2001 Dartmouth College murders

On January 27, 2001, Dartmouth College professors Half Zantop, 62, and Susanne Zantop, 55, were stabbed to death at their home in Etna, New Hampshire. Half, born in Germany in 1938, had taught geology and earth science at Dartmouth since 1976. Susanne, born in Kissingen, Germany, in 1945, taught in and chaired the German department. The couple had met at Stanford University, married in 1970, and had two daughters. Their bodies were discovered that evening by a family friend, Roxana Verona, who had arrived as an invited dinner guest and notified police.

According to the account presented in court, two local high school students, Robert W. Tulloch, 17, and James J. Parker, 16, posed as students conducting a school survey to gain entry to the Zantop home, intending to rob and kill the occupants after obtaining their bank PINs. Half let them in while Susanne was preparing food in the kitchen. Tulloch reportedly became angry during the pretextual interview and attacked Half with a knife, stabbing him repeatedly and accidentally cutting his own leg. When Susanne intervened, Parker stabbed her, allegedly on Tulloch's instruction, and Tulloch also stabbed her, killing her. The pair fled with $340 taken from Half's wallet, leaving knife sheaths at the scene.

Investigators initially pursued other theories, including a possible crime of passion, before a bloody footprint and the knife sheaths led them to trace the knives to Parker roughly three weeks after the killings. Both teenagers were interviewed; Tulloch spoke with investigators without a lawyer and gave an account matching Parker's story about the knives being purchased to build a fort. When police sought to fingerprint and obtain boot samples, both youths subsequently fled their homes. Their car was found abandoned at a Massachusetts truck stop; the two were captured by police at a truck stop in Spiceland, Indiana, after a truck driver reported their travel plans over CB radio.

Prosecutors alleged the pair had made four earlier unsuccessful attempts over six months to gain entry to homes in Vermont and New Hampshire with similar robbery-murder intentions before succeeding at the Zantop residence. Parker was charged as an adult due to the severity of the crime. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for testifying against Tulloch and was sentenced to 25 years to life, expressing remorse at his sentencing hearing. Tulloch's attorney unsuccessfully sought to have him certified as mentally ill for an insanity defense; Tulloch pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and received a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without parole, showing no emotion and making no statement at sentencing.

Parker was granted parole in April 2024 and released that June, having earned college degrees in prison; he remains under supervision until 2098. Tulloch's sentence has been subject to ongoing legal review following the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Miller v. Alabama regarding mandatory life sentences for juveniles. A resentencing hearing was held in September 2024, and in October 2025 a Grafton County Superior Court judge ruled that life sentences for juvenile offenders violate the New Hampshire Constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Tulloch's resentencing hearing is scheduled for April 2026.