The deaths of Dartmouth College professors Half and Susanne Zantop shattered the tranquility of the small Ivy League college and its rural communities this weekend. The couple was found murdered in their home just outside Hanover, N.H., on Saturday night, but the Attorney General's office has released few other details about the crime and its investigation.
"We're proceeding on the assumption that both of these individuals are the victims of homicide," Attorney General Phillip McLaughlin said in a press conference on Sunday. But McLaughlin refused to answer questions about the cause of the deaths, a possible motive, suspects, or the condition of the house for fear of jeopardizing the police investigation.
Senior Assistant Attorney General Kelly Ayote told reporters yesterday that investigators are pursuing a number of leads, but would not say whether an arrest is imminent.
The couple's bodies were discovered in their home at 115 Trescott Road in Etna, N.H., about three miles from the Dartmouth campus.
Roxanna Verona, a French and Italian languages instructor at Dartmouth, arrived at the house around 6 p.m. to have dinner with the couple and found the door unlocked, according to the Associated Press. She entered and saw the couple lying dead on the floor of the study. Verona went to a neighbor, Audrey McCollum, to seek help, and McCollum phoned 911.
The investigation is being handled by the Attorney General's office and the New Hampshire State Police. For the greater Hanover area and its 10,000 residents, the double murder was the first homicide in the last ten years.
Half and Susanne Zantop were immensely popular among students and colleagues, and their deaths have shocked the community. An estimated 50 students, faculty members, and administrators gathered at the college's chapel for an informational meeting with the president on Sunday night. Dartmouth has also made counselors available to both students and faculty.
Yesterday's faculty meeting was cancelled because of the tragedy, and faculty members were instead invited to meet with College President James Wright. Dartmouth will hold a memorial service for the professors but is waiting to coordinate details with the victims' family.
"We will work as a community to help students, faculty, staff, and alumni deal with this loss and to remember the many contributions - both professional and personal - that the Zantops made to our community," Wright said in a press release.
Susanne Zantop, 55, was a professor of German and comparative literature who specialized in 18th and 19th century fiction. She held a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Harvard University and studied in Berlin, at Stanford University, and the University of Massachusetts. She began teaching at Dartmouth in 1982 and became chair of the German department in 1996.
"She was very popular with both students and faculty, and this is a great loss to all of us," said Margaret Robinson, administrative assistant for the German department. "I can't emphasize enough how loved both professors Zantop were, not just in their own departments, but across the community. That's why this whole thing is so shocking."
Earth sciences professor Half Zantop, 62, specialized in economic geology, a field in which political science, economics, and geology are combined and applied to the study of ore deposits. He received a doctorate from the Stanford School of Earth Sciences and also studied at Freiburg University in Germany and Washington State University before coming to Dartmouth in 1976.
Richard Birnie, chair of earth sciences at Dartmouth, worked with Zantop for the last 25 years, and said his death is having a profound impact on the community. "He's known on campus as an absolutely outstanding and caring teacher," he said. "It's a terrible loss, both personally and professionally."
The couple is survived by two daughters: Veronika, 29, lives in San Francisco, and Mariana, 27, lives in New York City.
