A teenager who spent 20 years in prison for murdering two Dartmouth College professors in a plot to make a quick buck to immigrate to Australia has been granted parole.
James Parker, now nearly 40, appeared before the New Hampshire Parole Board several years after pleading guilty to killing Harf and Suzanne Zantop in Hanover.
Parker, who was 16 at the time, is serving nearly 25 years, the minimum life sentence for second-degree murder, and said at his parole hearing Thursday that he was “very sorry.”
His attorney and Department of Corrections staff said Parker had taken many steps over the years to rehabilitate himself and help his fellow inmates.
Mr Parker acknowledged the “unimaginably horrific” crimes he had committed and said he knew no amount of time could change or alleviate the pain he had caused.
When Parker was 16, he and his friend Robert Tulloch, then 17, hatched a heinous plan to abandon their lives in Chelsea, Vermont, and live in the greener pastures below.
Those who knew the two were shocked to think that a “class clown” could commit such a heinous crime.
The trip would cost an estimated $10,000, so they decided to knock on unsuspecting homeowners’ doors under the guise of conducting an environmental investigation.
Once inside, Parker and Tulloch planned to tie up the victims, steal their credit card and ATM information, and force them to provide their PIN numbers before killing them.
Parker said he chose the Zantop home because it looked expensive and was surrounded by trees.
Harf, 62, let them into his home on Jan. 27, 2001, and within 10 minutes Tulloch had stabbed him and directed Parker to stab Suzanne, 55, Parker said in a police interview at the time. He spoke at
The pair fled the scene of the brutal murder with Half’s wallet containing about $340 and a list of numbers.
After leaving, Parker and Tulloch realize that they left their knife sheaths at home and are unable to return when they see the house swarmed with police.
Fingerprints on the knife’s sheath and bloody boot prints eventually linked the pair to the crime, but after being questioned by police, they fled, hitchhiking west and returning home several weeks later. He was arrested at a truck stop in Indiana.
Parker, who cooperated with prosecutors and testified against Tulloch, had asked for a reduced sentence in 2018, but withdrew the petition after Zantops’ two daughters opposed it.
Tulloch, now 40, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
He is scheduled for a reconsideration hearing in June.
In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to sentence juvenile offenders to mandatory life imprisonment without parole.
As a result, Tulloch and four others with such sentences were granted a new trial in 2014.
Suzanne Zantop is head of the German studies department at Dartmouth College, and Herf Zantop teaches earth science, and both are from Germany.
with post wire
