I recently wrote a story for Court TV’s Crime Library on the Dartmouth Murders, the 2001 murders of Dartmouth College professors Half and Susanne Zantop. They were brutally stabbed to death by teenagers Rob Tulloch and Jim Parker. Neither killer attended Dartmouth or had any prior relationship with the Zantops before the murders.

While researching the story, I was again reminded of a sad line from one of my favorite country and western songs, Merle Haggard’s Mama Tried: “I turned 21 in prison doing life without parole.”

That is exactly what happened to murderer Rob Tulloch. His accomplice, Jim Parker, made a plea deal that left him a sentence of 25 years to life.

Our culture often attributes people’s problems to a lack of self-esteem. However, some individuals may develop the opposite problem, that of an overweening pride. As Jim Parker said, he and his best friend believed they could get away with crimes because “we were smarter than everybody else” and “more fully evolved.”

In their vainglory, they seem to follow, however unconsciously, in the footsteps of Jazz Age murderers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. I published a story about Leopold and Loeb for Crimemagazine.com. In that case, a superficial reading of philosopher Nietzche led Leopold and Loeb to believe they were “superman” for whom anything is allowed providing only that they do not make mistakes. Leopold and Loeb believed that they would prove their superiority to run of the mill humanity by committing the perfect crime. Their perfect crime was marred because they made a whopper of a mistake when they left a pair of prescription eyeglasses beside the body of the boy they murdered, 14-year-old Bobby Franks.

Similarly, Jim Parker and Rob Tulloch were caught because this “smarter than everybody else” and “more fully evolved” duo left their knife sheaths at the murder scene.

The murders of Susanne and Half Zantop were brutal and their murderers richly deserved their respective punishments. However, I couldn’t help but also be struck by a terrible sense of waste when reading about these young killers. I did not feel sorry for them. Rather, I felt that a tragedy lay in the fact that their not inconsiderable intelligence and talents were so grossly misdirected.

One of Rob’s greatest faults was that he apparently never grasped the simple fact that, however naturally talented, a person must WORK for success and that a worthwhile result is “10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.”

The tragedy of the Dartmouth Murders and that of Bobby Franks before it are appropriate subjects for a men’s website as it appears to be young men who are especially apt to go wrong in violent ways. This tendency long predates the feminist movement. However, it could be attributable, at least in part, to a matriarchal tradition that encourages boys to take greater risks than girls and that sees men as ultimately expendable while women are to be protected.

The backgrounds of these two young men give no easy answers to what went wrong with their lives. There was no known history of sexual abuse, physical abuse, or even emotional abuse. Both Tulloch and Parker came from intact, two-parent families.

I don’t know what went wrong and would be interested in any ideas people might glean from reading my article on the case. It is at
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/young/dartmouth_murders/1.html
I would also like to hear what flaws people see in my piece and how I could improve in the future. Needless to add, compliments are always greatly appreciated!

Those who are interested in my story on the Leopold and Loeb case will find it at http://www.crimemagazine.com/04/leopoldloeb,0229.htm.

Readers?