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2024-04-18 16:55:00
A man who has served more than half his life in prison for his role in the 2001 stabbing deaths of two married professors at the Dartmouth College As part of a plan to rob and kill people before fleeing abroad, he was released on parole this Thursday.
James Parker He was 16 years old when he was part of a conspiracy with his best friend that resulted in the death of Half and Susanne Zantop in Hanover, New Hampshire. Now in his early 40s, he appeared before the state parole board, years after pleading guilty to being an accessory to second-degree murder and serving almost the minimum of his 25 years to life sentence.
His attorney and Department of Corrections staff said he has taken many steps over the years to rehabilitate himself and improve the lives of his fellow inmates. He earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in prison and created paintings that are displayed in the building. He has been part of theatrical, musical and sports activities and has helped develop educational guides for inmates.
Parker requested a sentence reduction in 2018. Under the law, he was eligible to do so because he had served two-thirds of his term, but he withdrew the petition in 2019 after the Zantops’ two daughters objected.
Parker and Robert Tulloch, then 17 years old, bored with their lives in nearby Chelsea, Vermont, wanted to move to Australia and estimated they needed $10,000 for the trip. They eventually decided that they would knock on homeowners’ doors under the guise of conducting a survey on environmental issues, then tie up their victims and steal their credit cards and ATM information. They planned to make their captives provide PIN numbers before killing them.
Parker, who cooperated with prosecutors and agreed to testify against Tulloch, said They chose the Zantop house because it looked expensive and was surrounded by trees. Half Zantop let them in on January 27, 2001. Parker told police the interview lasted at least 10 minutes before Tulloch stabbed Zantop and then ordered him to attack Susanne Zantop. Tulloch also stabbed her.
They fled with Half Zantop’s wallet, which contained about $340 and a list of numbers, but later realized they had left their knife sheaths in the house. They tried to return but saw that there was a police officer in the driveway. Fingerprints on a knife sheath and a bloody boot print linked them to the crime, but after being questioned by police, they fled and hitchhiked west. They were arrested at an Indiana truck stop weeks later.
Tulloch, now 40, had pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. He earned the mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. He is scheduled to have a resentencing hearing in June. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that it is unconstitutional to sentence juvenile offenders to mandatory life in prison without parole, and the state Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that Tulloch and four other men who received similar sentences for murders they committed as teenagers They should be sentenced again.
Susanne Zantop, 55, and Half Zantop, 62, were born in Germany. She was head of Dartmouth’s German studies department. She taught Earth sciences. Respected in her fields, the professors were beloved by colleagues and students, many of whom had an open invitation to her home a few miles from the Dartmouth campus.
(with information from AP)
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