The Vershire Murder by Robert A. Waters
The Vershire Murder by Robert A. Waters
In the dead-heat of a summer’s night, two teenagers labored to dig a
grave near an abandoned home in Vershire, Vermont. Robert Tulloch and
James Parker had already targeted their victim, a homeowner who lived a
few blocks away. They’d never even met the man. But his house sat in a
prosperous-looking neighborhood on Goose Green Road, and the cars
outside were new and expensive. They planned to rob and kill him, then
bury him in the grave they’d prepared.
The two teens weren’t satisfied with their upper middle class existence.
They needed money to go to Australia where they planned to become
“bad-asses,” upper middle class slang for master criminals. Since
working for travel money was beneath them, they planned to steal the
money. According to later court testimony, “Tulloch raised the idea of
killing the people they attempted to steal from so that there would be
no witnesses to their crimes.”
On the evening of July 19, the day after they dug the grave, the teens
dressed in black and armed themselves with Army knives, duct tape, and
zip ties. They drove to the home of their intended victim and cut the
telephone lines. Parker then hid in some bushes near the house while
Tulloch walked to the door and rang the doorbell.
They’d rehearsed for days. Now was the time to put their plan into
action. Tulloch planned to tell the homeowner that his car had broken
down.
He would ask to use the telephone and, once inside, would pull his knife
and subdue the victim. When all was clear, Parker would enter the house
and the two would force the man to give up his credit cards and PIN
numbers. Then they would kill him. If there was a wife and children at
home, so be it–they’d have to die, too. “No witnesses,” Tulloch had
said.
But when the intended victim answered the door, the master criminals
were surprised. He was obviously suspicious and held a handgun in plain
view.
Tulloch stammered out some lame excuse for interrupting the man, then
quickly left. Parker exited the bushes, tucked his tail between his
legs, and also fled.
Because the homeowner was armed, the Vershire murder didn’t happen.
But a few days later, the Dartmouth murders did.
At noon, on July 27, 2001, Tulloch and Parker talked their way into the
home of Half (in German, Half means “help”) and Suzanne Zantrop. They
brutally knifed the two Dartmouth professors to death, stealing $ 365.00
and credit cards. But as the master criminals fled the scene, they
forgot their knife sheaths. Police quickly identified them by their
fingerprints.
Tulloch and Parker were captured a month later. On April 4, 2002,
Tulloch pled guilty to two counts of first degee murder and was
sentenced to life without parole. Parker plea-bargained his charge down
to second-degree murder and was given
twenty-five years.
Why did the unidentified Vershire homeowner survive? Because he had a
gun.
How many other intended victims are never attacked because they
displayed a firearm?
When criminologists James D. Wright and Peter H. Rossi interviewed
convicted felons in ten state correctional systems, they found that
nearly sixty per-cent stated that they would not attack citizens that
they suspected were armed.
Guns save lives.
If not, this story would be about the Vershire murder instead of the
Dartmouth murders.
Robert A. Waters is author of “The Best Defense: True Stories of
Intended Victims Who Defended Themselves with a Firearm.” His new book,
“Guns Save Lives,” is scheduled to be published in May.
