Flowers laid for Dartmouth professors murdered 20 years ago

HANOVER, N.H. – Twenty years to the day they were murdered, friends and former colleagues of Dartmouth College professors Half and Susanne Zantop laid flowers and lit candles at a garden named for them.

Irene Kacandes, a Dartmouth professor of German studies and comparative literature and former colleague of the pair, helped to organize the remembrance on Wednesday, the Valley News reported.

“It was a huge loss for many of us, as it was for many students,” Kacandes told the newspaper.

“Those of us who remain continue to celebrate the community that they really, in many ways, started and nurtured. It was important to them that we carry it on and they made that clear,” said Alexis Jetter, a lecturer in Dartmouth’s English department.

The professors were stabbed to death in their home in 2001 by two Vermont teenagers who were convicted on murder charges and who are both serving sentences in New Hampshire federal prison.

Susanne Zantop was a professor in Dartmouth’s German studies department and served as the department’s chair and Half Zantop was a professor of Earth sciences, the newspaper reported. The Zantops are survived by their two daughters.