Many of the estimated 60 reporters currently wandering the streets of Hanover attempting to dissect and analyze the recent tragedy to readers across the nation are frustrated at the lack of information released as the Zantop case enters its fifth day.
In typical murder investigations, much more information is released to the public, with the media's reports often utilized to help the police catch their suspect, according to professional media personnel that spoke with The Dartmouth.
Yet in news conference after news conference, the state police and attorney general have remained tight-lipped, releasing not even such basic information such as time of death or method of killing.
According to Carey Goldberg, New England bureau chief for the New York Times, she has "never covered an investigation in which less information [was] released."
"It is normal for police to be pretty close-mouthed at this point in the investigation, but not this close-mouthed," she added.
U.S. News and World Report's David Marcus agreed.
"It is incredibly, incredibly frustrating for reporters and probably for some students - because there's been such a dearth of information," he told The Dartmouth.
Press conferences, according to Eric Francis of People Magazine, have consisted of "400 variations of 'no comment.'"
However, Francis added that there's no "typical" murder investigation proceedings with which to compare the case, as murder cases are by nature atypical. Thus, the police handling is unusual only "if there's such a thing as a standard case," he commented.
Another reporter, however, saw the proceedings as nothing out of the ordinary, noting that in a small state such as New Hampshire, news is bound to move slowly.
As members of the media face little concrete news and daily deadlines, many have struggled to make sense out of the 'no comment' strategy of the police, questioning what it means for the investigation's current status.
"It's so hard to tell whether they're totally faking it, and they're about to nab somebody, or whether they're truly baffled," Goldberg commented.
"The fact that they refused to say how the Zantops died keeps making me think that they're hoping for some Agatha Christie maneuver, in which some suspect says, 'I didn't stab them,'" and the investigators can then respond with 'How do you know they were stabbed?'" Goldberg said.
Other members of the press have interpreted the silence as part of a well-planned effort by an investigative team that knows where it's going.
"There's got to be a reason for the blanket of silence and the lack of news at the daily news conferences," Marcus speculated.
"I'm certainly not a detective, but my gut tells me that they have many, many more leads than we can imagine," he said.
"It's a poker game, to use an old analogy, and they don't want to show anything in their hand to alert the murderer to how far along they are in their investigation," he explained.
But Francis noted that, in trying to interpret the attorney general's silence, we're "all just reading tea leaves" at this point.
Yet Francis agrees that while the police might be stumped, most likely they are proceeding along methodically in their investigations.
Speculating on how the police might be narrowing their leads, Francis said, "Everyone's reading it as a targeted attack," and one not carried out with a gun.
Yet he quickly added, "We could all be completely wrong and often are."
Journalists are also trying to make sense of the mixed messages in the attorney general's statements. While the public is told there are "no arrests imminent," police also say the community need not worry.
These apparently conflicting comments disturbed Goldberg, who said she has "never seen this kind of mixed message go out to the public."
If there truly is a killer on the loose in the community, Goldberg questioned, why shouldn't residents worry.
Francis also interprets these reassurances of safety as evidence that the police do not believe it was an act of random violence and have some idea of who the perpetrator was.
Yet all the journalists who spoke with The Dartmouth ultimately respected the attorney general's decision to remain quiet and keep the stream of information under tight control.
"I guess part of me does understand that the police and the attorney general's office want to keep all their cards hidden for now," Marcus said.
Francis echoed similar sentiments, saying "if they're doing this for the right reasons, fine."
And "as much as reporters really want to know" what happened, Marcus recognizes there is "a fine balance between a duty to inform the public and a responsibility to keep details of an investigation secret."
