The Vershire Murder

by Robert A. Waters

April 14, 2002

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-*****," 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 degree 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. His home on the web is: http://www.robertwaters.net. Read other articles by Mr. Waters at http://www.KeepAndBearArms.com/Waters.

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.

I don't care what loons say. This dude is a schooled pro on the matter.

More NRA garbage.

Too many people buy into this bullshyte. Of course that is what they want you to do is buy buy buy that is the bottom line.

Guns don't stop crimes or stop you from even being shot yourself. People have been lead to believe so by those want them to believe so.

So it's ok for you to use a negative gun shooting to push your anti-gun agenda, but when someone else uses a positive incident to do the same, it's bullshyte? Got it........

And nothing NOTHING is foolproof, I don't care what it is. If you really expect that to be the case, you're just being stupid. The answer to problems is to take away things that even have a POTENTIAL of failing or harming?? Jeannie was right, you are so far out of touch with reality it's not even funny.

I have to agree w Kleisto here. I taught firearms to many people who no longer wanted to be victims and wait for the police to show up and ask why they did not have a gun do defend themselves; adding they were obligated to defend their property and family as the police can't.

Call me what you want but I will fight for and am fighting for my grandchildren and theirs to attend schools that do not have armed teachers and military at the door to protect them from you and your ilk... who have lost your mind and used your gun to kill innocents.

And I am not anti gun but I am anti gun bullshyte like this...

I can call you Wacky Willow? One who suspects that others have lost THEIR minds?

20 six year olds mowed down in their classroom in under a minute.

I guess I need to repeat that for it to sink all the way in...

20 SIX YEAR OLDS MOWED DOWN DEAD IN THEIR CLASSROOM IN UNDER A MINUTE.

None of these bullshyte, save the day crap, lying *** stories tops it.

So because of ONE incident.....the correct answer is to make EVERYONE ELSE responsible for that? Sorry just doesn't work that way hate to tell you.......

and regardless I'd rather have a gun and the chance to protect myself than not......

Its been more then one incident so dont down play it. But getting rid of guns is not the answer. Issuing more permits to carry would help. Otherwise only the bad guys will have guns.

I guess Willow didn't read DC v. Heller and MacDonald v. Chicago. The right to bear arms is an individual fundamental right. Regardless of your personal views on guns, the second amendment is a constitutional amendment that protects our fundamental right to bear arms. Just like regardless of my view of criminal Defendants, the 5th Amendment guarantees them a right to trial by jury. Regardless of your ill-researched opinions, you have the First Amendment Right to speech.

So let me ask this: We've had the SAME gun laws since the first school shooting - Columbine, yet the number of incidents have increased in the last year or so, yet gun laws are not getting less restrictive. Why is more laws the answer?

Connecticut has some of the strictest laws in the country. Yet they did not stop the shooting. What makes anyone think that more laws will stop this?

And willow despite your knee-jerk blame of the NRA, you should approve of the NRA. They supported the National Firearms Act of 1968 and supported a number of big-government initiatives because key Democratic politicians made sure they had exemptions from regulation.

So, what about this Loganville Ga woman, who saved herself and three of her children on Jan. 4th, by fending off an attacker?

Story here.

http://loganville.patch.com/articles/loganville-woman-shoots-burglar-several-times

Now, let's break down the incident at Sandy Hill elementary.

The bottom line is, the person was known to be mentally challenged/disturbed, yet despite the parent's knowledge of the aforementioned, his parents had recently taught him to shoot, taking him to the rifle range. He had access to the guns, which were unsecured by the parents. Who should be blamed here?

There was an assault rifle ban in the eighties, and it failed, and subsequently the ban was lifted, as it was deemed to be unconstitutional.

Responsible parents should install trigger locks, (which can be bought at wal-mart for prices starting at only $6.99)and the guns should be secured.

Every single incident of mass shootings can be attributed to mentally disturbed people, who had access to guns that did not belong to them, or the criminally pathological mass murderers, and it's likely the guns used there were not purchased legally.

Someone made the comment "and after it was all over, the gun just laid there" In other words, the gun was not the aggressor, the person behind it, was.

We have gun laws, and they do work, for the honest, sane people.

What we do not have, is tougher laws and stiffer penalties for criminals.

We do not take enough precautions when dealing with potentially violent mentally ill/challenged people.

We do not make irresponsible parents accountable for their negligence.

Food for thought here, i;m not sure if this is still a requirement, but the Swiss are (or used to be) required to keep a firearm in the home. It is one of the most heavily armed counties in the world, and their crime rate is one of the lowest in the world.

You are doing this for your grandchildren? REALLY? Sounds like you want to push an agenda that makes YOU feel safe.

Again you fear guns so much move to England! Or how about Australia? There is a point where all this dogma is just utter BS and what you present has no fact to back it. You twist facts and claim the NRA twists facts. WELCOME TO THE WORLD!

NO AND AGAIN NO! You plead people in general are not responsible. WHO THE HELL MADE YOU THE FINAL SAY LET ALONE THE JUDGE IN THIS MATTER?

Quit punishing everyone for the actions of a small minority of the population! Again your ignorance is staggering!

DAMN STRAIGHT!

people seem to skip over the real problem here, which are not guns, but the psychotic meds the shooters are on...here is a good article that might help some people understand

http://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/psychiatric-drugs-school-violence-and.html

People skip over the real problem that people think guns make them more powerful and it creates a mental illness state of all these gun crazies who end up by accident or intention killing innocents.

I am the ignorant one??? Not.

I don't fear guns at all, that is the issue the gun crazies have with me. I don't fear the bad guys with guns. Most of which think they are the good guys with guns.

I don't fear a gun. I can hurt or kill a gun toter with no sweat off my brow. I know what I am capable of. And I know how stupid they are with their little pea shooter as "protection". I am smarter and that beats a gun every time. Raised with guns, I can shoot just fine.

I am not afraid of the boogie man, the guvment, the robber, the aliens, those "other" people who might not like me, etc... anything you can think up doesn't bring fear to me.

I do however refuse to allow 6 year olds to live in fear of school

I do however refuse to let the gun crazies put more guns in the schools and military outside the schools so the "other" gun crazies don't mow down the kids a dozen at a time whenever they get a hair up their ***.

I ain't scared and that is hard for a gun crazy person to understand because the only reason you want a gun is cause you are scared of something

To be honest, I don't know if I even believe that 20 six year olds were killed in Sandy Hook.

I think it could have been an NSA exercise in propaganda. I just don't believe the story. Sorry.

I don't believe it.

Even if it is true, stop exploiting it for your anti-gun agenda.

You are the one who is so afraid. You are afraid of guns, plain and simple.

It is has, but the idea is the same, I get so damn sick of these knee jerk reactions.....one or even a handful of people abuse something, and the answer is always BAN it, or regulate it so responsible people have a harder time getting it. It is bass ackwards logic completely........but in a land where common sense isn't so common anymore it's commonplace anymore sadly.

And we conveniently forget, that these incidents only seem to happen in gun free zones......what if ONE person in that school could have stopped this from happening? Suddenly the gun isn't so bad now is it?

I said this once before, if you allow the hyped up media whores spin on the story of "children being killed" manipulate your emotions and your fear into such a frenzie, and the global mafia who wants to regulate our guns and take our rights see how effective that tactic is.... you will probably see it happen again.

So how do we "paranoid" people know for sure that the CIA or NSA were not behind the Sandy Hook shooting? How do we know? We saw on tape them chase one guy through the woods, and they arrested another guy and had him hand cuffed. We saw that the semi-automatic gun was taken out of the trunk of some car after the shooting. There were confusing and conflicting reports from the coroners about what guns were used.

We know that this administration with their drone attacks don't care about killing children in other countries. What makes our children more important? We know that the ATF killed 27 children at WACO and no one at all was held responsible for that.

I smell a big big rat. The shooter's mother was killed. The computer hard drive was wiped clean.... all very very strange.

Then an alleged father of a victim was caught laughing on tape before he was interviewed and suddenly he got all sad and serious. What the hell is going on?

I don't know what happen at Sandy Hook, but I smell a big big ugly rat in that story. Ding ding ding my bells are going off big time.