Criminology - The List Family Murders

Episode Date: September 6, 2020

John Emil List was what authorities term a family annihilator. In 1971, List murdered his mother, his wife, and his three children. A manhunt for List ensued but he was able to allude police for 18 years. It took the help of the television show America's Most Wanted to bring him to justice. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the bizarre and twisted case of John List. How could someone murder the people in their life that they are supposed to care for the most? For John List, he has cited over the years that he was trying to spare his family and the pain and humiliation of financial ruin. Did he honestly believe that in his twisted mind, or, was that just an excuse to start anew and be free from his family and debt? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital Production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 125 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, how are you doing? I'm doing good. How about you? I'm pretty good. I'm doing well. My daughter's home from college, getting ready for Labor Day weekend. So that's awesome. I haven't seen her in a while. She's not coming home as much as she used to

in her second year. So my wife and kids have been in Florida, uh, soaking up the sun down there for a few weeks without me. And I'm, I'm, I'm really missing them. They're coming back this weekend, too. So I'm looking forward to that. We miss them, man. I mean, that's all there is to it. You miss your family when they're gone. We continue to see some great Patreon support more. Let's give some shoutouts. We had Jessica Darla Weil, Frank Kramer, Stacey Carlson, Kat Ann Marie Kelly, which may be four people, Amanda Lai, Erica Road, Alexis, Tamara Payne, and Lucy Fenton. So some great support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, that's really awesome.

That goes a long way and we say it every week. Some of those names I also recognize from social media. They support us on there too, which is really cool. but for anyone that's considering supporting us, you can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. Don't forget about Stitcher Premium. That's where you can find all of the criminology episodes older than six months. So you've got Zodiac, Golden State Killer, Bundy, there's just so much out there.

And they have a free 30-day trial. So make sure you check that out. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of criminology? Let's do it. In this episode, we're talking about. family annihilator John List. In November 1971, John Emile List murdered his entire family in Westfield, New Jersey. Afterwards, List went on the run for nearly 18 years before his ultimate arrest in June 1989. During his time as a fugitive, John List started a new life in Colorado and then

later Virginia. He remarried and lived a simple, average existence until an episode of America's Most Wanted finally brought him to justice. John Emile List was born in Bay City, Michigan on September 17, 1925, to John Frederick and Alma Murray List. John was the only child born to the couple. His father had two other children from a previous marriage to Anna Maria Hubinger List, who passed away in 1923. He married Alma, who was 23 years as junior, in 1924. John Frederick died in 1944 at the age of 80. His son, Johnny List, served in the U.S. Army during World War II,

and later enrolled at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he received a bachelor's degree in business administration and a master's degree in accounting. In the fall of 1950, the Korean War had been raging for several months, when List was recalled to active military service. While stationed at Fort Eustace, Virginia in 1951, he met a recently widowed woman named Helen Morris Taylor, who was 27 years old. Her husband, Marvin Everett, Taylor, a second lieutenant, was killed in action in Korea on April 7, 1951.

Marvin and Taylor had two children together. Brenda Joyce Taylor, born on February 7, 1942, and Kenneth Everett Taylor, born on November 13, 1944. Kenneth died two months later on January 16, 1945. John List and Helen Morris Taylor married on December 1, 195 in Baltimore, Maryland. After his second stint in the Army, John and Helen, along with Helen's daughter, Brenda Taylor, moved to Michigan, where he worked for a Detroit accounting firm. On January 8, 1955, Helen gave birth to their first child together, Patricia, followed by John Frederick on October 21, 1956, and Frederick Michael on August 26, 1958. The List family was growing, and they seemed to be the ideal family.

When Helen's daughter Brenda Taylor got married in 1960, she stayed in Michigan, while the rest of the List family moved to Rochester, New York. John later accepted a position as vice president and comptroller of the First National Bank of New Jersey. It was when John List got this job that things really started looking up for the List family. Soon after, the family moved into a three-story, 18-room mansion located at 431 Hillside Avenue in Westfield, New Jersey. The home was built in 1885 by J.S.A. Whitkey, a wealthy New York City. stationer who named the house Breeze Knoll. At that time, the home was one of the nicest homes in Westlake. But when the List family took ownership, the home was in need of repairs. Shortly after they moved in, one of their new neighbors brought the lists of Pi to welcome them to the neighborhood.

But instead of a thank you, John List told this neighbor that his family were not friendly people. and they didn't like to get involved with neighbors socially. The neighbor left dumbfounded, I think as any of us would in that situation. But true to his word, the List family pretty much ignored their neighbors. John would occasionally talk to one of his male neighbors in kind of an over-the-fence type conversation in the backyard, but really that was about it. Neighbors rarely saw Helen, who many neighbors would later. describe as a recluse.

It wasn't long before another job offer came John List Way, and he accepted a position with American Photographic Corporation of New York City, earning a $23,000 a year salary. That's the equivalent to almost $150,000 today. The pay increase allowed John the opportunity to restore the mansion, but also keep food on the table and pay the bills. But it was just a short while later the economy took a nosedive, and Howlandliss suffered a nervous breakdown. She underwent expensive treatment at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.

John found it increasingly hard to pay the bills. Despite things getting financially difficult, the List family tried to carry on with their lives. The lists were devout churchgoers and members of the Redeemer Lutheran Church where John taught Sunday school. Patricia, who was 16 years old and the oldest List child, was active in her school, theater group at Westfield High School, 15-year-old John and 13-year-old Frederick, both attended Roosevelt Junior High School. The economic downturn continued, and by 1971, John List was unemployed and unable to pay the bills. He spent his days reading and sleeping at the train station, wondering how to get his family out of their financial mess. His thoughts soon became twisted.

And he thought of a way to spare his family from what, in his mind, would be financial shame and ruin. On Halloween, 1971, the list children gave a Halloween party at their home. None of the neighborhood children attended. It was mostly school friends. According to one neighbor, the party was full of fun and laughter, and the kids seemed to have a good time. Little did anyone know that several days later, the laughter would be gone, replaced by tears and shock. John pulled out his 9mm pistol, a souvenir from World War II, and a 22-caliber handgun that he owned. He then purchased ammunition and went to a shooting range for target practice.

On Tuesday, November 9, 1971, John sent his children off to school and then took his two guns out to the car and loaded them. Afterward, he walked into the kitchen where his wife Helen was sitting at the table drinking coffee and shot her from behind, execution style. Next, he went upstairs where his 84-year-old mother, Alma List, was eating breakfast in her bedroom. He kissed her and then shot her in the head. He then placed her body in the closet. He then went downstairs, dragged Helen's body into the ballroom, and then cleaned up the blood with paper towels. So his children wouldn't be startled after coming home from school. After killing his wife and mother, John List went to the post office to stop the family's mail.

Next, he stopped milk deliveries to the home and then went to the bank and cashed Alma's savings bonds. After returning home, John made several phone calls to explain that his wife and children went to North Carolina to visit Helen's ailing mother, and he would join them later. John sat down and ate his lunch at the same table where he had murdered his wife. That afternoon, he coldly waited for his children to arrive. home from school. Patricia came home first, followed by Frederick. John shot both of them and put their bodies next to their mother on the ballroom floor. John Liss Jr. had a soccer game scheduled after school and incredibly after the murders he had already committed. John Liss Sr. went to the game

and watched his son play soccer. After the pair arrived home, John shot him. John shot his his son 10 to 12 times. John Jr. was the only List family member shot multiple times, and it's believed that he may have tried to put up a struggle fending off his father. After lining up all the bodies on sleeping bags in the ballroom, List put music on the internal intercom and meticulously cleaned up the blood. He then sat down and wrote a five-page confession letter addressed to his pastor, Reverend Eugene A. Rewinkle. The details in this letter wouldn't be revealed until 1989. In the letter, he wrote,

I know that what has been done is wrong from all that I have been taught, and that any reasons that I might give will not make it right. John wrote about their financial problems as the main motive behind the killings, and that he was certain by killing his family, it ensured they would go to heaven. He also explained why he shot his loved ones from behind. He wrote, I didn't want any of them to know even at the last second

that I had to do this to them. John gave directions to his pastor to have his family cremated and his mother's body sent back to Michigan for burial next to his father. Then tired after all the carnage, John List went to sleep while the bodies of his family laid cold on the floor. The day after the killings, List searched the house for family photographs, and he tore his face out of every photo. so police could not use them and wanted posters.

That same day, a note dated November 9th was delivered to Roosevelt Junior High School. It said that the list children would be absent from school indefinitely and cited a trip to North Carolina is the reason. Patricia's drama coach was also notified that she too would be away on vacation. About four or five days later, school officials reported that children's absences to the special services, department, which was standard procedure. According to the school superintendent, a social worker made a routine check of the house. Finding no one home notified police of the absences. But nothing further was done. By early December, neighbors of the List family hadn't seen any of them coming or going for quite a while. Newspapers began piling up on the front step, so one neighbor called the police.

On December 7th, 1971, two Westfield police officers, George Zelisnick and Charles Holler, went to the list home. When the two officers peered through a window of the house, they could see a body lying on the floor. The officers then broke in through the door. In the 37-foot-long ballroom at the rear of the first floor, the officers found the bodies of Helen List and her three children. The bodies were fully clothed and lined up in a row on the floor. On the third level of the home, they found the body of Alma List in a closet in her bedroom. All of the victims had been shot to death. John Jr. had been shot multiple times.

Police also discovered a trash can full of bloody paper towels and John lists 9mm semi-automatic pistol, as well as a 22-caliber pistol in a desk drawer. Oh, Morph, we got to take a minute, right, to kind of talk about this. I mean, obviously, the murders were horrible. You hear what was in that letter, and you start to get into a little bit of John List's mindset. It's almost as if in his mind, he felt as though he was putting his family out of, of their misery and the misery being what was to be certain financial ruin. And then think about all the steps that he went to before the murders. And you can even go back to when they moved in,

right? Not talking to the neighbors. I'm not sure if he had any inkling that far in advance. But when you think about it, distancing yourself from your neighbors kind of comes in handy when later on you're not going to want them to be poking around again i'm not sure if he had thought that far in advance or he just didn't like talking to his neighbors that much but you know writing letters and calling the school and and doing all that ripping his face out of all the photographs i mean he had really set down right and thought a lot of this out now the thinking is flawed beyond all get out, but he had done some thinking. Yeah, there's definitely some premeditation to it, no doubt. And I have a hard time just comprehending how anyone could do something so heinous,

especially to their own families, family members. We talk about family in inaliders, and we hear about that in the news. And I've never been able to grasp how someone can do something so terrible to their own family especially. I just, I can't comprehend it. Yeah, no, I'm with you.

I think we all fans of true crime struggle to figure out how a person can make the decision to kill another person. But you take that a step further when you talk about, you know, killing your family or a family member or something like that. To me, that's even harder to. comprehend. I don't know about you, but I get a shades of like the Defeo murders in

Amityville with this kind of case for some reason. And I also can't imagine how shocking a scene it was for these police officers to discover those bodies like that. That must have been something that was etched into their minds. Missing from the scene was the body of John Les Sr. And he immediately became the prime suspect and the unthinkable murders of his own family. Police issued an all-points bulletin for List. A few days later, police found his 1963 Chevy with a parking ticket dated November 10th at New York City's JFK Airport. The FBI was called into aid in a national and international search for John E. List. Authorities stated he could be anywhere because he had plenty of money for travel and he had a big head start. They quickly

discovered that he had siphoned money from his mother's $220,000 safe. account, and upon looking at the list finances, they saw that they also had two mortgages on the house. To police, it seemed as if the two mortgages on the home backed up John List's claims that financial troubles triggered the murders. While police were searching for John List, his family was laid to rest. Four metal coffins were taken to Westfield's Fairview Cemetery for side-by-side burial in a plot purchased by the Lutheran Church. Al-Malist's body was flown to Bay City, Michigan, where she was buried next to her husband, John Frederick List. On Thursday, December 16th, 1971, a Union County grand jury indicted

John List in absentia on five murder counts. The five-count indictment charged that he did willfully, feloniously, and of malice of forethought, kill his mother, wife, and three children on November 9th. One of the chief pieces of evidence was his confession letter. But while all this was going on, John List remained a fugitive of the law. As macabre as it may sound, by January 1972, just months after the List family murders, Westfield real estate agents received a dozen offers to buy the List murder home. One customer called within 48 hours after the bodies were found,

and another inquired two days later. Local kids would sneak into the house and steal souvenirs. Before the home could find a new owner, fate intervened. In August 1972, a mysterious fire destroyed the List family mansion. Fire department officials confirmed that the fire was suspicious, but rumors swirled of witches and satanic cults starting the fire. Well, more if you know, you can't really have a true crime story, hardly back in the day without some talk of Satan,

which is satanic cult, satanic panic. It was there. Yeah, and I mentioned earlier that this case reminds me of Amity of a little bit. And I think it has some of those same tones and that people just had a interest in that house for whatever reason as creep as that may be. Well, yeah. So speaking of that, right, the fact that so many people wanted this house. Now, it was a very nice house from all accounts.

In the suburbs of D.C. A woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. Number one, which emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology

allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now. Listen now. wherever you get your podcasts. 18 room mansion. When you say 18 room mansion,

I think, huh, it's a pretty nice house. My assumption is these people were thinking, this horrible tragedy happened. We're going to swoop in here and we're going to steal this house. We're going to get a steal on it. I don't know if it was so much of people wanting to be connected to the murders.

My thinking is that it was more, they just thought they were going to swipe this house for next to nothing. At the end of September 1972, newspapers reported that authorities tried to determine if the murders had any link to a local witch coven or witchcraft group thought to exist in the area. Patricia List had several books on witchcraft and on September 19th, 16-year-old Jeanette De Palma's body was found atop. an inaccessible cliff in a quarry in Union County just miles away from the list home. She had been missing for six weeks.

Local newspapers reported that she may have been a victim of an occult sacrifice and that pieces of wood were crossed on the ground over her head. More wood had framed her body like a casket. However, investigators found no link between Jeanette's murder and the murder of of the List family, and they continued the hunt for John List. But it was as if he had just vanished. His trail went completely cold. Weeks without List being arrested turned to months, and then to years. For almost two decades, there was little progress in the List family murders investigation, and investigators still had no idea where John List might be. In May 1989, the show America's

Most Wanted aired a segment on the List family murders. Before filming, producers of the show contacted Frank Bender and commissioned a bust from him. They wanted viewers to see how John List would look nearly 18 years after the murders, hoping someone out there would recognize him. Bender created Bust working from old photographs, and despite John List trying to destroy his own photos, the authorities were able to obtain some of their own of List. Using those photos, Frank Bender created a sculpture of abalding, loose-gilled figure.

He felt a man like List would most likely wear glasses with thick black rims. And he added a pair to the bust. And more if I think you and I have talked about it. We both watched America's Most Wanted back in the day as well as many other shows. But America's Most Wanted always captured my attention. It was a storytelling. I think it had something to do with John Walsh too and the way that he delivered things. But this is one that I distinctly remember.

remember. I remember them showing the bust of what John List might look like at that point in time. I remember it very vividly as though I just watched it yesterday. And I can't tell you about a lot of episodes of America's Most Wanted, but this one in particular really stands out. Yeah, it stands out for me too. And I remember that episode as well, for whatever reason, that's one of the episodes I remember the most and probably one of the first shows I saw where they used a bust and really presented in 3D what someone might look like that they were looking for all those years later. I think Morif that was probably also the first time that I learned about the list murders was probably from America's Most Wanted.

After the show aired, a woman named Wanda Flannery in Denver called the Hot line number and said that the bust looked like a former neighbor of hers named Robert Clark. One source said a woman called to report the figure also looked like her neighbor in Virginia. The FBI checked out these leads and on June 1st, 1989, after being on the run for nearly 18 years, FBI agents arrested John Emile List at his job in Richmond, Virginia. In New Jersey, former Westfield Police Chief James Moran was eating lunch with the current police chief. Anthony Scootie, when Scootie's pager went off, Scootie turned to Moran, grinned, and said, we got John List. It turned out that Frank Bender's sculpture captured John List's look to a tee, even down to the thick black-rimmed

glasses. The resemblance was really uncanny. John List was. John List was held in a Henrico County Virginia jail until he was extradated to New Jersey. After his arrest, details of his life on the run emerged. After killing his family in 1971, John parked his car at the JFK airport in New York City. He did this to make authorities believe he had gotten on an airplane and was long gone. In reality, he took a bus into the city. Armed with a fake social security number, he journeyed across the country by train to Detroit and then to Denver. did little to change his appearance other than dyeing his hair. He lived in Denver for 11 years, initially taking cooking jobs to earn an income. By 1972, he was working as an accountant again.

List joined St. Paul's Lutheran Church in 1975 and became an active member, even serving as its treasurer in 1984 and 1985 at a church singles party in 1977. He met 40-year-old Dolores Miller. They dated for several years before he moved in with her in November 1985. They married a month later. The two were very similar. Both were quiet, reserved people who were devoted to their religion. In April 1986, John List, aka Robert Peter Clark, was laid off from his accounting job. Dolores worked as a clerk at the Fitzsimmons Army Medical Center, but her salary was not

enough to support them both. For a year and a half, List, aka Clark, was unemployed. In late 1987, he answered an ad from a Virginia employment agency that set up interviews with a Richmond accounting firm, and soon after, he got the job. In February 1988, List, going by Clark, left Denver and moved to Midlothian, Virginia, a suburb of Richmond. That's where he started his new job just as the company was preparing for tax season. Delores joined him four months later. Despite the new job, the couple still had financial problems. To make ends meet, List moonlighted for H&R Block, while Dolores worked one day a week in hair salon. After her husband's arrest, Dolores remained devoted to him to the man she knew as Robert and refused to believe that

the man she loved and married was a cold-blooded killer named John List. He had told Dolores that he was married before, but that his wife had died of cancer before he moved to Denver. And that's a situation morph that I can't imagine many people are prepared for, right? You meet someone. I mean, these two dated for years. Then they moved in together. They married. They even moved across the country.

They had a life together. And then all of a sudden, Dolores is told that the authorities believe her husband, Robert Clark, I've got my hands in quotations here, killed his entire family. I don't know how you process that. And it's pretty obvious that she didn't believe it. So processing it for her just wasn't happening. I think a lot of people would probably be in the same boat. And I actually wonder if him being caught when he did might have saved her life.

Because as we know, they were still going through financial problems. and his solution in the past when there were financial problems wasn't declare bankruptcy and build your credit back up. It was, I'm going to kill these people and move on and build it up that way. It's just something that I have to wonder if that could have been her fate. Well, that's exactly what I was thinking, you know, as we were going through that piece. And I was also kind of up in the air about why they were having financial problems. Okay. She had a job. He had a job. I get it. He was laid off. But even while he had this job that he moved to Virginia to take, they were having financial problems. So was he not good with money? That was a question that kind of came up for me. But I'm right with you. She had to think later on that, wow, I maybe could have been his next victim. The man going by Robert Clark refused to. He refused to think later on that, wow, I maybe could have been his next victim. The man going by Robert Clark refused to admit his true identity to authorities, but he had the same scar behind his ear as John List did.

But it was really when they compared fingerprints that the charade came to an end. Robert Clark's fingerprints matched those of John List. There was no question about it any longer. Dolores had married a cold-blooded killer and the hard truth sank in. for her at that point. At the end of June 1989, New Jersey Governor Thomas Keene requested that Virginia returned John List to stay in trial in connection with the murder of his five family members in 1971. List arrived at Newark International Airport at 1230 p.m. on Thursday, June 29th, 1989, and was transported in handcuffs to the Union County Jail in Elizabeth. In mid-February, 1990,

as the trial approached, John List lawyers unsuccessfully tried to bar prosecutors from using evidence taken from the List home and John List confession letter. jury selection began in mid-March and lasted several days. The trial was expected to receive a high volume of publicity. Dozens of reporters from across the country were expected to be there. The high-profile case prompted defense attorneys to file a motion to close pretrial hearings to the public, and another motion for change of venue. They claim that John List couldn't get a fair trial in Union County. Superior Court Judge William Wertheimer denied both requests. One of the witnesses at trial was retired Westfield Police Detective Robert J. Bell,

who led the initial murder investigation. According to the Associated Press, Bell identified five notes, found taped to a file cabinet and some desk drawers addressed to John List's insurance agent, the estate's administrator, and Reverend Eugene Ray Winkle. There were also letters scrawled on yellow paper that included notes to the children's schools explaining that the family had to leave town. So obviously these were things that the authorities had collected during their investigation, some inside the List family home, and then some that they had tracked down to the individuals that List had mailed the letters to, another witness was Patricia List's drama coach, a man named Edwin Ileano. He testified that while he was driving

Patricia home one day, she told him her father implied that he planned to kill her and her family. Ileano said Patricia was sobbing and on the verge of hysteria. When Patricia, began missing rehearsals, Ileano started driving by her home. He said he told Lists pastor and police chief James Moran, but they did not take the threat seriously. So more if I think you can take from this, that at the very least, Patricia was concerned. And it also kind of lets us in on the fact that, you know, John List had been at least thinking about this, planning this for quite some time before it actually occurred. And then, you know, what do you say when a citizen goes to the chief of police and says, hey, I think we have a serious issue here. You know, this girl's frightened. She believes that

her father may attempt to kill not only her, but her entire family. I think at the very least, can we get a welfare check? Can the police go out and, you know, talk to the father? I guess for me, I would expect that at a minimum. Yeah, you have to wonder if somehow that had been done, if this all could have been stopped. And I applaud the drama teacher for doing the right thing. Even today, I mean, we're going back in time here, but even today, school officials and teachers are taught to look for signs of abuse or problems at home. And if they see anything, it's their duty to report that. And this happened in this case. And it didn't go anywhere in this case. Well, it's a good point that you're making, Morph. I mean, and I think we have to look at,

you know, 2020 versus 1971. In 2020, with everything that we know, we take threats, especially at school, you know, teachers, coaches, things like that, they take threats very seriously. And I think the police in 2020 would take a threat like that and follow up on it. Now, did they not take it seriously in 1971? Obviously, they didn't in this case because they didn't do anything about it. I don't know if that would have been the same in every jurisdiction, but obviously it happened here. It turns out that Ileano went to the List home on the night their bodies were discovered by police. Retired patrolman, George Zaliznick, one of the two officers who entered the home, testified that he saw a suspicious car in the driveway that turned out to be Ileano's car when he arrived at the List home.

He also said that when he entered the house, he was followed by his partner and two of Patricia List friends. But one of these friends may have actually been Ileano. Court testimony also revealed that Helen List was dying of syphilis and had already been blinded in one of her eyes. Helen contracted the disease from her first husband Marvin Taylor, who was killed in the Korean War in 1951. Union County Assistant Prosecutor Eleanor Clark said that although Helen had the disease when she married List, it was likely dormant and therefore not contagious. The big moment came when John List himself took the stand and told the court that he murdered his family because he thought they were, quote, falling away from the church, and he wanted to save them, and because he could no longer financially support them. Before the state rested its case after presenting almost 40 witnesses and 138 pieces of evidence, expert witnesses described all the wounds that killed the victims. All of the victims, except John Jr, were killed by a single gunshot.

shot wound to the head. The forensic pathologist who performed the autopsies on Alma, Helen, and Patricia said they were killed by a single shot that entered on their heads left side. Under cross-examination by attorney Elijah Miller Jr., the pathologist acknowledged that he could not establish where the killer was standing when he fired the shots. Andrew Nardelli, a forensic scientist with the New Jersey State Police, testified bullets from both guns were removed from John Jr.'s body. The autopsy were revealed he was struck in the face, head, chest, neck, and right ring finger. State Police Captain Richard Tidy told the court that a comparison between the signed confession letter and other writings of John List were found to be written by the same

individual. On April 12, 1990, the jury found John Emile List guilty on five counts of first degree murder. Judge Wertheimer revoked lists $5 million bail and scheduled sentencing for May 1st. The judge would then decide whether the sentences would run concurrently or consecutively. If it was the former, List would be eligible for parole after only 14 years and 11 months. During sentencing on May 1, 1990, John List broke down and asked for forgiveness. List said, I wish to inform the court that I remain truly sorry for the tragedy that happened in 1971. I feel that due to my mental state at the time, I was unaccountable for what happened. I ask all those who were affected by this for their forgiveness, their understanding, and their prayers.

Judge Werheimer wasn't impressed by the man's words. and said, his acts stand as a permanent, pathetic, and profane example to the potential of a man's inhumanity to man. They will be not soon or easily forgotten. And the name of John Amil List will be eternally synonymous with concepts of selfishness, horror, and evil. Judge Wertheimer then sentenced John List to five consecutive life terms in prison, guaranteeing that he would spend the rest of his life behind bars. List showed no emotion as his sentence was handed down. The packed courtroom erupted in applause and one man shouted to List,

burn in hell. In June 1993, John List lost an appeal. When a state appeals court upheld the 1990 murder conviction, he filed on the grounds that the prosecution's use of his confession letter violated the priest penitent privilege. In May 2001, prison mental health professionals diagnosed John List with post-traumatic stress syndrome because of what he experienced in combat with the 86th Infantry Division during World War II. In 1995, List unsuccessfully appealed his convictions based on that argument. In 2001, John List agreed to an interview, which

journalist Connie Chung that aired in February 2002. During the interview, List said he was waiting to be reunited with his family in the afterlife. John List said, 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. You know, what happened? 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. When Connie Chung asked him why he didn't take his own life after he killed his family, List told her, it was my belief that if you kill yourself, you won't go to heaven. So eventually I got to the point where I felt that I could kill them. Hopefully, they would go to heaven. And then maybe I would have a chance to later confess my sins to

God and get forgiveness. List also knew that he broke one of the ten commandments, thou shalt not kill. He said he knew when he killed them that it was wrong, but it had to be done. It was the only way to save them from financial hardship. And morph right there. I think that's one of the things that really perplexes people about this case. Okay, you have someone murdering their family. That's unbelievably hard to understand. But when the motive, the reason is given as I wanted to save them from financial

hardship, I think that adds another layer that is even harder to understand. I get it. Financial hardship, it's not fun. A lot of us have been there at one point or another in our lives, but would you rather battle through some financial issues or lose your life? I think that's a no-brainer for most people. Yeah, I think you hit the nail right on the head. A lot of us have been there with financial hardships, but most people don't take this way out. They don't kill their family and blame it on finances. And I wonder if that's just a excuse that he used in this instance, that it was really covering something else that was really going on underneath. Well, I also thought about this. So the motive could have been financial, but it wasn't

to save his family from the stress of, you know, living under these financial hardships. It was, I've got to get myself out of this. And here's the way that I'm going to do it, right? I'm going to siphon from my mother. And then eventually, I'm going to have to skip town. So I'm going to kill everybody and then make a clean break of it. I think you can definitely look at it that way too.

Yeah, that's important because this wasn't a spur of the moment, heat of the moment decision. where this happened. He put a lot of planning into this and getting away with it, even going as far as to take his face out of photographs so that he couldn't be identified later on. But I want to go back to something he said at his sentencing in 1990, which was that because of his mental health issues, he should not be held accountable for his actions. Okay. Fast forward to 2001. He's talking to Connie Chung and saying, yeah, I knew what I was doing. So I mean, you know, it's one of those things where killers, in my opinion, most of the time, will say just about anything in an attempt to get out from under what they've done when they're about ready to go away or, you know, stay in prison

for the rest of their lives. John List was on the run for nearly 18 years. Ironically, he he served the same amount of time in prison. John Emile List died on March 21st, 2008, from complications from pneumonia. He was 82 years old. His place of burial is unknown. Not long after his arrest in 1989, authorities suggested that John List may have been D.B. Cooper,

who vanished in 1971 after parachuting from a hijacked jet. John List is one of any number of few. people suspected in the D.B. Cooper case said John Iyer, a FBI spokesman in 1989, he will be investigated until he is eliminated. And I think at issue was the fact that John List somewhat resembled the composite sketch of D.B. Cooper. Furthermore, List had spent the last $200,000 of his mother's savings account shortly before the killings. And we know that D.B. Cooper, demanded and received $200,000 before parachuting from the plane near Mount St. Helens in Washington State. So again, looks like the sketch of D.B. Cooper, you've got this $200,000 number that he siphoned off of his mother.

It happens to match the demand amount by D.B. Cooper. List denied any involvement in the D.B. Cooper case when FBI agents interviewed him. The D.B. Cooper case is still unsolved, 49 years later. And there have been a lot of possible suspects in that case. It's a case that Mike Gibson and I covered on true crime all the time unsolved. Some believe D.B. Cooper died a long time ago. John List and his family's murders have been featured in books and documentaries. John List was one of the inspirations for the character Kaiser Soze in the 1995 film, The Usual Suspects.

Helen Morris, List daughter, Brenda Joyce Taylor, Arnold, died in 1993 at age 51. She's buried in a Michigan cemetery. And I just watched that movie Morf maybe two nights ago. It is one of my favorite films. I love everything about it. And I kind of see where people would make the connection between, you know, John List and Kaiser Soze a little bit. you know, a guy that is kind of larger than life, a mythical figure, you know, I'm not trying to ruin the movie for anybody that hasn't seen it, but kind of a guy that does things and then just disappears into the wind. Yeah, I think one of the lines in the movie and poof, he's gone.

It's one of my favorite movies, too, a great cast. And if anyone out there hasn't seen it, definitely go watch it. Well, and that's exactly what John List did, right? Poof, he was gone. So morph, you know, as we wrap up, this is a very well-known case. You know, the America's most wanted tie-in, probably one of the most famous episodes that they did. And then I think you have kind of what we've already talked about, which is just the, you know, how could somebody do something like this to their wife, their children, their mother, and for the reason that they did it.

And you said something earlier, you know, this wasn't a heat of the moment type thing. This wasn't, you know, a guy that walks in on his wife in the middle of having sex with another man and snaps. Okay. I'm not saying that's right. This was far from that. I mean, this was so thought out, so premeditated. I just don't know how in somebody's mind they come to the conclusion. that this is the only way out for them. Or, as John List had said, this is the only way out for his family. That's what he believed. Yeah, we cover a lot of disgusting scumbag people that do horrific things. We talk about everything from the Golden State Killer and the horrible things he had done to Ted Bundy to just every scumbag of.

of the sun and they're all terrible. But for some reason, people that do the most horrible things to the people they love, I just, I can never understand that. I don't know how anyone could do that to anyone, let alone their spouse or their children. That's just, it's beyond me and I'll never understand it. Yeah, you and I have both covered a lot of cases. And I've said in a number of different episodes, some of the most troubling for me have been family type murders, right? Children killing their parents or one of their parents or parents killing an entire family, as John listed. Those really, really get to me.

Thanks goes out to Debbie Buck at TruecrimeDiva.com for writing and research assistants in this episode. If you love the show and you haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating. Make sure you tell all of your friends who are into true crime about the podcast. You won't believe how far word of mouth goes. It's a huge lift for the show. If you're on social media, we'd love to hear from you. You can find us on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by searching for our Facebook discussion group, which is Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans. So that

is it for our episode on the list family murders, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode of criminology. So from Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.