Thursday March 1 5:17 PM ET
Prints at Dartmouth Murder Scene Match Suspect
LEBANON, N.H. (Reuters) - Fingerprints found at the home of two murdered Dartmouth College professors matched one of two teen-age suspects, according to court papers released on Thursday, but the heavily censored documents revealed no motive for the killings.
Lebanon District Court Judge Albert Cirone released a police arrest warrant for Robert Tulloch, 17, that said officers found fingerprints of his alleged accomplice, James Parker, 16, on one of several items found at the murder scene.
Local media reports have suggested that those items are believed to be knife sheaths.
The pair of Chelsea, Vermont, teen-agers face first-degree murder charges in the Jan. 27 stabbing deaths of Half and Susanne Zantop at the couple's home in Hanover, New Hampshire, near the Ivy League school campus.
Police documents, which had passages blacked out, also showed Parker, who is currently charged as a juvenile, bought a pair of identical knives off the Internet for $180 a few months before the killings.
A medical examiner analyzed a similar knife and found it could have inflicted the head and chest wounds suffered by the couple. Authorities have refused to give any indication about a possible
motive for the killings.
Judge Cirone ordered more documents in the case to be released, but not until Monday, giving prosecutors time to appeal his ruling.
Tulloch and Parker, both sons of craftsmen, were arrested on Feb. 19 at an Indiana truck stop, a few days after giving their fingerprints to police.
Half Zantop taught earth sciences at Dartmouth for 25 years and his wife headed the German studies department.
The murders of the German-born Zantops, married for 31 years and who had two adult daughters, unnerved the college and 10,000 residents of the placid town. Hanover's last homicide was in 1991
when an Ethiopian man killed two Dartmouth female graduate students from his country with an ax.
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