Tulloch Pleads Innocent
To Dartmouth Slayings

Robert W. Tulloch, 17, of Chelsea, pleaded innocent to two charges of first-degree murder on Tuesday, less than two weeks after a Grafton County, N.H. grand jury handed up the two indictments against him.

Tulloch, shackled and escorted by police, appeared briefly in Grafton County Superior Court for his arraignment. Afterwards, Tulloch was returned to the nearby county jail, where he has been held since his mid-February arrest. Tulloch and his friend James J. Parker are accused by New Hampshire authorities of stabbing two Dartmouth professors, Half and Susanne Zantop, to death in their Etna, N.H. home, Jan. 27.

Parker has been held in a juvenile detention center in Concord, N.H. since the two teens were arrested in Indiana, and returned to New Hampshire.

Criminal proceedings against Parker are on hold, while a judge considers prosecutors’ request to have Parker, who turns 17 this month, certified and charged as an adult.

The two indictments against Tulloch, returned by a grand jury after four days of testimony, seem to indicate that the panel found sufficient evidence also to indict Parker.

The indictments allege that Tulloch, "acting in concert with, and aided by, James P., purposely caused the death" of the Zantops.

Court records indicate that investigators linked the two Chelsea youths to the murders by two knife sheaths found at the scene. Investigators found two military-style knives, with blood from one of the victims on them, in Tulloch’s bedroom, according to court records. Parker bought the two knives on the Internet a few weeks before the murders, investigators have alleged.

Prosecutors have admitted that they have been unable to uncover a motive for the murders—or even a connection between the Chelsea friends and the Etna, N.H., couple.

Tulloch’s public defender attorney, Richard Guerriero, advised the judge at Tuesday’s arraignment that he would not seek bail for his client at this time. Prosecutor Kelly Ayotte, of the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office, said afterwards that it would unusual for a defendant facing two counts of first-degree murder to be granted bail in New Hampshire, in any case.

Ayotte said a trial date for Tulloch, likely to be set in the next few weeks, would be in February 2002, at the soonest.

Tulloch, who will turn 18 this month, could face life in prison without parole if convicted, Ayotte said after his April 19 indictment. The prosecutor also stated that it remains to be determined if Parker will be transferred to a jail when he turns 17, the age at which New Hampshire considers him an adult.

In a brief comment to the press following this week’s arraignment, Tulloch’s lawyer, Richard Guerriero, stated that his client "is and should be presumed innocent."