By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
NORTH HAVERHILL — Instead of life in prison without parole, Robert Tulloch will be 62 by the time he is eligible for release in connection with the murders of two Dartmouth College professors in 2001.
That is the same age Half Zantop was when Tulloch murdered him in 2001.
Tulloch agreed to a new sentence Monday during a hearing in Grafton Superior Court in North Haverhill on his two first-degree murder convictions. The original life sentence without parole is now 45-years to life, giving Tulloch the opportunity to be paroled after he serves 20 more years in prison.
Tulloch was 17 when he and his friend, James Parker, 16, randomly picked the Etna home of Dartmouth College professors Half and Susanne Zantop, 55, to carry out their crimes. Their daughter, Dr. Veronika Zantop, testifying via Webex, told Grafton Superior Court Judge Lawrence MacLeod there is no justice in giving Tulloch anything less than a life sentence for his crimes.
“He planned, rehearsed, and in an utterly cold-blooded, and in an extremely predatory manner, slaughtered my parents. This wasn’t a crime of passion or retribution. He wasn’t using substances. He wasn’t psychotic. There was just sheer depravity,” Veronika Zantop said.
Tulloch accepted a sentence of life without parole when he pleaded guilty in 2002. Parker got 25 years to life when he pleaded guilty to second degree murder charges, and he is currently free.
Tulloch’s attorney, Richard Guerriero, who also represented Tulloch in 2002, said Monday the teen pleaded guilty 25 years ago to spare the Zantop family any more suffering they would likely experience if the case went to trial.
“His very reason was that he recognized the pain and trauma that he had caused, and he didn’t want to cause any further pain and trauma,” Guerriero said.
But Tulloch has been trying for at least the chance for a lesser sentence since 2018. Years of litigation over the constitutionality of life sentences for minors resulted in MacLeod finding last year that such sentences violate constitutional rights.
Monday was scheduled to be the first of three days of evidentiary hearings on Tulloch’s bid for a new sentence. The deal between the state and Tulloch’s lawyers made those hearings unnecessary.
Senior Assistant Attorney General Benjamin Agati said that the state still believes Tulloch should serve life in prison. The sentencing deal recognizes the fact the United States Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that life without parole for minors constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
The crimes Tulloch and Parker committed are still shocking two decades later. The high school friends hatched a scheme to obtain $10,000 through a series of home invasions and murders, Agati said. Once they had the $10,000, they planned to escape to Australia.
Starting in the summer of 2000, Parker and Tulloch tried to pull off a home invasion four different times. Once, they donned black clothing, cut the phone lines to a remote Vermont home, and approached the house before they lost their nerve.
Finally, on the morning of Jan. 27, 2001, Tulloch and Parker approached the Zantop home, which they picked at random. The boys told Half Zantop they were conducting an environmental survey for a school project. Half Zantop was an environmental science professor at Dartmouth, and happy to help.
Half Zantop invited Tulloch and Parker into his home and was soon stabbed repeatedly in the chest and face by Tulloch, according to Agati. Susanne Zantop rushed from the kitchen, where she was cooking, to defend her husband. That’s when Parker cut her throat at Tulloch’s order, Agati said. Tulloch and Parker then continued to stab her. The boys were covered in blood when they left the Zantop home with $340.
Tulloch planned to make a statement during the hearing, but that did not go as planned. During the hearing he became visibly upset as Agati recited the details of the murders, and again when Dr. Veronika Zantop called him a sociopath who should remain locked up for life.
“I don’t really think there’s anything that I could say that would have any meaning to anyone,” Tulloch said. “I’m sorry, you know, I can’t imagine, after hearing [Veronika Zantop] talk, that you would care at all. I’m sorry.”
Dr. Veronika Zantop did not remain on the video feed long enough to hear Tulloch’s comments.
As part of the sentence Tulloch cannot have any contact with the Zantop family, and he waives his right to a sentence review hearing which could have further reduced his time in prison.