CONCORD, N.H. – As courts in New Hampshire this week begin hearings in the cases of two teen-agers accused of murdering two Dartmouth College professors, a Vermont judge may give the public its first clues into how authorities linked the young men to the brutal slayings.

Vermont District Court Judge Patricia Zimmerman has promised a written opinion by Monday night on a motion by The Associated Press and other news organizations asking that sealed records in the case be made public.

Zimmerman has been asked to open files that would show what evidence authorities presented before getting search warrants for the young men’s homes in Chelsea, Vt., and lists of what was found during the searches.

At the request of prosecutors, an Orange County Family Court judge had sealed the materials and gone on vacation.

Meanwhile in New Hampshire, James Parker, 16, will be arraigned sometime Monday as a juvenile and prosecutors will begin the process of trying to certify him to stand trial as an adult.

His alleged companion in the crime, Robert Tulloch, 17, will go before a judge on Wednesday for a probable-cause hearing on first-degree murder charges. A 17-year-old is considered an adult in New Hampshire.

Parker also was charged with first-degree murder as an adult for purposes of arresting him. Both young men were caught last week at an Indiana truck stop and returned to New Hampshire.

Dartmouth professors Half Zantop, 62, who taught earth sciences, and his wife, Susanne Zantop, 55, the chairwoman of the German studies department, were found stabbed to death in their secluded Hanover, N.H., home Jan. 27.

Parker’s lawyers want to keep his trial in juvenile court, since conviction as an adult on first-degree murder charges carries an automatic life sentence in New Hampshire.

Former prosecutors and law enforcement officials in the state speculated Sunday that authorities might have to offer plea agreements in the cases in order to get one of the teen-agers to testify against the other.

But John Kacavas, a former chief of the attorney general’s homicide unit, said serious decisions about plea bargains wouldn’t be made immediately.