To the Editor:
Was I reading the Boston Globe on Friday the 16th, or did the carrier mistakenly deposit a National Enquirer on the doorstep, with an anonymous story of sex and death in academe high above the fold?
My wife and I have shared a close friendship and close quarters in small sailboats with Susanne and Half Zantop for over 15 years. Never in the intimate confines of our time and space together did any inkling surface of a relationship that might, in the Globe's irresponsibly sensational speculation, motivate "crimes of passion, most likely resulting from an adulterous love affair."
Even if improbably but ultimately proved true, this preemptive, self-servingly journalistic assertion, trumpeted in front page headlines without attribution or corroboration in the underlying story, wreaks unwarranted psychological damage upon family members and friends of the Zantops, awaiting with anxious patience the considered conclusions of
state and federal investigators.
Buried in a Saturday Globe report regarding a warrant for the arrest in the case of a Vermont youth on charges of first-degree murder, a late paragraph temporizes about Globe "sources [who] yesterday confirmed that they have pursued the theory that an affair triggered the killings also repeat[ing] their earlier comment that they remained open to other scenarios." Since when does the pursuit of one theory among many in a complex criminal investigation constitute news of sufficient import to justify the unsubstantiated maligning of a beloved man's morality in
twenty-point type?
We who cherish Half and Susanne Zantop must finally accept, and tomorrow upon tomorrow struggle to understand whatever tangled truths the unraveling of this tragedy may reveal. Spare us the half-truths that pedaled Friday's Boston Globe.
