News of the murders of two Dartmouth professors sent shock waves through the College and the local community as law enforcement officials continued their investigation, releasing few details about the tragedy.
Autopsies performed yesterday by the state's chief medical examiner on the bodies of Susanne and Half Zantop confirmed homicide as the cause of death, New Hampshire Attorney General Philip McLaughlin said.
In a 4 p.m. news conference held yesterday at the Hanover police station, McLaughlin said the state currently has no one in custody, and he would not comment on any possible motives for the murders.
McLaughlin also declined to comment on any details of the homicides or how the bodies were found for fear of compromising the ongoing investigation, which is being led by the state police's major crimes unit.
McLaughlin said the person who found the bodies had a "perfectly good reason" to be at the Zantop residence, but would not identify that person. The police were alerted of the deaths by 6:48 p.m., according to the attorney general.
Three independent sources confirmed for The Dartmouth that the bodies were discovered Saturday around 6 p.m. by Roxana Verona, an associate professor of French and Italian languages and close friend of the deceased. Verona said that she had been invited to the house for dinner.
Verona herself confirmed for The Dartmouth that she was the first to find the Zantops. She declined to comment on what she saw because she said the police told her it could compromise the investigation.
This is the first murder in Hanover in almost a decade, and only the second in over 50 years. McLaughlin assured local residents and friends of the Zantops present at the conference that the investigation was in "experienced" hands.
McLaughlin declined to say whether the Zantops were targeted or were victims of random violence.
McLaughlin said that at this time he had no basis for alerting the public to possible risk, but he added he could not rule out the possibility of potential danger.
"At the present time, we simply do not have specific information," McLaughlin said. Officials will inform the community if a risk is determined, he said.
After the news conference, Hanover Police Chief Nick Giaccone told The Dartmouth that he could not say whether students were involved in the homicides or the investigation.
But College President James Wright said in a BlitzMail message sent to the campus yesterday afternoon, "The Attorney General's Office will likely need to talk to students and faculty, and I hope that you can provide them with your full cooperation."
McLaughlin said the investigation will respect the "privacy" and "guiltlessness" of the student body, but did not deny that students may or have been contacted for information.
Police began investigating the deaths of the Zantops early Saturday night at 115 Trescott Road in Etna, which is located approximately four miles from the center of campus.
Hanover police were called to the scene early Saturday night by the Zantops' neighbor, Audrey McCollum, wife of retired dean of the Dartmouth Medical School, Dr. Bob McCollum.
Audrey McCollum told The Dartmouth that her family was alerted by the knocking of a distressed female member of the Dartmouth faculty, later identified as Verona, on the door sometime around 6 p.m. Saturday.
Verona told the McCollums that she had just come from the Zantops' home, where she had been invited for dinner. She entered the home through the unlocked front door.
In the Zantops' study, Verona saw Susanne Zantop "lying on the floor in a pool of blood," Audrey McCollum said.
At that point, Verona went to the McCollums' home. Audrey McCollum called 911 while Bob McCollum and their daughter ran to the neighboring house where they found Half and Susanne Zantop dead on the floor of their study.
"It was very clear that they had been dead a long time -- hours not minutes," Audrey McCollum said her husband told her when he and their daughter returned from the Zantops' after approximately an hour.
McCollum said her husband and daughter looked "shell-shocked" when they returned. By then, she said, "The area was swarming" with police.
She said that the Hanover Police Department almost immediately turned the investigation over to the state police, who told her they believed the McCollums were safe in their home.
Another neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Dartmouth that the state police notified neighbors that there was "nothing to worry about."
As patrol cars lined the street and state police investigators continued to document the crime scene yesterday afternoon, just yards from the Zantop residence, children were sledding and it seemed neighbors were out doing business as usual.
McCollum said she and her husband had become close to the Zantops in the seven years that the couple had lived next door to them.
"The only thing that's occurred to me is that there may have been a troubled person or student that Half was trying to help" when things went wrong, Audrey McCollum, a retired psychotherapist, conjectured.
"I could envision Half, out of his kindness, telling someone ... much more troubled than he realized to come on out to his home and talk," she said.
McCollum said, from her experience as a psychotherapist, the possibility that Half Zantop could have encountered a person with a major psychiatric illness and not known is very real.
She recalled a distraught student "10 or 11 years ago" who became very close to Half Zantop. Zantop told Audrey McCollum about the student, and she diagnosed him with manic depression with paranoia from Zantop's description.
McCollum said she did not believe that this particular student was in any way involved, but she hypothesized that a similar situation may have occurred for lack of a better explanation.
McCollum also said she could not believe that the deaths were at all related to domestic violence or marital problems.
"We loved that couple. They were among our very closest friends," McCollum said. "They were a deeply devoted couple. There's no doubt about that."
Verona concurred, calling the Zantops, "an absolutely great couple."
"We were really good friends. We saw each other every weekend," Verona said. "They were [like] part of my family."
Jim Aronson, a colleague of Half Zantop in the earth sciences department and a close friend of the family, said he, too, could not believe the speculations of murder-suicide or domestic violence.
However, he said, "The first thing that came to my mind was that it was not a robbery," because that sort of crime "never happens" in the area.
The McCollums had gone skiing in the morning and returned home around 1 p.m. They did not speak or see the Zantops Saturday, Audrey McCollum said, but guessed that they died sometime in the early afternoon.
Late Saturday night, Dean of the Faculty Ed Berger told The Dartmouth that he received a call from Safety and Security at around 9:30 p.m. notifying him of the Zantops' death.
Susanne Zantop, 55, was chair of the department of German studies, and Half Zantop, 62, was a professor of earth sciences at the College.
"They were probably among the most beloved faculty members at Dartmouth," McCollum said. The Zantops' "door was always open" and they "went a mile and a half for any student."
They were also "generous with their time and energy" in the local community and were "among the first to reach out" to others in times of need, McCollum added.
She said the Zantops always felt a strong sense of commitment to the community and to social issues, especially after they became U.S. citizens about three years ago.
The Zantops were natives of Germany who moved to the United States to study and teach.
McCollum remembered that Susanne Zantop told her that, growing up in Germany, she was never taught about the Holocaust because of the "historical blackout" until she was 13 years old.
Zantop had a "vivid memory about the day the kids were told about the Holocaust in school."
This memory stuck with her and spurred her decision to become a U.S. citizen three years ago.
The decision was difficult for the Zantops, who were "deeply rooted" in their German heritage, with family still in the country, McCollum said.
However, when they did decide to become naturalized, the Zantops, felt, as citizens, they could "not sit back and watch things happen as [people] did in Germany."
They were compelled to be involved in the world around them and soon developed a "strong sense of commitment to being politically minded," McCollum said.
As "strong Democratic supporters," they followed both local and national political news voraciously.
"I would get emails from them about issues -- marches to Washington [D.C.] for a particular issue or another," McCollum said.
"We're absolutely shattered," McCollum said. Her husband and daughter were told by the police not to talk to the news media.
McCollum was shaken when The Dartmouth interviewed her this morning. She likened her feeling to "a gruesome old-time Alfred Hitchcock film [that] won't stop."
She said she and her husband slept a "total of about an hour" the night of the murders.
This morning, "at first light," she and her husband looked out of their window at the view that she had so many times before admired with Half and Susanne Zantop by their side.
Their homes both overlook the same view, and the couples often "would call each other up if they saw six deer" or other exceptional views, McCollum said.
The Zantops were "very attuned to nature," she said. They had a vegetable and herb garden and spent much time in the outdoors.
The Zantops are survived by their two daughters. The elder is a doctor in Seattle, and the younger is involved in international relief efforts based in New York, McCollum said.
She said that the Zantops "put a lot of academic pressure" on themselves, along with being active community members.
Professor Bruce Duncan, a German professor, said he knew Susanne Zantop well and said her death is "just a total shock."Page Chamberlain, an earth sciences professor, told The Dartmouth Saturday that he was waiting for a call from the chair of the department but declined to comment further.
"I'm scared to get out of my house," Verona said. "I hope we have an answer."
