A man who helped murder two professors from Dartmouth while a high school student in 2001, as part of a plot to rob them and move to Australia, has been granted parole after spending nearly 25 years behind bars.
James Parker was 16 when he and conspirator Robert Tulloch tricked two professors at the Ivy League college, Half and Susanne Zantop, that they were conducting a survey on climate issues to gain entry to their home.
When the Zantops invited the teens into their home, Tulloch stabbed Half and ordered Parker to stab Susanne. The teens didn’t have any relationship with the couple, saying later that they chose the house because it was expensive and surrounded by vegetation.
Both Half and Susanne Zantop were German immigrants. Susanne was the head of Dartmouth’s German studies department, while her husband taught Earth sciences. They were “beloved” by the campus community.
The killings were part of a plot to earn enough money to flee the United States for Australia. The pair’s plan involved forcing random captives to give them their financial passwords before killing them.
While the two estimated they would need $10,000 to be able to buy their way to the nation, they only made $340 from Half Zantop’s wallet before they were tracked down by police after leaving the sheaths of their knives in the home.
Police initially believed that the crime had been one that took place in the moment, but fingerprints on the sheaths, as well as a bloody boot print, led them to the killers, who confessed that the crime had been planned.
Parker has now served nearly 25 years in prison, the minimum required sentence for being an accomplice in a second-degree murder, which he plead guilty for after his arrest, according to The Mirror.
Parker told New Hampshire’s state parole board his actions were “unimaginably horrible.”
“We were attempting to move overseas and live some sort of life of adventure,” Parker said. “It’s just so hard. I’ve gone over and over it and just finding an explanation for that is just, I just don’t know how I could do that.
“I know there’s not an amount of time of things I can do to change it or alleviate any pain I’ve caused,” he told the board April 18. “I’m just deeply sorry.”
Parker and Tulloch’s peers were shocked by the killings, with many describing them as “class clowns” in the wake of the murders.
“Jimmy is the class clown,” Casey Purcell, one of the boys peers at Chelsea High School, told the Cape Cod Times in 2001. “He’s never really serious. That’s all there is to him. Rob is the one who always gets voted Most Likely to Take Over the World, just because he’s so witty. But they are not violent. They like tricks and stuff, but not anything like this.”
“When he came back from trying to get to Colorado, we hung out,” Purcell said at the time. “He was totally normal.”
“I thought he’d just taken off for the rock climbing again,” Kip Battey, Tulloch’s debate partner on the school team, told the Times in 2001. “But this morning I really just couldn’t process it. I had to read the paper a couple of times.”
Parole board member Ronald Bessette noted that Parker had a “stellar” disciplinary record and has worked with nonprofit groups on art projects, and had taken many steps to rehabilitate himself.
Parker could be released as early as May. Under his parole conditions, he will be required to engage in mental health treatment and cannot have contact with the Zantop family.
“This is a hard one to make a statement about, especially because I can’t speak for everyone affected by what happened. For me – I miss my parents and am deeply sad for everything they – and we – have missed out on,” one of the couple’s two daughters, Veronika Zantop, told the Associated Press.
“I miss my father’s sense of humor and kindness and my mother’s sharp wit and tenacity in all things. Among so many other things. I am deeply grateful for all of the support we have received. I wish James Parker and his family the best and hope that they can heal,” she added.
The post Infamous ‘Class Clown’ Killer To Be Freed After Nearly 25 Years In Prison appeared first on Resist the Mainstream.
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Author: John Symank
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