Updated
Updated · VTDigger · Jul 11
Robert Tulloch Begins 3-Day Bid to Cut Zantop Murder Sentence After 25 Years
Updated
Updated · VTDigger · Jul 11

Robert Tulloch Begins 3-Day Bid to Cut Zantop Murder Sentence After 25 Years

3 articles · Updated · VTDigger · Jul 11

Summary

  • Monday’s hearing in North Haverhill will decide whether Robert Tulloch, now 43, keeps two life-without-parole terms for the 2001 killings of Dartmouth professors Half and Susanne Zantop.
  • The resentencing was unlocked by the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling against mandatory juvenile life-without-parole and a later New Hampshire finding that applying the state law to juveniles was cruel and unusual.
  • Defense lawyers say a 30- to 40-year minimum would fit comparable murder cases, citing Tulloch’s prison record—no major infractions since 2012—therapy, remorse and mental-health history.
  • The case remains one of New Hampshire’s last juvenile life-without-parole rewrites: Tulloch is the final one of five such defendants to be resentenced, while co-defendant James Parker was paroled in 2024 after a 25-years-to-life term.

Insights

One of the teen killers is already free. Should the accomplice who stabbed both victims also get a chance at parole?
If teenage brains aren't fully developed, can a 17-year-old be held truly responsible for a calculated, brutal murder?