True Crime All The Time - James Parker and Robert Tulloch

Episode Date: July 13, 2020

16-year-old James Parker and 17-year-old Robert Tulloch were friends who were bored with life in their small town of Chelsea, VT. They began to scheme and plan on ways to get to Australia. Eventually, those plans turned to crime and evolved into murder.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the crimes of Parker and Tulloch. How did these two kids come to the determination that they were willing to do anything, including committing murder, to escape their small town life? A plan to worm their way into homes, force the homeowners to give up their ATM cards and their pins, led them to encounter Half and Susanne Zantop. The Zantops were beloved professors at Dartmouth and their senseless murders affected many people.You can support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital ProductionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Your math skills have global potential. As an actuary, you'll solve some of the world's most pressing problems while helping people to live better lives. Become an actuary through the society of actuaries and work anywhere in the world. Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 191 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And with me, as always, is my partner in True Crime, Mike Gibson, Gibby. How are you?

I'm good, man. How about you? I'm doing great. Yeah. You know, you are about to be a year older. friend. So happy birthday in advance. It's coming up quick, though. Yeah, really quick. I'm sure you'll get tons of birthday wishes from your many admirers and fans and on your 18,000 social media outlets that you have. Woof? Yeah, you might get a woof. Yeah. Which will send it to all your

your outlets. Yeah. I'm doing the Benjamin Button thing anyway. Yeah, you are. You're aging in reverse. I mean, I think everybody knows that. I'm trying. It's a busy time. You know, I had my birthday, We had the fourth. Your birthday's coming up. Yeah. A lot of stuff going on. It's busy. And then in our county, they just announced that masks are mandatory.

Yeah. So that was kind of a big thing around here. I'm going to wear my true crime all the time mask out. Yeah. Yeah. For those that haven't seen it, we do have true crime all the time masks on the website. They're actually pretty cool. I wanted to wait until I got some in the mail before I told everybody about it just to make

sure I liked them. And I do. They fit very well. You and I showed them off on our Patreon video this week. Speaking of Patreon, we've got some new supporters. Let's give our shout-outs. We had Michelle Crook. Hey, Michelle. Jennifer Widenhofer. Hey, Widenhofer. Allison Blanchett. Hey, Allison. Joanne Nunez. Tammy Wheeler jumped out at our highest level. Hey, thanks, Tammy. Mindy. Mindy. Becky DeSanto. What's going on to Santos? Joseph Johnson. Hey, Joseph. Mary Mick jumped out of our highest level. Hey, MM. Marjohn. Simon. What's going on, Simon? Rebecca Mitchell. Hey, thanks, Rebecca. Dora Mathitas. Matitas. That's what I'm going with. I like that. Kate Katrell. Hey, Kate. Sandy Owens. What's going on, Sandy.

Michelle Davison. Hey, Michelle. Shantelle Taylor. Hey, thanks, Chantelle. J. J. J. J. J. Diane. Diane. Diane. Erin Deanne. Erin Deanne. Carla L jumped out at our highest level. Thanks, Carla. And so did Ashley Bennett. Wow, thanks, Ashley. So, big shout out to all the new supporters. And then if we go back into the vault, all right. This week, we selected Colleen Conner. Really? Thanks, Colleen. So big shout out to her and all the people that continue to support us on Patreon. We had some great PayPal donations as well. We had Tommy Baker. Hey, Tommy. Samantha newie. Thanks, Samantha. Ashley Brown. What's going on, Ashley? Sarah Danahee. Hey, Sarah. And Paris Major. Thanks, thanks, Paris. So thank you all. All right, Gibbs, right now, we have a brand new episode out on

true crime all time unsolved. We're talking about a number of unsolved murders in the Great Falls, Montana area. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to look at several unsolved murders spanning from, you know, 1950s through 1980. Yeah, surprising number of unsolved murders. Not that every place doesn't have their unsolved murders. But these have some unique factors to them.

Yeah. I think, you know, as you did too, found them in harassed. Yeah, these aren't just random pulls. You know, these are tie-ins and they're just interesting facets to them. So definitely check those out. All right, Gibby, are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? I am. We are talking about a couple of teenagers, 16-year-old James Parker and 17-year-old Robert Tulloch,

who hunted for victims in Vermont and New Hampshire. Now, those aren't two states that we've spent a lot. lot of time in, but this is a very interesting story. And you and I have talked about this before. I like to go to places that we haven't been a lot. You're like Star Trek. Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously we do a lot of cases in New York and Ohio and Texas and California because, number one, there's a lot of cases to be done. Right. Populations are a little heavy. Higher population. So you're going to have more cases. These two teenagers, they developed an M.O of going up to houses. And, and attempting to trick the occupants into letting them inside.

Basically, their main goal was to escape from this small town in Vermont where they lived and head to Australia. Okay. Where do they think they were going there, huh? Out in the bush. That's probably where they were in up being. Maybe. I know you and I have been wanting to go to Australia.

It is quite a flight. And I don't like some of the deadly creatures. They scare me. Yeah. And you have surrounded by that thing you don't like it all. which is called the ocean. The ocean. I don't mind the ocean.

Yeah. I don't want to be in it or on the beach. But I'll look at it from my hotel room and that's awesome. Yeah. You're sitting in your hotel room and Sydney overlooking it. Or I could be on a boat on it all day long. Okay. Deep sea fishing or I just don't want to be in it.

Yeah. You know. Not going to swim in it. No. But that's where they wanted to go. Australia. But it was over a six month period. The duo tried and failed.

to get their plan to work. That was until they knocked on the door of a married couple, half and Suzanne Zantop, who were both professors at Dartmouth College. So I think Gibbs, there's a lot of curiosity, right, with these types of cases where young people make the decision to kill.

These were 16 and 17 year old boys. It's hard to wrap your head around that. I know when I was that age, I certainly wasn't thinking, about murdering anyone. No, my mind wasn't there at all. Now, I was into sports and girls and probably not even in that order, but, and I imagine you were as well.

My biggest thing was trying to figure out how to get the cheerleader to go out with me. It wasn't scheming to ambush people in their home, still their ATM cards and kill them. But that's just me. I really don't know what you were up to back then. You and I didn't know each other. So, you know, who knows? I was just trying to figure out how to not go to school that day.

You did the Ferris Bueller. Yeah. With the noises and the hand would raise up. Exactly. So this is a little different case for us. Really no background, right? James Parker and Robert Tulloch, they became friends in elementary school. And that friendship, you continued into high school in their small town of Chelsea, Vermont.

And when I say small, I too mean small. The 2010 census listed Chelsea is having a population just north of 1,200 people. Man, that is very small. Yeah. And I think the reason why we don't have a ton of background is, you know, these were thought to have been really good kids. They did well in school. They were popular.

They enjoyed sports. They dated. They came from good families who love them, right? So you don't have some of the same things that we would have in other. cases where there was abuse, there was allegations of, of this and this, things that would point to maybe why a killer later becomes what they become. I didn't find it, man. I mean, these were kind of all American average kids. Kid next door. Good at sports and, and, you know, smart and yeah. Yeah, I think you said it correctly. It was just, you know, kid next door. Robert Tullick was

the president of the senior class. Unlike me. Unlike me too. Yeah, I was not. I was not either. I mean, I guess what I'm saying is these were not kids that fit the image that is sometimes conjured up, right? Of the teenage killer. Sure. Brooding, alone in his room, alone in the basement, plotting out his revenge on the world. It didn't seem like these were that type of kids. But by 2000, they were plotting to get out of Chelsea, Vermont. They would later say that they were bored with life in Chelsea. Now, granted, there's only 1,200 people there. There can't be a whole lot going on.

It's probably, what, a one or two stoplight town. You have that, yeah. You might have a fast food place. You might not. I don't know. That's the type of town. Everybody knows your business for sure. Yeah, I mean, 1,200 people's not a lot.

But there's also some really cool things about a town. like that. Well, that's true too. Yeah. The mom-and-paw diner. Yeah. That's the best part about that time. The really good biscuits and gravy, I bet. Beef and noodles or chicken and all that stuff. It always comes back to food with you and I. But there's other good things too. Sure. Yeah. The pies they make. But to say that, okay, we were bored. Okay, get that. They wanted something bigger. They wanted something more exciting. They began this discussion, this talk about going to Australia. All right. Well, that's exciting. That's an adventure. And apparently they had done some research on the internet and they came to the conclusion that to achieve their goal, they were going to need about

$10,000 to take off to Australia. That way they can get down to say, good day. Welcome to Australia. They could just save their money and spend nothing and do fairly bad accents like you. Or really good ones like me. So I'm not sure what type of research. they did. I'm assuming it was plane tickets. It was this. It was that. Ten thousand dollars. That's what it was going to take to get them to Australia. All right. So now you know that number. Yeah. What's next? You got to figure out how to get that money. Got to plan it. Now, I think initially, I read where they did think of some legal ways to get that money. But $10,000 to a 16, 17 year old kid, that's a lot. It is a lot to make. It's going to take. It's going to take. It's going to

take you a long time. So eventually they began scheming, right? Of ways that they could get their hands on this money. And apparently they went through a bunch of ideas. Yeah. Like stealing cars. Yeah. Stealing cars to robbing houses, identity theft.

They must have thrown out the idea of stealing cars. Because I don't believe they did any of that. What they did do beginning in the summer of 2000 is, to start stealing mail from people's mailboxes. Federal crime, man. Yeah, I don't know if they knew that or not. It kind of seems like, all right, this might be an easy one. You might get lucky.

You might get a credit card. Right. That you can use. Or you might get some information that would allow you to commit identity theft. Sure. I think that's what they were thinking. But like you said, it's also a federal crime to steal someone's mail. Not sure if they factored that in or not.

not, but they pretty quickly abandoned this whole idea because they tried it and guess what? Most mail you open doesn't have a credit card in it. Most of the stuff I get Gibbs is people wanting me to pay them money. Yeah. Bills. A place called the electric company. I used to love that show. So they tried it for a while.

They just didn't find anything useful. Their next idea was quite a bit more brazen. So the idea was to figure out how to con people into letting them in their house. Once they got inside, they would steal the homeowner's ATM card. They would get the pen from them through whatever means necessary. So they wanted to do like a Cars brother. Yeah, very similar, except the Car Brothers made them, didn't they make people drive to the ATM? Or am I confusing that with another case?

No, they did. Boy, the car brothers were brutal. Brutal. But as 16, 17-year-old kids, they were prepared to kill. They talked about it. They planned it out. You know, if we have to, okay, we'll kill these people. So, you know, in my mind, Gibbs, they've made a pretty big leap here.

Yeah. I mean, I get you bored. I get you want to get out of town, but to kill to get out of town. I mean, people say that, I kill to get out of this town. It's not an uncommon thought to, want to get away, right? You hear that a lot, whether it's a cliche or not, but people from a small town saying, oh, I want to get out of here.

I want to go to the big city. I want to go where, you know, things are popping. Most people are thinking, yeah, I'm going to be an actress. I'm going to be a whatever it is, right? Not I'm going to kill to get money and then that's going to get me out. But a pretty big leap from stealing mail to home invasion and possible murder. And Gibbs, as I was going through this, I just couldn't help. But think about, you know, how would these conversations between these two boys have gone?

So one is staying over at the other's house on a Friday night where most kids that age would have been playing video games. They're scheduling and scheming and plotting their next crime. Maybe over some bagel bites. I used to like the Totino pizza rolls. Oh, yeah. My mom would buy those when we had, you know, sleepovers. Yeah. Tasty little things. It was July of 2000. That's when they put their plan into motion. And they went about seven miles from Chelsea to the town of Vershire, Vermont. I didn't look

Vershire up, but I'm assuming it's not a very big town either. They decided on a house. And in advance, they cut the phone line. Then they approached the house. Robert Tulloch knocked on the front door while James hit. Tulloch told the homeowner that his car had broken down and he asked if he could use the person's phone. This was their idea, right, of trying to get inside the home. Now, I look at this in a couple of different ways. I do believe there are people that would look at a 15, 16, 17, 17 year old kid, hear that

story and think, oh, man, this kid needs help and I need to give it to it. Right. Now, there are also a lot of people that would be unwary of anyone knocking on the door, asking to come in and they would turn them away. Certainly. Yeah. I'm not going to condemn either one. I mean, everybody has to make their own decisions based on what they believe to be the

right thing to do. I will say this, personally, and people might think it's heartless. callus, but I just don't let anybody inside my house that I don't know. Right. I have had people knock on my door at two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning and say, I'm out of gas. I'm sorry. I cannot risk and I won't risk my safety, my family safety. I just can't do it. Yeah. You know, you could be in need. I get it. Sure. You could also be a serial killer or a killer. Definitely could. just can't take that chance. And I know there are people listening that say, oh, Ferg, how could you do that?

Then there's a whole bunch of other people saying, oh, I do the same thing because, you know, it's a personal choice. But you don't even open the door for me. If it's not recording hours. Yes. If I knock on your door, like after we're done and I, like that one night, I forgot something. I left. Well, I walked out of your front door. You closed the door. My battery was dead. I came back and you're like, I'm sorry. I cannot help you. And I was like, record. According time is over. Yeah, I was like, but my car won't start, man. I need to jump it.

I mean, it would trip away, you say. It would be different, right? If somebody you knew showed up and said, had need help. Now, they could have all of a sudden switched and now they're a killer. But if I know you, that's different. Right. But if you're a stranger and you're either trying to sell me magazines or trying to tell me a story about how you just need $10 to get, you know, back home to your sick children.

Right. First of all, I'm not giving you money, and I'm definitely not letting you in my house. I'd give you money before I would let you in my house. Exactly. That being said, if it was like a young child that showed up and said, I'm lost or I can't find my mommy. Right. Obviously, I would help them. Yeah.

I'm not talking about that. Now everybody knows how to get into your house. Right. We're sending the kid up first. Once they're in, he'll come back and lock the door. We'll come on in. I'm talking about people that can help themselves. Yeah.

And I find it strange that they're knocking on my door. The other thing that I thought about, and I believe this Gibbs in 2000, many people, not everyone, but many people had cell phone in 2000. They weren't as prevalent as they are today, no doubt. But a lot of people had them. The other thing that I think I read about this one encounter in particular was there was a pay phone, just down a little bit down the road. There was also a auto body shop.

just down the road. Okay. So I think the homeowner was a little, you know, leery about why this person would have knocked on his door as opposed to have gone to either a phone or a business or something like that. The other thing that's interesting about this one is the homeowner answered the door with a gun in his hand. Okay. As do I.

Right. And you've seen that firsthand. Even when you know it's me. Even when I, especially when I know it's you. I have two guns. I have one tucked in my, in the back. Yeah. But so he answered the door with the gun in his hand and he turned, you know, this kid away. The guy was so suspicious of this that he decided to call the police.

When he picked up his phone, that's when he realized that his phone line had been cut. So obviously the suspicion grows. Oh, for sure. Even more at that point. Now, later on, authorities learned that Robert and James, in addition to, you know, to cutting the phone lines, they had dug a makeshift grave near this guy's house. They were busy. Yeah.

I mean, I think when you dig a grave ahead of time, it's pretty clear. Yeah. You intend to kill someone. It's like they read the book on, here's what you want to do if you're going to invade a home. Which one is that? Is that murder by numbers or is that murder 101 or is that the one you wrote? That's the murder 101.1.2. Classic rock all day.

All day long. 101.2. Oh, day long. But think about this homeowner. Yeah. Right? Later on finds out that, man, if you would have let these guys in, right? There's a pretty good chance besides the fact that you had a gun.

But there's a pretty good chance that you would have been put in this makeshift grave. Yeah. Because they dug it for you. They're very determined to get their money. But they failed, right? This first attempt was a failure. And then they're really. doesn't seem to be a whole lot of criminal activity on the part of the duo for the rest of 2000.

Maybe they spent that whole time planning. Hey, this first one didn't work. Let's change it up. Because they will change it up. And there's definitely something that changed early in 2001. They got on the internet and they ordered two sog seal 2000 knives. And Gibbs, I know you know your knives. I mean, these are serious fixed blade knives. We're not messing around. Somewhat similar to your K bar. Yeah. A little bit.

I guess in size. But sturdy, pretty good size blade. And the name seal is on there for a reason. It was used, and I'm assuming it still is today, by our elite seal team. Right. In the middle part of January, Robert and James tried to gain entry into several houses in both Vermont and across the border in New Hampshire. But every time they were thwarted, either because the homeowner wouldn't let them in or because no one was home. So it seemed to me that they would drive to an area. They would

pick a house. And it was either we get in or we don't and then we go home. Right. It's not like you're walking around the neighborhood knocking on everybody's door. But this is like four or five times at least of driving out, finding a home, knocking, and not being able to get in. So they fail four or five times in a row. Then towards the end of January, they made the decision that they're going to try their luck a little further into New Hampshire. They settled on the town of Etna. It's about 35, 40 miles away from their home because as they would tell authorities later, it seemed like a more upscale community. And they thought because of that, their chances of getting some real money was better.

They made their first trip to Aetna. They were unsuccessful, right? No one answered at the house they picked and they drove back home. Yeah, they're feeling pretty defeated at this point. Yeah, they must have been. Now, they would come back to Aetna later in the month. And they rolled back in on January 27th, 2001. parked on Trescott Road.

Pretty nice area and they picked this area on purpose. No one answered at the first house they tried. But they didn't drive away this time. They went to another house on the same street, 115 Trescott Road. This was around noon. I mean, we're talking, you know, middle of the day, lunchtime. Right. They knocked on the door of half and Suzanne Zantop.

Half. That's such a unique, unique name. Now, we'll find out there from Germany. Yeah. That probably has something to do with it. But you just don't hear of many people being named half. No. And I mentioned it.

The Xantops were professors at Dartmouth, a very prestigious Ivy League school, the kind of school gives that neither of us could have gotten into. You know, speak for yourself, buddy. I could have had a full ride there. But I said, no. No, not for me. I'm going to go the UPS route. Was that, is that what it came down to? I'm like, I know your school colors are brown.

I like this type of brown with the, you know, shorts and the truck and, you know, got a package for you kind of thing. I'm pretty sure Dartmouth's colors are green. I could be wrong, but. Maybe I'm colorblind. I don't know. Or maybe you're lying out of your, you know what. Or that too.

Yeah. Hey, let's agree to disagree. All right. However, I do like the idea of you turning down a full ride to Dartmouth for. other opportunities. That really cracks me up. Yeah, sometimes you've got to go with what's more important to you. Yeah, you got to go with your gut. Yeah. And your gut was wrong. As always, you know. So the Xantops home in Aetna was just about four miles from the Dartmouth campus. Half was 62 years old. And he was a professor of earth sciences at Dartmouth. The study of dirt. Rocks, minerals. Yeah.

The earth. What makes up the earth. Suzanne, was 55 and she was the chair of the German department at Dartmouth. She was a professor too. She taught classes. They had both immigrated to the U.S. from Germany when they were young and they met in college and later got married in 1970. They had two grown daughters, one who became a doctor and one who was an international aid worker. So, you know, I can't stress this enough. You know, what a well-loved, highly respected couple. This was Gibbs. I mean, you know, they were both professors at a prestigious Ivy League school. They had spent most of their lives as educators. They were said to have been kind, thoughtful, really good people, good friends. I also think this was a couple

who truly loved each other. They loved spending time with each other and really enjoyed life. Yeah. I mean, they did a lot of things together. They threw dinner parties. They went sailing. They were described by friends as generous and caring. Really not the kind of people that anyone would think would wind up being murdered in their own home. But that's exactly what happened. So Parker and Tulloch knocked on the Zantops door and half answered. The boys, they were posing as students conducting an environmental survey. And I think this is very important. So here Gibbs, this is where I think you have the perfect storm. Sure. Yeah. Because you have an educator in half, a person who had spent, you know, so many years trying to shape the minds of young people. Two young people knock on his door and say that

they're doing an environmental survey. Well, he just happens to be a professor of earth sciences. There was no way. that these kids could have known, but they randomly stumbled upon a person who was extremely likely to let them in. And he did. And they actually sat down in the couple's study and went through this survey. So I thought that was interesting because obviously they weren't just winging it. They had they had set down. They had prepared like real questions or, you know, something. They've really premeditated this. Sure. Yeah.

So they got through with the survey and at some point, and I don't know all the details around it, but half tried to find a phone number to give to these boys. He wanted them to reach out to someone that he thought could help them. And that's when they attacked. They pulled their knives out of a backpack that they had with them. And Robert attacked first. He began stabbing half in the chest. and slashing his face with a knife.

And of course, he's screaming. Sure. As anybody would who's being attacked, Suzanne heard her husband screams and she ran into the room. When Robert Tulloch saw Suzanne, he ordered James Parker to slit her throat, which he did. Then Robert slit the throat of half and then went over and stabbed Suzanne multiple

times. The pair left the couple there in the study, both laying in pools of blood. Robert and James left the home taking half's wallet with them. And it was said to have had about $340 in it. They got into their car. They drove off. They drove back towards Vermont where they lived. At some point, they stopped in the woods. They washed the blood off their hands, knives. They had gotten blood on the car's floor mats. They wash that off. A lot of blood, Gibbs. Sure.

I mean, when you kill someone up close and personal with the knife. Right. And I know I'm not telling you anything you don't know. And I think especially if you slit someone's throat. Yeah. Nearly impossible not to get blood on your body, your clothes and your hair. I mean, it's going to spur to it's, it's going to fly all over the place. Not to be too graphic.

but it's just what happened. It's just the spatter. I mean, it's just going to be everywhere. The boys burned half's wallet. And I think they actually burned the cash as well. I read that somewhere, which I found very strange. The whole reason you did this, right, reportedly, was to get money. So they have his wallet with his ATM card.

They never got his pin. His wallet had a pretty good amount of cash in it, $340. But I read somewhere that they burned it, the whole thing. They also burned their bloody clothing. But it was sometime later, and I think they were back in Vermont by that time, the boys realized they had made a big mistake. They had left behind the she's to their knives inside the Xantop home. So I'm picturing this Gibbs. They've got these two matching saw seal knives in this backpack.

They're in a sheath, each one. They get them out. they pull the knives out of the she's they stabbed they murdered this couple they take the knives with them but they probably threw the the plastic or nylon or whatever whatever it was made out of the sheath right they threw it while they were doing what they were doing and they forgot about them so they leave at some point they realize hey we have the knives where where's the sheath that goes with it and they think uh-oh we're better go back and get that. Yeah, especially since they used their hand to pull it off, could have fingerprints.

Yeah, no doubt. So they did go back. They drove back. By the time they got there, the police were already there. So they had to turn around and go home. A dinner guest found half in Suzanne dead in their study around 630 and called police. Yeah, that's going to be something hard to forget. You know, when you arrive to a dinner party, and you walk in, you find your friends dead with her throat slit. Blood everywhere. Yeah. It'll be difficult. I think you're going to have some trauma.

You're going to have some things to work out, some things to deal with. So police are there. Detectives come out. Early on in the investigation, police released very little info to the public. As you can imagine, there was a lot of grief, a lot of sorrow for the Xantops, especially in the Dartmouth community. But there's going to be also a lot of fear. Well, sure.

I mean, two beloved professors were murdered in, you know, this kind of, I don't want to call it small, but you think of like a little tight knit college community. Right. A lot of people knew them. They had a lot of friends. They were also said to have been very close with their students. and nobody knows who killed them.

There were a lot of rumors. One was that half had been heard arguing with the student sometime before he was killed. So I think to your point, Gibbs, you have this college community fearing that there's a killer. You know, literally walking among us when you say that because you're walking to and from class. Could be sitting right next to you. Or sitting next to you in class. eating next to you in the dining hall. You know, I mentioned that the Xantops were very generous.

They were very caring. There were some theories centered around the fact that they would often let people stay at their home if they needed help. You know, people were struggling, going through hard times, maybe somebody, you know, going through a divorce or, you know, having problems with money or whatever it was. They had a big house. Sure. They had extra rooms.

That's because their girls are grown and gone. Yeah, they had moved away. So people started to wonder. They started to question if someone that the Xantops had tried to help out had betrayed them and killed them. The Boston Globe reported later on, this was years later, about many of the false leads that police followed in the weeks after the murders. I guess there was a visiting professor from Arizona who was at. Dartmouth at the time the Xantops were murdered. They looked at him. They even flew out, questioned him. They were really kind of zeroed in on him. And we're just talking about in the

first two or three weeks after the murders happened. Yeah, early stage. Yeah. There was a student who was questioned because he had scratches on his face. And there was also a former campus dishwasher who was questioned because I think he was online bad mouthing the university. So they thought, okay, if he hates Dartmouth this much, would he possibly kill somebody attached to the university? The crime about that is he was a bad mouth in the university on ALL, dial up internet. You know, that's a crime right there itself. Just, you know, how long did you sit there to put that? Do I mean, I don't know.

There are a lot of people listening that remember those days. A lot of people listening never went through that. thinking back it was painful to get a page to come up to see what the sports scores were I mean you could just man there's all kinds of noise and racket and it was it was bad just think about where we are today oh you know you just pick up your phone turned on everything in an instant yeah just to sit there and wait for that picture to download you're like who is that i can only see his hair but i think you know it's also what has kind of led to our instant gratification and culture.

Right. I know my kids, they've never really experienced anything else. They expect things to be here right now. Yeah. You know, Amazon, two days. Dad, where's my stuff? That's right. You used to have to mail in a form.

It would take like, you know, a week or two to get to you. But it sounds like they're following up every lead. They did and they got a bunch of leads, a bunch of tips. The problem is they were all false. Now, as the investigation, was going on, Robert and James, they started to panic and they boarded a bus on a cross-country trip. They were getting out of Dodge. But at the same time, they were, you know, keeping a close eye on the news. And they came back because basically they're watching the news. Nobody is coming out even

mentioning their names. The police didn't even come out and say that they had found the she's to to their knives. Right. So I think once they heard that, they felt like, okay, we're in the clear. We're in the clear. But the police had found them. And, you know, they were able to figure out the knives that belong to them. So they started to gather information on sales of that very specific type of knife. And they traced the sale of two of them back to James Parker. The authorities ended up questioning Parker and Tulloch on February 15th. So it's not a lot of time, you know, a little over two weeks, two and a half weeks. They took both their fingerprints.

They took some of their shoes. And I think from there, things happened very quickly because you mentioned fingerprints. They did find fingerprints at the scene. And they matched the fingerprints of Parker and Tulloch. The other thing they found was a boot of Robert Tulloch. of Robert Tullick and the boot print matched a print found in blood at the scene of the crime. Okay. A bunch of things are not good, right?

You bought these knives. Your fingerprints are at the scene. Your boot print is at the scene. It's not really looking too good, right? No, no, not looking very promising for him. Well,

and I think couple the fact that there's no tie, right? James Parker and Robert Tullick had no. tie whatsoever to half in Suzanne Zantop. So there's no reason for them to be in their house. They can't even make an excuse, right? And say, yeah, we knew them. We were there for this or that. Yeah, we were there for that dinner coming up later that night. But they weren't arrested right away. And by the time the arrest warrants were issued, they were on the run. Now, I saw a couple of different reports. I saw where they hitchhiked. I also saw where they. took off in James Parker's mother's car.

But I don't know which one is right. I saw it a bunch of different ways. But either way, they made it as far as Indiana. That's pretty far. But that's where they were caught, picked up in Indiana and shipped back to New Hampshire. After they were arrested,

there was a great deal of shock in the community. Maybe I should say both communities, right? In Vermont and New Hampshire. When you're talking about their hometown of Chelsea, right, 1,200 some people, I don't think anyone thought that these two boys were capable of these horrible crimes. And then as more information started coming out gives, people started to hear about the number of attempted home invasion, some of them much closer to home. And I always think about those people that turned the pair away. Yeah. Finding out that, oh, okay.

seeing their picture on the news saying, oh, that was the kid or those were the kids. Could have been us. They had to have felt something powerful, some type of powerful emotion, whether it was relief, fear, I don't know. Just knowing what could have happened if they had done things a little bit differently. A lot of people came out, you know, told the papers how scary it was because of the randomness. And I think that's a topic that you and I have touched on a number of times. That randomness aspect is scary.

I mean, it's scary to think that a person who knows you would target you. Right. But to me, it's very scary that someone is driving through a neighborhood and says, oh, this is the house. That scares the,

you know what out of me. Because no one's safe, right? From that standpoint, I mean, I think everybody has the same thought. lot, right? It could have been me. It could have been anyone. Easily. Both Parker and Tulloch were charged with two counts of first degree of murder, which, you know, if they were found guilty, carried mandatory

life sentences with no parole. In December 2001, James Parker accepted a plea deal. And I think he went back and forth, Gibbs, about this for months, you know, whether or not to testify against his good friend, because these kids, these kids were good friends. They had been friends for a long time. But in the end, he pleaded guilty to being an accomplice to second degree murder. And he did agree to testify against his friend Robert Tulloch. Well, you know, in cases like that, you have your attorney, a good attorney will tell you, if he thinks they've got you, the first one that makes the deal is the winner, man.

Yeah. And it's interesting that James Parker will find. out go you know he goes with his attorney's advice guess who doesn't robert tulloch we'll talk about it in a minute yeah so in exchange he would get a 25 to life sins now that's nothing to sneeze at that's that's a that's a long time but compared to mandatory life with no parole that's a hell of a lot better especially at their age yeah life at 16 that's a long time unless you're shanked in the dining hall. But there are some interesting facets to it.

So number one, he would be eligible for parole, right, at some point. Number two, he was not charged with the murder of half and was only charged as an accomplice to the murder of Suzanne, even though he admitted to slashing her throat. Because I think what it was was prosecutors knew that Robert had killed. half on his own. Right. That part was pretty evident. And I think what they believed was that it was Robert who actually delivered the fatal knife wounds to Suzanne. When he stabbed her. When he came over and stabbed her a bunch of times. Right. Yes. James slid her throat, which usually in and of itself could kill you. Sure. Very easily. And prosecutors tried to explain their decision.

because you're going to get a lot of questions about this. And they said, well, number one, there's no difference in the sentencing. Whether he's charged as a principal in the murder or as an accomplice, he would still be looking at 25 to life, which I found it strange. But that's what they came out and said. They were just trying to make it sound better than James by saying, we're not going to charge you with her murder. We're going to charge you as an accomplice in the murder. Well, yeah, maybe to James, but I think maybe even more so to the press and to the public, because they're like, this guy's a killer.

And you're saying, okay, we're only charging him with this, which sounds so much better than first degree of murder. Sure, especially on his record too. But they're coming out and saying, okay, I see how it looks, but he was, he's going to, he's eligible for the same sentence either way. So after the plea deal was struck, Parker. sat down with investigators and basically told them everything. And very important, right?

All of this was going to be used against Robert Tulloch when it came time for his trial. Sure. And it's pretty much where all the details of his case come from is from what James told investigators when he sat down with them. Now, Robert Tulloch entered a not guilty plea and he was set to go. to trial in April of 2002. But prior to the trial starting, Robert changed his mind. And it's weird.

Gibbs, I don't know. Maybe it was the mountain of evidence against him, which, as I said, would have included the damaging testimony of his friend James Parker. There's no doubt the prosecution was going to paint Robert as the mastermind of the whole operation, right? That was going to be their strategy. Yeah, James was involved, but Robert was the mastermind and James was the fault. But he changed his mind and he pleaded guilty to both murders.

And this is where I mentioned it earlier. This was against the advice of his counsel. And from what I gathered Gibbs, you know, it just didn't make a lot of sense. He was a juvenile at the time he committed the murders. So he wasn't going to get a death sentence, right? That wasn't going to happen. once he pleaded guilty and he just pleaded guilty, there was no plea deal, right? He just said, I'm guilty.

The judge had no choice but to sentence him to two mandatory life sentences without parole. So from that standpoint, I think that's why people looked at it and said, well, that doesn't make any sense. If he's found guilty by a jury, there was nothing more that they could have given him, right? So why not take your chances with a jury at that point? Yeah. I'm sure that's what his defense was saying. Or at least try to work out some deal. Yeah.

He didn't even try to do that. He just, he just said, you know what, I'm going to plead guilty. I don't want to go through this trial. You know, there was a lot of things in some of the various news articles about if you go to trial.

And we've seen it in cases, right? Things can happen. Defense attorneys sometimes are able to get evidence thrown out, which changes the course of a trial. The other thing you have is the ability to appeal and maybe something gets overturned on appeal. If you just up and plead guilty, there is no appeal, automatic appeal process.

I mean, you're just going to sit in jail. Lose so many things by doing that. Yeah, I think that's why everybody felt that it was so strange that he would do that when his counsel is saying, hey, this is not smart. Don't do it. Right. And maybe he just didn't want to go through with the trial and everything that would come along with it. His family told the papers that he said it was because he didn't want to put his family through the pain of a trial.

Maybe that's true. It could be. Maybe he saw how much pain they went through up to this point going into the trial and how disappointed. I don't know if disappoint. It's even the right word. Probably something stronger about what he had done. Yeah, I think, you know, maybe in his mind he thought. there's so much evidence against me. I'm going to be found guilty anyway. Yeah. I don't want to go through

all that. I'm going to get the same thing. So let's just get it over with and my family won't have to come to this trial. They won't have to hear about the horrible things that I did any more than they already have in the papers. But the other thing that I found interesting is that Robert was diagnosed while he was in prison as suffering from bipolar disorder. So, his first 17 years on earth, never diagnosed, his family didn't know anything about this, nobody around him, I guess, knew because he'd never been to a doctor to be evaluated. He gets this diagnosis while he's in prison, but before the trial. So his defense attorneys had planned on using it in mounting and insanity defense.

Now, most pundits said it would have been a very different. difficult defense in the state of New Hampshire, this insanity defense. I think most people believe there was no way that his defense team was going to be able to prove because the burden of proof shifts, right? Sure. When an insanity defense is involved, right? There was no way they were going to be able to prove that he was insane or that this was the cause or the reason why he committed these murders. It's especially true given the fact that James Parker was going to testify against him. It's kind of hard to argue that one in court. Because he's going to talk about the fact that they spent you know, all these months and months laying out their plan premeditated. Yeah. It's going to be

hard to say I was insane at the time that I committed these murders because of everything that happened leading up to it. So they both pleaded guilty. No trials. The sentencing hearings for both Robert and James occurred in the same courthouse. But there couldn't have been a more stark contrast gives in these two individuals. Robert Tulloch was emotionless during his sentencing when the judge handed down his two life sentences with no possibility of parole. He didn't show a thing. When, family members gave their impact statements. Now Parker on the other hand, it was said that he was blubbering. I mean, he was crying the entire time during both his sentencing in which he got the 25 years to life. Right. And the family impact statements. So, I mean, I guess the question is,

does it tell you something about these two guys? I think it does if the emotions are real. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah. Like an individual who was not affected at all by his actions or the effect that his actions had on other people. And then you have Parker who appears to have been devastated by what he did. Now, we know that people can put on a show. But if the actions, if the emotions were real, it tells me a lot about how different these guys really were. Yeah, they really did seem to be different. They did. And I think you can almost tie that back into, okay, was Robert Tulloch the mastermind? And James Parker, his really, really good friend,

the follower and kind of going along. It doesn't mean that he didn't do the wrong thing. It doesn't mean that he shouldn't be held accountable. But you can almost see that that's probably what the dynamic was. So the question is, how did they agree to do such a horrible thing? That's the part I can never figure out. First of all, from the standpoint of how do you even broach the subject, right? Somebody has to bring it up. Sure. So let's just assume that it's Robert.

Yeah. They're eating their Totino pizza rolls. Right. And it's 10 o'clock on a Friday night. And you say, you know what? We're going to have to start committing crimes. And if we have to kill people, we're going to have to kill people. So most friendships, there's always the leader and then there's a follower, right?

So maybe that's the case. And maybe James was just so, I don't know what the word is, but just wanted to make sure he was a pleaser. Yeah. Yeah. I value this friendship so much that I don't want to do anything to screw it up. That's possible. And thought he was like, you know, and push you're the cool one, man. I don't want to be just like you sometime.

Well, like I said, not that James wasn't quote unquote cool, but Robert was the president of the senior class. He was older. Yeah. He, um, you could see the dynamic. It can be influential. Yeah. You can see where that's probably how it went. And so you go along with it at first thinking, I am just going to, yeah, I'm just going to really do this, right?

Right. You know how people talk a big game. But in the back of your mind, you think, well, it's not really going to happen. and they're just shooting the shit, right? And then the next thing you know, he's into it. And he's like, well, now what? Now on the other hand, you can look at it and say, it was James Parker who ordered the knives.

Sure. But. Yeah. And he could have been fully into it as well, just thinking, but we're never have to use them. We're scared people with them. But we ever use them? Yeah.

I mean, if I get a knife like that, I'm assuming I'm going to have to use it someday. I know you, you always assume that. To me, the bottom line is, There's really only two people that know the absolute truth. And that's James Parker and Robert Tulloch. That's true. It's not out of the realm of possibility that James Parker wanted to limit, right?

Wanted to downplay his involvement and push more of the blame onto Robert. So he said, you know what? I'm going to do the plea deal. Yeah. And I'm not going to spend the rest of my life in prison. But we know that Tulloch is going to die in prison. Yeah. He's never getting out.

No. I looked him up on the New Hampshire inmate website. Yeah. It lists his minimum and maximum term the same. March 10th, 2101. So, you know, do that math. I guess if he makes it that far, they'll have to reassess his situation.

Yeah. He's probably running that prison up there by now. Been there that long. Yeah. If you figure, he's been there for, what, 18 years? Yeah, it's a young one. Went in at 17, 18 years old.

He's right now probably 36 or so. Yeah, he had to fight his way all the way to the top. Let that sink in. Been in prison 18 years. He's 36 years old. We'll spend the rest of his life in prison. Yeah. What do you got to look forward to, man?

Seriously. What is there to look forward to? Tapioca pudding night. I don't know, man. But hoping that somebody will drop some money in. your account, you know. But you make these decisions and they're such horrible decisions. I get it. They're 1617. You and I made horrible decisions. Oh, yeah. But not like this. No. I did stuff that was so stupid, so dumb that looking back on it, I think, why would I have ever done that? But never once was it

going to be anything that would take someone's life away from them or property or steal or No. By 2017, James Parker had served two-thirds of his sentence, and that made him eligible for early release. So his attorneys petition the court to try to get him out. And it was a little tough finding information after that. I did see where there was a hearing scheduled in August of 2019, but I couldn't find anything about it. So my thinking is it probably got delayed. And then with everything going on with COVID, with all the courts closing. It's been in limbo, right.

Yeah. But even if he's denied early release, I think it's pretty safe to say that it won't be all that long before James Parker gets out of prison. Yeah, I would say probably the next few years. Well, I'm thinking, what, five, six years will be 25 years. Yeah. And so even if he's not granted early release, if he's got a good record, they might parole him.

at 25. Gives, he's still only going to be like 41 years old. Yeah, but he spent his whole adulthood. 25 years in prison gets out, let's say, and he's 41 years old. Yeah. And what's he going to do with that on his record? Not door to door sales. He's going to have a real tough road.

Yeah. And I'm not feeling bad for him at all. He, you know, he was part of an action that took two wonderful people. Sure. by every account. And I mean, everyone seemed to really love the Xantops. I mean, you had students coming out and saying how great they were. Right. It's a very tough case.

Two wonderful people lost their lives. I mentioned they left behind two daughters. They won't get to experience, you know, a lot of things that happen in their life with their parents. So their own kids won't ever get to see their grandparents? have those memories. Yeah, you're right. I shouldn't just say it's them, but I mean,

I guess, you know, you just can't ring up your mom and have that, that kind of warm conversation. Right. That's hard to think about. And then you have these two teenagers,

now in their 30s, who gives a threw away their lives by committing these murders. And for what? That's what I keep going back to. What was it all for? Because they were bored, with their small town life and they wanted to whisk away on some adventure to Australia?

And here's the thing. We know how the Zantop family was, how generous they were with their time and how friendly they were and opening up their house to people. And I bet you if they would have said, hey, we're trying to raise some money here, they probably would have got for that type of trip, you know? Maybe they would have got a thousand bucks or a couple thousand. We don't know. But they didn't ask.

And they just said, you know what, we're going to kill you. And they didn't even do all that right, the robbery. So it's just they ruin that family's life, their family's lives, because they were trying to get $10,000 to go to Australia. And out of all of it, what did they get? $340 that they either burned or even if they didn't burn it, it's $340 for six months of trying to worm your way into people's houses. and then you ultimately take two people's lives.

It's just, it's hard to imagine. Two young people, friends, deciding on this course of action that would negatively affect the lives of so many people. It's just hard to really comes to terms with how it could happen. Yeah. The problem is we know it does. We keep seeing these very strange things in different episodes.

But that's it, Gibbs. That's it for the case of. of James Parker, Robert Tulloch, and the murder of the Xantops. Got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Yeah, let's hear him. Hi, Mike and Gibby. My name is Carla, and I'm from Mexico City.

Despite what my name may suggest, I am not a zero killer. I'm just a big new fan of your podcast. I just graduated high school, and since we're in quarantine, I've had a lot of free time, and I spend most of it playing video games. But that just seems like such a week of time, you know? So I decided to look up on podcast. about true crime, learn something while I say and I've followed them as well as yours. You guys have a fantastic chemistry and I can learn something new while I have from playing.

And also crack a cable now and then with you guys' dad jokes. I would like to suggest Juanar Rasa, better known as the Matarujitas or the old lady killer in Spanish. She killed somewhere between 42 and 48 elderly women and I think he's the most well-known serial killer here in Mexico. Thank you so much for a dream that you do. and keep your own time-s ticking. That's awesome. Appreciate that. Yeah.

So when she said she just graduated high school, I was like, wow, she sounds very mature, very well-spoken. But that's a case that I'm not familiar with. So definitely going to write that down and do some research. And I can use my Spanish. Mm-hmm. See, you can. Yes.

It's worse than your Australia. Oh, so worse. It's worse. because, you know, Australian's a little easier for you because I'm part of Australia. It's the same language. It's just an accent.

Hi, Mike and Gibby. My name is Maya. I'm calling from Dallas, Texas. I've been listening to, hi, Mike and Gibby. Hey, Mike and Givby. This is Amber from Henderson, Kentucky. Go Katz. I'm a new listener.

I've been listening for about a month now, and I got put pretty quickly. Your attention to detail and the respect you give to the victims is amazing and absolutely love y'all's chemistry and humor. Givie, thank you for the wonderful movie explanations that you give and pronunciation attempt on certain words. My dad actually does the same thing. I get a kick out of hearing other people do it. Keep it up. My best friend and I are actually working on starting a true crime podcast. Right now, I'm in charge of the research front. Let me tell you, after working all day, I've been doing hours of research afterwards.

my head wants to explode sometimes with all the information that you have to comb through to do it properly. So thank you from the bottom of my heart and all of the other T-Cat fans for what y'all do weekly. It's not easy and the hard work's really appreciated. I hope you guys have a good force and keep your own time ticking. Well, it's awesome. So first of all, I hope that your True Crime podcast goes well. Yeah. And we hear that from a lot of people.

because there's a lot of fans that have started their own podcast. And the one thing we always hear is, wow, had no idea how much research it takes. And that really varies by how you do your research or, you know, if you're going to really vet out two, three, four different sources for everything and all that. But good luck, definitely. Yeah. Hi, this is Carla McCracken. True Crime all the time is what I listen to. all day at work. I started listening to it back in March and then this whole COVID thing messed

it up so I was off work for a while and unfortunately, I mean, I love my children, but I have two toddlers so I can't really listen to true crime all the time with them. I'm sure they might not like the contact very well. But I just wanted to say that I love you guys. I get stared at sometimes when I see other employees or when I was seeing students. I work at a university and they look at me like I'm crazy when I say, oh, I'm listening to True Crime all the time. It's a really good podcast. But they look at me because I was just laughing.

And then they get concerned because I'm laughing. But, oh, well, I enjoy it. Keep up the good work and keep your own time ticking. Bye. Very cool. I feel like we're starting to get, and we have been for some time, some younger listeners. I should have said that on the very first voicemail,

but we're hearing from more and more people that, you know, 18, 19, 20 years old, which I think for the first couple of years, that didn't seem to be the case. Right. I think, you know, some of the younger people are now getting into more podcasts. I know my kids are getting into more. Yeah. For the first couple of years, even when I did a podcast, they didn't really listen to too many podcasts at all. They're more like YouTube's.

Yeah, visual. Did I just say YouTube's plural? You sound like you were the guy from On the interwebs. That movie, he played the attorney. Yeah, because there's only been one guy in one movie ever that's played an attorney. Pesci. Oh, my cousin Vinnie.

Yeah, that guy. You know that guy that played the attorney? You youths. You two youths. Hey, Mike and Gibby. It's Lauren from Louisiana again. I'm so excited to hear your new podcast. The reviews are in.

But then when I heard my message, played back. and I had already known that it's no longer. However, I still continue to listen to you guys. I've just caught up all true from all the time and said now I'm going through TrueFribe all the time I'm all. I love both of them. But I was just watching a Netflix documentary last night and I was wondering if you guys were going to have to cover this case on Henry Lee Lucas.

He was convicted of killing two people but claims that he killed upwards of 300 people. The documentary is called killer, especially we're going to do that. safe and keep around on picking. Bye. Yeah, no doubt. Henry Lee Lucas has been on our list, probably, you know, from the very beginning. I did see that documentary. And it's interesting. I think it's called confessions of a killer or something like that. I've always considered Lucas a big timer. Just because of the sheer number of cases that he's associated himself with, I mean, there's a ton of them that they have either not been able to prove or have disproved.

The fact that he was involved. But I still feel like, you know, he's a big timer. You toss them in with what's his buddy's name, Otis? Otis tool. Yeah, they made a striking pair, I'll tell you that. They're real lookers. There were. But I'm glad you found the reviews are in.

Yeah. And now it's not, but, you know, what you didn't find is that the reviews on the reviews are in or is out now. Is out now. So catch those while you can before we pull that. Before we decide not to do it. Yeah. We had some mailbag, which we haven't had in a while.

We haven't. Jody James sent us some goodies from the Northwest. Awesome. Thank you. Sent me some coffee, sent you some Twizzlers, and there's some other candy in there. Lottie sent you some birthday goodies from Denmark. She's amazing. So always count on Lottie.

Yeah. But we appreciate all that very much. All right, buddy, that's it for another episode of True Crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.