YouTubeAn aerial view of the List family home in Westfield, New Jersey. [5] By 1959, List had risen to general supervisor of the company's accounting department; but Helen, an alcoholic, had become increasingly unstable. Their faces were covered. One tip came from a woman in Richmond, Virginia, who thought her next-door neighbor, Robert Clark, bore a striking resemblance to the bust. Copyright 2023 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The List house burned down several months after the List family bodies were discovered there. Of the more than 200 tips from viewers that the FBI received from the program, one said a man resembling. John List, The Mass Murderer Who Killed His Family So Hed See Them In Heaven. He says he wanted to spare them the shame of losing their New Jersey mansion and to make sure they got to heaven. He was arrested 11 days later, and, after a jury rejected his diminished capacity defense, convicted and sentenced. Net Worth in 2022. British bus driver stops to give loose sheep a lift. Flanery lived next door to John List, who was going by Robert Clark, and his second wife, Delores Clark, in Aurora, Colorado from 1985 to 1988. 'To find his wife having a veneral disease was morally, ethically and religiously a very hard thing for him to accept,' the psychiatrist said. Want more true crime? When authorities entered the Westfield, New Jersey house on December 7, 1971, they heard organ music piped through the intercom system. "I finally decided the only way to save them from that was to kill them," he said. John List's confession to his 2nd wife revealed in new episode of 'Father Wants Us Dead' podcast Published: Jun. March 2 (UPI) -- A Florida woman earned a Guinness World Record when she completed 23 ultra-marathon runs -- 31.1 miles -- in a 23-day period. The mass murderer was an active member of his local Lutheran church and married his second wife Delores in 1985. [8], On November 9, 1971, List murdered his entire immediate family, using his own 9mm Steyr 1912 semi-automatic handgun[9] and his father's Colt .22 caliber revolver. Im convinced hes just pulling my chain, Gluck recalled. While there is no set timetable on when that might happen, Daly said the remains of other prison inmates have been stored for up to roughly three months by the medical examiner's office. He took a new identity and also joined a Lutheran church, where he met his second wife, Delores Miller. In a three-sentence statement to the court, he said he was sorry for "the tragedy that happened in 1971." YouTubeThe note John List wrote excusing his children from school. "It's just like D-Day, you go in, there's no stopping after you start," he said. The devout Lutherans attended church every Sunday, and List taught Sunday school. Attempts to reach List's former wife, Delores, whom he married in Denver while a fugitive and later moved with to Richmond, Va., where he was apprehended, have been unsuccessful. Florida woman runs ultra-marathon distances for 23 consecutive days. His father was a devout Lutheran who also taught at a local Sunday School in Bay City. At one religious gathering, he met an Army PX clerk named Delores Miller and married her in 1985. John List was a devout Lutheran who lived with his wife, mother and three children. The New Jersey mansion he inhabited with his mother, wife, and three children had 19 rooms, including a ballroom, marble fireplaces, and a Tiffany skylight. Judge William L'E. Get up to speed with our Essential California newsletter, sent six days a week. John Emil List was born in Michigan, in 1925, the only child of John and Alma List. The undertaker keeps the remains for a year and if nobody comes to claim them, they are put in a concrete vault and buried in a grave (at the state cemetery) on Cedar Lane in Trenton.". March 3 (UPI) -- A 7-year-old Louisiana boy with a firm grasp of baseball rules is seeking a Guinness World Record as the world's youngest umpire. An aerial view of the List family home in Westfield, New Jersey. [23][16] The segment featured an age-progressed clay bust, sculpted by forensic artist Frank Bender, which turned out to bear a close resemblance to List's actual appearance. YouTubes privacy policy is available here and YouTubes terms of service is available here. Early life [ edit] Katherine (left) and Madeleine Force. Then Frederick, 13. "I grew up with the idea that you should provide for your family and to do that you had to be a success in the job that you had or you're a failure, and that was not a good thing to be," he said. Bradford Patricia Colosimo (23 years), director of arts programming Jon Draeger (35 years), associate professor of chemistry Andrea Robbins (40+ years), instructor of chemistry and algebra, Division of Physical and Computational Sciences. He also claimed to be suffering from PTSD. "I was hungry," he told Downtown, adding with a chuckle, "that's just the way it was.". John confessed to committing the murders in February 1990. John List died in prison in 2008 at age 82. Salary in 2021. Firefighters hoist horse stranded in backyard swimming pool. The day after the killings, List scoured the house for family photographs, tearing his image out of them so police would have nothing to use in Wanted posters. He then walked up to the third floor and shot his 85-year-old mother, Alma. In February 1988, the couple moved to a house in the Brandermill neighborhood of Midlothian, Virginia, where List, still using the name Bob Clark, resumed work as an accountant at a small accounting firm, Maddrea, Joyner, Kirkham & Woody. "I was perspiring like anything," he remembers, but said his wife did not seem to have recognized him. Then he drove to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, where he left his car as a false lead and took a bus into the city. At Fort Eustis in Virginia, he met Helen Morris Taylor, the widow of an infantry officer killed in action in Korea, who lived nearby with her daughter, Brenda. He was born John Emil List on 15 September 1925 to John Frederick List and Alma Barbara Florence List. He was previously married to Delores Miller and Helen List. By then, progression of the disease combined with her excessive alcohol consumption had, according to testimony, "transformed her from an attractive young woman to an unkempt and paranoid recluse"[30][32] who frequently and often publicly humiliated List, comparing his sexual prowess unfavorably with that of her first husband. List, who says he remains deeply religious today, acknowledges that his crimes violated one of the Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt not kill.". List and his family were the embodiment of the American dream in 1965. Hopefully they would go to heaven, and then maybe I would have a chance to later confess my sins to God and get forgiveness.". It took Johns fingerprints to match with the military records to convince the authorities that he was John List. This is not the man I know. Pending. Authorities walk John List to a plane in Richmond,. ', Suspected burglar inside New Brunswick home was a panicked deer. He had been fired from all his jobs due to his cold demeanor and his inability to be social with his co-workers. He was vice president and comptroller of a nearby bank, and his family lived in an 18-room mansion with marble fireplaces and an elegant ballroom. March 3 (UPI) -- Firefighters in Britain responded to a home to rescue a horse that had fallen into its owner's swimming pool and was unable to get itself out. American Criminal John List was born John Emil List on 17th September, 1925 in Bay City, Michigan, USA and passed away on 21st Mar 2008 Trenton, New Jersey, USA aged 82. Unlike the others, John didn't go quietly, his body jerking as List emptied both the 9 millimeter and the .22 into his son. "The body is still at the Mercer County Medical Examiner's Office," said county spokesman Pete Daly. A deputy sheriff at the Henrico County Jail was tasked with watching John List after his arrest in 1989. 'It's as if you're on a race track going around and around with no way out,' Miller told the jury in Union County Superior Court. But unlike the other members of the List family who dropped instantly, John Jr. struggled. The note John List wrote excusing his children from school. He murdered his mother, wife and three children in November 1971, due to financial distress and other issues within the family, and fled. On November 9, 1971, after the children left for school, List shot his wife Helen in the back of the head as she was drinking her coffee. If things had gone on who knows if that would be the case," he wrote. Aside from a few extra wrinkles, the bust was spot on. John List laid the bodies of his family members on top of sleeping bags in the ballroom, then composed a note to his pastor, who he felt would understand. He couldnt bear to tell his family about the loss of income. Gwyn Conger Steinbeck was the second wife of John Steinbeck, master story-teller and Nobel Prize winner. Bender gave him a hawk nose, grizzled eyebrows, and horn-rimmed glasses. He murdered his mother, wife and three children in November 1971, due to financial distress and other issues within the family, and fled. For the economist, see, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, Dupont de Ligonns murders and disappearance, "Wanted: A Killer Disappears Into Another Life", "John List, famous murderer The Crime Library", "Breeze Knoll: The John List Murder House", "John E. List, 82, Killer of 5 Family Members, Dies", "In Hiding for 18 Years, a Wanted Man Is Caught by the FBI and a TV Posse", "Prosaic Life of Suspect in '71 New Jersey Murders", "Real Estate Assessment Data for 13919 Sagewood Trace", "Notorious AMW Fugitive John List Dead at 82", "Frank Bender, 'Recomposer' of Faces of the Dead, Dies at 70", "John List Bust Remembered as Sculptor Faces Death", "The List Murders Stun Westfield In 1971", "Slaying Suspect Saw 2 Choices, Doctor Testifies", "I Know That What Has Been Done Is Wrong", "Killer of Family Gets 5 Life Terms: Court: Judge sentences accountant who murdered his mother, wife and children 18 years ago to the maximum sentence", "Judge Sentences Family Killer to Life in Prison", "The boogeyman of Westfield, a ghost story that won't end", "How Profitable Sequels Succeed: They Just Bring 'em Back Alive", "The Watcher's Grisly John Graff Murder Sequence Is Based on True Story of a Family Massacre. With his first wife, John Frederick had had a son, William George, who happened to be the same . He settled in New Jersey and took a job at a local bank. [35] At his sentencing hearing, he denied direct responsibility for his actions: "I feel that because of my mental state at the time, I was unaccountable for what happened. He was 82 years old at the time of his demise. [4], After completion of his second tour in 1952, List worked for an accounting firm in Detroit, and then as an audit supervisor at a paper company in Kalamazoo, where his three children were born. He was 82. After seeing his daughter and two sons off to school, List walked into the kitchen of his 19-room HIllside Avenue mansion on Nov. 9, 1971, and shot his wife, Helen, as she sipped her morning. The couple later moved to Richmond together . He lived at 431 Hillside Avenue with his wife, Helen Morris Taylor; mother, Alma Barbara Florence List; and two children: daughter Patricia, and sons Frederick and John. Later, John took a lucrative job at Xerox and moved to New York and lived there with his family for a few years. Helen and her three children were buried at Fairview Cemetery in Westfield. Helen had turned into an alcoholic, which caused them to engage in a lot of fights. John List Sr., husband, father, son, accountant, devout Lutheran, had announced that they were going on a family trip, had stopped the paper and milk deliveries and then killed his family. Expert psychologists believed rather that List was going through a mid-life crisis and as the prosecution pointed out, that was no excuse for killing five innocent people. Contents 1 Background 2 Familicide, Capture, and Incarceration 3 Modus Operandi 4 Known Victims 5 Notes 6 On Criminal Minds 7 On Suspect Behavior 8 Sources Wertheimer allowed the jury to hear testimony about Helen List's syphilis after Miller told him, in a brief hearing, that List knew what his wife suffered from before he killed her.