Teen to Plead Guilty in Killings of Dartmouth Professors

The mystery surrounding the murders in January of two Dartmouth College professors inched closer to solution Monday as New Hampshire authorities announced they have cut a deal with the younger of two suspects.

In a statement issued Monday, state Atty. Gen. Philip T. McLaughlin said James Parker, 17, will plead guilty to an adult charge of accomplice to second-degree murder in the death of 55-year-old Susanne Zantop.

First-degree murder charges are expected to be dropped. Parker is not likely to be charged in the death of Half Zantop, 62.

“Jimmy has made the decision to accept responsibility for his actions and is hopeful that his plea will enable his family and that of the Zantops to begin the healing process,” defense attorney Cathy Green said Monday.

The move provides a long-awaited opening for Parker to testify against his best friend, 18-year-old Robert Tulloch. Prosecutors hope Parker will offer a motive for the savage killings in the bucolic village of Etna, N.H., just miles from the Dartmouth campus in Hanover.

The Zantops, popular and widely respected in academic circles, were found dead in their home. The brutal stabbing deaths rocked a community where crime was so foreign that few residents locked their front doors.

Half Zantop taught earth sciences. His wife was chairwoman of the German studies department. The couple lived in the Hanover area for close to 30 years.

The search for their killers led authorities to the tiny hamlet of Chelsea, Vt., about 25 miles from Hanover.

Parker, who was 16 at the time of the killings, and Tulloch, then 17, sparked a manhunt when they disappeared not long after the murders.

The pair was apprehended at an Indiana truck stop.

Fingerprints and footprints found in the Zantops’ home connected Tulloch and Parker to the crime, authorities said.

Two military-style knives stained with the victims’ blood also were found in Tulloch’s bedroom, according to court documents filed earlier this year.

But the lack of a motive continued to vex officials. The absence of any apparent link between the two small-town suspects and the well-established, worldly academics perplexed the Zantops’ friends and colleagues at Dartmouth and elsewhere.

Late last week, Tulloch’s attorney said he will use an insanity defense when his client’s trial begins April 8.

Attorney Richard Guerriero filed court papers stating that the teenager suffers from “serious mental illness . . . and that his acts were the direct result of the mental defect or disease.”

Although legal in New Hampshire, capital punishment is seldom enforced. Prosecutors said early on that they would not seek the death penalty in the Zantop case.

If convicted of first-degree murder, Tulloch could face life in prison without parole.

His closest childhood friend risked the same sentence after a judge ruled in October that Parker must face trial as an adult.

The agreement between Parker and state officials will be reviewed Friday in Grafton County Superior Court.

If the accomplice charge is approved, Parker could be sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. He would be eligible for parole in 16 years.

“He is now 17,” attorney Green said, “and will pay a very heavy price for his role in this tragedy.”