Prosecutors have disclosed more evidence that links the two Vermont teenagers to the brutal stabbing of Dartmouth professors Half and Susanne Zantop.
Recent documents also suggest that one of the teens, Robert Tulloch, 17, may have been lying to investigators when he told them he had sustained a cut on his leg when he fell on a maple syrup spigot.
Three days after the couple was killed, Tulloch, who recently pleaded innocent to the first degree murder charges against him, told his girlfriend, Christiana Usenza, that he actually received the wound when he dropped a hunting knife on his leg.
"The defendant admitted to his girlfriend that he obtained the wound by dropping a hunting knife on his right leg," read the court documents, which go on to note that "the defendant's girlfriend observed the wound and saw him walking with a significant limp during the week following the homicides."
The court documents seek blood and hair samples, as well as a handwriting specimen from Tulloch.
"Sufficient facts exist to support the state's request for blood and hair samples and a handwriting exemplar," reads the eight-page brief.
The court document, filed by New Hampshire Assistant Attorneys General Kelly Ayotte and Michael Delaney, is in response to the objection of Tulloch's attorneys to provide prosecutors with those samples.
Physical evidence is piling up against Tulloch and his accused accomplice, James Parker, 16, placing them both at the scene of the crime.
The newly filed documents show that police discovered a fingerprint on a chair at the Zantops' home that they have now confirmed belongs to Tulloch.
In addition, the court documents report, authorities have matched a boot print found at the Zantop's home with a boot belonging to Parker.
Prosecutors previously found blood on a boot belonging to Tulloch to be consistent with a mixture of DNA belonging to Susanne Zantop and an unidentified male.
In addition, older court documents have noted two knife sheaths were found to have latent fingerprints matching Parker's.During a search of Tulloch's bedroom, police discovered two knives possessing traces of DNA from both Half and Susanne Zantop.
Blood discovered on the floor mat of a 1996 Green Subaru registered to Parker's parents matches the DNA of Susanne Zantop, the documents report.
Paul Newcity, of Canaan, N.H., said earlier that he saw a green station wagon speeding out of the Zantops' driveway the afternoon before the professors were murdered.
He told police the driver of the car appeared to be a thin, dark-haired white male in his early 20s, with no facial hair.
This description matches that of both defendants.
Ayotte said Tuesday at Tulloch's hearing that a decision on a trial date would be made before the end of this month but that it is unlikely that a trial would begin before next February.
