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[Music] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
00:01:45
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who has one sponge and uses it for everything here is the
00:01:53
captain it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for
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telling a friend [Music] today we are drinking gravel Donuts because we love ourselves gravel Donuts
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is a hayy IPA from the good folks over at outer belt Brewing it's juicy flavors including pineapple Citrus and blueberry
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and all of the Hops with not a whole lot of the harsh bite ABV 6.5% garage grade
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4 and A2 bottle caps out of five and let's give some thanks and praise to our friends that helped us fill up the old
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fridge for this week's set of shows first up a cheers to Renee from the upper Northern peninsula of the Mitten
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State and a big we like your jib goes out to Julie Oswald from Franklin Indiana next we have a cheers to Caitlyn
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camplain in Fort Wayne Indiana and last but certainly not least a double fisted cheers to Whitney and Brett in Los
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Angeles California everyone we mentioned they went to True Crim garage.com and helped us out with this week's beer run
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and for that we thank yeah yeah BW R you in beeron make sure you go to True Crim
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garage.com and sign up on the mailing list and Colonel that's enough of the beers man all right everybody gather
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around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] it's a famous Trope and True Crime means
00:03:38
motive and opportunity our concern with motive not required among the legal elements of
00:03:46
murder are rooted in our need to understand why the most serious of all crimes The Taking of a life
00:03:57
occurs what drives humans to to kill other humans famously the most common motives are greed jealousy lust and
00:04:09
revenge but what about when a killer strikes for none of these reasons what if a murder is carried out
00:04:17
just because the killers are bored and because they can what if there is really no motive at all how do we
00:04:27
make sense of that that's the question question we are asking ourselves here in the garage today this is true crime
00:04:35
garage and this is the case of Hal and Suzanne zantop also known as the Dartmouth
00:04:47
[Music] murders to tell this true Prime story we must first present to you one of the
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loveliest of couples the xant Toops Hal and Suzanne zantop were as brilliant and
00:05:09
accomplished as you can get both were born in Germany Hal and Suzanne met at Stanford where both were pursuing
00:05:18
graduate degrees Hal was working toward a PhD in geology and Suzanne in political science the two fell in love
00:05:28
they married in the Andy in Argentina in 1970 the xops lived all over the world Hal worked as a geologist and Suzanne
00:05:39
taught German and literature as they moved around from Spain to Germany to Colombia they had two daughters Veronica
00:05:48
and Mariana then in the 70s Hal was asked to join the faculty at Dartmouth College as a professor of Earth Sciences
00:05:58
specializing in economic geology this is one of the Premier academic institutions
00:06:05
in the United States and there was a job there for Suzanne as well the xant Toops
00:06:11
flourished at Dartmouth Suzanne became the chair of the Department of German studies and published several books on
00:06:20
German colonialism both professors were popular with the students and thoroughly
00:06:26
entrenched themselves as pillars of the Dartmouth community Comm the xant Toops loved to entertain the couple and the
00:06:35
home were known for their eclectic dinner parties Lively conversations and warmth and acceptance of all of their
00:06:44
guests their home was in Etna New Hampshire a small community within the quaint town of Hanover where Dartmouth
00:06:52
is located this area of New England is frigid in the wintertime but gorgeous with fur trees blanketed with snow and
00:07:02
winding roads up mountainsides these are the kind of towns where despite the thousands of students at the college the
00:07:11
locals all know each other and greet each other at the pharmacy and at the General Store Hal and Suzanne were
00:07:20
always busy always going full of life until in an instant that was all taken away and that instant took place
00:07:29
sometime on Saturday January 27th 2001 so on January 27th 2001 they were having a guest over for dinner yeah
00:07:40
that evening Roxanna Verona a professor of French and Italian at Dartmouth College she arrived at the xant Toops
00:07:49
home roxan had been to the xant Toops warm and welcoming home many times enjoying the couple's famous Salon style
00:07:57
dinner parties where the intellectual ual Elite came to enjoy Suzanne's cooking and engage in stimulating
00:08:05
conversation about things like world affairs travel politics and current events Roxanne was the only guest that
00:08:13
evening and Hal was heading out to a friend's birthday gathering so this was geared to be dinner for two with the
00:08:21
possibility that H would return and join the ladies in the latter part of the evening Roxanna arrived at the xops at
00:08:30
6:30 p.m. she got out of her car and rang the doorbell but no one answered the door and Roxanna was surprised to
00:08:39
find the door unlocked when she tried the handle she walked in announcing herself
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loudly to the room she heard nothing got no response and she noted that there was
00:08:52
none of the usual smells of delicious food cooking in the kitchen so this saw seemed very strange to her of course she
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was invited over for a dinner party bringing a salad along with her she walked toward the study because she
00:09:06
could see that the light was on in the study when she gets near the study unfortunately she found 55-year-old
00:09:13
Suzanne zantop laying on the study floor blood pulled under her and all over her
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clothing she was clutching her glasses in her right hand she was pale and lifeless and then she saw Hal 62 years
00:09:31
old he lay on the floor near the desk his head on the bottom shelf of a bookcase it it would appear that he had
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fallen and his head landed on the bottom shelf of that bookcase this is a extremely bloody scene yes half 2 was
00:09:47
covered in blood his skin was white as a ghost Roxanna ran out of the house she jumps in her car and her plan is she's
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heading for the next door neighbor B's house this is the mccullum's who she knew through the zantop Bob McCollum was
00:10:06
a doctor so in this Panic you know she doesn't know she walks into this situation the scene this murder scene
00:10:13
her two dear friends bloody and lifeless she doesn't know is the killer still in
00:10:19
the home or on their large property so she wasn't going to sit around and risk calling police and paramedics from that
00:10:29
house no she wanted to get out of there she went to the neighbor's house Bob's a
00:10:33
doctor she thought you know he's going to know what to do so when Roxanna pounded on their door the mccollum's
00:10:39
they they let her inside and they're listening as she kind of gasp out trying to explain what she
00:10:46
had just seen Audrey McCollum calls 911 and she's attempting to calm down Roxanna during this time
00:10:55
Bob and their adult daughter her name's Cindy they go running over to the xant Toops house of course they saw the same
00:11:03
thing that Roxanna had Cindy called 911 from the xant Toops phone after her father checked Suzanne for a pulse and
00:11:12
then Hof for a pulse and of course there was none uh both victims were found cold
00:11:17
and they were had already passed by this point they were there was nothing that could be done first at the scene as far
00:11:25
as law enforcement goes here Captain the scene this is one 15 trescott road so we
00:11:31
get officer Brad Sergeant who arrives on the scene and he's immediately calling for backup and reinforcements right away
00:11:39
reinforcements included officers from the Handover Police Department this included the New Hampshire State Police
00:11:47
as well and the Grafton County Sheriff's Department so this is a calling all cars
00:11:52
all handson deck situation an ambulance was called off because of the state of the victims and
00:12:01
a medical examiner was requested in place of an ambulance Handover police chief Nick gone arrives and is on the
00:12:10
scene and this is look it's a double homicide so I hate to say the these words that this is a very big deal but
00:12:19
we have to keep in mind that there's not a lot of murders that take place in this
00:12:23
area well it becomes a bigger deal because it's a upscale neighborhood correct and it's upscale victims these
00:12:31
are two College professors these are prominent figures in the community I I don't say this to insult any City out
00:12:38
there but this is not downtown Los Angeles or downtown Chicago this is a this is a big deal a bigger deal in this
00:12:46
area it's not like the unfortunate violence on the rise that we are seeing even in in my home state so we have all
00:12:55
hands on deck we have the Handover police chief he wants the scene to be very controlled
00:13:02
he wants everything to be handled very properly we've said this before the best detectives out there the best police
00:13:08
Chiefs will tell you that the biggest part of your investigation is making sure that when we figure out who did
00:13:15
this and we find that person and we get them let's make sure all this stands up in court let's do everything by the book
00:13:21
Let's do everything very professional and let's look under every Rock now there are some major items to note
00:13:30
here right out of the gate on this double homicide investigation so this is what they're going to learn from talking
00:13:37
to family and friends number one the xant Toops were fastidious of about locking their doors so even when they
00:13:48
were home you know they host a lot of these dinner parties their guest mentioned to police
00:13:55
yeah even when they would go and let one of their guests in for the dinner party
00:14:00
or let one of the guests out after an evening of gathering together they were locking the door so even when they're
00:14:07
home they're locking the door and even when they're entertaining they're keeping the doors locked crime Trends in
00:14:13
statistics is another important thing here the entire State of New Hampshire back back then at that time would
00:14:19
typically only see about 20 to 25 homicides a year so to have two a double homicide in this area of the state
00:14:30
seemed very surprising to law enforcement well and this is a fairly large house so we have a large crime
00:14:38
scene but because of some of the evidence that law enforcement finds early on it seems like the crime only
00:14:45
took place in Hoff's office and so that makes it a little bit easier I think for
00:14:50
law enforcement to investigate well and that was the the third thing for law enforcement that of note with this
00:14:58
investigation the the xanto's house itself was a sprawling contemporary home with large Windows
00:15:06
providing views of the woods it set down the hill and nestled among trees so this
00:15:12
is not a house that was readily noticed by drivers passing through the area so you com you com um you compound that the
00:15:23
place where it took you know where this all took place with the idea that they were always locking their
00:15:30
doors so now you're going to have to believe that police suspected that someone selected the home and the xant
00:15:37
Toops deliberately that this is was a targeted crime and they were the intended victims here law enforcement
00:15:44
has a lot of questions was there an affair going on what's the motive here we have two professors is is it an angry
00:15:54
student is it an angry staff member is there something going on with the relationship or going on with a a
00:16:02
friendship and you know what when you're interviewing family and friends and colleagues and as said people in the
00:16:09
town knew each other when you're interviewing all these people and you hear time and time again oh everybody
00:16:14
loved them everybody loved the xant Toops as an investigator you're going you're you're happy to hear that because
00:16:23
you're thinking to yourself cool I'm going to find the one person that didn't right the CME scene there was a lot of
00:16:30
evidence was observed and collected in the house and even outside as CSI poured over the structures interior and the 3
00:16:41
Acre property it was clear that Hal's positioning with his head on the bottom shelf of that bookshelf that he had
00:16:48
fallen there and his head had pushed back even pushed back some of the books on that shelf both he and Suzanne were
00:16:56
fully dressed in warm clothing a card table was knocked over and laying on Suzanne's legs a wicker trash basket lay
00:17:06
up against Hal its contents Spilled Out on the floor documents and papers were thrown around everywhere one of suzan's
00:17:14
birken stocks was on the floor upside down a white pages book was open to the last name t on the desk and the computer
00:17:25
was on a blank screen for an online online search site for names and addresses a fingerprint was found on the
00:17:34
desk chair that did not belong to the zops well when you see a photo of the crime scene it looks as if they're
00:17:42
having like a parent teacher conference meeting in Hoff's office 19 prints were collected in total as the
00:17:52
captain said blood was absolutely everywhere sprayed all over the study its contents the victims and on the
00:17:59
floor blood drops LED from the study out the front door so that's that's a little bit of a
00:18:06
trail there that you're looking at well you were talking about the fingerprints that's going to be very important but
00:18:12
also we have pretty solid bootprints from a very unique hiking boot yeah there was a partial bloody bootprint in
00:18:20
the foyer two more bootprints were found in the downstairs area and two additional
00:18:28
bloody prints were found outside as well and then jackpot two black plastic foot long
00:18:35
knife sheaths lay on the study floor about 4T apart and both had fingerprints on
00:18:44
them5 pieces of evidence were collected by the New Hampshire State Police forensic team this was detailed thorough
00:18:52
work and all done very professionally autopsies on H and Suzanne by the medical exam
00:18:59
Dr Thomas gillson revealed that they had each been stabbed multiple times in the
00:19:04
head neck and chest with a very long very sharp and very sturdy knife they had lived for only seconds after the
00:19:13
first wounds were inflicted so law enforcement is wondering what the motive is but then you have to start wondering
00:19:21
again is this a crime committed by one individual or multiple individuals yeah and think about how the captain just
00:19:28
described that scene it does appear exactly as he said like there was some kind of meeting being conducted in the
00:19:35
study and this was the end result 30 plus investigators were assigned to the this case the New Hampshire Attorney
00:19:45
General's office was calling the shots on the investigation and how it was going to be handled and they decided
00:19:51
that the best tactic here would be to keep all information close to the vest allow the public only bits and pieces of
00:20:01
information in the first news conference held the day after the murders they called the death suspicious the cause of
00:20:09
death was kept under wraps and the officials refused to answer questions about forced entry to the home or
00:20:17
possible suspects I don't always love this tactic here Captain but I think given the
00:20:23
circumstances of what we now know about the investigation I love this Choice that's made here I
00:20:32
usually feel that the public can be one of the best weapons in the Arsenal for law enforcement because the public as
00:20:41
much as law enforcement want to get these bad people off of the streets people that can do stuff like this we
00:20:47
don't want them running around we don't want them in our neighborhoods but here one they have a
00:20:54
lot of breadcrumbs a lot of breadcrumb trails to follow follow based off of what
00:21:00
they're finding at the scene and so they don't need to they don't need the Public's help so much for leads they
00:21:07
have leads to work in the meantime but this has kind of a two-pronged effect while you can work those other leads
00:21:15
purposely keeping information from the public the result here was a fir storm of rumors about what had happened so
00:21:25
this can be good and bad for your investigation but you're hoping that right that there's something some truth
00:21:31
in some of those rumors that people start talking and people talking to one another and that you might get some
00:21:39
information by not giving any information well this is a Ivy League school and this is going to be big news
00:21:46
obviously in this small community and in a community where vicious crimes like this don't take place so obviously this
00:21:54
is going to be run by a bunch of newspapers but in particular the College Newspaper the Dartmouth newspaper called
00:22:01
the Dartmouth ran with story after story about the murders and in the absence of
00:22:06
information from the police the theories quickly started getting passed around by
00:22:11
people in the community and then from another paper the Atlantic quote nearly everyone assumed that the killer
00:22:17
remained in the vicinity a troubled student perhaps or a faculty rival a suspicious figure was spotted lurking
00:22:26
around dormitories a suspicious car without estate license plates was reported so this got people talking this
00:22:35
kept people on high alert when the FBI joined the investigation one week later the range of conjecture went National
00:22:44
and then even International theories of a holocaust tie-in circulated the xant Toops were political liberals who often
00:22:54
argued that their native country should be more forthright in confronting the evils of its Nazi past ABC news's prime
00:23:03
time ran a story questioning whether there was a link between the crime and neo-nazism law enforcement did have a
00:23:10
few suspects right away there was um a professor that was visiting Dartmouth that was up for the same position I
00:23:19
believe at one time as the husband Hoff was and so they thought maybe is this a a rival colleague that decided to take
00:23:28
out his his anger on this couple and and then he he rented a a car and and they found some evidence in his car what they
00:23:38
thought was blood evidence in the trunk and that turned out to be stool so it was a it was a trunk full of [ __ ] at one
00:23:47
point New Hampshire attorney general Philip mcgoffin broke the silence this was on Thursday February 1st he revealed
00:23:55
that Witnesses had seen h zantop a live at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday the 27th sometime after that the couple was
00:24:04
stabbed to death by someone they allowed entry into their home so this is two sentences but it's far better and more
00:24:13
detailed information that they had not previously given out so they're saying how they were killed that there was no
00:24:20
forced entry into the home and that we know that Hal was alive and well at 10:30 a.m. so it happened sometime after
00:24:28
10:30 a.m. they also publicly said at the same time we have no suspects but the Attorney General said
00:24:37
they did not believe there was any danger to the community he addressed the killers at this press conference as well
00:24:45
saying quote the person who did this who may well be watching should take no comfort in the fact that they have not
00:24:53
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that simplys safe.com garage there's no safe like [Music] simplysafe all right we are back ladies
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and germs cheers to you all tall cans in the air and cheers to the people in the back
00:29:58
right power to the people in the back the AG here meant business now behind the scenes there were a lot of things
00:30:07
happening the case was assigned to the Assistant Attorney General Kelly aota she advised the
00:30:16
public that they should be on the alert for anyone they knew who had exhibited suspicious behaviors in the past week
00:30:24
since the murders a press release stated that the FBI believed that the killer may be exhibiting behavioral
00:30:32
changes have fresh cuts bruises or wounds missing work or school or leaving the area in haste on February 9th more
00:30:43
than a week out investigators asked the public to call in tips about any unfamiliar cars seen in Etna or any
00:30:51
strange Behavior among those who knew the xant Toops while this may seem like a bit of a Hail Mary the investigators
00:31:00
behind the scenes had a whole lot of good old-fashioned detective work cooking so like we're saying if you're
00:31:06
law enforcement you have to dig into every different aspect of their life but when they looked into their personal
00:31:12
lives it didn't seem like there was much of a motive there yeah and I was really
00:31:18
shocked at this next part in this story here Captain because the Boston Globe usually does a pretty bang up job yeah
00:31:27
the spotlight movie and I mean it goes on and on and on we don't have time to go down that road but I was I was
00:31:33
shocked to see that the Boston Globe ran a salacious article this was just 3 weeks after the murders based on an
00:31:40
anonymous source or Anonymous sources depending on what source I went to and described the this
00:31:48
as quote authorities close to the case th that's how they describe the sources authorities close to the case the
00:31:57
headline was love affair eyed in New Hampshire killings husband involved with unidentified woman and then the article
00:32:06
begins investigators believe the killings of Dartmouth College professors Hal and Suzanne zantop were Crimes of
00:32:13
Passion most likely resulting from an adulterous Affair involving half zantop but it wasn't true none of it was
00:32:22
true the newspaper soon retracted the article rightfully so right should never have
00:32:30
run it to begin with Hal wasn't having an affair the reality was the investigators weren't able to find
00:32:36
anyone who had any kind of grudge against Hal and Suzanne that was worth killing for a student disgruntled over a
00:32:45
grade or a professor passed over for promotion was unlikely to have carried out this brutal double homicide and the
00:32:52
Neo-Nazi thing was a stretch at best so were tips that the murders were because Suzanne was a
00:32:58
feminist or could be motivated by political leanings but there was one red herring
00:33:06
that did distract investigators for a Time Hal's teaching assistant Tom Douglas told investigators that the only
00:33:13
person he could think of who might have had a reason to murder the xant Toops was the genealogy Professor that the
00:33:21
captain had talked about and the however that stuff got in that trunk we'll never
00:33:27
know yeah I don't I don't think he was it was a rental it was a rental car so we can't say he was responsible for it
00:33:33
and they they didn't find his stool they just found remnants of somebody's stool
00:33:41
so I frequently rent cars and take a dump in the they always ask you you know Upon returning did you fill up the tank
00:33:49
and I always say yes and I also [ __ ] in the trunk yeah I took a bit dump I took a big steamy dump in the
00:34:02
trunk of your car so that was a bit of a distraction yeah a little to say the least but also wasn't there uh there was
00:34:09
a student that they found with a knife and he had markings on his face yes uh that was a problem for the investigation
00:34:18
the the other thing too like so the globe should not have run that article but what what it did was it had a an
00:34:28
effect that they really didn't hope for it really smeared the names of some people that they named in that article
00:34:35
right like they there were people that were reporters that were camping out on this couple's lawn or in the streets in
00:34:43
front of their house trying to interview them because they thought this other couple was somehow involved and and it
00:34:52
was all based around the idea that there was some kind of affair going on there and think about this
00:34:58
they had kids the xops had grown children you're trying to grieve the loss of your the sudden loss of your
00:35:06
parents one none of us want to lose our parents we don't want to lose them suddenly but then to have them murdered
00:35:12
and on top of that your parents' name your father's name is being smeared in the papers too I mean this is just an
00:35:19
allaround well there are Educators and it it seemed like they let somebody in the house and again it looks like
00:35:26
there's some kind of meeting and so you wonder is this about education is this um was this a teacher trying to help out
00:35:35
a a student and it it took it took a turn for the worse I think the other thing though too
00:35:44
this you know when you look at the video footage and the news coverage of this crime one
00:35:52
because it's a small college campus uh professors the the house SE the the time of year with the snow on
00:36:00
the ground uh the way the investigation took place you know we have it's a knife
00:36:06
murder the way law enforcement interacts with the media I me didn't you get a sense this
00:36:14
just felt so similar to the Idaho College murders well as said it was a big deal and it should be a big deal and
00:36:22
it it reached a level of it was a big deal on the national scale yeah and a lot of that has to do with where it took
00:36:30
place just like with the the Idaho case but we cannot right we cannot say that the
00:36:38
globe did a a complete smear job and and just really beat them down here in our coverage of this case to you without say
00:36:47
we should say this because some of the sources I have um say that the rental car the what
00:36:55
was found in the trunk was kind of moose stew remnants of a moose stew so I just
00:37:01
want that to be out there that we you mean moose stool well moose stew it's a it's considered a a northern U yeah it's
00:37:10
a food dish but hey even if I'm wrong it's a way better story if we find some stool in the trunk back to the
00:37:19
investigation the New Hampshire state police crime lab worked through all of the evidence we have Trooper Chuck West
00:37:27
was the seasoned investigator spearheading this investigation of course the two knife sheaths were of the
00:37:34
greatest interest they could tell the investigators a lot about their killer or Killers as judgment Ridge which will be
00:37:42
this week's recommended reading said about the sheaths quote they were the glass slippers of the zantop murders
00:37:50
search the countryside to find their rightful owners and the Mystery would be solved end quote West the trooper
00:37:58
followed the sheath evidentiary Trail the the knife sheaths were identical they were made of a black material
00:38:06
called kidex with black straps and distinctive markings they bore logos reading SOG specialty knives the sheaths
00:38:16
were for a specific model of knife this is the SOG SEAL 2000 the New Hampshire Deputy medical examiner said knives like
00:38:26
that were consistent with the stab wounds unfortunately the SOG SEAL 2000 was SOG specialty knives best
00:38:35
selling knife model and the knives were not assigned serial numbers but the big thing though is knives right so you're
00:38:43
going to go we're not looking for one killer anymore we're we're looking for two yeah I as as a detective I'm not
00:38:50
looking at this scene and thinking we have a snake eyes type killer here showing up with with a knife and in each
00:38:57
hand this would appear to me we have two victims which usually can be suggestive
00:39:03
that we have two perpetrators and then you find two knife sheaths so I think that the the surprising thing to me as a
00:39:11
detective would be that they're identical knives uh that's that seems a little Oddball here but nonetheless the
00:39:21
Killer's big mistake of leaving these knife sheaths at the scene we saw what it did in the Idaho murders case
00:39:28
it's going to have very a very similar effect in this case but it's not going to be an easy task for these
00:39:35
investigators we talked about the the good oldfashioned detective work that they were doing behind the scenes that's
00:39:41
exactly what's going on here so as said this is the best-selling knife model for
00:39:46
this SOG specialty knives brand they don't have serial numbers they do sell a lot of these Knives By the way of mail
00:39:53
order online cataloges there were companies local companies that that sell these knives as well Ranger Joe's Smoky
00:40:02
Mountain Knives works the list of local retailers who carried these knives were numerous from the book judgement Ridge
00:40:10
quote on February 12th SOG produced a somewhat narrowed down list of the individuals companies Distributors
00:40:19
military accounts and foreign accounts where it shipped seal 2000 model knives it was a 69 page report that the that
00:40:29
the brand gave to law enforcement you said 69 with 297 separate listings accounting for
00:40:40
4,929 knives yeah almost 5,000 sold yeah so we got a lot of knives to to sort through we're we're looking for a needle
00:40:48
and a knife stack Trooper West decided to focus on the sales of two knives at the same time that's a good place to
00:40:56
start yeah or two knives by the same purchaser within a short period of time while the sheath knife research was
00:41:06
proceeding at a snail's pace yeah I think this took them about 18 days other investigative Avenues were being pursued
00:41:14
so everyone and we mean everyone was interviewed by police this included the zantop students friends family but also
00:41:22
their cleaning lady and a driveway snowplow guy police police had to sort through all of the incoming information
00:41:30
not all of which was reliable a lot of witnesses purported to see a lot of things right reporting that the xant
00:41:40
Toops were at Niagara Falls or in a local grocery store produce section at the time when we know that they were
00:41:47
dead again we see this in a lot of Investigations right especially in these close-knit communities where you have
00:41:55
people they just want to help so so either they misremember something or they are relaying something to police
00:42:02
and investigators that is not true but they may believe that they saw the xant Toops or somebody res resembling the
00:42:09
xant Toops at a restaurant or out on the town that weekend but one man named Paul
00:42:15
new city had some actual information about a possible suspect vehicle on the day before the murders he had been a
00:42:24
passenger in a vehicle on trescott Road right that's right near the xanto's house right he says a green Subaru came
00:42:33
barreling out of their driveway so fast it almost hit the car he was in he glimpsed over to try to see the driver
00:42:42
and what he says he saw was a young pale clean shaven thin white male with dark hair who looked quote
00:42:51
Punk new city told the Valley news like a punk like a like had like a punk looked to him okay new city told the
00:42:59
Valley News quote it made a pretty strong impression on me people around here don't leave their yard at that rate
00:43:06
of speed end quote so he's he's clarifying why he remembered this and why he made special note of it because
00:43:13
it startled him and it it seemed way out of the ordinary plus keep in mind at this time too we have police and we have
00:43:21
the newspapers they're actively asking the public if you've seen anything unusual
00:43:28
or strange in this area we want to know so a green Subaru vehicle was added to the list of beyond the lookout Vehicles
00:43:37
yeah and police made note of the Youth of the driver remember going into this and looking at this especially early on
00:43:46
in the investigation one thing of consideration for investigators was the potential that
00:43:52
a student was responsible so we're talking College age so the Youth of the driver the youthful look of the driver
00:44:01
to our witness here is lining up with parts of your investigation already another piece of evidence soon entered
00:44:10
the chat this is lab test and Analysis of the physical evidence found at the scene revealed that two of the
00:44:17
bootprints found at the scene etched in blood they were distinctive in fact they
00:44:22
could be traced to a specific brand of Footwear they were mask hiking boots men's size 112 so we have some suspects
00:44:33
we do have some leads again this is in the newspapers this is in the media so it's all hands on deck yeah we have we
00:44:42
have leads that law enforcement is working the purchase of the knives this eyewitness report again the crime scene
00:44:51
big house but small crime scene and we have evidence we have fingerprint evidence evence we have bootprint
00:44:58
evidence plus we have the the sheaths that were left behind so I I think if you're law enforcement you have to
00:45:06
believe that you you have enough pieces of the puzzle that you could possibly put this together and solve this crime
00:45:13
absolutely yeah you're looking at this as an investigator and I hate to use this term because it sounds so strange
00:45:20
but it is a term that that some detective bureaus use you would describe this as a sexy
00:45:27
case so a sexy case is one that that is that has captured a stool in the trunk yeah that's where it starts or moose or
00:45:36
moose stew whatever it was the jury still out stew or look they smell and taste the same but if you have a case
00:45:46
that is catching Statewide or national attention and you have evidence right you have
00:45:55
leads those are the kind of you shouldn't be concerned about if it's selling papers or if your or if
00:46:02
your face is going to get on the old TV screen but if you got a case where you got leads you want something to work you
00:46:10
want something to chase down and they have that here and one of the things here that's that starts to take shape is
00:46:18
in mid-February you got all these tips leads and evidence and such but you got Trooper Chuck West who noticed that
00:46:28
in that sales report of the knives that 69 page sales report that he got from the from the
00:46:34
brand he noticed that there was a reseller in the next state in Massachusetts that had purchased a large
00:46:43
shipment of these knives 124 of them so he contacts the mass State Police and sends them to contact that
00:46:55
seller and obtained some copies of the sales records and reports that that seller would have the seller said that
00:47:02
the knives had been selling like hot cakes and had sold 84 of the 124 knives that he had
00:47:09
purchased now looking at the sales records Trooper West he catches a break here one buyer had bought two SOG SEAL
00:47:21
2000 knives at the same time that knife purchased those knives were purchased Within weeks of the
00:47:28
murders the buyer lived in Vermont this is like 30 m away from the xanto's house
00:47:35
the buyer's name was listed as Jim Parker he had paid $180 the purchase price with a money
00:47:43
order and requested two-day delivery of the knives the knives were shipped to him at 10 Bradshaw Crossroad Chelsea
00:47:50
Vermont it's February 15th we have New Hampshire State Police and Vermont State Police they go to the home of this Jim
00:48:00
Parker the investigators had learned with surprise that the knife purchaser Jim Parker was actually a 16-year-old
00:48:07
boy yeah his father was John Parker so John Parker answers the door he's got detectives from two different state
00:48:15
agencies there he says this is a this is a nice family in a nice area Mr John Parker says detectives come on in let's
00:48:26
come on in we're happy to help I don't know anything about what you're asking about but let's let's sit around the
00:48:30
kitchen table can I get you some coffee some water what have you uh and the son is there as well Jim
00:48:37
Parker was there as well so now we have 16-year-old Jim Parker with his father John
00:48:44
Parker sitting at the kitchen table with detectives from two state agencies there's a sergeant Bruno
00:48:51
present he says that he noticed the veins on the throat of the teenage boy as throbbing like throbbing he says
00:49:03
throbbing as though his heart was pounding uncontrollably they asked Jim Parker whether he had bought two SOG SEAL 2,000
00:49:13
knives he says yes he had bought the knives and brought them to his friend's house his friend's name is Robert Tock
00:49:22
they bought the knives he says to cut saplings down and to to use them out in the woods and to build forts and things
00:49:29
like that but these knives I I should have came up with a great description of these knives these knives are rather
00:49:35
large they're heavy they're bulky remember we have the medical examiner saying that it was not just a large
00:49:41
sharp knife but he described it as a sturdy knife would have been used in the killings and the boys or at least here
00:49:51
Jim Parker telling the detectives yeah I bought the knives for me and my friend this is what we were going to use them
00:49:57
for however they were too big and bulky that they didn't work well with what we had purchased them for so we wanted they
00:50:05
spent $180 on these knives these are teenage boys they wanted to get rid of these
00:50:12
knives but that they wanted to sell them so they could get some of their money back so he told the detectives that they
00:50:17
drove the two of them went to an army navy store and Burlington Vermont and they were trying to sell them to the
00:50:24
retailer there so the retailer that store could sell the knives and make some money as well he says the store
00:50:30
wasn't interested in buying them from us but while we were there a man in the store had overheard us attempting to
00:50:37
sell them to the store and made us an offer on the knives at the end of the day he says that we ended up selling the
00:50:44
knives to this man for 60 bucks a knife recouping $120 of the 180 they spent on the knives yeah then when they go ask
00:50:55
his friend about what happened with the knives he corroborates the story and so you go well that checks out yeah the
00:51:05
problem here though for Jim Parker in this little sitdown with his dad involved not only is he like
00:51:13
uncontrollably nervous in fact remember the movie Aliens when the when the the alien baby
00:51:21
grows inside of the person and then just kind of explodes out the the stomach yeah that's how this Sergeant Bruno
00:51:28
described Jim Parker's neck he's like what was going on in that kid's neck looked like there was an alien baby
00:51:36
growing inside the problem for Parker becomes this is the story as the captain points out checks out when they talk to
00:51:45
his buddy where the problem becomes is they ask Jim Parker okay we get it you don't know what that guy what his name
00:51:52
was he's just some other guy in the store could you describe him for us well he starts giving this description of
00:52:00
somebody that's like oh he's like between 5'8 and 6'2 um 175 to 220 lbs I mean he gives a
00:52:13
description that is so vanilla and really doesn't seem to really describe any one person in any detailed fashion
00:52:22
right he you know you could line up a a a an army of 30,000 men who would re resemble this very
00:52:31
vague description provided by Jim Parker as said Jim Parker appeared to be uncontrollably nervous in front of the
00:52:40
officers so they do question him about that they say you know what's going on here you appear to be very nervous or
00:52:47
scared and Jim Parker does tell them he goes I I I'm not nervous because I did anything or have anything to hide I'm
00:52:55
nervous because you you you guys are cops and I'm not used to talking to police before the officers left the
00:53:03
Parker House Trooper West noticed in the Parker driveway a green 1996 Subaru station wagon just like the
00:53:12
one the witness Paul new city had reported seeing speeding out of the xanto's driveway on the day before the
00:53:19
murders [Music] want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage join us tomorrow for
00:53:37
part two until then be good be kind and don't live [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey this is Jeff Lewis from Radio Andy
00:54:20
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