When Massachusetts State Trooper Walter Combs saw a piece of green metal glinting in the morning sunlight at a Massachusetts truck stop, he instinctively knew he had found the getaway car Robert Tulloch and James Parker used to escape after brutally murdering Dartmouth professors Half and Suzanne Zantop.
Now, over a year later, the International Association of Police Chiefs is honoring Combs with a Meritorious Achievement Award for his role in solving the Zantop case.
Combs discovered the car on the morning of Feb. 18, 2001, after the New Hampshire state police alerted police officers to be on the lookout for a car used by Parker and Tulloch, both of whom were wanted for first-degree murder.
Despite 30-below temperatures, Combs decided to survey several area truck stops along Interstate 84, thinking them likely places for teenagers on the run.
"I thought: where would a couple of kids with limited funds go, especially if they were looking to get rid of their car and hitch a ride somewhere?" Combs said.
On his way out of the Sturbridge Isles truck stop, Combs glimpsed a snow-covered car with a distinctive boxy shape. It stood out, Combs said, because the other parked cars were free of snow.
"That tipped me off that it had been parked there for a while," he said. "Since the frost on the windshield was just beginning to melt as the day got warmer, I looked in and saw stuff that kids would have -- there were knapsacks and crackers on the seat."
Combs ran the license plate number in the database and confirmed that the car was the silver Audi wanted by the New Hampshire state police.
The next day, police arrested Parker and Tulloch in New Castle, Ind., after an officer intercepted a radio call from a trucker transporting the boys.
Combs said he thought little of his discovery after police apprehended Parker and Tulloch, but that he was glad to be honored.
In an April 22 ceremony, the IACP presented Combs with a framed picture of the police officer's memorial in Washington, D.C.
"It's really nice to be recognized," Combs said. "Sometimes it's something as simple as taking the time to look a little closer, but all the same, we don't get recognized that often for just doing our jobs."
The award, which the 3M Corporation sponsors in conjunction with the IACP Highway Safety Committee, is part of the "Beyond the License Plate" program, designed to promote careful license plate monitoring as a method of fighting crime.
