A nineteen-member investigative grand jury heard testimony yesterday from two hometown friends of Robert Tulloch and James Parker " the two teens charged with two counts of first-degree murder of Half and Susanne Zantop.
A friend of Tulloch and Parker, Gaelen McKee, 15, had little to say after the long grand jury session, which took place behind close doors.
"Yeah, it was tiring," McKee said after leaving Grafton Superior Court in Haverhill with his father, Marc.
New Hampshire Attorney General Philip McLaughlin, who attended yesterday's session in court, declined to comment about any of the proceedings or any aspect of the investigation.
"I cannot make any comment on today's activities," McLaughlin said after the hearing.
The investigative grand jury, which will reconvene for a second day this morning, apparently questioned at least one of the witnesses about the suspects' familiarity with knives.
Tim Courts, of Chelsea, Vt., who received a subpoena in the case, did not testify yesterday, but his son Zack, 17, was questioned for about 45 minutes about his friendship with the suspects.
Tim Courts told The Boston Globe that his son was asked repeatedly about whether Tulloch and Parker owned different types of knives.
Tim Courts also said his son was asked whether Parker or Tulloch ever had mentioned the Zantops to him. They had not, his father said.
Zack Courts also was asked about the suspects' whereabouts on certain days before and after the killings, and was assured by prosecutors that he was not viewed as a target of the investigation.
''You don't like to feel that your boy is going into a prosecution and being asked questions about knowledge he didn't have,'' Tim Courts told The Globe. ''But it didn't go like that. It wasn't adversarial.''
It is unclear whether Tim or Zach Courts or McKee will be present in court again today.
Meanwhile, the boys' parents will not be called to testify before the grand jury. Lawyers for Parkers and Tullochs said yesterday that their clients had given private interviews to authorities.
''They agreed to not contest the subpoena, however last Friday the Tullochs met informally with investigators and answered their questions,'' said George Ostler, a lawyer for Diane and Michael Tulloch.
''As a result [they] were released from their subpoenas and will not be appearing before the grand jury,'' Ostler said.
Robert Tulloch is being held at the Grafton County Jail. James Parker is held at a juvenile facility in Concord, awaiting a hearing on McLaughlin's petition to have him tried as an adult.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
