Grafton County Superior Court Resentences Tulloch In 2001 Zantop Murders Case

CONCORD, NH — Robert Tulloch, 43, has been resentenced by the Grafton County Superior Court for the 2001 murders of Dartmouth College professors Half and Susanne Zantop.

The court sentenced Tulloch to two sentences of 45 years to life for the murders. By order of the court, those sentences will run concurrently.

Tulloch was 17 at the time of the killings. He had been serving two mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole after being certified as an adult and pleading guilty to two counts of first-degree murder. Tulloch's resentencing was required after the United States Supreme Court's 2012 decision in Miller v. Alabama, which held that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juvenile offenders violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

Following that ruling, the New Hampshire Supreme Court determined people who received mandatory life-without-parole sentences for crimes committed while they were juveniles were entitled to resentencing hearings. Tulloch was one of the few people in New Hampshire serving such a sentence at the time of the Supreme Court's decision.

“The murders of Half and Susanne Zantop were horrific crimes that caused immeasurable pain to their family, friends, students, and the Dartmouth and Upper Valley communities,” Attorney General John Formella said. “While this resentencing was required by court decisions and a changed legal landscape, the State worked to ensure that the sentence imposed reflects the seriousness of these crimes, promotes accountability, protects the public, and provides meaningful protections for the Zantop family. Our hearts go out to the Zantop family and all of those who knew and loved Half and Susanne Zantop.”

The court reviewed the applicable law, the circumstances of Tulloch's offenses, his conduct while incarcerated, and the outcomes of other New Hampshire cases involving people resentenced after Miller and related decisions. The state and Tulloch then reached a consensus on a sentence, which the Grafton County Superior Court accepted as consistent with the previous law of the case.

As part of the sentence, Tulloch waived his right to seek further relief. The sentence also requires that he have no contact with any member of the Zantop family and bars him from profiting in any way from his crimes, including through the sale of his story or any other commercial exploitation of the murders.

The attorney general's office said the state considered changes in the law since Miller, the range of possible outcomes after a contested resentencing hearing, and consultations with members of the Zantop family.