To the Editor:
Although I never knew the Zantops and never attended Dartmouth, I grew up in Newport, NH, only 30-some miles from you and today I live at the edge of the Stanford campus where the Zantops were students in the 60's. For the last week, I have followed the events subsequent to their deaths not only in The Dartmouth but also in the Manchester Union Leader and the Concord Monitor.
I at first accepted that the crimes might have been committed by someone who knew the Zantops. But as the days have gone by, I have found this theory increasingly difficult to believe. Even allowing for a certain sentimentality which is natural under the circumstances, there is overwhelming evidence that the Zantops had an extraordinary ability to form
positive relationships of respect, admiration, and affection with all who came in contact with them.
I cannot imagine that the people who have been so lovingly described in the many letters printed in The Dartmouth were also involved in a relationship so full of enmity, bitterness, and rage as to provoke the events which transpired. Then too, if there had been such a relationship, wouldn't some of the many friends with whom the Zantops were in daily communication have been aware of it?
Isn't the greater likelihood that the Zantop house, isolated and affluent-looking, was targetted for burglary by a young and inexperienced burglar who made a miscalculation about whether the house was occupied? Perhaps he was apprehended by the Zantops who tried to hold him until the police arrived, and were killed with whatever weapon was at hand. Perhaps the criminal investigation could more wisely be concentrated on the local area, rather than pursuing theories about murderers arriving from some other part of the country or the rest of the world. Unfortunately, with most of the relevant facts closely held in the hands of the investigators, it is impossible to judge whether these theories fit what is known about the murders.
