Barring an arrest within the next day, the Zantop murder investigation will have dragged on for a full week without resolve -- setting it in a different league from the majority of similar murder cases.
Most homicides are solved within the first 24 to 48 hours, according to James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University. He predicted that the Zantop investigation could continue for some time yet -- especially because of the strong media presence in town, which forces investigators to spend precious time covering their tracks so they do not inadvertently jeopardize their work.
"Most of the good information surfaces quickly," he said. "If you don't find fairly quickly a telltale clue, it can be like pulling teeth ... my gut feeling is that they may be there for a while."
However, he added, "They could have a suspect in mind right now and not be telling anyone and wrap it up by the weekend."
On the other hand, Jack Levin, the director of the Brundick Center on Violence at Northeastern University, predicted, "This is the kind of murder that is solved very quickly. In this case, there's every reason to believe that the crime will be solved, within the next few days."
"In almost every respect, this sounds like a traditional murder," Levin said. "The police have evidence, and it's only a matter of time before they bring the killer to justice."
He explained that in the Zantop case, there was a cordoned-off crime scene, the bodies were found quickly after the murder and medical examiners and criminalists could get to the site and investigate what had happened right away -- all conditions that lead to solvable murders.
"The killer leaves blood or semen or hair or fiber at the crime scene," ordinarily, Levin said. "And the police are at least somewhat aware of the motivation of the killer."
Currently, State Attorney General Philip McLaughlin has released limited information about the double homicide. Only yesterday, five days after Half and Susanne Zantop's bodies were found in their 115 Trescott Road home, did he reveal that the two were victims of a stabbing.
McLaughlin continued to refuse comment on any query related to the criminal's motive, whether anything was missing from the residence or what the autopsy's findings revealed.
Levin called the sparse detail tactic currently being employed by investigators: "smart," explaining that with less information available to the public, the real murderer will not be able to claim that he or she learned crucial details of the crime from the newspaper.
Fox indicated that a stabbing is a "much more intimate means of killing" than a shooting, and "tends to occur more with people who have some personal contact with the victims."
Also, although McLaughlin said investigators had not decided whether the murders were committed by a single person or a group, Fox said the fact that it was a stabbing probably meant it was a more "personal conflict," which he indicated "would be more likely to be one person" who committed the crime.
According to the two criminalists, the fact that so much is still under wraps and no one has been arrested is not a good sign for the investigation's progress -- but it certainly does not spell defeat.
"As time passes, the case gets more and more difficult to solve," Levin generalized.
But McLaughlin continues to cast the investigation in a positive light, saying yesterday that police are "eternally optimistic" and constantly "exchanging new information and new insights." He said a wide variety of people are being questioned by police -- including colleagues, neighbors, students and friends of the Zantops.
Yesterday, facing the lenses of 11 television cameras that surrounded him at the noon news conference, McLaughlin warned the murderer, "Be patient. We'll be there."
But, according to Levin, the current status of the investigation is not ideal. He explained that after the first few days of an investigation, "The police get more and more desperate.
They may have too many suspects because they, in fact, have no good suspects."
Fox surmised that the goals of the investigation at this point are twofold:
First, he said investigators are searching for someone who might have had a motive or grudge against the Zantops.
Second, they are trying to piece together the days leading up to their deaths, trying to determine the people they contacted in that time span.
"Anyone can be a suspect, potentially," Fox said, explaining that sometimes people who police question for simple background checks can turn into potential suspects and then into actual suspects within the course of an interview.
Fox pointed out that in a case like the Zantop's -- in which a murder-suicide and an internal-family homicide has been ruled out -- the investigators have a many-forked route before them.
"When you've ruled out a spouse, a neighbor, a co-worker, that leaves lots of people," he said. And in the case of Dartmouth, an academic community with about 4,500 undergraduates, there are a large pool of people who had contact with the Zantops.
"I think the police have to look at students, simply because, once you get past family and friends, neighbors, then you start looking at workplace relations," Levin said. "And for these two professors, students are the customers."
He continued that in a community like Dartmouth's -- where getting the grade and competition between peers is the norm -- "faculty members, in some cases can make or break a student."
"Faculty members are very vulnerable," Levin continued. "They deal with a wide range of students. Some of whom might have a criminal record and others of whom might not."
Levin, Fox and McLaughlin agreed that criminal investigation is not a pleasant process under any circumstances, whether it is a student being questioned or a close family friend.
"It's just not pleasant to be interrogated by the police -- especially when the police don't have a good suspect in mind and I'm afraid that may be the case here," Levin said.
"If you're being questioned because you knew the victims, it's not pleasant because it brings up feelings of sadness and pain," Fox said. "And if you're suspected of some role, that's uncomfortable as well."
Levin said that in the 1960s, the clearance rate for homicides approached 90 percent. But, since then, that figure has dropped to about 60 percent. In other words, 30 percent more murder cases go unsolved now than they did 40 years ago.
Levin attributed the change to an increase in the number of cases of completely random murders by strangers and the increase in use of "dump sites" -- places where murderers hide corpses where they are not found for long periods of time.
