John Emil List slaughters his entire family in their Westfield, New Jersey, home and then disappears. Though police quickly identified List as the most likely suspect in the murders, it took 18 years for them to locate him and close the case.
John List was an outwardly normal and successful father. A Sunday school teacher and Boy Scout troop leader, List was a strict disciplinarian who insisted his children follow extremely rigid rules.
On November 9, seemingly out of the blue, List shot his mother Alma (above her left eye), his wife Helen (in the side of the head), and two of his children in the back of their heads; he then shot his oldest child, a son, several times in the chest and face. He then left the murder weapon alongside their carefully laid-out corpses.
List had methodically devised a plan so that the bodies would not be discovered for quite a while, cancelling newspaper, milk, and mail delivery to his home in the days leading up to the murder. He then called the children’s schools to say that the family was going to visit a sick relative out of town. By the time authorities discovered the bodies, List had vanished without a trace.
Local law enforcement officials had essentially given up looking for List when the television show America’s Most Wanted began airing in the late 1980s. After a segment about the List murders aired on May 21, 1989, calls began flooding in. Although most of them proved to be unhelpful, one viewer claimed that John List was living in Virginia under the alias Robert Clark.
Indeed, List had assumed a false identity, relocated to the South, and remarried. In 1989, he was returned to New Jersey to face charges for the death of his family. The following year, he was convicted of five counts of murder and received five consecutive life sentences. He died in prison in 2008.
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Duh, this happened in 1971
Fifty years from now history.com will have a story of how two transgender black people built and flew the first airplane from a pyramid their ancestors constructed in Detroit.
See it got changed. Was originally 1981 when it posted
melty,
i caught that also–it goes to the extreme lack of oversight taking place in the headline dept.–hitting the wrong # is a serious offense & it borders on the criminal to allow the article to be posted as it was–
perhaps this blog should be put on probation by the grammar nazi association?
Nah, I’m just weird about numbers. I was reading the article and trying to deduce how 1989-1981 could come out to be 18 yrs on the lamb.
His wife must have been a real battle axe.
List was the real victim here.
That’s what I figured.
He married again? I guess he really was crazy.
everybody deserves a do over–my life,my choice–
he was just years ahead of his time–
what’s the big deal?
Red,
I haven’t seen you post in awhile. Maybe I’ve just missed your comments? Anyway, you got over the Covid ok, I take it?
mostly over it,thanks 4 asking–
smell/taste haven’t completely come back but that’s about it–the worst was the weariness–as far as bad sickness goes,it was gone fairly quickly–keep yer ivermectin close–
i’ve been staying away b/c i have problems in the park–the health dept inspects me 2xyear & i’ve owned it for 20 years,so that is 40 inspections–never any real problems–
i’ve got a bitch for an inspector now & not only is she relentless,she caught me w/several serious violations & if i do not get them corrected soon they are talking daily fines or pulling my license,which wouldn’t happen as long as i show progress but i would like to also avoid the fines–
when i jump on tbp i wind up being here a couple hours plus so i’ve been staying away–
I was 21 when it happened. Remember it well. The guy was wrapped way too tight.
From what I read his wife was a real winner…she had syphilis for all of their marriage .
From Wikipedia:
“List gave critical financial problems, as well as his perception that his family members were straying from their religious faith, as his motivations for the murders. He believed that killing them would assure their souls a place in Heaven, where he hoped to eventually join them.”
See – he was no monster.
He would have made a good doctor with his ”I killed them to save them” attitude.