Prosecutors still haven't said, and may not even know, what linked the Half and Suzanne Zantop to their accused killers.
But yet another theory emerged over the weekend: that they somehow crossed paths at the River Valley Club, a Lebanon health club where the Zantops were members and where the two suspects were present on at least one October day.
Though The Boston Globe reported that investigators have been intrigued enough to subpoena the club's records, the club's lawyer, Ned Whittington, said yesterday that they were likely to reach a dead end.
He confirmed that the two suspects were present at the River Valley Club for a special one-day visit on Oct. 3, but he said the Zantops were not at the gym on that day, according to club records.
"The Zantops were not in either the third or the fourth or the day after," he said. "This just doesn't put the kids and the Zantops in the club on the same day."
He acknowledged that is possible that the club records are not accurate. But he said the likelihood of the couple meeting up with their accused killers, Robert Tulloch and James Parker, at the 300-member club was slim.
He said it was just as likely that they would potentially have crossed paths while shopping at K-Mart on the same day.
What does seem clear is that the Zantops and the boys shared a common interest in rock-climbing. The boys signed a waiver so that they could climb the synthetic rock wall inside the club. Half Zantop was an avid climber until a near-fatal climbing accident in 1965.
But that might be as far as the connection goes. While the Zantops were members for about a year, club records indicate that the boys were not members and only signed a waiver that permitted them to climb the wall for one day.
Dartmouth history professor and close friend of the Zantops, Leo Spitzer, said Half Zantop generally worked out on the Nautilus machine, a stationary bicycle or the rowing machine, while Susanne typically exercised on the same types of machines as her husband or went swimming at the club.
The original Boston Globe story that revealed the possible River Valley Club relationship emphasized the potential rock climbing connection between Half Zantop, an experienced climber, and the two teen suspects, who were avid climbers.
But Spitzer said yesterday that he had firmly ruled out a possible rock-climbing bond between Half Zantop and his accused murderers, explaining that Half Zantop "absolutely" did not climb at the gym.
"It seems like a waste of time, frankly, this whole enterprise," Spitzer speculated about the pursuance of this latest Zantop-related news hype.
And Half Zantop's longtime friend and former climbing partner, Alex Bertulis, told The Dartmouth that during a 1965 fall down a vertical rock face several 100 feet above the ground, Zantop came close to hitting his head on a ledge.
He barely missed it and ending up breaking his ankle.
Bertulis, a Seattle architect, kept in touch with Zantop over the years, and he said he received a letter from him in 1996 that said the near lethal fall made him shift his interests away from climbing.
While an injury might have prevented Half Zantop from climbing, Barrett Thornhill '01, who climbs the synthetic rock wall at least every other day, said he heard from the people who work at the climbing wall that Susanne Zantop did sometimes climb there.
Although he said he did not know the professors, he said one of the people who works in the gym told him that Thornhill himself once belayed Susanne Zantop, securing the ropes for her as she climbed.
Workers at the club Saturday refused to comment about Susanne Zantop or any other facts related to the case, and directed all calls to the club's attorney.
Whittington said the staff is referring calls to him simply because "we like control over our own information."
Whittington was not talking either, until yesterday.
But he said he wanted to correct at least one widely-publicized inaccuracy. The Boston Globe reported that the teens had signed waivers to climb the wall on Oct. 6 instead of Oct. 3.
Longtime friend of the two suspects, Kip Battey said, he "didn't even know that [the River Valley Club] existed, let alone if they went there or not."
And he could not confirm or deny rumors that either Parker or Tulloch hoped to secure a job at the club's climbing facility.
Thornhill '01 said he believes he saw either FBI agents or state police officers exiting the club about two weeks ago when he was just arriving.
Whittington would not confirm or deny whether investigators had visited the facility.
