He Killed Professors at 17, Now Will Get a Shot at Parole

A Vermont man who was 17 when he and a friend killed a pair of married Dartmouth College professors 25 years ago will have a chance at parole in about 20 years, when he reaches the age of one of his victims, a judge ruled Monday. Lawyers for Robert Tulloch, now 43, and the prosecution reached an agreement on the terms, reports the AP, avoiding a three-day planned resentencing hearing. Tulloch was automatically sentenced to life without parole after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in the 2001 stabbing deaths of Half and Susanne Zantop. But the US Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that mandatory sentences of life without parole are unconstitutional for juveniles, and later applied that decision retroactively.

The rulings gave hundreds of juvenile lifers a shot at freedom, including five men serving life sentences in New Hampshire for murders they committed as teenagers. In a court filing last week, Tulloch's lawyers argued that a minimum sentence in the range of 30 to 40 years is appropriate, based on a review of other cases nationwide that were affected by the Supreme Court rulings. Attorneys Richard Guerriero and Oliver Bloom also said Tulloch's prison records show he has matured, and that after some initial misconduct, he's had no major infractions since 2012 and no minor infractions since 2017. "The vast majority of his write-ups are for possessing too many books," they wrote. Quoting from Tulloch's therapy records, they said he has expressed "significant remorse" for what he sees as an unforgivable crime, his "warped youthful thinking," and his "good capacity for empathy."

According to Tulloch's friend, James Parker, the teens were bored with their lives in Chelsea, Vermont, when they concocted a plan to kill strangers, steal their money, and move to Australia. For several months, they knocked on doors in New Hampshire and Vermont pretending to be conducting a survey on the environment before being let in by the Zantops. Susanne Zantop, 55, was head of Dartmouth's German studies department and her husband, Half Zantop, 62, taught Earth sciences. New Hampshire lawmakers have rejected attempts to end life sentences for juveniles, but Tulloch's case could bolster future attempts. After Tulloch argued in 2018 that sentencing juveniles to life without parole violated the state constitution, the judge asked the state Supreme Court to weigh in, but it declined. Last July, Superior Court Judge Lawrence MacLeod agreed with Tulloch, finding that the constitution categorically prohibits such sentences as "cruel or unusual" punishment.

The Supreme Court rulings addressed only mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles, leaving the US the only country that allows discretionary life sentences for minors. Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia have banned the practice, while another five states allow it but have no one serving such a sentence, according to the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth. Among the juvenile lifers nationwide who have been resentenced after the US Supreme Court rulings, more than 75% have received sentences of less than 40 years, according to a study published in 2024 in the Journal of Criminal Justice.