March 25, 2025 • 27 mins
John List was a meliculous planner. He almost got away with murdering his whole family.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Listen to Hudson River Radio dot Com. Don't make us
come and find you.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Linda Zimmerman.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
I'm Brian Harrowitz, and this is.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Murder in the Hudson Valley on Hudson River Radio dot Com.
Good evening, Murder podcast listeners and murder officionados. Brian has
what he has promised h to be a very disturbing
case tonight. I know nothing about.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
It, yep. So for our classic ambushes, I came across
this case and I went, all right, this one needs
a little bit more of a deep dive. And the
more diving I did, the more I'm like, Lynda is
gonna love this.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I don't know how that reflects upon me, because I
love this case.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Well, because you've written so many books that we always
forget to talk about, and I know how organized you
need to be to put everything together. And in the
past we had talked about, like when you have to
write the index for a book, how yes detail oriented
you have to be. Well, our killer today was very
very well organized. Oh I'm not going to say role model,
(01:13):
but very well organized. You might be impressed, all right,
all right, So our suspect's name is John List John
Amil List. He was born in Bay City, Michigan, in
nineteen twenty five. He was an only child. His parents
were devout Lutherans. His father even taught Sunday school. List
(01:35):
graduated high school in nineteen forty three and enlisted in
the US Army during World War Two and worked as
a lab technician, which you're familiar with, right, I think
you have alperienced.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yes, I missed my lab coat and steel tip shoes
and all the gadgets.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
And you didn't work with a guy named John List,
did you not?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
That I know of? All?
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Right? Good, good good. Liszt's father died while he was
in the army in nineteen forty four. He was discharged
in nineteen forty six and went on to earn a
bachelor's degree in business administration and a master's degree in
accounting from the University of Michigan. So a pretty smart guy.
Too bad. He also became a lieutenant through the ROTC.
(02:22):
Not bad. Also, I respect that while he's in school.
In nineteen fifty, John List was recalled to active duty
for the Korean War. He wound up being stationed in
Virginia for a bit, where he met an army widow
named Helen Morris Taylor. Helen had a daughter named Brenda
from a prior relationship. John and Helen got married and
(02:45):
moved to northern California. The Army reassigned List to the
Finance Court because of his background in accounting, which seems
like a good fit. Take advantage the.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Actually putting someone in a position they know.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
What they're doing, they're qualified for. Yeah, qualified. There are
smart people in the military, and there were back then too,
So lizt finished that tour of duty in nineteen fifty two.
He then took an accounting job with a firm in Detroit.
Then he moved to another job at a paper company
in Kalamazoo. While they lived in Kalamazoo, John and Helen
(03:21):
had three more children, and John had been promoted a
number of times at that company. At the paper company, however,
home life wasn't so perfect. Helen had a drinking problem.
But even worse, Helen started to become increasingly mentally unstable
because she had contracted syphilis from her first husband and
(03:42):
didn't bother to tell anybody, including John, the current husband.
Oh wow, yep, syphilis you don't hear too much about nowadays,
But it's a bacterial infection which can now be treated
with antibiotics, but not so much back then, even in
the nineteen fifties. So put a pin in that little
(04:02):
tidbit for now. We get back to that. In nineteen
sixty step daughter Brenda got married and moved away, so
she lived luckier.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Is that a little foreshadowing.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
That is a lot of bit of foreshadowing. Yes, John, Helen,
their kids, John Junior. I don't know if he went
by Junior. Patricia and Frederick moved to Rochester, New York,
where he took an accounting job with Xerox, which was
a huge company at the time.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, good job then, yeah, yep.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
This was kind of unusual in the fifties that he
bounced from job to job. Yeah, you know, it sounded
like it worked in his for his benefit, you know,
he got better and better. But this was after World
War Two when people kind of tended to stick with
the same company, right, So this was a little bit unusual.
But he was working his way up at Xerox. He
worked his way up to the director position, which is
(04:58):
pretty good. In nineteen sixty five, he was offered a
vice president position at a bank in Jersey City, New Jersey.
So he moved his wife, his kids, and his mother, Alma,
to the affluent town of Westfield, New Jersey, if you're familiar,
still an affluent area of New Jersey. They moved into
(05:21):
a nineteen room mansion known as Breeze Knowle at four
thirty one Hillside Avenue. I don't know about you, but
nowhere that I have lived has been named. I guess
my condo complex when I was in my twenties. But
my house doesn't have a name yet, does yours?
Speaker 2 (05:41):
No, we are Bob and I always joke about that,
coming up with the ridiculous names, or we need to
call our home some sort of estate.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Name exactly like spark Plug or something that would suit Bob. Yes,
I can imagine that. Yeah, but this one came with
a name. So that's how big this was. Nineteen rooms.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
What would you nineteen rooms? I'll have to look that
up on Zilla.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Put a plug in that one too for a second
before you zillow it. Okay, welcome back to that. By
nineteen sixty nine, Helen's condition had gotten really bad, with
her drinking and her syphilis wreaking havoc on.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Her tertiary syphilis in her brain.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yes, yeah, I wasn't going to dive too deep into that,
but yes, tertiary syphilis can have physical resultant physical deformities.
You'll see that in some you know, the old medieval
movies and that kind of stuff, you know, And yeah,
it can wreak havoc with your brain too. So this
is when she finally decided to have a thorough physical
(06:42):
exam by her doctor. And this is when John found
out about the syphilis eighteen years after they had gotten together.
Wow mm hm. When John and Helen got married in
nineteen fifty one, most states at the time required a
blood test prior to marriage just for that reason. Yes,
that was always a running joke in like sitcoms of
(07:03):
the seventies and sometimes into the eighties. Oh let's go
get a blood test so we can get married. And
as a kid, I had no idea what they were
talking about. Okay, this is what they were talking about,
and this is why they did that because again, this
is before antibiotics were widespread, you know. So, uh, they
(07:23):
got married in Maryland because Maryland was one of the exceptions,
that was one of the states that did not require
a blood test.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
So you think she did that on person.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
She absolutely did that on purpose. She insisted they get
married in Maryland because I'd be.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
A little suspicious. Why don't you want the blood test? Dear?
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Well, I don't know if she specifically said I don't
want the blood test, but she insisted on going. Okay,
who knows what the excuse was.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Right, And he's not showing any symptoms by this.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Point, not that I know of nothing.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
You would think after all these years.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, yep. And apparently Helen also lied about being pregnant
to pressure John into marrying her. At the time.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Oh this is a sweetheart here.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Isn't she? Isn't she? Yeap. So while this is all
going on, John legitimately worked his way up the corporate
ladder and did well for himself and his family. In
nineteen seventy one, the Jersey City Bank closed and John
wound up getting laid off. Unfortunately, after all those years,
(08:28):
as you can imagine, it was impossible for him to
find another comparable position at that high level. You don't
just walk into vice president and above positions in the
first place. It was unusual that he got offered one
at the bank. At this point, John he felt humiliated.
He didn't want his family to know. Every day he
got up, he got dressed like he always did, and
(08:51):
he left the house, but without his family knowing. He
spent the day going to job interviews, and if he
couldn't line up an interview, he would spend the day
at the Westfield train station reading newspapers until it was
time to go home. Oh, yeah, it is. He funneled
money from his mother's bank account into his, and he
(09:14):
got his kids to get part time jobs under the
guise of maturity and learning about money and all that.
But he was taking that money to the bills, pay
for the bills. Yeah, yep. In John List's mind at
this point, there were only two options. He could either
accept welfare assistance, which he felt would be too humiliating
(09:34):
for him and his family and apparently went against his
father's religious teachings from when he was a kid. Remember
his father was the Lutheran Sunday seacher. Or he could
kill his family, sending their souls to heaven where he
could meet up with them again in the future.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Guess which Oh I think he probably went murder.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Well, we're going to take a break and we're going
to come back and we'll find out right after.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
This Hudson Riverradio dot Com.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Hudson Riverradio dot com.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
We are back, and the choice before us is accept
financial assistance or murder your family.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Right assistance that you are entitled to, that you have
paid into for all those years working the way up
on the corporate ladder, and that's why it's there. To
accept it temporary assistance, and there is no shame in that,
or kill your family. All right, So let's see which
way he went now. John List, being an accountant, was
very meticulous on details. November ninth, nineteen seventy one, he
(10:50):
murdered his family by using his father's Colt twenty two
revolver and his own Styre nineteen twelve nine millimeter handgun.
I know you're into the older ones. I don't.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
I have my dad's cult Revolver twenty two. Okay, beautiful thing.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
All right. I've heard of stiers. I've never seen one.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I don't I'm familiar with them.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
So twenty two's and nine millimeters or smaller rounds but
still do a whole lot of damage.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Yeah, twenty two's tend to bounce around inside the skull
and the body.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Yeah, they'll enter and they don't, they lose velocity very quickly.
They don't have a whole lot of masks, so they'll
enter and bounce around and make scrambled eggs inside and
not necessarily come out the other side.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, so they can be even deadlier than a you know,
yeah something else the thing. Yeah, yep, yeah, But I digress.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
So, while the kids were at school, he shot Helen
in the back of the head. He then shot his mother, Alma,
above the left eye. When two of the kids, Patricia
and John, got home from school, shot each of them
in the back of the head. He then did what
you would normally do. He made himself a late lunch,
as one does, and after that he drove to his
(12:11):
former bank to close out the accounts, his accounts and
his mother's account. He then drove to Westfield High School
to watch John, his son play in a soccer game.
They rode home together where John the father then shot
at John the son. There were multiple shots and misfires
(12:31):
because the son actually tried to defend himself. He was
the only one that saw what was coming and tried
to defend himself. Unfortunately, he wasn't successful. Now, being meticulous,
list laid out his wife and kids on sleeping bags
on the floor of their ballroom.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
The ballroom. In the ballroom, I haven't been in my
ballroom late.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
I haven't found mine yet either. There must I don't
think I do either, you know. I try to keep
bodies off my ballroom floor, which were because I don't
know where it is. Yeah. Yeah, they are a tripping
hazard when you're trying to dance, So you do want
to try to keep your bodies out of the ballroom.
He laid out his mother in her attic apartment in
(13:14):
the house she lived up on the top floor. He
left a five page confession letter on his desk addressed
to his church pastor, which said that he thought there
was too much evil in the world and he killed
his family to save their souls.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Got that, Okay, killing isn't evil.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Oh we'll get there.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Oh okay.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
He cleaned up the crime scenes. He turned on religious
music on the radio, a religious music radio station. He
removed his own photos from all the family pictures that
were hanging around the house.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
It's a lot with nineteen rooms.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Uh huh. Now keep that little tidbit in mind. He
removed all his own pictures. He sent notes to his
kids' schools and to their part time jobs, explaining that
they would be absent for a few weeks visiting their
sick grandmother in North Carolina. Now Helen's mother, his mother
in law, was actually sick at home in North Carolina.
(14:13):
She was supposed to come to Westfield to visit, but
she had to cancel the trip because she was sick.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Because she was sick, that.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Saved her life, because she probably would have been another visity.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Oh sure would have gone too.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
List also stopped mail delivery. He canceled the newspaper, and
he suspended milk delivery, which apparently was still a thing
in the seventies in Westfield, so he suspended milk delivery.
List slept in the house that night and then left
at his usual time the next morning, like he always did.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Okay, So, to the outside world, if they didn't hear
the gunshots, nothing out of the right.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
And you're talking about a neighborhood where houses are far
enough away and the house is probably well built that
there wasn't a whole lot of sound outside, right. The
neighbors didn't see them often on a normal day, coming
and going. You know, it's just that kind of neighborhood.
So with all these precautions, nobody noticed anything out of
the ordinary except and I will give credit to the
(15:13):
neighbors list had turned on all the lights in the
rooms in the house. Nineteen rooms. Remember, like I said,
these lights were on twenty four to seven with nobody around.
And this was in the nineteen seventies, with the old
incandescent bulbs which didn't last very long. So the bulbs
started to burn out one by one in all these rooms,
(15:36):
and that's when the neighbors realized that something was up. Wow,
that was the sign to them that something's wrong. So
the neighbors called the police. The officers were able to
gain access through an unlocked basement window. That was how
they had to climb into the house. They found all
(15:56):
the victims, They found what was going on. So now
national manhunt was on.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Well, how long was this by the time he took
off before they found the body? Talking weeks?
Speaker 1 (16:09):
I believe it was a couple of weeks. I don't
know exactly how long. Okay, yeah it was, it was
a couple.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
It wasn't like that, you know, two days.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
It was weeks, right, right, So he.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Had weeks to take.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Off exactly exactly. So now this manhunt was on lists.
Nineteen sixty three, Chevy and Pala was found at JFK
Airport in New York City, but there was nothing to
indicate that he got on a flight. This is before
you needed to show IDs. Still you could use a fake.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
People were carrying guns on airplanes.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Then they were like you could actually go down to
the gate and wish somebody off or pick somebody up,
you know.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Oh yeah, yeah. I used to have an older friend.
I used to walk her right to the uh the gate,
you know, to help her get on the plane.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Yep. There were no photos of him immediately available because
he took them off. He took them off.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Wow, Okay, that's kind of brilliant right now.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
This is pre digital. It was printed photos and he
had taken them all down, so there were no photos
to share with anybody. He was gone. A few months later,
in nineteen seventy two, we had the dB Cooper Airline
hijacking case that you may recall, and got a parason
jumped off in the storm. So List was considered a
(17:28):
suspect for that for a while because he kind of
fit the description. Ah, but there was no evidence to
support it, and he was dropped as a suspect, so
you can cross that off. He was not dB Cooper.
The house breeze NOL happened to catch fire in August
nineteen seventy two. It was ruled in arson, but no
suspects were ever charged in that.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
So burned out.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Who knows A new house was built there in nineteen
seventy four, so if you zillow it, that's not you're
not going to see the actual house all right.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Doesn't have a ballroom though I need to know that.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
I don't know. But the original house was a standout
because it had a Tiffany skylight that was worth something
like in modern dollars would be close to a million
dollar skylight, which I can't even imagine. But that was
one of the things that made that house notable, was
the skylight. Believe it or not. Yeah, but for now,
(18:26):
John List vaporized gone. So let's find out what happened
to him. After our second quick break, we'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
All right, this is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
We are back to this amazing case. Wow, this guy
did did figure it out.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
He did his homework. He was prepared, you know, I'll
give him that. But did it work? No, not really.
This is what John List actually did. I think he'll
be impressed. He got on a train to Michigan and
then another train from Michigan to Colorado. He moved to
Denver in nineteen seventy two and took the assumed name
(19:17):
of Robert Clark. Now there was a real Robert Clark
who was a classmate in college with him, But the
real Robert Clark never knew John List. He had no
idea who he was. But John List apparently knew who
Robert Clark was and just took that name. So List
slash Clark, whatever you want to call him, did finance
(19:39):
for a box manufacturer, so he got a job. He
got involved with the local Lutheran church as murderers do,
right where he met Dolores Miller. He and Dolores got
married in nineteen eighty five. In nineteen eighty eight, they
moved to Virginia, where List slash Clark took a job
(20:01):
with a small accounting firm. He worked there in obscurity
for a few months, and then in May nineteen eighty nine,
more than seventeen years after the murder, his case was
featured on the TV show America's Most Wanted. Did you watch?
Speaker 2 (20:17):
I think I recall seeing this case there because it
rings the bell now that you mention it, I probably
watched that episode.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Yeah, John Walsh and America's Most Wanted. That was a
game changer in all this because again this was before
cell phones, before digital photos, for social media. This was
a great way to get information out.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
And a lot of people watched.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
It was a very very popular show. Yeah, that is true.
The show featured a clay bust of an age progressed
John List, which turned out to be incredibly accurate. The
sculptor did a great job. An old neighbor from Denver
back when he moved there, recognized and alerted law enforcement,
(21:02):
and on June first, nineteen eighty nine, John List was
finally arrested while he was at work at that little law,
little accounting firm in Virginia. For the next few months,
he consistently denied being John List, insisting that he was
Robert Clark. He was extradited to New Jersey and still
denied his identity. Even after being back in New Jersey.
(21:24):
He finally broke in February of nineteen ninety after being
shown matching fingerprints from his military records back from the forties,
plus some other crime scene evidence. So then he finally
admitted that, all right, he was John List. At trial,
he argued that he was unaccountable for his actions because
(21:44):
of his mental state at the time. That didn't work,
thank god. Yeah, he was found guilty of five counts
of first degree murder. In New York state, first degree
is premeditated. There's other New Jersey were in New Jersey.
I'm assuming it's smaller, so that bumped out the first degree,
and he was sentenced to five consecutive life terms, which
(22:07):
was the maximum penalty at the time. Lists defense filed
an appeal, citing what we would now call PTSD from
his military service. And you're gonna love this is the part.
Your head's not going to explode, but your scout may
do a flip and then like in Looney Tunes and
then lamdback. His defense argued that the letter he left
(22:31):
for his pastor should not have been considered evidence due
to clergy confidentiality. He left it on his desk sitting
out in the open, but it was addressed to his clergymen.
So that should have been considered confidential between him and
the clergyman. That didn't fly either, rightfully, So, so John
(22:53):
List went to prison. He made no public comment until
two thousand and two, when he sat for a four
hour interview with Connie Chung on ABC News. Connie Chung,
if you've never seen her do interviews, is phenomenal, phenomenal.
She does not let people off the hook. She does
not let people weasel their way out. This is the
(23:15):
closest he came to showing any remorse. He acknowledged that
he broke the commandment of thou shalt not kill?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yeah five times, uh huh.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
But he did it to spare his family the shame
of losing their home and to make sure that they
all went to heaven. He said he did not commit
suicide because then he would not get to heaven.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Oh so there was a catch there.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yeah, so the murders were fine. Suicide would be the
sin that would prevent him from going to heaven.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
At that point, he was just waiting to be reunited
with his family. Talk about him, sooner the better, right.
Here's a quote for the interview. His quote, I feel
when we get to heaven, we won't worry about these
earthly things. They'll either have forgiven me or won't realize.
(24:10):
You know what happened.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Oh so maybe since he shot them in the back
of the head, they won't realize. Is that the way
it happened work.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I am, by no means an authority. So this guy
has it.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
He thinks he hasn't figured out that is, And if
it wasn't for America's most wanted, he would have gotten away.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
To have gotten away, yep.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
I mean he got away with it for seventeen years.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah, so he would have died Robert Clark and probably
would have been buried that way. Yeah. Yeah. His quote
went on, 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.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Oh, I don't know about that, because I don't think
your dad killed you. Yes, yeah, I don't know that.
I'd say I.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Would say, hey, Dad, that Thanksgiving in heaven would be
very awkward.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yes, Oh, that's all water under the bridge. I know
you put a bullet in the back of my head,
but I still love you, right not.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Well, he went to prison. John List died of pneumonia
on March twenty first, two thousand and eight, as a
prisoner at Saint Francis Medical Center in Trenton, New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
So he's gone, all right, and in his mind he
was going to have a happy reunion with the murder
the family he slaughtered.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Again. I'm not a religious expert, but I'm going to
guess not so much.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
I tend to doubt it. Yeah, you know why he
thinks he's going to heaven after committing five murders of
his own family. That's okay?
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Then, yep, So that was John List probably one of
our better organized, better planning type murderers that we've ever had.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Again and not for the TV show. Who was going
to catch him? So I would give him an a
for effort on planning his escape and getting on with
his life.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yeah, Yeah, delayed discovered and taking his pictures with him
was the big move. Yeah, I don't think too many
people would have thought of that.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
And spending the night in the house before.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
He left, right, and leaving.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
And taking his son up from from a soccer game,
knowing what he was going to do. Wow, this guy
had everything compartmentalized in his head because of the shame of.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Welfare because it got laid off.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
It got laid off and was a shame to take assistance.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Yep. So I would also guess that he was living
beyond his means. Even a high level banker with a
nineteen room mansion sounds kind of like a stretch, But what.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Do I know? Well, all right then, all right, wow,
I want to take us out. Yes, I definitely want
to go out because this was this was a mentally
draining and mentally emotionally draining one. Well, thank you all
for joining us. If if you want to come back,
please do. If you don't, I understand, we'll see you
(27:24):
again on Murder in the Hudson Valley. If you are
not a victim of murder in the Hudson Valley, this
is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Listen to Hudson River Radio dot Com. Don't make us
come and find you.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Linda Zimmerman.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
I'm Brian Harrowitz, and this is.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Murder in the Hudson Valley on Hudson River Radio dot Com.
Good evening, Murder podcast listeners and murder officionados. Brian has
what he has promised h to be a very disturbing
case tonight. I know nothing about.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
It, yep. So for our classic ambushes, I came across
this case and I went, all right, this one needs
a little bit more of a deep dive. And the
more diving I did, the more I'm like, Lynda is
gonna love this.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I don't know how that reflects upon me, because I
love this case.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Well, because you've written so many books that we always
forget to talk about, and I know how organized you
need to be to put everything together. And in the
past we had talked about, like when you have to
write the index for a book, how yes detail oriented
you have to be. Well, our killer today was very
very well organized. Oh I'm not going to say role model,
(01:13):
but very well organized. You might be impressed, all right,
all right, So our suspect's name is John List John
Amil List. He was born in Bay City, Michigan, in
nineteen twenty five. He was an only child. His parents
were devout Lutherans. His father even taught Sunday school. List
(01:35):
graduated high school in nineteen forty three and enlisted in
the US Army during World War Two and worked as
a lab technician, which you're familiar with, right, I think
you have alperienced.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yes, I missed my lab coat and steel tip shoes
and all the gadgets.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
And you didn't work with a guy named John List,
did you not?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
That I know of? All?
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Right? Good, good good. Liszt's father died while he was
in the army in nineteen forty four. He was discharged
in nineteen forty six and went on to earn a
bachelor's degree in business administration and a master's degree in
accounting from the University of Michigan. So a pretty smart guy.
Too bad. He also became a lieutenant through the ROTC.
(02:22):
Not bad. Also, I respect that while he's in school.
In nineteen fifty, John List was recalled to active duty
for the Korean War. He wound up being stationed in
Virginia for a bit, where he met an army widow
named Helen Morris Taylor. Helen had a daughter named Brenda
from a prior relationship. John and Helen got married and
(02:45):
moved to northern California. The Army reassigned List to the
Finance Court because of his background in accounting, which seems
like a good fit. Take advantage the.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Actually putting someone in a position they know.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
What they're doing, they're qualified for. Yeah, qualified. There are
smart people in the military, and there were back then too,
So lizt finished that tour of duty in nineteen fifty two.
He then took an accounting job with a firm in Detroit.
Then he moved to another job at a paper company
in Kalamazoo. While they lived in Kalamazoo, John and Helen
(03:21):
had three more children, and John had been promoted a
number of times at that company. At the paper company, however,
home life wasn't so perfect. Helen had a drinking problem.
But even worse, Helen started to become increasingly mentally unstable
because she had contracted syphilis from her first husband and
(03:42):
didn't bother to tell anybody, including John, the current husband.
Oh wow, yep, syphilis you don't hear too much about nowadays,
But it's a bacterial infection which can now be treated
with antibiotics, but not so much back then, even in
the nineteen fifties. So put a pin in that little
(04:02):
tidbit for now. We get back to that. In nineteen
sixty step daughter Brenda got married and moved away, so
she lived luckier.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Is that a little foreshadowing.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
That is a lot of bit of foreshadowing. Yes, John, Helen,
their kids, John Junior. I don't know if he went
by Junior. Patricia and Frederick moved to Rochester, New York,
where he took an accounting job with Xerox, which was
a huge company at the time.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, good job then, yeah, yep.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
This was kind of unusual in the fifties that he
bounced from job to job. Yeah, you know, it sounded
like it worked in his for his benefit, you know,
he got better and better. But this was after World
War Two when people kind of tended to stick with
the same company, right, So this was a little bit unusual.
But he was working his way up at Xerox. He
worked his way up to the director position, which is
(04:58):
pretty good. In nineteen sixty five, he was offered a
vice president position at a bank in Jersey City, New Jersey.
So he moved his wife, his kids, and his mother, Alma,
to the affluent town of Westfield, New Jersey, if you're familiar,
still an affluent area of New Jersey. They moved into
(05:21):
a nineteen room mansion known as Breeze Knowle at four
thirty one Hillside Avenue. I don't know about you, but
nowhere that I have lived has been named. I guess
my condo complex when I was in my twenties. But
my house doesn't have a name yet, does yours?
Speaker 2 (05:41):
No, we are Bob and I always joke about that,
coming up with the ridiculous names, or we need to
call our home some sort of estate.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Name exactly like spark Plug or something that would suit Bob. Yes,
I can imagine that. Yeah, but this one came with
a name. So that's how big this was. Nineteen rooms.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
What would you nineteen rooms? I'll have to look that
up on Zilla.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Put a plug in that one too for a second
before you zillow it. Okay, welcome back to that. By
nineteen sixty nine, Helen's condition had gotten really bad, with
her drinking and her syphilis wreaking havoc on.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Her tertiary syphilis in her brain.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yes, yeah, I wasn't going to dive too deep into that,
but yes, tertiary syphilis can have physical resultant physical deformities.
You'll see that in some you know, the old medieval
movies and that kind of stuff, you know, And yeah,
it can wreak havoc with your brain too. So this
is when she finally decided to have a thorough physical
(06:42):
exam by her doctor. And this is when John found
out about the syphilis eighteen years after they had gotten together.
Wow mm hm. When John and Helen got married in
nineteen fifty one, most states at the time required a
blood test prior to marriage just for that reason. Yes,
that was always a running joke in like sitcoms of
(07:03):
the seventies and sometimes into the eighties. Oh let's go
get a blood test so we can get married. And
as a kid, I had no idea what they were
talking about. Okay, this is what they were talking about,
and this is why they did that because again, this
is before antibiotics were widespread, you know. So, uh, they
(07:23):
got married in Maryland because Maryland was one of the exceptions,
that was one of the states that did not require
a blood test.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
So you think she did that on person.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
She absolutely did that on purpose. She insisted they get
married in Maryland because I'd be.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
A little suspicious. Why don't you want the blood test? Dear?
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Well, I don't know if she specifically said I don't
want the blood test, but she insisted on going. Okay,
who knows what the excuse was.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Right, And he's not showing any symptoms by this.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Point, not that I know of nothing.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
You would think after all these years.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, yep. And apparently Helen also lied about being pregnant
to pressure John into marrying her. At the time.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Oh this is a sweetheart here.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Isn't she? Isn't she? Yeap. So while this is all
going on, John legitimately worked his way up the corporate
ladder and did well for himself and his family. In
nineteen seventy one, the Jersey City Bank closed and John
wound up getting laid off. Unfortunately, after all those years,
(08:28):
as you can imagine, it was impossible for him to
find another comparable position at that high level. You don't
just walk into vice president and above positions in the
first place. It was unusual that he got offered one
at the bank. At this point, John he felt humiliated.
He didn't want his family to know. Every day he
got up, he got dressed like he always did, and
(08:51):
he left the house, but without his family knowing. He
spent the day going to job interviews, and if he
couldn't line up an interview, he would spend the day
at the Westfield train station reading newspapers until it was
time to go home. Oh, yeah, it is. He funneled
money from his mother's bank account into his, and he
(09:14):
got his kids to get part time jobs under the
guise of maturity and learning about money and all that.
But he was taking that money to the bills, pay
for the bills. Yeah, yep. In John List's mind at
this point, there were only two options. He could either
accept welfare assistance, which he felt would be too humiliating
(09:34):
for him and his family and apparently went against his
father's religious teachings from when he was a kid. Remember
his father was the Lutheran Sunday seacher. Or he could
kill his family, sending their souls to heaven where he
could meet up with them again in the future.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Guess which Oh I think he probably went murder.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Well, we're going to take a break and we're going
to come back and we'll find out right after.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
This Hudson Riverradio dot Com.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Hudson Riverradio dot com.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
We are back, and the choice before us is accept
financial assistance or murder your family.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Right assistance that you are entitled to, that you have
paid into for all those years working the way up
on the corporate ladder, and that's why it's there. To
accept it temporary assistance, and there is no shame in that,
or kill your family. All right, So let's see which
way he went now. John List, being an accountant, was
very meticulous on details. November ninth, nineteen seventy one, he
(10:50):
murdered his family by using his father's Colt twenty two
revolver and his own Styre nineteen twelve nine millimeter handgun.
I know you're into the older ones. I don't.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
I have my dad's cult Revolver twenty two. Okay, beautiful thing.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
All right. I've heard of stiers. I've never seen one.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I don't I'm familiar with them.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
So twenty two's and nine millimeters or smaller rounds but
still do a whole lot of damage.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Yeah, twenty two's tend to bounce around inside the skull
and the body.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Yeah, they'll enter and they don't, they lose velocity very quickly.
They don't have a whole lot of masks, so they'll
enter and bounce around and make scrambled eggs inside and
not necessarily come out the other side.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, so they can be even deadlier than a you know,
yeah something else the thing. Yeah, yep, yeah, But I digress.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
So, while the kids were at school, he shot Helen
in the back of the head. He then shot his mother, Alma,
above the left eye. When two of the kids, Patricia
and John, got home from school, shot each of them
in the back of the head. He then did what
you would normally do. He made himself a late lunch,
as one does, and after that he drove to his
(12:11):
former bank to close out the accounts, his accounts and
his mother's account. He then drove to Westfield High School
to watch John, his son play in a soccer game.
They rode home together where John the father then shot
at John the son. There were multiple shots and misfires
(12:31):
because the son actually tried to defend himself. He was
the only one that saw what was coming and tried
to defend himself. Unfortunately, he wasn't successful. Now, being meticulous,
list laid out his wife and kids on sleeping bags
on the floor of their ballroom.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
The ballroom. In the ballroom, I haven't been in my
ballroom late.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
I haven't found mine yet either. There must I don't
think I do either, you know. I try to keep
bodies off my ballroom floor, which were because I don't
know where it is. Yeah. Yeah, they are a tripping
hazard when you're trying to dance, So you do want
to try to keep your bodies out of the ballroom.
He laid out his mother in her attic apartment in
(13:14):
the house she lived up on the top floor. He
left a five page confession letter on his desk addressed
to his church pastor, which said that he thought there
was too much evil in the world and he killed
his family to save their souls.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Got that, Okay, killing isn't evil.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Oh we'll get there.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Oh okay.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
He cleaned up the crime scenes. He turned on religious
music on the radio, a religious music radio station. He
removed his own photos from all the family pictures that
were hanging around the house.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
It's a lot with nineteen rooms.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Uh huh. Now keep that little tidbit in mind. He
removed all his own pictures. He sent notes to his
kids' schools and to their part time jobs, explaining that
they would be absent for a few weeks visiting their
sick grandmother in North Carolina. Now Helen's mother, his mother
in law, was actually sick at home in North Carolina.
(14:13):
She was supposed to come to Westfield to visit, but
she had to cancel the trip because she was sick.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Because she was sick, that.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Saved her life, because she probably would have been another visity.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Oh sure would have gone too.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
List also stopped mail delivery. He canceled the newspaper, and
he suspended milk delivery, which apparently was still a thing
in the seventies in Westfield, so he suspended milk delivery.
List slept in the house that night and then left
at his usual time the next morning, like he always did.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Okay, So, to the outside world, if they didn't hear
the gunshots, nothing out of the right.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
And you're talking about a neighborhood where houses are far
enough away and the house is probably well built that
there wasn't a whole lot of sound outside, right. The
neighbors didn't see them often on a normal day, coming
and going. You know, it's just that kind of neighborhood.
So with all these precautions, nobody noticed anything out of
the ordinary except and I will give credit to the
(15:13):
neighbors list had turned on all the lights in the
rooms in the house. Nineteen rooms. Remember, like I said,
these lights were on twenty four to seven with nobody around.
And this was in the nineteen seventies, with the old
incandescent bulbs which didn't last very long. So the bulbs
started to burn out one by one in all these rooms,
(15:36):
and that's when the neighbors realized that something was up. Wow,
that was the sign to them that something's wrong. So
the neighbors called the police. The officers were able to
gain access through an unlocked basement window. That was how
they had to climb into the house. They found all
(15:56):
the victims, They found what was going on. So now
national manhunt was on.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Well, how long was this by the time he took
off before they found the body? Talking weeks?
Speaker 1 (16:09):
I believe it was a couple of weeks. I don't
know exactly how long. Okay, yeah it was, it was
a couple.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
It wasn't like that, you know, two days.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
It was weeks, right, right, So he.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Had weeks to take.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Off exactly exactly. So now this manhunt was on lists.
Nineteen sixty three, Chevy and Pala was found at JFK
Airport in New York City, but there was nothing to
indicate that he got on a flight. This is before
you needed to show IDs. Still you could use a fake.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
People were carrying guns on airplanes.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Then they were like you could actually go down to
the gate and wish somebody off or pick somebody up,
you know.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Oh yeah, yeah. I used to have an older friend.
I used to walk her right to the uh the gate,
you know, to help her get on the plane.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Yep. There were no photos of him immediately available because
he took them off. He took them off.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Wow, Okay, that's kind of brilliant right now.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
This is pre digital. It was printed photos and he
had taken them all down, so there were no photos
to share with anybody. He was gone. A few months later,
in nineteen seventy two, we had the dB Cooper Airline
hijacking case that you may recall, and got a parason
jumped off in the storm. So List was considered a
(17:28):
suspect for that for a while because he kind of
fit the description. Ah, but there was no evidence to
support it, and he was dropped as a suspect, so
you can cross that off. He was not dB Cooper.
The house breeze NOL happened to catch fire in August
nineteen seventy two. It was ruled in arson, but no
suspects were ever charged in that.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
So burned out.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Who knows A new house was built there in nineteen
seventy four, so if you zillow it, that's not you're
not going to see the actual house all right.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Doesn't have a ballroom though I need to know that.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
I don't know. But the original house was a standout
because it had a Tiffany skylight that was worth something
like in modern dollars would be close to a million
dollar skylight, which I can't even imagine. But that was
one of the things that made that house notable, was
the skylight. Believe it or not. Yeah, but for now,
(18:26):
John List vaporized gone. So let's find out what happened
to him. After our second quick break, we'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
All right, this is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
We are back to this amazing case. Wow, this guy
did did figure it out.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
He did his homework. He was prepared, you know, I'll
give him that. But did it work? No, not really.
This is what John List actually did. I think he'll
be impressed. He got on a train to Michigan and
then another train from Michigan to Colorado. He moved to
Denver in nineteen seventy two and took the assumed name
(19:17):
of Robert Clark. Now there was a real Robert Clark
who was a classmate in college with him, But the
real Robert Clark never knew John List. He had no
idea who he was. But John List apparently knew who
Robert Clark was and just took that name. So List
slash Clark, whatever you want to call him, did finance
(19:39):
for a box manufacturer, so he got a job. He
got involved with the local Lutheran church as murderers do,
right where he met Dolores Miller. He and Dolores got
married in nineteen eighty five. In nineteen eighty eight, they
moved to Virginia, where List slash Clark took a job
(20:01):
with a small accounting firm. He worked there in obscurity
for a few months, and then in May nineteen eighty nine,
more than seventeen years after the murder, his case was
featured on the TV show America's Most Wanted. Did you watch?
Speaker 2 (20:17):
I think I recall seeing this case there because it
rings the bell now that you mention it, I probably
watched that episode.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Yeah, John Walsh and America's Most Wanted. That was a
game changer in all this because again this was before
cell phones, before digital photos, for social media. This was
a great way to get information out.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
And a lot of people watched.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
It was a very very popular show. Yeah, that is true.
The show featured a clay bust of an age progressed
John List, which turned out to be incredibly accurate. The
sculptor did a great job. An old neighbor from Denver
back when he moved there, recognized and alerted law enforcement,
(21:02):
and on June first, nineteen eighty nine, John List was
finally arrested while he was at work at that little law,
little accounting firm in Virginia. For the next few months,
he consistently denied being John List, insisting that he was
Robert Clark. He was extradited to New Jersey and still
denied his identity. Even after being back in New Jersey.
(21:24):
He finally broke in February of nineteen ninety after being
shown matching fingerprints from his military records back from the forties,
plus some other crime scene evidence. So then he finally
admitted that, all right, he was John List. At trial,
he argued that he was unaccountable for his actions because
(21:44):
of his mental state at the time. That didn't work,
thank god. Yeah, he was found guilty of five counts
of first degree murder. In New York state, first degree
is premeditated. There's other New Jersey were in New Jersey.
I'm assuming it's smaller, so that bumped out the first degree,
and he was sentenced to five consecutive life terms, which
(22:07):
was the maximum penalty at the time. Lists defense filed
an appeal, citing what we would now call PTSD from
his military service. And you're gonna love this is the part.
Your head's not going to explode, but your scout may
do a flip and then like in Looney Tunes and
then lamdback. His defense argued that the letter he left
(22:31):
for his pastor should not have been considered evidence due
to clergy confidentiality. He left it on his desk sitting
out in the open, but it was addressed to his clergymen.
So that should have been considered confidential between him and
the clergyman. That didn't fly either, rightfully, So, so John
(22:53):
List went to prison. He made no public comment until
two thousand and two, when he sat for a four
hour interview with Connie Chung on ABC News. Connie Chung,
if you've never seen her do interviews, is phenomenal, phenomenal.
She does not let people off the hook. She does
not let people weasel their way out. This is the
(23:15):
closest he came to showing any remorse. He acknowledged that
he broke the commandment of thou shalt not kill?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yeah five times, uh huh.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
But he did it to spare his family the shame
of losing their home and to make sure that they
all went to heaven. He said he did not commit
suicide because then he would not get to heaven.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Oh so there was a catch there.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yeah, so the murders were fine. Suicide would be the
sin that would prevent him from going to heaven.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
At that point, he was just waiting to be reunited
with his family. Talk about him, sooner the better, right.
Here's a quote for the interview. His quote, I feel
when we get to heaven, we won't worry about these
earthly things. They'll either have forgiven me or won't realize.
(24:10):
You know what happened.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Oh so maybe since he shot them in the back
of the head, they won't realize. Is that the way
it happened work.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I am, by no means an authority. So this guy
has it.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
He thinks he hasn't figured out that is, And if
it wasn't for America's most wanted, he would have gotten away.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
To have gotten away, yep.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
I mean he got away with it for seventeen years.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah, so he would have died Robert Clark and probably
would have been buried that way. Yeah. Yeah. His quote
went on, 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.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Oh, I don't know about that, because I don't think
your dad killed you. Yes, yeah, I don't know that.
I'd say I.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Would say, hey, Dad, that Thanksgiving in heaven would be
very awkward.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yes, Oh, that's all water under the bridge. I know
you put a bullet in the back of my head,
but I still love you, right not.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Well, he went to prison. John List died of pneumonia
on March twenty first, two thousand and eight, as a
prisoner at Saint Francis Medical Center in Trenton, New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
So he's gone, all right, and in his mind he
was going to have a happy reunion with the murder
the family he slaughtered.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Again. I'm not a religious expert, but I'm going to
guess not so much.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
I tend to doubt it. Yeah, you know why he
thinks he's going to heaven after committing five murders of
his own family. That's okay?
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Then, yep, So that was John List probably one of
our better organized, better planning type murderers that we've ever had.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Again and not for the TV show. Who was going
to catch him? So I would give him an a
for effort on planning his escape and getting on with
his life.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yeah, Yeah, delayed discovered and taking his pictures with him
was the big move. Yeah, I don't think too many
people would have thought of that.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
And spending the night in the house before.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
He left, right, and leaving.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
And taking his son up from from a soccer game,
knowing what he was going to do. Wow, this guy
had everything compartmentalized in his head because of the shame of.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Welfare because it got laid off.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
It got laid off and was a shame to take assistance.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Yep. So I would also guess that he was living
beyond his means. Even a high level banker with a
nineteen room mansion sounds kind of like a stretch, But what.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Do I know? Well, all right then, all right, wow,
I want to take us out. Yes, I definitely want
to go out because this was this was a mentally
draining and mentally emotionally draining one. Well, thank you all
for joining us. If if you want to come back,
please do. If you don't, I understand, we'll see you
(27:24):
again on Murder in the Hudson Valley. If you are
not a victim of murder in the Hudson Valley, this
is Hudson River Radio dot com.
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