Attorney General Philip McLaughlin strongly denied an ABC News report that investigators found neo-Nazi literature in the bedroom of one of the suspects in the Zantop murders.
McLaughlin told the Associated Press that the report was "inaccurate," and said, "I have no idea what it was that they based their report on."
In its Feb. 22 piece on the Zantop murders, Prime-Time reported that investigators had discovered "literature about white supremacy, about the Third Reich, about Holocaust revisionism" during searches of Robert Tulloch's room.
Prime-Time cited only unnamed sources close to the investigation in support of the story.
The report further implied a connection between the literature and the murders of Susanne and Half Zantop, noting that the couple immigrated from Germany, and their Jan. 27 murder occurred on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
McLaughlin, however, told the Manchester Union Leader that he waited until Saturday to deny the claim in order to prevent further leaks from his office.
"Our goal is to solve this thing, do justice and get a conviction," McLaughlin told the Associated Press. "We have fair trial obligations to the two young men who we think were involved, and we're trying to meet our obligations, and at the same time find a way to deal with the media frenzy."
A spokesman for ABC News, Jeffrey Schneider, said ABC stands by the Prime-Time story.
"Specific references were made to these items in documents supporting search warrants that the Attorney General has opposed releasing," he told the Associated Press.
This is the second time such a widely publicized claim has been refuted.
After the Boston Globe printed a Feb. 16 story that claimed the murders stemmed from an adulterous love affair gone awry, the editor stood behind his story for a little less than a week before retracting it on the paper's front page.
McLaughlin now hopes to eliminate any future leaks to the media by his office, although he believes that the source of these recent leaks has not been the Attorney General's office.
"I don't know who is the source of that leak or any of the leaks, but I am trying to stop them," McLaughlin told the Union Leader.
But should he find someone in his office to be responsible for leaking information, McLaughin would ask for the employee's resignation. "All leaks are harmful," McLaughlin explained.
"We balance the need and the right-to-know against the integrity of criminal investigations and our duties to the justice system," he added.
The Attorney General's office was unavailable yesterday for further comment.
