huntsville said the indictment, announced Wednesday in Boston, could aid the case against her in the February shooting rampage that killed three professors at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.