Then he went downstairs, dragged his wife's body into the ballroom and began scrubbing up the blood so the children would not realize what was going on when they got back from school. His lawyer, Elijah Miller Jr., argues that knowing his wife suffered from syphilis helped drive the deeply religious man over the edge. $1 Million - $5 Million. I thought I was being real clever," he said. A South Carolina jury has found once-prominent attorney Alex Murdaugh guilty on all counts in the deaths of his wife and son. 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. At his trial in 1990, defense lawyers argued that List suffered from PTSD from his military service in World War II and Korea. Born in Bay City, Michigan, List was the only child of German-American parents John Frederick List (18591944) and Alma Barbara Florence List (18871971). "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. He took a break and made himself lunch. They separated in 1973 and he moved . The 54-year-old attorney is standing trial on two counts of murder in the shootings of his wife and son at their . The 14th and final defense witness was the defendant's brother John . Copyright 2023 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Cookie Settings/Do Not Sell My Personal Information. This is not the man I know. Cindy wrote a book about her family, "The Cash Family Scrapbook." Cindy married three times, and shares a daughter, Jessica, with her first husband, Cris Brock. He was the only child born to German-Americans John Frederick List and Alma Maria Barbara Florence List. Want more true crime? 07, 2022, 8:00 a.m. Those who knew List, including in his second life: Kathleen "Kay" Ciarfello, Randy Mitchell, Les Wingfield, the Rev. and more from FamousFix.com. Delores Clark said that she was making her statement reluctantly and that she would have no further comment. 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. During that time, he was associated romantically with a number of celebrities, including a nine-year affair with actress Merle Oberon. He settled in New Jersey and took a job at a local bank. [16] In reporting his death, the New Jersey Star-Ledger referred to him as "The Boogeyman of Westfield. [41] A 2003 episode of the A&E series American Justice also detailed the case and featured an interview with List. John List was a devout Lutheran who lived with his wife, mother and three children. He was portrayed in the 1993 film Judgment Day: The John List Story by actor Robert Blake, who, ironically, was later convicted of killing his own wife. Returning home, he made several calls to explain that the family had gone to North Carolina to visit his wife's ailing mother, and that he was planning to follow by car. The episode, "Murder House", premiered on November 18, 2015. 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. "The body is still at the Mercer County Medical Examiner's Office," said county spokesman Pete Daly. List died in prison in 2008 at the age of 82. List left the bodies of his wife, his mother, Alma, 84, and his children, Patricia, 16, John, 15, and Frederick, 13, and several confessions and apologies in his Westfield home in November 1971 and disappeared for 17 years. "It was my belief that if you kill yourself, you won't go to heaven," he said. 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. Realizing he was overhearing an important conversation between List and his second wife, the young officer took notes and later related what he heard to investigators from New . A deputy sheriff at the Henrico County Jail was tasked with watching John List after his arrest in 1989. He killed Patricia when she returned home from school, then the youngest son, Frederick. The arrest followed Foxs Americas Most Wanted, featuring a sculpted clay bust of Johns age-progressed face. The episode aired on May 21, 1989 (Opens in a new tab), catching the eye of a neighbor who called the police and warned Clark's second wife, who seemed "stunned." (Opens in a new tab) List was . YouTubeAn aerial view of the List family home in Westfield, New Jersey. He simply exploded.'. He defended himself saying that he was not mentally stable. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. They got him down in Virginia.. He was arrested in 1989 after a former neighbor recognized him from a profile on the syndicated TV show America's Most Wanted. [12] Alma's body was flown to Frankenmuth, Michigan, and interred at the Saint Lorenz Lutheran Cemetery. A 1996 episode of the series Forensic Files discussed the List murders. After the June 7, 2021, killings of Maggie . John Emil List was born in Michigan, in 1925, the only child of John and Alma List. "So eventually I got to the point where I felt that I could kill them. Afterwards, he dragged his wifes body to the ballroom and made himself lunch and ate it. List is charged with shooting his mother, wife and three children in their Westfield, N.J. home, and authorities said he left a five-page note detailing the crime. He joined a Lutheran congregation and ran a car pool for shut-in church members. [12] Neighbors noticed that all of the mansion's rooms were illuminated day and night, with no apparent activity within the house. The wife of Robert P. Clark--whom the FBI says is really John List, a man who killed his family in 1971--says his arrest is unbelievable and that the alleged killer is not the man I know.. He worked hard as an accountant at a nearby bank to provide for his family. 'He faced limited options and like a small rubber band, he snapped. BAY CITY, MI Before killing his mother, wife, and three teenage children in his 19-room New Jersey mansion, John E. List began life in Bay City. "The Boogeyman of Westfield", was an American family annihilator and mass murderer who killed five members of his family on November 9, 1971, in Westfield, New Jersey. The List house burned down several months after the List family bodies were discovered there. 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. Additionally, the financial burden on the family was increasing, causing him severe psychological distress. [43], The movie A Killer Next Door, based on the events that led to the capture of John List, was released In July 2020. 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. 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. The first seven episodes of Father Wants Us Dead are available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can subscribe on those platforms to be alerted when new episodes drop every Tuesday through June 21. But back in Denver, his former neighbors did recognize him, and called police. Ideal YouTube Profile Picture: Size, Dimensions, Tricks, and More, Reasons To Invest In A Good Gaming Laptop, Microphone Sound Recording for Live Streaming, Delores Miller Clark: Learn More about John Lists Ex-Wife, Johanna Thiebaud- All about Shania Twains Stepdaughter, What You May Not Know About Gweneth Gonzales Thomas, Richard Thomas Daughter, Linnell S. Nobori: All there is to Know about Ted Bessells Wife, Online Pharmacies Make it Easy to Compare Medicines Prices, Katya Ariel Tylo Personal Life, Net Worth, & More, Isis Rae Boykin, Personal Life and Net Worth, Finn William Leeves Coben Lifestyle and Personal Life. He was 82. He settled in Denver in early 1972 and took an accounting job under the name Robert Peter "Bob" Clark, one of his college classmates (although the real Bob Clark later asserted that he had never known List). 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. The couple later moved to Richmond together . "I finally decided the only way to save them from that was to kill them," he said. He later pursued a masters degree in accounting from the same university and as the Korean War had escalated in 1950, he was recalled by the Army and was commissioned as a second lieutenant, stationed at Fort Eustis in Virginia, where he met his wife Helen. 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[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. A federal appeals court rejected both arguments. Like her sister, Rosanne Cindy inherited her father's musical talent, and by the time she was 16 she was already performing on stage with Johnny and his second wife June Carter. Their faces were covered. The Star-Ledger reporter, who loved to chat about the infamous murderer with the locals on his Union County beat, was grabbing a sandwich for lunch when he got a tip of his own. This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. One tip came from a woman in Richmond, Virginia, who thought her next-door neighbor, Robert Clark, bore a striking resemblance to the bust. All rights reserved (About Us). Then Frederick, 13. "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. John seemingly grew up without incident, reporting a normal childhood with the exception of his stringently religious upbringing, with which he identified wholeheartedly. John died aged 82 in March 2008 of complications from pneumonia while still imprisoned. he is the biggest con man who ever walked the Earth, another unidentified friend told the paper. [11][12], List placed the bodies of his wife and children on sleeping bags in the mansion's ballroom. At a border crossing to Mexico in March 1944, she said she. Assistant Prosecutor Eleanor Clark strongly protested telling the jury of Helen List's syphilis during bitter legal arguments over several days. With his first wife, John Frederick had had a son, William George, who happened to be the same . She had a young daughter from her previous marriage. After the June 7, 2021, killings of Maggie . 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. In 1965, when List and his family moved to affluent Westfield, N.J., he seemed to be a model of suburban success and propriety. John confessed to committing the murders in February 1990. The judge finally overruled her but continued to bar testimony that List's daughter, Patricia, 16, was a practicing witch. [31] Though her health progressively deteriorated, she said nothing to List or her physicians until 1969, when a thorough workup revealed the condition. He had saved the souls of the people he loved. He murdered his mother, wife and three children at their home in Westfield, New Jersey on November 9, 1971. He says he wanted to spare them the shame of losing their New Jersey mansion and to make sure they got to heaven. 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. The man I know is kind, loving, a devoted husband and a dear friend. He also argued that the letter he left behind at the crime scene, essentially his confession, was a confidential communication to his pastor and therefore inadmissible as evidence. Following the end of the war, he resumed his studies and enrolled into the University of Michigan, from where he completed his bachelors degree in business administration. 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. Now, in his first-ever public comments about the 1971 crime, the 76-year-old former Sunday school teacher says he is waiting to be reunited with them in the hereafter. John and Helen began dating and a few months later, Helen revealed to John that she had become pregnant. [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. Unlike the others, John didn't go quietly, his body jerking as List emptied both the 9 millimeter and the .22 into his son. In 2008, John Walsh, the host of America's Most Wanted, donated the age-progressed bust by Frank Bender that played a pivotal role in List's apprehension to a forensic science exhibit at the National Museum of Crime & Punishment in Washington, D.C., whose collection was later moved to Alcatraz East Crime Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. John List (murderer) (1925-2008), American mass murderer. 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. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. 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. John was a strict Lutheran and hence, when he came to know about Helens pregnancy, he right away proposed to her for marriage. 'List believed doing what he did do to his family was allowed because he was sending them to join God and saving them from the embarrassment of having to be on the public dole.'. We have estimated John A. List's net worth , money, salary, income, and assets. . 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. Feb. 20, 2002 -- Thirty years ago, accountant John List methodically murdered his whole family his mother, his wife, and their three children. [13] List also stopped milk, mail, and newspaper deliveries. John Sr. drove to the field and watched him play, then gave him a ride home. [3], In November 1950, as the Korean War escalated, List was recalled to active military service.
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