Judgment Ridge: The Story Behind the Dartmouth Murders

Judgment Ridge: The Story Behind the Dartmouth Murders

by Dick Lehr and Michael Zuckoff

7/2007

This book review speaks to several important issues that apply to several of the school shootings that have occurred, in the United States, over the last two decades.

Reviewed by Robert Grant, Ph.D.

Judgment Ridge is a very well-written and -researched book. It provides considerable context and unfolds like a murder mystery novel. The story line is engrossing, and it is hard to put  down. The authors are not out to shock readers with the gory details of the very gruesome and horrific murder of two well-loved and respected Dartmouth professors (Half and Susanne Zantop) in Hanover, New Hampshire in January 2001. The Zantops were killed by two high school students from nearby Chelsea, Vermont. This case received considerable media attention (both at home and abroad).

            The authors, both investigative journalists, create a very detailed description of the bucolic environment, from which the readers would have a hard time imagining that two violent young murderers, Robert Tulloch (17) and James Parker (16), could emerge. Readers are supposed to question how such a quiet and peaceful town could produce not only two cold-blooded teenage killers but also several adults (four parents, a score of teachers, a high school principal and debate coach) who were unable to recognize many signs that suggested that the morality of these two boys was seriously declining, they had disgust for all forms of adult authority and that they were becoming increasing psychopathological.

            The strength and weakness of this fascinating book is its emphasis on documentation and detail. The authors create a complex tapestry out of numerous events that exemplify how two best friends began to increasingly distance themselves from their high school friends, classmates, parents, and school authorities, while at the same time developed a vision, rationale, and plan to execute being “badass desperadoes” who could rob and kill while moving from one adventure to next, while continuing to outwit and elude law enforcement personnel.        The lives of parents and murder victims, as well as friends, teachers and classmates are described in considerable detail so as to continually remind readers that these boys and their chilling murders involved real people growing up in a real middle-American setting.

            The difficulty with the book is that there is not enough forensic meat on the bones of this very long book. The psychological analysis of the authors is right out of an elementary Abnormal Psychology textbook. Sociopathy, narcissistic features (feelings of superiority, entitlement and unbridled rage, coupled with poor impulse control, needs for immediate gratification and hyper-sensitivity to being criticized and/or humiliated, especially in the case of the ring leader, Robert Tulloch and bipolar disorders are the extent of their psychological references.

Towards the end of the book, during trial preparations, forensic evaluators searched for traces of parental abuse and find none, while the possibility of mental illness in the family tree of Robert Tulloch (i.e., his father struggled with alcoholism, depression, and suicide) was considered. Finally a psycho-neurologist, named Dr. Price, suggested the possibility of a brain abnormality that mitigated against having compassion for their victims.

            Although the authors are forensic reporters and not forensic psychologists, the book does not help readers move beyond the level of behavioral manifestations to the sociocultural and adolescent aspects of the case. This reviewer was struck that the authors never addressed the fact that not a single adult understood or tried to understand how these two troubled young boys viewed the world of adult authority.  In other words, as is often the case with adolescents, their inner reality was relatively unknown to everyone except themselves .  Adults are notorious in this story for either being in denial or distorting the reality of these two teenagers.

The authors gave ample evidence, based on confessions both prior to and after sentencing, of the types of material to which they were exposed, e.g., the ubermensch readings of Frederick Neitszche, as well as, a number of violent movies and video games. In addition, their lack of respect for what they considered to be the naive, stupid, and middle class values of their parents, teachers, townspeople, and classmates was never fully fathomed by any around them who often made benign excuses for their troubling remarks and behaviors. Despise their increasing contempt for almost everyone around them, adults continued to make excuses for their arrogant, antisocial, and criminal behaviors. The murder and torture of the Tulloch family dog, numerous petty crimes, house break-ins, repeated acts of vandalism, robberies, purchase of stun guns (which were confiscated by Mrs. Tulloch  and whose credit card was used to make their purchase) and commando knives (the murder weapons), along with contemptuous behaviors in the classrooms and public debate forums, were either ignored or rationalized by those around them. In addition, their parents rarely questioned their where they were and/or any suspicious behavior they exhibited.

            In addition, these two very bright boys (confirmed by the fact that they had passed several advanced placement tests) were not required to spend much time in school. With a great deal of time on their hands, they were accountable to no one. They also had easy access to the cars of their parents, which they actually used to commit several misdemeanors and the murder of Zantops. It seems that the parents and other adults were oblivious to the fact that these two boys were also involved in a great deal of sinister fantasizing and malicious behavior.

            The inner reality of these two boys consisted of making their own rules, being above the law and looking down on middle class values, e.g., hard work, sacrifice and a gradual achievement of goals. In addition, their inner world also disrespected the conservatism and lack of critical thinking that was exhibited by the people who lived in their town. Their parents’ lack of aspirations and sophistication, coupled with the contempt the boys felt for their teachers, who continually conveyed representations of reality that failed to jive with the boys take on the amorality of American politics and business practices, only increased the boy’s alienation from everything around them. Most importantly, these two male teenagers resented the control that adults had over their lives at every important juncture.  All of their problematic emotions and perceptions found validation and instant gratification in the virtual world of the Internet and video games.

            The susceptibility of one boy (James) to be led and the need of the other boy (Robert) to lead - speaks to the selfobject dynamics of adolescent identity formation, as conceived of by Heinz Kohut, especially when there was a scarcity of adults in their environment whom they could idealize and pattern their lives after.

The question then becomes how to understand how two smart and talented boys (Robert was president of the student council and James displayed considerable musical and dramatic ability) could end up violently murdering two total strangers? There are many teenagers that lack structured homes and lifestyles. There are several others with deficient characters and oblivious authority figures who never murder.

            The authors show little understanding of what is like to be a teenager, let alone a teenager in a postmodern world that is characterized by moral relativity and continued acts of adult betrayal,  especially by those in positions of trust and power, e.g.,  American presidents, corporate CEO’s and church ministers. The message constantly portrayed in the movies and media is that might is right, i.e., those with power and the means can create their own rules, while the rest of society fails to realize that they are being continually fleeced by those who know how the game of life is played. The effect of a world without values on the idealistic and extremist tendencies of adolescent boys is something that very few adults, let alone teachers in educational institutions,  know anything about. The failure of adults to openly discuss these issues only makes them more despicable in the eyes of certain adolescents.  Free and unstructured time, access to funds, and repeated failures on the part of adults to identify the fact that these two boys were drifting more and more towards nihilism and amorality, along with, increased feelings of being controlled by people whom they did not respect and a powerful fear of the drudgery and responsibility that awaited them in the adult world, influenced these two well-read and intelligent boys to end up rejecting (in toto) the world that was being offered by those adults around them. Tragically, as is often the case, the adults around them didn’t have a clue that these boys rejected their world lock, stock and barrel.

            Judgment Ridge is so bent on getting the facts straight that it misses for forest for the trees.  It is good journalism and forensic reporting but it provides little insight into the emerging disrespect for the adult world, as well as, the world of adolescent rage and violence that can be occur when idealistic children end up feeling isolated from their peers and contemptuous of their supposed role models. In essence, high school culture frequently provides children with distorted versions of social reality and adults.

Educational specialists and the general public typically fail to realize how difficult it is for adolescents to form an adult sense of self, especially when the adult versions of reality that presented to children are either highly suspect or un-real. The aforementioned  leads, at minimum,  disillusionment, and at worst, to feelings of betrayal and  unrestrained violence. Such scenarios are quite common and quite dangerous, especially in the case of intelligent and aggressive teenage boys. They can lead, in many instances, to depression, drug addiction, suicide, sociopathy, counter cultural forms of insurgency and/or murderous violence.

Robert Tulloch and James Parker seemed to be caught in the above dynamic and, as a result, turned towards each other - with the result of intensifying a dyadic, as opposed to social focus and a fantasy world that was based in power, overturning adult forms of authority, unrestrained aggression, wanderlust and violence. 

Adolescence is a time of identity consolidation. With no adults to pattern themselves after, these two boys turned to each other as selfobjects  - with little input from any outside source. The dangers of this type of exclusivity, especially in the case of teenagers, should be apparent.

In summary, this excellent and captivating story is more of a police novel that provides readers with a very rich context in which criminal activities and mindsets emerged. At the same time, readers are left with the same headline conclusions of aberrant adolescent development and behaviors that are used to explain characterize the violent acts of two high school students. Consideration of character disorders, insanity defenses, abuse and neglect histories are important in many instances of criminal and/or abusive behavior, but it is much easier for the general population to swallow these characterizations than the fact that adults continue to misunderstand children, especially adolescents in regard to their perceived lacks of power, needs to discover areas of control, sensitivity to humiliation, capacity for narcissistic injury/rage and lack of respect for adults who are perceived as weak, duplicitous and in denial about a range of social realties and improprieties.

Adolescents need adults who understand them, who walk the talk and who do not provide cleaned up or sanitized versions of reality. At the same time, they need proper limits and guidance. Adolescents are often able to question and see that the king has no clothes on because they have not had to completely dull their perceptions or reality in order to obtain inclusion into the adult world, e.g., get and hold a job, find a spouse, buy a home and pay taxes. Emphasis on the status quo (without forums for critical and honest analysis that both understand and validate the veracity of adolescent critiques of the adult world) can create scenarios where bright and talented children decide to break off from the morals of the extended community and create their own rules and/or decide to take vengeance on the world of dis-respected peers and adult,  whom are consider to naïve, hypocritical and patronizing. Adolescents who feel that they have not been understood or prepared for the realities and duplicities of the adult world are at serious risk of acting out and behaving violently toward themselves (suicide) and/or others (homicide).