On November 9, 1971, he killed his wife, mother, and three children at their home in Westfield, New Jersey, and then disappeared; he had planned the murders so meticulously that nearly a month passed before anyone suspected that anything was amiss. He simply exploded.'. Upstairs, the body of List's 84-year-old mother Alma was found. His lawyer hopes to convince the jury that List should not be held legally responsible for the deaths because he thought he was saving his family's souls by killing them. He then cleaned the crime scenes, removed his pictures from all family photographs, turned the lights and the radio on, and departed. Liss summarized Helen List's medical reports for the jury. As I was doing it I knew it was wrong," he said. 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. The 54-year-old attorney is standing trial on two counts of murder in the shootings of his wife and son at their . Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. One day in late 1971, John List shot and killed his wife,Helen; his 16-year-old daughter, Patricia; his 15-year-old son, John; his 13-year-old son, Frederick; and his mother, Alma, aged 85. When they met, she led a simple life working as an Army PX clerk. When the children left for school, he shot his wife and his mother to death. In an interview, he stated that he did not kill himself because suicide prevents one from going to heaven. Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. A nationwide manhunt was launched. "I approached all of them from behind so they wouldn't realize till the last minute what I was going to do to them," he said. Early life [ edit] Katherine (left) and Madeleine Force. The mass murderer was an active member of his local Lutheran church and married his second wife Delores in 1985. In an interview in 2008, parents told a reporter in New Jersey that children will not walk past that property, nor do they even want to live on the same street. March 3 (UPI) -- A sheep spotted wandering loose on a British highway was given a lift back to its owner by a concerned bus driver on her first day on the job. [10] While his children were at school, he shot his wife Helen, 47, in the back of the head, and then his mother Alma, 84, above the left eye. Firefighters hoist horse stranded in backyard swimming pool. Officers entered through an unlocked window leading to the basement and discovered the family's bodies. YouTubeThe note John List wrote excusing his children from school. 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. He was arrested in 1989 after a former neighbor recognized him from a profile on the syndicated TV show America's Most Wanted. She had a young daughter from her previous marriage. Human name disambiguation pages. Although the destruction was officially ruled arson, it remains officially unsolved with no suspects. John enlisted in the United States Army in 1943 and was a laboratory technician during World War II. A former Denver neighbor alerted the police, who made the arrest later. To avoid sharing this humiliating development with his family, List engaged in the same routine and dress as when employed, leaving home each morning on schedule and spending the day at job interviews or at the Westfield train station, reading newspapers until it was time to come home. After the June 7, 2021, killings of Maggie . Dr. Steven Simring, a psychiatrist who examined List after his arrest years later, told Downtown his "sense of neatness" was the result of a compulsive personality. [15][16], In 1971, as the FBI later discovered, List had traveled by train from New Jersey to Michigan and then to Colorado. John List was born on September 17, 1925 in Bay City, Michigan, USA. "I'm sure that if we recognize each other that we'll like each other's company just as we did here, when times were better.". The two met at a Christian religious gathering. He also thought his children were steering off the godly course as his son wanted to be an actor. Then he sat down and wrote a confession letter to his pastor explaining his financial problems. Authorities walk John List to a plane in Richmond,. He described a woman whose brain was deteriorating and who was going blind, who was addicted to tranquilizers and drank four or five glasses of Scotch a day, who remained in bed because she was afraid of falls but who retained enough social skill to act normally in casual relationships. 07, 2022, 8:00 a.m. [44], In 2022, NJ Advance Media released "Father Wants Us Dead," a podcast serial on the events.[45]. On November 9, 1971, John Emil List murdered his mother, his wife, and their three children at their Westfield, New Jersey home using his 9mm Steyr 1912 semi-automatic handgun and his. List caught the tail end of the show with his wife, who did not know his past. YouTubeForensic artist Frank Bender uses photographs to sculpt an aged bust of mass murderer John List. "After 18 years, five months and 22 days, it is now time for the voices of Helen, Alma, Patricia, Frederick and John F. List to rise from the grave." '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. Login The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local. Inside the mansion's cavernous ballroom, the bodies of List's wife Helen, 46, and his three children Patricia, 16, John, 15, and Frederick, 13, were laid out on the floor on sleeping bags. Then, read the chilling story of John Wayne Gacy, the original killer clown. A neurologist, Dr. Henry Liss, testified earlier Friday that Helen List, 45, had tertiary syphilis and had hidden her disease for years from her doctors and her family. In 1965, they moved again to Breeze Knoll, a 19-room mansion in Westfield. He took a new identity and also joined a Lutheran church, where he met his second wife, Delores Miller. The News Leaders copyright story quoted his pastor, closest friend and neighbors as saying that the arrest was unbelievable and impossible.. On April 12, 1990 he was found guilty on five . Its hard to believe the solution he arrived at would have been more acceptable to his father, but John List would later say it seemed to him the only option: the murder of his mother, wife, and children. His mother, Alma was overprotective and dominating that would forbid him to go outside and play with the other children because he might get sick. The new lovers wed on 1 December 1951 in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1965, when List and his family moved to affluent Westfield, N.J., he seemed to be a model of suburban success and propriety. They had an expert forensic artist, Frank Bender, create a physical bust of John List as Bender imagined he might have aged. A seemingly admirable and usual American man, John List and his family lived happily in New Jersey. More Local News to Love Start today for 50% off Expires 3/6/23, meticulously murdered his mother, wife and three kids. He then cleaned the various crime scenes, removed his own picture from all family photographs in the house, tuned a radio to a religious station, and departed. John List appeared to be the perfect son, husband, and father. Next he went upstairs, to where his 84-year-old mother was having breakfast, kissed her ("like Judas," he told Downtown), and shot her in the head. Austin Goodrich, an ABCNEWS consultant who is writing a book with John List, contributed material for this report. The 14th and final defense witness was the defendant's brother John . He grew up as an only child with strict German parents, he had an overly protective and domineering mother (sort of like Norman Bates). 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 coffee. The mansion in New Jersey where John List lived with his family burned down several months after the murders. Dr. Miller said List had learned before the killings that syphilis was the cause of his wife's worsening medical and psychological problems and that knowing she had a sexually transmitted disease would have a 'tremendous impact' on someone of his background. British bus driver stops to give loose sheep a lift. He slept in the mansion where his family lay dead, then walked out the door the next morning and wasnt seen again for 18 years. Ten days after a creepy, glass-eyed bust of John List was shown on Americas Most Wanted, Westfield residents had not heard of a single promising lead. Then he sat down and ate lunch at the same table where he had shot his wife hours before. [30] As the year progressed, the family's financial problems became more strained; List encouraged his children to seek part-time work, ostensibly to teach them maturity and responsibility, but in actuality to help keep the family financially solvent. He died in the prison hospital at the age of 82, in 2008. The video above will play a live video stream of the Monday, Feb. 27 proceedings in the Alex Murdaugh double murder trial or a replay upon completion. He canceled all deliveries and contacted his childrens schools to let their teachers know the family would be on vacation for a few weeks. She was born 25th October 1916. Finally, with the prospect of foreclosure threatening to expose his financial failure, List made his terrible decision to kill his family but not himself. Interview statement on List's confession to his second wife. Please enter your username or email address to reset your password. That left his oldest son. "I wish I had never done what I did," he told Connie Chung in 2002. But what led Delores husband to commit such a chilling crime? Subsequent jobs didnt pan out. After light bulbs began burning out one by one, they called the police. List (born 1968), American economist. One friend, unidentified by the newspaper, said that List had told Delores Clark he had been married before to an alcoholic who died of cancer. Elijah Miller has presented testimony from witnesses, including a Lutheran pastor who knew the Lists in the early 1960s in Rochester, N.Y., to describe the troubled family. Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. In 1950, John List was recalled to active military service. He went upstairs and shot his 84-year-old mother. He then called his childrens school to grant them leave to visit their grandmother in South Carolina. If no one claims List's body, Fedekenheuer said, "we call the local funeral director, and that person will have the body cremated. He began living with a new identity in Virginia, where he was spotted by a local and got arrested. List and his family were the embodiment of the American dream in 1965. 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.". He was arrested 11 days later, and, after a jury rejected his diminished capacity defense, convicted and sentenced. John was convicted of five counts of first-degree murder and five terms of life imprisonment. Wikimedia CommonsJohn List with his wife and three children. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. "I don't know whether it was only because he was still jerking that I wanted to make sure that he didn't suffer, or that it was sort of a way of relieving tension, after having completed what I felt was my assignment for the day," List said. . [35], List filed an appeal of his convictions on grounds that his judgment had been impaired by post-traumatic stress disorder due to his military service. March 3 (UPI) -- A Massachusetts library said a book was recently returned with a note apologizing for the tome being 56 years overdue. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. As his daughter Patricia, 16, and younger son Frederick, 13, arrived home from school, List shot each of them in the back of the head. Financial troubles combined with his discontentment with his family over many issues caused severe depression to John, who then decided to take a drastic step to end everything once and for all. Hopefully they would go to heaven, and then maybe I would have a chance to later confess my sins to God and get forgiveness.". Salary in 2022. John fled the house after putting all the bodies on sleeping bags, turning the house lights on and putting on some classical music. [26][27] List continued to stand by his alias for several months, even after his 1989 extradition to Union County, New Jersey; finally, faced with irrefutable evidence including a fingerprint match with List's military records, as well as evidence found at the crime scene he confessed his true identity on February 16, 1990. "There has been no communication from any family member of John List. The family later moved to Rochester, New York, to work with Xerox. Eventually, he took a decently paying job with a paper company at Kalamazoo, Michigan, and settled there with his family. He was finally apprehended in Virginia on June 1, 1989, after the story of his murders was broadcast on the television program America's Most Wanted. New Jersey prosecutors had come up with a plan. List is accused of killing his wife, his three children and his mother in 1971. Episodes, photos and other information are also available at fatherwantsusdead.com. ELIZABETH, N.J. -- Accused family-killer John Emil List, who had always looked to his religious faith for answers, was so overwrought over the discovery that his wife had advanced syphilis that 'like a small rubber band, he snapped,' a psychiatrist said. [1] She was the second wife and widow of businessman John Jacob Astor IV . 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. The memory of the murders still haunts Westfield residents. John List - History, Crime. The note John List wrote excusing his children from school. His father-in-law had heard from the county sheriff: After nearly 18 years, List had been caught. ", John List, famous murder The Crime Library, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_List_(murderer)&oldid=1139169038, American people who died in prison custody, American prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment, People extradited within the United States, People with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by New Jersey, Prisoners who died in New Jersey detention, United States Army personnel of World War II, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 13 February 2023, at 19:09. FBI agents visited his unsuspecting second wife in Virginia and handcuffed the killer, who was going by the name Robert P. Clark, at his accounting office. Associated With. What did Disney actually lose from its Florida battle with DeSantis? Net Worth in 2021. List laid the bodies of his wife and three children on sleeping bags according to size in the home's ballroom, went to sleep after dinner, and fled the next day. But, during a four-hour interview, he sought to explain how worries that financial hardship would split his family and turn them away from their faith forced him to make a tough decision. This is either the most unbelievable mix-up or .