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The Dartmouth Murders /// Part 1 /// 778
00:48:54
The Dartmouth Murders /// Part 1 /// 778 Part 1 of 2 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com The 2001 homicides of two Dartmouth College professors completely shocked and rocked Hanover, New Hampshire to it's core. No one could imagine something like this happening in a town best known for being the home of an elite academic institution. Half and Susanne Zantop were both loved and very highly respected by students and faculty at the Dartmouth College. The Zantop’s bodies were found on a Saturday evening, inside their home by a friend, who had arrived as an invited dinner guest. The double homicide investigation that followed was headed up by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office. This was an “all hands on deck” situation with multiple law enforcement agencies working the case. The investigation went beyond state lines and tested both the college and the community. Beer of the Week - Gravel Donuts by Outerbelt Brewing Garage Grade - 4 and a half bottle caps out of 5 Check ou...
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A
You're never just one thing. You're the boss. Hey Google, when's my next meeting? The athlete that class wrecks me and their mom. Everyone in the all new Mazda CX5 more to move every side of you. Learn more@mazdausa.com Google is a trademark of Google LLC. Sequences shortened and simulated.
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B
Picture this.
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C
It's the end of a long week. You're unwinding in the tub, listening to your favorite true crime podcast and then chronic hives come back again in the middle of the episode. What a wet blanket looks like another spell of itchy, swollen, red or skin colored hives. If you have chronic spontaneous urticaria or csu, there may be a different treatment option. Worried about your chronic hives interrupting our next episode? Learn more@treatmyhives.com Garage Sam.
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D
Foreign.
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B
Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing. Thanks for listening. I'm your host Nick and with me, as always, is a man who has one sponge and uses it for everything. Here is the Captain.
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D
It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend
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B
Today we are drinking Gravel Donuts because we love ourselves. Gravel Donuts is a hazy IPA from the good folks over at Outer Belt Brewing. It's juicy flavors including pineapple, citrus and blueberry. And all of the hops with not a whole lot of the harsh bite. ABV 6.5% garage grade four and a half bottle caps out of five. And let's give some thanks and praise to our friends that helped us fill up the old fridge for this week's set of shows. First up, a cheers to Renee from the upper Northern peninsula of the Mitten State.
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D
And a big we like your jib goes out to Julia Oswald from Franklin, Indiana.
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B
Next we have a cheers to Caitlyn campaign in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And last but certainly not least, a double fisted cheers to Whitney and Brett in Los Angeles, California. And everyone we mentioned. They went to true crime garage.com and helped us out with this week's Beer run. And for that we thank you.
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D
Yeah, BWR and Beer run. Make sure you go to true crime garage.com and sign up on the mailing list. And Colonel, that's enough of the be.
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B
All right everybody gather around. Grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime. It's a famous trope in true crime. Means, motive and opportunity. Our concern with motive not required among the legal elements of murder are rooted in our need to understand why the most serious of all crimes, the Taking of a life occurs. What drives humans to kill other humans? Famously, the most common motives are greed, jealousy, lust and revenge. But what about when a killer strikes for none of these reasons? What if a murder is carried out just because the killers are bored and because they can? What if there is really no motive at all? How do we make sense of that? That's the question we are asking ourselves here in the garage today. This is true crime garage. And this is the case of Half and Suzanne Zantop, also known as the Dartmouth Murders. To tell this true crime story, we must first present to you one of the loveliest of couples, the Zantops. Half and Suzanne Xantop were as brilliant and accomplished as you can get. Both were born in Germany. Half and Suzanne met at Stanford, where both were pursuing graduate degrees. Half was working toward a PhD in geology and Suzanne in political science. The two fell in love. They married in the Andes and Argentina in 1970. The Zantops lived all over the world. Half worked as a geologist, and Suzanne taught German and literature as they moved around from Spain to Germany to Colombia. They had two daughters, Veronica and Mariana. Then, in the 70s, half was asked to join the faculty at Dartmouth College as a professor of earth sciences specializing in economic geology. This is one of the premier academic institutions in the United States, and there was a job there for Susanne as well. The Zantops flourished at Dartmouth. Suzanne became the chair of the Department of German Studies and published several books on German colonialism. Both professors were popular with the students and thoroughly entrenched themselves as pillars of the Dartmouth community. The Zantops loved to entertain. The couple and the home were known for their eclectic dinner parties, lively conversations, and warmth and acceptance of all of their guests. Their home was in Aetna, New Hampshire, A small community within the quaint town of Hanover, where Dartmouth is located. This area of New England is frigid in the wintertime, but gorgeous, with fir trees blanketed with snow and winding roads up mountainsides. These are the kind of towns where, despite the thousands of students at the college, the locals all know each other and greet each other at the pharmacy and at the general store. Half and Suzanne were always busy, always going full of life, until in an instant, that was all taken away. And that incident took place sometime on Saturday, January 27, 2001.
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D
So on January 27, 2001, they were having a guest over for dinner.
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B
Yeah. That evening, Roxanna Verona, a professor of French and Italian at Dartmouth College, she arrived at the Zantops home. Roxanne had been to The Zantops, warm and welcoming home, many times enjoying the couple's famous salon style dinner parties where the intellectual elite came to enjoy Suzanne's cooking and engage in stimulating conversation about things like world affairs, travel, politics and current events. Roxanne was the only guest that evening and half was heading out to a friend's birthday gathering. So this was geared to be dinner for two, with the possibility that Hulf would return and join the ladies in the latter part of the evening. Roxanna arrived at the Zantops at 6:30pm she got out of her car and rang the doorbell. But no one answered the door. And Roxanna was surprised to find the door unlocked when she tried the handle. She walked in, announcing herself loudly to the room. She heard nothing, got no response. And she noted that there was none of the usual smells of delicious food cooking in the kitchen. So this all seemed very strange to her. Of course, she was invited over for a dinner party. Bringing a salad along with her. She walked toward the study because she could see that the light was on in the study. When she gets near the study, unfortunately, she found 55 year old Suzanne Zantop laying on the study floor. Blood pooled under her and all over her clothing. She was clutching her glasses in her right hand. She was pale and lifeless. And then she saw half, 62 years old. He lay on the floor near the desk, his head on the bottom shelf of a bookcase. It would appear that he had fallen and his head landed on the bottom shelf of that bookcase.
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D
This is an extremely bloody scene.
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B
Yes, Half two was covered in blood. His skin was white as a ghost. Roxanna ran out of the house. She jumps in her car and her plan is she's heading for the next door neighbor's house. This is the McCollums who she knew through the Xantops. Bob McCollum was a doctor. So in this panic, you know, she doesn't know, she walks into the situation, the scene, this murder scene, her two dear friends, bloody and lifeless. She doesn't know is the killer still in the home or on their large property. So she wasn't going to sit around and risk calling police and paramedics from that house. No, she wanted to get out of there. She went to the neighbor's house. Bob's a doctor, she thought, you know, he's going to know what to do. So when Roxanna pounded on their door, the McCollums, they, they let her inside and they're listening as she kind of gasped out, trying to explain what she had just seen. Audrey McCollum calls 911 and she's attempting to calm down Roxanna. During this time, Bob and their adult daughter, her name's Cindy, they go running over to the Zantops house. Of course they saw the same thing that Roxanna had. Cindy called 911 from the ZantOps phone after her father checked Suzanne for a pulse and then Hoff for a pulse. And of course there was none. Both victims were found cold and they were. Had already passed by this point. They were. There was nothing that could be done. First at the scene. As far as law enforcement goes here, Captain, the scene. This is 115Trescott Road. So we get Officer Brad Sargent who arrives on the scene and he's immediately calling for backup and reinforcements right away. Reinforcements included officers from the Hanover Police Department. This included the New Hampshire State Police as well and the Grafton County Sheriff's Department. So this is a calling all cars, all hands on deck situation. An ambulance was called off because of the state of the victims and a medical examiner was requested in place of an ambulance. Hanover Police Chief Nick Giconi arrives and is on the scene. And this is. Look, it's a double homicide. So I hate to say the these words that this is a very big deal, but we have to keep in mind that there's not a lot of murders that take place in this area.
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D
Well, it becomes a bigger deal because it's an upscale neighborhood.
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B
Correct.
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D
And it's upscale victims. These are two college professors. These are prominent figures in the community.
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B
I don't say this to insult any city out there, but this is not downtown Los Angeles or downtown Chicago. This is a. This is a big deal, a bigger deal in this area. It's not like the unfortunate violence on the rise that we are seeing even in. In my home state. So we have all hands on deck. We have the Hanover police chief. He wants the scene to be very controlled. He wants everything to be handled very properly. We've said this before. The best detectives out there, the best police chiefs will tell you that the biggest part of your investigation is making sure that when we figure out who did this and we find that person, we get them. Let's make sure all this stands up in court. Let's do everything by the book. Let's do everything very professional, and let's look under every rock. Now, there are some major items to note here right out of the gate on this double homicide investigation. So this is what they're going to learn from talking to family and friends. Number one, the Zantops were fastidious of about locking their doors. So even when they were home, you know, they host a lot of these dinner parties their guest mentioned to police. Yeah, even when they would go and let one of their guests in for the dinner party or let one of the guests out after an evening of gathering together, they were locking the door. So even when they're home, they're locking the door and even when they're entertaining, they're keeping the doors locked. Crime trends and statistics is another important thing here. The entire state of New Hampshire back, back then at that time would typically only see about 20 to 25 homicides a year. So to have two, a double homicide in this area of the state seemed very surprising to law enforcement.
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D
One, this is a fairly large house, so we have a large crime scene. But because of some of the evidence that law enforcement finds early on, it seems like the crime only took place in Hoff's office. And so that makes it a little bit easier, I think for law enforcement to investigate.
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B
Well, and that was the, the third thing for law enforcement of note with this investigation. The, the Zantops house itself was a sprawling contemporary home with large windows providing views of the woods. It's set down the hill and nestled among trees. So this is not a house that was readily noticed by drivers passing through the area. So you can, you can you compound that the place where it took, you know where this all took place with the idea that they were always locking their doors. So now you're going to have to believe that police suspected that someone selected the home and the Zantops deliberately, that this is where was a targeted crime and they were the intended victims.
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D
Here law enforcement has a lot of questions. Was there an affair going on? What's the motive? Here we have two professors. Is it an angry student? Is it an angry staff member? Is there something going on with the relationship or going on with a friendship?
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B
And you know what, when you're interviewing family and friends and colleagues and as said, people in the town knew each other. When you're interviewing all these people and you hear time and time again, oh, everybody loved them. Everybody loved the Zantops. As an investigator, you're going, you're happy to hear that because you're thinking to yourself, cool, I'm going to find the one person that didn't right the crime scene. There was a lot of evidence was observed and collected in the house and even outside as CSI is poured over the structures interior and the three acre property, it was clear that house positioning with his Head on the bottom shelf of that bookshelf, that he had fallen there and his head had pushed back, even pushed back some of the books on that shelf. Both he and Suzanne were fully dressed in warm clothing. A card table was knocked over and laying on Suzanne's legs. A wicker trash basket lay up against half. Its contents spilled out on the floor. Documents and papers were thrown around everywhere. One of Suzanne's Birkenstocks was on the floor upside down. A white pages book was open to the last name T on the desk and the computer was on a blank screen for an online search site for names and addresses. A fingerprint was found on the desk chair that did not belong to the Zantops.
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D
Well, when you see a photo of the crime scene, it looks as if they're having like a parent teacher conference meeting in Hoff's office.
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B
19 prints were collected in total. As the captain said. Blood was absolutely everywhere, sprayed all over the study, its contents, the victims, and on the floor. Blood drops led from the study out the front door. So that's, that's a little bit of a trail there that you're looking at.
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D
Well, you were talking about the fingerprints. That's going to be very important. But also we have pretty solid boot prints from a very unique hiking boot.
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B
Yeah, there was a partial bloody boot print in the foyer. Two more boot prints were found in the downstairs area. And two additional bloody prints were found outside as well. And then jackpot. Two black plastic foot long knife sheaths lay on the study floor about 4ft apart and both had fingerprints on them. 105 pieces of evidence were collected by the New Hampshire State police forensic team. This was detailed, thorough work and all done very professionally. Autopsies on Hulf and Suzanne by the medical examiner, Dr. Thomas Gilson revealed that they had each been stabbed multiple times in the head, neck and chest with a very long, very sharp and very sturdy knife. They had lived for only seconds after the first wounds were inflicted.
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D
So law enforcement is wondering what the motive is, but then you have to start wondering again. Is this a crime committed by one individual or multiple individuals?
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B
Yeah. And think about how the captain just described that scene. It does appear exactly as he said, like there was some kind of meeting being conducted in the study. And this was the end result. Thirty plus investigators were assigned to this case. The New Hampshire Attorney General's office was calling the shots on the investigation and how it was going to be handled. And they decided that the best tactic here would be to keep all information close to the vest, allowing the public Only bits and pieces of information. In the first news conference held the day after the murders, they called the death suspicious. The cause of death was kept under wraps, and the officials refused to answer questions about forced entry to the home or possible suspects. I don't always love this tactic here, Captain, but I think given the circumstances of what we now know about the investigation, I love this choice that's made here. I usually feel that the public can be one of the best weapons in the arsenal for law enforcement. Because the public, as much as law enforcement, want to get these bad people off of the streets, people that can do stuff like this, we don't want them running around, we don't want them in our neighborhoods. But here, one, they have a lot of breadcrumbs, a lot of breadcrumb trails to follow based off of what they're finding at the scene. And so they don't need to. They don't need the public's help. So much for leads. They have leads to work in the meantime, but this has kind of a two pronged effect. While you can work those other leads to purposely keeping information from the public, the result here was a firestorm of rumors about what had happened. So this can be good and bad for your investigation, but you're hoping that, right, that there's something, some truth in some of those rumors, that people start talking and people talking to one another and that you might get some information by not giving any information.
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D
Well, this is an Ivy League school and this is going to be big news, obviously, in this small community and in a community where vicious crimes like this don't take place. So obviously this is going to be run by a bunch of newspapers, but in particular the college newspaper, the Dartmouth newspaper called.
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B
The Dartmouth ran with story after story about the murders. And in the absence of information from the police, the theories quickly started getting passed around by people in the community and then from another paper, the Atlantic, Quote, nearly everyone assumed that the killer remained in the vicinity. A troubled student, perhaps, or a faculty rival. A suspicious figure was spotted lurking around dormitories. A suspicious car without a state license plates was reported. So this got people talking. This kept people on high alert. When the FBI joined the investigation one week later, the range of conjecture went national and then even international theories of a Holocaust tie in circulated. The Zantops were political liberals who often argued that their native country should be more forthright in confronting the evils of its Nazi past. ABC News's primetime ran a story questioning whether the there was a link between the crime and neo Nazism law enforcement
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D
did have a few suspects right away. There was a professor that was visiting Dartmouth that was up for the same position, I believe at one time as the husband Hoff was. And so they thought maybe is this a rival colleague that decided to take out his anger on this couple. And then he rented a car and they found some evidence in his car, what they thought was blood evidence in the trunk. And that turned out to be stool. So it was a trunk full of shit.
- [23:39]
B
At one point, New Hampshire Attorney General Philip McLaughlin broke the silence. This was on Thursday, February 1st. He revealed that witnesses had seen Hoff Zantop Alive at 10:30am on Saturday the 27th. Sometime after that, the couple was stabbed to death by someone they allowed entry into their home. So this is two sentences, but it's far better and more detailed information that they had not previously given out. So they're saying how they were killed, that there was no forced entry into the home and that we know that half was alive and well at 10:30am so it happened sometime after 10:30am they also publicly said at the same time, we have no suspects. But the Attorney General said they did not believe there was any danger to the community. He addressed the killers at this press conference as well, saying, quote, the person who did this, who may well be watching, should take no comfort in the fact that they have not yet been apprehended. Be patient. We'll be there.
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C
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B
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- [31:36]
D
All right, we are back ladies and germs. Cheers to you all. Tall cans in the air and cheers to the people in the back.
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B
That's right. Power to the people in the back. The AG here meant business. Now, behind the scenes, there were a lot of things happening. The case was assigned to the Assistant Attorney General, Kelly Aotta. She advised the public that they should be on the alert for anyone they knew who had exhibited suspicious behaviors. And in the past week since the murders, a press release stated that the FBI believed that the killer may be exhibiting behavioral changes, have fresh cuts, bruises or wounds, missing work or school, or leaving the area in haste. On February 9, more than a week out, investigators asked the public to call in tips about any unfamiliar cars seen in Aetna or any strange behavior among those who knew the Zantops. While this may seem like a bit of a Hail Mary, the investigators behind the scenes had a whole lot of good old fashioned detective work cooking.
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D
So like we're saying, if you're law enforcement, you have to dig into every different aspect of their life, but when they looked into their personal lives, it didn't seem like there was much of a motive there.
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B
Yeah, and I was really shocked at this next part in this story here, Captain, because the Boston Globe usually does a pretty bang up Job. Yeah, the spotlight movie. And I mean, it goes on and on and on. We don't have time to go down that road. But I was. I was shocked to see that the Boston Globe ran a salacious article. This was just three weeks after the murders. Based on an anonymous source or anonymous sources, depending on what source I went to and described the. This as, quote, authorities close to the case, though. That's how they described the sources. Authorities close to the case. The headline was love affair eyed in New Hampshire Killings, husband involved with unidentified woman. And then the article begins. Investigators believe the killings of Dartmouth College professors Half and Suzanne Zantop were crimes of passion, most likely resulting from an adulterous affair involving Half Zantop. But it wasn't true. None of it was true. The newspaper soon retracted the article, rightfully so. Should never have run it to begin with. Half wasn't having an affair. The reality was the investigators weren't able to find anyone who had any kind of grudge against Half and Suzanne that was worth killing for. A student disgruntled over a grade or a professor passed over for promotion was unlikely to have carried out this brutal double homicide. And the neo Nazi thing was a stretch at best. So were tips that the murders were because Suzanne was a feminist or could be motivated by political leanings. But there was one red herring that did. Did distract investigators for a time. House teaching assistant Tom Douglas told investigators that the only person he could think of who might have had a reason to murder the Zantops was the genealogy professor that the captain had talked about. And the. However that stuff got in that trunk, we'll never know.
- [35:15]
D
Yeah, I don't think he was.
- [35:17]
B
It was a rental.
- [35:18]
D
It was a rental car. So we can't say he was responsible for it. And they didn't. And they didn't find his stool. They just found remnants of somebody's stool.
- [35:29]
B
So I frequently rent cars and take
- [35:33]
D
a dump in the.
- [35:33]
B
They always ask you, you know, upon returning, did you fill up the tank? And I always say, yes. And I also. In the trunk.
- [35:42]
D
Yeah, I took a big dump. I took a big me dump in the trunk of your car.
- [35:51]
B
So that was a bit of a distraction. Yeah, a little, to say the least.
- [35:54]
D
But also, wasn't there. There was a student that they found with a knife, and he had markings on his face.
- [36:02]
B
Yes, that was a problem for the investigation. The. The other thing, too, like, so the Globe should not have run that article. But what it did was it had a. An effect that they really didn't hope for. It really smeared the names of some people that they named in that article, right? Like there were people that were reporters that were camping out on this couple's lawn or in the streets in front of their house, trying to interview them because they thought this other couple was somehow involved. And it was all based around the idea that there was some kind of affair going on. And think about this. They had kids. The Zantops had grown children. You're trying to grieve the loss of your. The sudden loss of your parents. One, none of us want to lose our parents. We don't want to lose them suddenly. But then to have them murdered. And on top of that, your parents name, your father's name is being smeared in the papers too. I mean, this is just an all around.
- [37:08]
D
Well, there are educators and it seemed like they let somebody in the house. And again, it looks like there's some kind of meeting and so wonder, is this about education? Is this, was this a teacher trying to help out a student? And it took, it took a turn for the worse. I think the other thing though, too, this, you know, when you look at the video footage and the news coverage of this crime, one, because it's a small college campus, professors, the housing, the time of year with the snow on the ground, the way the investigation took place, you know, we have. It's a knife murder. The way law enforcement interacts with the media. Didn't you get a sense this just felt so similar to the Idaho college murders?
- [38:06]
B
Well, as said, it was a big deal and it should be a big deal. And it reached a level of. It was a big deal on the national scale. And a lot of that has to do with where it took place, just like with the, the Idaho case. But we cannot.
- [38:24]
C
Right.
- [38:24]
B
We cannot say that the Globe did a complete smear job and just really beat them down. Here in our coverage of this case to you without. We should say this because some of the sources I have say that the rental car, the. What was found in the trunk was some kind of moose stew, Remnants of a moose stew. So I just want that to be out there that we mean moose stool. Well, moose stew, it's a, it's considered a northern.
- [38:58]
D
Yeah, it's a food dish. But hey, even if I'm wrong, it's a way better story if we find some stool in the trunk.
- [39:07]
B
Back to the investigation. The New Hampshire State Police crime lab have worked through all of the evidence we have. Trooper Chuck west was the seasoned investigator spearheading this investigation. Of course, the two knife sheaths were of the greatest interest. They could tell the investigators a lot about their killer or killers. As Judgment Ridge, which will be this week's recommended reading, said about the sheets, Quote, they were the glass slippers of the Zantop murders. Search the countryside to find their rightful owners and the mystery would be solved. End quote. West the trooper followed the sheath evidentiary trail. The, the knife sheaths were identical. They were made of a black material called Kydex with black straps and distinctive markings. They bore logos reading SOG Specialty knives. The sheets were for a specific model of knife. This is the SOG Seal 2000. The New Hampshire Deputy Medical examiner said knives like that were consistent with the stab wounds. Unfortunately, the SOG Seal 2000 was SOG specialty knives, best selling knife model and the knives were not assigned serial numbers.
- [40:28]
D
But the big thing though is knives. Right? So you're going to go, we're not looking for one killer anymore, we're looking for two.
- [40:36]
B
Yeah. As a detective, I'm not looking at this scene and thinking we have a snake eyes type killer here showing up with a knife in each hand. This would appear to me we have two victims, which usually can be suggestive that we have two perpetrators and then you find two knife sheaths. So I think that the surprising thing to me as a detective would be that they're identical knives. That's, that seems a little oddball here, but nonetheless the killer's big mistake of leaving these knife sheaths at the scene. We saw what it did in the Idaho murders case. It's going to have very, a very similar effect in this case, but it's not going to be an easy task for these investigators. We talked about the, the good old fashioned detective work that they were doing behind the scenes. That's exactly what's going on here. So as said, this is the best selling knife model for this SOG specialty knives brand. They don't have serial numbers. They do sell a lot of these knives by the way of mail order online catalogs. There were other companies, local companies that sell these knives as well. Ranger Joe's Smoky Mountain Knives works. The list of local retailers who carried these knives were numerous. From the book Judgment ridge quote, On February 12th SOG produced a somewhat narrowed down list of the individuals, companies, distributors, military accounts and foreign accounts where it shipped Seal 2000 model knives. It was a 69 page report that the, that the brand gave to law enforcement. You said 69 with 297 separate listings accounting for 4,929 knives.
- [42:29]
E
Yeah.
- [42:30]
D
Almost 5,000 sold yeah, so we got
- [42:32]
B
a lot of knives to, to sort through. We're, we're looking for a needle and a knife stack. Trooper west decided to focus on the sales of two knives at the same time. That's a good place to start.
- [42:44]
D
Yeah.
- [42:44]
B
Or two knives by the same purchaser within a short period of time. While the sheath knife research was proceeding at a snail's pace.
- [42:55]
D
Yeah, I think this took them about 18 days.
- [42:58]
B
Other investigative avenues were being pursued. So everyone, and we mean everyone, was interviewed by police. This included the Zantop students, friends, family, but also their cleaning lady and a driveway snowplow guy. Police had to sort through all of the incoming information, not all of which was reliable. A lot of witnesses purported to see a lot of things. Right. Reporting that the Zantops were at Niagara Falls or in a local grocery store produce section at the time when we know that they were dead. Again, we see this in a lot of investigations. Right. Especially in these close knit communities where you have people, they just want to help. So either they misremember something or they are relaying something to police and investigators. That is not true. But they may believe that they saw the Xantops or somebody resembling the Zantops at a restaurant or out on the town that weekend. But one man named Paul New City had some actual information about a possible suspect vehicle. On the day before the murders, he had been a passenger in a vehicle on Trescott Road. Right, that's right near the Zantops house.
- [44:17]
D
Right.
- [44:18]
B
He says a green Subaru came barreling out of their driveway so fast it almost hit the car he was in. He glimpsed over to try to see the driver and what he says he saw was a young, pale, clean shaven, thin white male with dark hair who looked, quote, punk. New City told the Valley News.
- [44:42]
D
Like a punk.
- [44:43]
B
Like, like had like a punk look to him.
- [44:45]
D
Okay.
- [44:46]
B
New City told the Valley News, quote, it made a pretty strong impression on me. People around here don't leave their yard at that rate of speed and gradually, quote. So he's, he's clarifying why he remembered this and why he made special note of it because it startled him and it seemed way out of the ordinary. Plus, keep in mind at this time too, we have police and we have the newspapers. They're actively asking the public if you've seen anything unusual or strange in this area. We want to know. So a green Subaru vehicle was added to the list of be on the lookout vehicles.
- [45:25]
D
Yeah.
- [45:25]
B
And police made note of the youth of the driver. Remember going into this and looking at this especially early on in the investigation, one thing of consideration for investigators was the potential that a student was responsible. So we're talking college age. So the youth of the driver, the youthful look of the driver to our witness here is lining up with parts of your investigation already. Another piece of evidence soon entered the chat. This is lab test and analysis of the physical evidence found at the scene revealed that two of the boot prints found at the scene etched in blood, they were distinctive. In fact, they could be traced to a specific brand of footwear. They were vast hiking boots, men's size 11 and a half.
- [46:19]
D
So we have some suspects, we do have some leads. Again, this is in the newspapers, this is in the media. So it's all hands on deck. We have, we have leads that law enforcement is working. The purchase of the knives, this eyewitness report. Again, the crime scene, big house, but small crime scene. And we have evidence, we have fingerprint evidence, we have boot print evidence, plus we have the, the sheaths that were left behind. So I think if you're law enforcement, you have to believe that you, you have enough pieces of the puzzle that you could possibly put this together and solve this crime.
- [47:01]
B
Absolutely, yeah. You're looking at this as an investigator and I hate to use this term because it sounds so strange, but it is a term that, that some detective bureaus use. You would describe this as a sexy case. So a sexy case is one that, that is.
- [47:18]
D
That has captured the stool in the trunk.
- [47:22]
B
Yeah, that's where it starts. Or moose. Or moose. Or whatever it was. The jury's still out.
- [47:29]
D
Look, they smell and taste the same.
- [47:32]
B
But if you have a case that is catching statewide or national attention and you have evidence, right, you have leads, those are the kinds of, you shouldn't be concerned about if it's selling papers or if you're, or if your face is going to get on the old TV screen. But if you got a case where you got leads, you want something to work, you want something to chase down and they have that here. And we. One of the things here that's, that starts to take shape is in mid February you got all these tips, leads and evidence and such. But you got trooper Chuck west who noticed that in that sales report of the knives, that 69 page sales report that he got from the, from the brand, he noticed that there was a reseller in the next state in Massachusetts that had purchased a large shipment of these knives, 124 of them. So he contacts the Mass. State police and sends them to Contact that seller and obtain some copies of the sales records and reports that that seller would have. The seller said that the knives had been selling like hotcakes and had sold 84 of the 125 four knives that he had purchased. Now looking at the sales records, Trooper west, he catches a break here. One buyer had bought two SOG Seal 2000s knives at the same time that knife purchased. Those knives were purchased within weeks of the murders. The buyer lived in Vermont. This is like 30 miles away from the Zantops house. The buyer's name was listed as Jim Parker. He had paid $180 the purchase price with a money order and requested two day delivery of the knives. The knives were shipped to him at 10 Bradshaw Crossroad Chelsea, Vermont. It's February 15th. We have new Hampshire state police and Vermont state police. They go to the home of this Jim Parker. The investigators had learned with surprise that the knife purchaser, Jim Parker was actually a 16 year old boy. Yeah, his father was John Parker. So John Parker answers the door. He's got detectives from two different state agencies there. He says, this is a nice family in a nice area. Mr. John Parker says, detectives, come on in, come on in. We're happy to help. I don't know anything about what you're asking about, but let's, let's sit around the kitchen table. Can I get you some coffee, some water, what have you. And the son is there as well. Jim Parker was there as well. So now we have 16 year old Jim Parker with his father John Parker sitting at the kitchen table with detectives from two state agencies. There's a Sergeant Bruno present. He says that he noticed the veins on the throat of the teenage boy as throbbing like. Throbbing, he says, throbbing as though his heart was pounding uncontrollably. They asked Jim Parker whether he had bought two SOG Seal 2000 knives. He says yes, he had bought the knives, brought them to his friend's house. His friend's name is Robert Tolik. They bought the knives, he says, to cut saplings down and to use them out in the woods and to build forts and things like that. But these knives, I should have came up with a great description of these knives. These knives are rather large, they're heavy, they're bulky. Remember we have the medical examiner saying that it was not just a large sharp knife, but he described it as a sturdy knife would have been used in the killings and the boys. Or at least hear Jim Parker telling the detectives, yeah, I bought the knives for me and my friend. This is what we were going to use them for, however, they were too big and bulky that they didn't work well with what we had purchased them for. So we wanted. They spent $180 on these knives. These are teenage boys. They wanted to get rid of these knives, but they wanted to sell them so they could get some of their money back. So he told the detectives that they drove, the two of them, went to an Army Navy store in Burlington, Vermont, and they were trying to sell them to the retailer there so the retailer, that store could sell the knives and make some money as well. He says the store wasn't interested in buying them from us, but while we were there, a man in the store had overheard us attempting to sell them to the store and made us an offer on the knives. At the end of the day, he says that we ended up selling the knives to this man for 60 bucks a knife, recouping $120 of the 180 they spent on the knives.
- [52:41]
D
Yeah. Then when they go ask his friend about what happened with the knives, he corroborates the story. And so you go, well, that checks out.
- [52:52]
B
Yeah. The problem here, though, for Jim Parker in this little sit down with his dad involved, not only is he, like, uncontrollably nervous, in fact, remember the movie Aliens when the. When the alien baby grows inside of the person and then just kind of explodes out the stomach?
- [53:13]
D
Yeah.
- [53:14]
B
That's how this Sergeant Bruno described Jim Parker's neck. He's like, what was going on in that kid's neck looked like there was an alien baby growing inside. The problem for Parker becomes this is the story, as the captain points out, checks out when they talk to his buddy. Where the problem becomes is they asked Jim Parker. Okay, we get it. You don't know what that guy, what his name was. He's just some other guy in the store. Could you describe him for us? Well, he starts giving this description of somebody that's like, oh, he's like between 5 foot 8 and 6 foot 2, 175 to 220 pounds. I mean, he gives a description that is so vanilla and really doesn't seem to really describe any one person in any detailed fashion.
- [54:10]
D
Right.
- [54:12]
B
You know, you could line up an army of 30,000 men who would resemble this very vague description provided by Jim Parker. As said, Jim Parker appeared to be uncontrollably nervous in front of the officers. So they do question him about that. They say, you know, what's going on here? You appear to be very nervous or scared. And Jim Parker does tell them. He goes, I'm not nervous because I did anything or have anything to hide. I'm nervous because you guys are cops and I'm not used to talking to police. Before the officers left the Parker house, Trooper west noticed in the Parker Driveway a green 1996 Subaru station wagon just like the one the witness Paul New City had reported seeing speeding out of the Zantop's driveway on the day before the murders.
- [55:20]
D
I want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage. Join us tomorrow for part two. Until then, be good, be kind and don't live. Sam.
- [56:05]
E
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- [56:36]
F
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- [57:02]
B
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- [57:05]
F
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