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Hunch, CB radio lead to arrests in Dartmouth killings

Sgt. Bill Ward learned of the teen-agers' whereabouts while monitoring CB radio traffic

Two teen-age suspects caught in Indiana

In this story: 'They appeared to be very surprised' Victims taught 25 years at Dartmouth RELATED STORIES, SITES

NEW CASTLE, Indiana (CNN) -- An Indiana sheriff's deputy tricked two teen-age murder suspects into stopping at an Indiana truck stop to hitch a ride, authorities said Monday.

Robert Tulloch, 17, and James Parker, 16, were arrested about 4 a.m. Monday at a truck stop outside New Castle, Indiana. They are each charged as adults with two counts of first-degree murder in New Hampshire in the stabbing deaths of Dartmouth College professors Half and Susanne Zantop.

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Early Monday morning, Henry County Sheriff's Sgt. Bill Ward said that he was monitoring citizens band radio traffic when a truck driver westbound on Interstate 70 asked for someone to pick up two hitchhikers he could no longer carry.

A nationwide FBI alert and reports on CNN indicated the suspects may have been hitching a ride to California, Ward said. So he got on the radio and encouraged the trucker to drop his riders off at a truck stop near New Castle.

"I said, 'Hey, why don't you drop them off at the fuel desk and someone will pick them up in a few minutes.' And he did," Ward said.

"I actually didn't expect it to be them, but I thought it would be worth checking out," he added.

'They appeared to be very surprised'

Both suspects are from Chelsea, Vermont, which is about 30 miles northwest of Hanover, New Hampshire, where Dartmouth College is located.

Authorities charged them Saturday with the Dartmouth professors' slayings. Police warned that the teens may have been hitchhiking after a Massachusetts state trooper found the car they had been driving abandoned at a truck stop Sunday morning.

Ward said Henry County deputies found the two teen-agers at the truck stop matched the descriptions of the suspects and arrested them.

"They appeared to be very surprised," Ward said. "They didn't expect us to move in around them so quickly."

Friends and neighbors say the boys disappeared from Chelsea, Vermont, shortly after the killings. New Hampshire authorities will seek their extradition in the Zantop killings.

Victims taught 25 years at Dartmouth

A friend coming to dinner found the Zantops dead in their home in Etna, New Hampshire, outside of Hanover, on January 27. Half Zantop was a field and economic geologist who had taught at Dartmouth for 25 years. Susanne Zantop, who headed the German Studies program and participated in the Women's Studies and Comparative Literature programs, had also taught there for 25 years.

The professors were German-born, naturalized U.S. citizens, popular among students, and they often opened their home to students and community members.

Casey Purcell, a friend of Tulloch's, said Saturday that Tulloch and another boy left town in the days after the murders. They were gone for two or three days, he said, and then they returned to Chelsea. A few days later they disappeared again, said Purcell, who is a senior at Chelsea High School.

Purcell said Tulloch told him the pair set out to go rock climbing in Colorado, but had to turn back because Tulloch had a cut on his leg that had become infected. Tulloch said he cut his leg on a sap bucket while walking in the woods, Purcell said.

Police find Dartmouth murder suspects' car
February 18, 2001
Police search for teens in murder of professor couple
February 17, 2001

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