Judgment Ridge : The True Story Behind the Dartmouth Murders

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: I couldn't put this book down. This is an incredibly well-researched book about the Dartmouth murders which delves equally into the lives and minds of the murderers, the victims, and the town that sprung them. What's also fascinating is that through the confession of one of the murderers, we have an exact description of what took place before, during, and after the heinous crime. The book comes up short only in a lack of explanation for one of the murderer's willing participation in it. Many people are under the spell of someone, but would they follow them to participate in a brutal murder? That being said, the book is a must read!

Rating:
Summary: Chilling! One of the best in the genre
Review: I have long been an afficianado of true crime and have read many of the best -- and of course, some real groaners. This book, however, is one of the very best I have come across. I literally could not put it down. I give it my highest recommendation.

The editing is as good as the writing, by the way. No repetition, careless observations, hanging questions, annoying trivialities, psychobabble or irksome misuse of "which" and "that."

Although it's real page-turner, the authors, award-winning investgative journalists at the Boston Globe, do not sensationalize or otherwise cheapen this heartbreaking story of one of the most brutal murders in the recent history of the state of New Hampshire.

The victims, two decent and well-loved Dartmouth professors, come vividly to life. Great thought also is given to the cryptic psychopathologies of the two "nice" young men who destroyed dozens of lives in their pursuit of sensation. For this the authors draw on articulate experts in the field who answer many obvious questions, although there are others that must, by their very nature, remain unanswered.

They build their narrative slowly, piece by inevitable piece, so that when they arrive at their devastating conclusions, we cannot help but share them, despite the implications they carry about our own children and communities.

Thank you, gentlemen, for a stunning and thought-provoking work of journalism. It has remained with me for many months and still makes me shudder.

Rating:
Summary: A Chilling Account of a Heinous Murder and its Investigation
Review: It is a sad litany of events all too familiar in an America besotted by violence. A small, quiet community is racked by a brutal murder. When police undertake their investigation it ultimately results in the arrest of members of the community, often young and previously strangers to the criminal justice system. As news of the crime and arrest spread throughout the community, its members are shocked to hear that people who led an otherwise spotless life are now accused of vicious criminal conduct. Shaking their heads in wonderment, they ask how such violence could occur and what that conduct tells us about our society.

JUDGMENT RIDGE: The True Story Behind the Dartmouth Murders, by Dick Lehr and Mitchell Zuckoff, is such a story. It is the recounting of the events surrounding the murder of Half and Susanne Zantop, well-known Dartmouth College professors. Two teenage boys, James Parker and Robert Tulloch, from nearby Chelsea, Vermont were ultimately arrested and convicted of the murders. The facts of the murder, investigation and apprehension are told in a precise and exhaustive narrative by two authors who have immersed themselves in the sordid details of this violent crime.

To read JUDGMENT RIDGE is to be reminded not only of the violence in our society, but also of the random nature of such acts. Six months before the Zantops were murdered, Andrew Patti heard a knock on the door of his summer home near Judgment Ridge. A teenage boy was at the door indicating that he needed help because of car trouble. Patti sensed something was wrong and would neither help the boy nor allow him in the house to use the phone. The teenage boy was Robert Tulloch. Patti's unkindness saved his life. James Parker was waiting to ambush, rob and murder Patti and his 11-year-old-son. Not until the arrests of Parker and Tulloch would Patti understand how close he, rather than the Zantops, had come to being the victim of a brutal homicide.

The teenage murderers had planned for several months to rob and kill in order to obtain funds to finance a trip to Australia. As Parker explained in his confession, legitimate ways of making money were boring and would take too much time. Crime was more exciting. After several unsuccessful attempts, on January 27, 2001, they gained entry to the Zantop residence by posing as students taking an environmental survey. Suddenly, the boys displayed hunting knives purchased via the Internet. They slit their victims' throats and escaped with $340 in cash. In their haste to leave, they left behind pieces of evidence that would ultimately lead to their arrest and conviction.

Most true crime books can be divided into three segments: the crime, the apprehension, and the trial. Unlike Law and Order episodes, authors are not limited to telling their tale in one hour less commercials. Lehr and Zuckoff however had a different dilemma to confront. They could not write about a trial because Tulloch and Parker never went to trial. The authors have more than enough material to tell a chilling and often disturbing story of a crime that leaves the sensible reader with more questions than answers. To some degree the authors, lacking the denouement of a trial, feel compelled to provide the reader with minute details of the crime and the criminals. In this respect, one more edit of the material might have been useful.

This is a sobering and chilling account of a heinous murder and its investigation. The authors, unable to interview Tulloch and Parker, do their best to bring some sense to this tragic act. They have made a worthy effort. Sadly, as in most cases of this nature, they attempt a task that is impossible to achieve.

--- Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman

Rating:
Summary: Unique chronology for a true crime book
Review: Most books of this sort describe the crime first, then go on to tell what lead up to it. This one is refreshingly different -- it leaves the details of what actually happened during the murders until close to the end. This choice of chronology made the murders more vivid and riveting, in my opinion, because the characters and setting are already known and easy to picture. Some images from this story, especially from the murder scene, are still with me several weeks later.

The authors analyze one of the defendants extensively, concluding that he is a psychopath, while providing only sparse commentary on the psychology of the other killer. The second boy is presumed to have been a more simple personality, drawn in by the charisma of the psychopath. But I am not sure there is enough evidence available -- not in the book, anyway -- to make this conclusion completely convincing.

The authors are at their best when simply describing events and recounting the history behind this crime. The narrative is strong enough to stand on its own and could do without the simplistic psychological evaluation. It is a powerful story, striking in its sadness.

Rating:
Summary: Enthralling yet..
Review: The authors of the book write one of the most chilling chapters ever to open a true crime book. After that great chapter however the book turns into an excruciatingly irrelevantly detailed book that makes the reader believe the authors were getting paid by the word. This book should have been at least 1/3 shorter.

The basic details of the story are highlighted and the authors fairly represent the two perpetrators as being the cowardly losers they are. And it was interesting to see how the local community came out - some people shined with grace and dignity and others were blinded by the possibility of becoming famous and behaved like oafs. The authors in the latter chapters end up making what I believe is a mistake in blaming the entire episode on Tulloch and depicting Parker as being some tag-a-long schmoe who really is blameless (he can't be all bad if the star high school basketball player still considers him to be a friend) and we should overlook the fact he slit an amazing woman's throat in cold blood. In all the detail the authors provide they failed to mention that after Parker had been caught he told detectives he did to "see what killing a person was like." And the reader with common sense can see that if Parker truly had felt his conscious pricking him then he would not have acted so normally in the days between the crime and the time he and Tulloch tried to leave town. The authors write the first tears by either were when they were caught.

Overall the book isn't as bad as many other true crime books but it could have been much better, even a classic and both authors and editor must share the blame. Residents of New England who were in the area and want to know what happened will learn from the book but might fall asleep if they try to read every word.

Rating:
Summary: A good read, as insightful as it is intense
Review: The book was intense and the author's writing page-worthy. What went on in the quaint town of Chelsea is no longer as amazing to me as it first seamed when I heard about the story in 2001. A triumvirate of unfortunate circumstances, no matter where they occur, could all produce the same end result. Succinctly, when the psychopathic mind of a boy, with his resulting behavior unchecked by his parents, lives in a community where there is no place for the buck to stop, and where, too, the words "no" and "stop" are treated as optional when meted out to boy with a personality as imposing as that of the murderer, well then yes, I can easily see the how and why of the murders. A good read for those interested in the area of psychopathology.

Rating:
Summary: The shocking story of Dartmouth crime, less than well told
Review: There have been some great works of true crime, but Judgment Ridge doesn't reach the highest rung. Maybe it's the face that two different men had a hand in this book, but it suffers from an absence of unity of vision, not only in its confusing back and forth time structure but, as other have noticed, the book has no overarching theme. I attribute some of this muddiness to the authors' otherwise admirable attempt to show a degree of empathy for the two teen killers, by describing, at great length, every detail of their boring rural lives and how badly they wanted to be different than their peers, to distinguish themselves at something, even if it be murder of the most horrifying kind. And yet at the other end of the scale, the victims are not all that interestingly portrayed. We are continually told that they were wonderful folks, but the authors lack the skill to bring out the loss to the world at their deaths, their individuality as people. Is it because of their immigrant status (upon which so much stress is laid), that somehow they are "less than Americans" and therefore can remain ciphers? That would be an unfair assumption and yet it lingers in the reader's mind long after the book has been put down. In brief, this is a frightening but un-illuminatiing book by two veteran writers.

Rating:
Summary: A compelling story.
Review: This is the best true crime book I have ever read. It tells the compelling but horrifying story of the murder of Half and Suzanne Zantop, two Dartmouth College professors, by two teenagers from the rural town of Chelsea, Vermont. Contrary to a previous reviewer, I did not find the book too detailed. There is a lot of detail, but this is necessary for the authors to tell the story properly. The details about the killers, Jim Parker and Robert Tulloch, and their lives in Chelsea before the killing are necessary to the understanding of these two. Neither were the "loner / loser" type that one thinks of in connectionn with teenagers who kill. Both had good friends in Chelsae, took part in extra-curricular activities in school and were intelligent. Granted, Tulloch's parents are a little strange, but not so strange as to explain his behavior. It is exactly in all the detail the authors provide that we see the transformation of these two reasonably normal acting kids into killers. This is a great strength of the book. In the end it is clear that Tulloch was a psychopath who manipulated Parker, a "follower" into going along with his criminal activities. The authors use of detail allows the reader to watch as Tulloch gets more and more out of control. Nor do I think the authors show any sympathy for either killer. They simply describe the relationship between them as it was. And, as it was, Parker certainly comes off the more sympathetic of the two. Another strength of the book is that it is happily free of the psychobabble sometimes found in true crime books.
The authors are also able to paint a very poignant picture of the Zantops. These were kind, wonderful people. In their acknowledgments section, the authors say "Getting to know the Zantops postumously made us wish we had known them in life." I can't imagine anyone reading this book not feeling the same way.
Another reason I found the book so compelling is a personal one: Hanover, NH, the home of Dartmouth College, is my home town. I was born and raised there and my dad was a Dartmouth professor. So I know the town and the area very well. In fact, when I was in high school, I loved going over into Vermont and driving along the unpaved back roads just to see beauty of the forest. I never knew the Zantops but many of the names of other Dartmouth faculty and administrators are familiar. And on their way along East Wheelock Street in Hanover to the Zantop's house the day of the killing, Tulloch and Parker passed within 100 or so yards of my own home in Hanover.

Rating:
Summary: Something missing
Review: We read books like this to look into the eyes of the killers. To wonder where things went wrong. To hope our children don't lose their way. One of the killers did not make any statements to the police or talk to the authors. The picture is thus incomplete and unsatisfying and leaves us feeling that there is more to tell.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but too long
Review: You could cut probably 50-100 pages of extraneous detail out of this 389 page book and it would make the book a better read. I eventually found myself skimming the endless descriptions of the town of Chelsea and it's citizens. Halfway through it begins to get repetitive. The editor should have spent some more time with this one.
When a terrible crime happens, the thing people want to know is why, why, why? What was the motive? The authors tell us that Robert Tulloch, the "leader" of the teen boy duo is a psychopath. He has no conscience and to him, the lives of Half and Suzanne Zantop were worth precisely what he stole from them: $340.00 in cash. He also wanted to know what it would be like to murder someone. He expressed the desire to kill more than one person and a law enforcement offical speculated that had Tulloch not been caught, he probably would have become a serial killer. Robert Tulloch got life in prison without possibility of parole for murdering Half Zantop.
The authors state that Jim Parker, the "follower" in the teen boy duo, murdered because he was under Robert's control, psychologically. Robert provided him with the attention he so craved. The authors also state that Jim Parker "wasn't burdened by moral or religious teachings that discouraged him from breaking the Golden Rule." Jim Parker, who slit Suzanne Zantop's throat, got a lesser sentence of 25 years to life. Parker was younger than Tulloch when the murders were committed and unlike Tulloch, he showed some remorse and apologized to the victim's families.
At the end of the book the authors tell us that Jim Parker spends his days watching MTV, playing cards, reading and taking classes in tai chi, guitar, piano, drama, etc. There is no mention of either Tulloch or Parker actually working for their keep. Prison in New Hampshire sounds like a fun vacation. It's a wonder more people there don't commit murder.