After murdering his wife, mother, and three children in 1971, John List adopted a new identity, remarried, and began a new life — until an episode of America’s Most Wanted led authorities to him in 1989.
John List appeared to be an ideal son, husband, and parent. He worked hard as an accountant to support his family. He resided in a 19-room estate in Westfield, New Jersey, with his mother, wife, and three children. It included a ballroom, marble fireplaces, and a Tiffany skylight.
List and his family embodied the American dream in the early 1970s. They went to church every Sunday as faithful Lutherans, and List even taught Sunday school. On the surface, everything looked terrific. Tragically, practically nothing was as it appeared.
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The Gruesome Murder of the List Family
In 1971, John List, 46, lost his job at a New Jersey bank. He tried to locate new employment, but nothing worked out. List couldn’t stand telling his family about his loss of income, so he continued to pretend to go to work every morning.
List spent his days at the train station, reading the newspaper and covertly withdrawing funds from his mother’s bank accounts to cover the mortgage. He refused to go on assistance because it would cause terrible embarrassment in the society and violate the principles of self-sufficiency that he had He learned from his father.
It’s hard to think the solution he came up with would have been more acceptable to his father, but john emil list subsequently stated that it looked like the only option: murdering his mother, wife, and children.
According to The New York Times, on November 9, 1971, John List shot and killed his wife, Helen, and their children: 16-year-old Patricia, 15-year-old John, and 13-year-old Frederick. and his mother, Alma, who was 85 years old.
They were shot one by one. Helen was first. List saw the kids off to school and then shot her in the kitchen when she was drinking her normal morning coffee. Then he walked up to the third story and killed his mother in her bed.
He shot Patricia and Frederick, his youngest son, when they arrived home from school. He then prepared himself a sandwich, locked his bank accounts, and cheered on his second son, John, at a high school soccer game. He drove him home and then shot him in the chest.
With his entire family murdered, John List set out to avoid retribution for his heinous actions.
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How John List evaded the authorities
John List placed the bodies of his family members on top of sleeping bags in the ballroom and then wrote a note to his pastor, whom he believed would accept his conduct. He feared that, faced with a world full of evil and hardship, his family would turn away from God. Killing them was the only way to ensure their place in heaven.
However, List was unwilling to face the earthly consequences of his deeds. In order to confuse the cops, he cleaned the crime scene and used scissors to delete his face from every photograph in the mansion.
He canceled all deliveries and notified his children’s schools that the family would be on vacation for many weeks. He switched on the lights and radio, leaving religious hymns playing in the house’s vacant rooms.
He slept at the mansion where his family had died, then went away the next morning – and was not seen again for 18 years.
He slept at the mansion where his family had died, then went away the next morning – and was not seen again for 18 years.
A month passed before neighbors, intrigued by the always blazing lights and empty windows, began to think something was amiss with the List home.
When officials visited the house on December 7, 1971, they heard organ music played over the intercom system. They also discovered a five-page note from John List claiming that the bloodied dead on the ballroom floor were his family members, executed out of mercy. He had saved the souls of his loved ones.
The FBI discovered List’s automobile parked at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, but there was no evidence of him. The trail soon came to an end.
John List Is Captured After 18 Years
Though the List family murder case went cold early on, New Jersey prosecutors refused to give up their search for justice. In 1989, they devised a plan
They informed Michael Linder, the executive producer of America’s Most Wanted, about the situation. Linder was fascinated, but he wanted to be sure he had an updated image of John List to run on the show, given how many years had elapsed since the murders. “It seemed to me that it was a job for Frank Bender,” Linder told The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1989.
Bender, an excellent forensic artist, agreed to build a realistic bust of John List as he imagined him to have aged. Bender gave him a hawk nose, grizzled brows, and horn-rimmed spectacles. Psychologists hypothesized that List would wear the same glasses he wore as a young man to remind himself of his more prosperous days.
It was a great portrayal of John List. When America’s Most Wanted aired the narrative of the killings on May 21, 1989, 22 million people watched Frank Bender’s sculpture. Tips started flowing in.
One came from a woman in Richmond, Virginia, who felt her next-door neighbor, Robert Clark, looked similar to the bust. The informant stated that her neighbor was also an accountant who went to church.
Authorities visited Clark’s home and spoke with his wife, whom he had met at a church social gathering in 1977 and married in 1985. Her story brought an end to the 18-year-old mystery.
It turned out that List had changed his identification and relocated to Colorado under the alias Robert Clark. The alias worked, so he kept it when he relocated to Richmond.
On June 1, 1989, police in Virginia caught John List, just ten days after his case was featured on America’s Most Wanted.
During his 1990 trial, defense lawyers claimed that List had PTSD from his military duty in World War II and Korea. Expert psychologists concluded List was experiencing a midlife crisis, but the prosecution argued that this was no explanation for killing five innocent individuals.
The jury convicted John List, and a judge sentenced him to five life sentences in a New Jersey jail.
In an interview with ABC’s Connie Chung in 2002, List stated that he did not commit suicide after murdering his own family because he believed it would prohibit him from reaching Heaven. All List wanted was to be reunited with his wife, mother, and children in the afterlife, where he expected no agony or suffering. John List died in prison in 2008, aged 82.
The mansion in New Jersey where the List family was murdered burned down many months later. Authorities never found the cause of the fire, and a new house was built on the property several years later.
However, the memories of the murders continue to haunt Westfield residents. Even now, children are said to avoid walking past that property.
