Man imprisoned in 2001 Dartmouth killings gets parole
More than two decades after he pleaded guilty to his role in the 2001 murders of two beloved Dartmouth College professors, James Parker was granted parole Thursday after telling a state panel he now views his crime as “unimaginably horrible.”
Parker, who was 16 when he and his best friend killed Susanne and Half Zantop in their Hanover, N.H., home, appeared before the New Hampshire state parole board in Concord and expressed remorse for what he had done.
“I know there’s not an amount of time or things that I can do to change it or alleviate any pain that I’ve caused,” he told the board, according to video livestreamed by WMUR-TV. “I’m just deeply sorry.”
Parker, 39, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2002, the year after he and Robert Tulloch, 17, killed the Zantops at their home while trying to steal money so they could run away to Australia, an apparently random crime that left the small college town deeply shaken.
He was sentenced to a minimum of 25 years in prison. Details on his release were not available.
The Zantops’ two daughters, who are now in their early 50s, could not be reached for comment Thursday. Before Tulloch was sentenced in 2002, Dr. Veronika Zantop, the elder daughter, described her profound grief and anger.
“There’s no statement in the entire world that can capture the absolute horror, disbelief, pain, sadness, and anger that my sister, my family, and friends have experienced since the murders,” she said. “Rather than focus on the inhumanity and monstrosity and the sheer stupidity of their brutal and senseless deaths, I try to console myself by trying to perpetuate the essence of my parents.”
Several friends of the Zantops declined to comment or could not be reached on Thursday. New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu and Republican gubernatorial candidate Kelly Ayotte, who prosecuted Tulloch before serving as a US senator, did not respond to requests for comment. Dartmouth College and Attorney General John M. Formella declined to comment.
Parker’s lawyer and Department of Corrections staff said he has taken many steps to rehabilitate himself and make life better for fellow inmates. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in prison and created paintings that are displayed in the building. He has been a part of theatrical, musical, and sports activities and has helped develop inmate education guides.
Parker sought 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’ daughters objected.
Parker has been living in transitional housing for about two and a half years, he told the parole board. He has had a job at an art school in Concord, where he learned more about how nonprof
its work, after obtaining a master’s degree in business with a focus in nonprofit leadership, he said.
Parker said he plans to live in Somersworth, N.H., after his release and has a network of family and friends he looks to for support and advice.
The board noted that Parker had a “stellar” disciplinary record behind bars and decided to grant his parole just moments after hearing from him. The board ordered him to have no contact with the Zantop family after he is released and to continue mental health treatment.
Parker said his time in prison has changed him and he plans to continue “trying to become a better man” and to earn people’s trust.
“I’m not the kid I was when I came in,” he said. “I’ve learned quite a bit about myself and about what it actually means to be part of the world, part of the community.”
In 2001, Parker and Tulloch were bored with their lives in Chelsea, Vt., and wanted to move to Australia. Estimating that they needed $10,000, they decided they would knock on doors in nearby Hanover under the pretext of conducting a survey on environmental issues, then tie up their victims and steal their credit cards and ATM information, making their captives provide the 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. On Jan. 27, 2001, Half Zantop let the two teenagers inside his home. After about 10 minutes, Tulloch stabbed Zantop and then directed Parker to attack Susanne Zantop, Parker told police. Tulloch also stabbed her.
“During the interview, when Mr. Zantop pulled out his wallet, my co-defendant ... attacked Mr. Zantop,” Parker told the parole board Thursday. “And then when his wife came in, I restrained her, and then ...” Parker’s voice trailed off for a moment. “And then I cut her throat. She fell to the floor.”
“Why did you do that?” a board member asked.
“I’ve gone over it and over it, and ... I just don’t know how I could do that,” Parker said.
They fled with Half Zantop’s wallet, which contained about $340, but realized they had left the sheaths to their knives at the house. They attempted to go back but saw 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.
“My parents never locked their doors before this happened, and they started” afterward, like many others in the area, Parker told the parole board.
Tulloch pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and received the mandatory sentence of life without parole. Now 40, he is scheduled for a resentencing hearing in June. In 2012, the US Supreme Court ruled it is unconstitutional to sentence juvenile offenders to mandatory life imprisonment without parole, and the state Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that Tulloch and four other men who received such sentences for murders they committed as teenagers should be resentenced.
Susanne Zantop, 55 and Half Zantop, 62, were born in Germany. She was the head of Dartmouth’s German studies department. He taught earth sciences. Respected in their fields, the professors were beloved by colleagues and students, many of whom had an open invitation to their home a few miles from the Dartmouth College campus.
In 2019, as Parker sought early release, friends told the Globe the Zantops had been at the center of a large social circle that included several Dartmouth professors and their spouses. Alexis Jetter, a senior lecturer at Dartmouth, said then that she still thought about the couple “all the time.”
“The Zantops were fun, smart, caring, radiant, sparkling, deeply caring people,” said Jetter, who declined to comment on Parker’s parole Thursday. “They were the center of our community of loving friends, and their home was a center of conversation, and political arguments, and great food, and long evenings.”
Mary Kelley, who taught history and women’s studies at Dartmouth for more than two decades, said then that she had celebrated New Year’s Eve with the couple weeks before their murders.
“They had a way of making community and making people feel encircled and deeply cared for. It’s the way they raised their daughters, who are both extraordinary people,” said Kelley, who could not be reached for comment on Thursday. “Everything they did was so alive and so generous. And it was gone in just a few moments.”
‘I’ve learned quite a bit about myself and about what it actually means to be part of the world.’
JAMES PARKER, during his N.H. parole board hearing