Re: 2/20/02 - AP: Teens charged in double slaying wanted ATM cards
Front Page
Teens charged in double slaying wanted ATM cards
Associated Press February 20, 2002
Clockwise from top left: H. Zantop, S. Zantop, Tulloch and Parker.
HANOVER, N.H. — The teens accused of butchering two Dartmouth College professors talked their way into the couple's home by claiming to be doing a survey and killed them in a plot to steal their ATM cards, prosecutors charged Tuesday.
The allegations — contained in a newly unsealed indictment —mark the first time authorities have given a detailed motive for the slayings last year of Half Zantop and his wife, Susanne.
In the six months leading up the killings, Robert Tulloch and James Parker had gone to four other randomly chosen homes, intending to kill the occupants for their ATM cards, but no one was home or the people who answered the door would not let them in, according to the indictment.
Then on Jan. 27, 2001, they got inside the Zantop home by telling Half Zantop, a professor of Earth sciences, that they were students conducting an environmental survey, prosecutors said. The Zantops' slashed and stabbed bodies were found in their study that evening.
Tulloch, 18, has indicated he will use an insanity defense at his murder trial, which is scheduled to start in April. If convicted, he faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.
Parker, 17, has pleaded guilty to reduced charges and agreed to testify against Tulloch. The indictment does not say whether the newly released details came from Parker.
Prosecutor Kelly Ayotte would not say if the teens got the Zantops' ATM cards. However, the indictment said that after the killings, they burned Half Zantop's wallet along with bloody clothes.
The teens fled after being linked to the crime by the 12½-inch commando knives they had bought over the Internet. They were arrested a year ago Tuesday while hitchhiking in Indiana.
In the months that followed, townspeople and the news media had offered a host of theories — a thrill-killing, revenge for some kind of slight, even neo-Nazi hatred. The Zantops, ages 62 and 55, were from Germany and felt their native country had not done enough to atone for the Holocaust.
In an indictment released in December, prosecutors said the slayings took place during a robbery. But they gave no details until Tuesday.
A call to Tulloch's lawyer was not immediately returned.
The defendants made four previous attempts at murder and robbery — two near their homes in Chelsea, Vt., and two in Hanover near the Zantop home, according to prosecutors. The last of those failed attempts was the same day the Zantops were killed.
On Tuesday, Zantop friend and neighbor Audrey McCollum got a call from prosecutors telling her that her home probably was the last one targeted by the pair before the killings.
"The possibility that the apparent murderers came to our house is terrifying," McCollum said.
Both teen-agers were from well-respected families, and Tulloch was an honors student.
The indictment alleges Tulloch and Parker came up with the robbery-murder plan in June 2000 and that their first attempt was that July at a home in Vershire, Vt., near Chelsea. They allegedly cut the phone line, and Tulloch knocked on the door while Parker hid nearby. Tulloch told the person who answered the door his car had broken down, but he was refused entry, according to the indictment.
Last January, according to the indictment, Half Zantop opened the door to the pair and led them to the study, where Tulloch asked questions for the purported survey and Parker took notes. The indictment does not describe the stabbings.
Afterward, the teens allegedly drove off, but headed back to the Zantop home to retrieve the sheaths belonging to their distinctive knives. They turned back when they saw a police car in the driveway.
Prosecutors said fingerprints on the sheaths and bloody footprints tied both Tulloch and Parker to the crime.
©New Haven Register 2002
newhavenregister.com |
