Murder, Mystery & Makeup - John List - Family Man To Americas Most Wanted? 18 Year Case

Episode Date: January 25, 2022

Hi Friends! Today I wanted to talk about John List and wow, no words. We need to bring back Americas Most Wanted. I don't have TV so if its still on, forgive me, but dang if it wasn’t for that show , who knows what would’ve happened !   I love and appreciate you guys so much, please be safe out there! Love love love you. xo Bailey Sarian 

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Today, I'm just gonna talk about this guy named John List. Have you heard of him? Well, you're about to. And the guy is messed up. John List, he was born in Bay City, Michigan. His father, whose name was also John List, I'll just call him father. He was a devout Lutheran and a Sunday school teacher.

John List, the son, he also became the same thing as his father. So a devout Lutheran and a Sunday school teacher. In 1943, he enlisted in the US Army and served as a laboratory technician during World War II. And then in 1946, he was discharged and he enrolled at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. And he earned his bachelor's degree

in business administration. And then he got his master's degree in accounting. So this John List guy, if you haven't caught on, he's pretty smart. He seems to be really good with numbers. He seems to be all there for the most part. I mean, we don't really know. Everything's going well, right?

Wow, cool. November of 1950, the Korean War escalated, and John was recalled to active military service. And then in Virginia, where he was stationed, he met Helen Morris Taylor, and she lived nearby with her daughter, Brenda. I guess the two of them just hit it off. They fancied each other other and then they started dating.

Not long after, they got married on December 1st, 1951 in Baltimore, Maryland and the family moved to Northern California. Wow, a lot of moving, huh? It's always strange to me because, this is a side note, it's always strange to me because like I've never really like did a big move at all in my life. Maybe I should move more.

Cool story, Bailey, wow. So then in 1952, John List had completed his second tour in the army, and he then started to work paper company in Kalamazoo, which, side note, I had no idea Kalamazoo was a real place. Oh my god, I'm being a little so dumb. I'm gonna visit. There's so much I need to learn, you guys.

Anyways, so Kalamazoo, great, awesome, love that. So while living in Kalamazoo, that's where John List and his wife, Helen, kind of settled in a little bit more, and they started a family. So they had three children. In 1959, it seemed like the marriage was kind of going south. It's reported that Helen, she was an alcoholic. She was becoming just very unstable. She was angry.

She was jealous. And she seemed to just take a lot of her anger out on John. Okay, so do you remember I said Helen had a daughter already before she got married to John and her name was Brenda. So in 1960, Brenda married and she ended up leaving the household and the rest of the family ended up moving to Rochester, New York. John took a job with Xerox, a lot of moving happening, right? And a lot of different jobs, but it seems like really good jobs, right? So then in 1965, he accepted a position at a bank in Jersey City.

So again, he moved with his wife and children, and also John's mother moved in with him, but they moved into this Victorian mansion called Breeze Knoll. This Victorian mansion is so extra, like wow. A 19 room Victorian mansion. It's beautiful, it's huge. I don't know what you would do with 19 rooms, would love to know.

So from the outside looking in, John seemed to be the perfect family man, right? And as we all know here, it's all a lie. To his coworkers and stuff, it seemed like he had this awesome life, awesome family, amazing house. But a lot of his co-workers would say that he was aloof. I love that word, aloof.

That he was aloof, cold man, and he had little to no friends. People would say that John lacked social skills. And because of his lack of social skills, it was the reason as to why he jumped from job to job because he actually was losing jobs. He was getting fired. A couple of times he got like a promotion, but it wouldn't last long. He just couldn't seem to like talk to people.

Before everything went down, John would leave every day to go to work. You know, everyone thought he was going to people. Before everything went down, John would leave every day to go to work. You know, everyone thought he was going to work. So John would leave the house and he would go to the train station. And that's as far as he would get. He would go to the train station and then he would sit there and he would spend his day reading the newspaper. But really, John had lost his job. Instead of just telling his family that he lost his job, he was just like, I'm gonna go to the train station, just sit there all day reading a newspaper, just reading in general,

and then I'll come home at the end of the day so they think I was at work. Great plan. John was doing this for a while and like the stress was just building up because bills are due and who pays the bills? John, everything falls on him. He's just getting more and more stressed about this and being honest is just way too hard for people, you know?

So the mortgage was behind on payment and I mean, then John finds out that the foreclosure process has begun and John knew he was about to be exposed as a failure he's been lying and he needed to figure out a plan and boy did he make a plan kill him a fucking zoo so get this you ready buckle in kitty cats it's a wild ride so on November 9th of 1971, the children had left. They had gone to school. Helen, John's wife, is sitting in, out of the 19 rooms, I guess she's like sitting in the breakfast room or whatever. You know, she's sitting there.

She's having her coffee. John came up behind her and he shoots Helen in the back of the head. Once John knew that indeed his wife was dead, John headed up the stairs to his mother's room. Alma, who was 84 at the time, and she was living, they called it the attic. It was just like the, you know, the top room of this mansion, her own little area. John heads up the stairs to his mother's room. He goes into her bedroom and he shoots her right above her left eye. Now by this time, it's a little bit afternoon and his daughter Patricia who's 16

and his son Frederick who is 12, they arrive home from school. And you guessed it, John sadly shoots both of his children in the back of the head, no words. Now at this point, John even later will say, I'm sorry for laughing, every episode, there's like a moment of just like, what the fuck where I have to laugh, but hear this.

So John shoots his wife, his mom, and his two kids so far. And after this, he's like, you know what, I'm kinda hungry. So he goes into the kitchen and he makes himself some lunch and he eats this lunch. How you eat lunch after just murdering your family, that's a different level of crazy. That's a level of crazy that I don't wanna know.

What, what? He made like a bologna sandwich. The hell are you doing? John, no. So once John had finished his lunch, he then drove to his bank and he closed both like his account and his mother's bank account. He also went into his mother's savings account,

took out all of her money, then John headed to Westfield High School and this is so sad, but he watched his oldest son, John Jr., who was 15 at the time, but he watched him play in a soccer game. Yeah, again, this is a special kind of crazy. Once his son is done with the soccer game,

he drove home with his son. They're just driving home like normal. And I guess John is just acting calm, cool, collected, like nothing happened, which is, ooh. John Jr. walks into the house and then sadly, John shot him in the chest and the face. John will later say that he shot him so many times because this young boy had multiple shots.

And the reason that he shot him so many times was because he tried to resist and he tried to run away. And John just shot him repeatedly until he was because he tried to resist and he tried to run away. And John just shot him repeatedly until he was sure that the boy was dead. So I guess this was John's plan. Now, okay, like this is how sick some people are. And how, I don't know, you guys. This is what's weird.

Like this is the stuff that really just gets my brain so confused and wrapped up in all of this because it's like, what, how, why, what? There's so many questions. So then John calls the kids' school and he tells them that they're gonna be away for a while. So they're gonna be absent and not to worry. Now, John considered himself a very religious man.

So after killing his whole family, he then sits down and he wrote a five-page letter to his pastor after committing the murders, which was later found on the desk in his study. Now, on this five-page letter, it was essentially a confession. And he explained he was attempting to save his family's souls because then it was the 1970s and he believed it became a very sinful time. John said that he believed his family was giving in to temptation, especially because his daughter came forward to John and his wife and said that she wanted to become an actress.

And John viewed that occupation as corrupt and linked to Satan. Now, side note, I don't want anyone to think I am singling out religion at all and making it about that. Whether you agree or disagree, I'm not pointing the finger at that at all, because I know that there are a lot of good people

who have good intentions when it comes to religion and what they believe and all that stuff. And I'm not trying to get into that at all because I know a lot of people tend to think that I am trying to point the finger at religion and that's like never been the case. I just kind of mention their life. Being Lutheran was like a big part of this guy's life

and his reasoning was that. Does that make sense? Because there's been like a couple videos where people are like, you shouldn't make it about the religion. I'm like, I'm not, it's just played a big role in their life and I'm talking about their life. Because again, there's a lot of good people out there who are in these churches or whatever religion and then there are some bad seeds who ruin it for everybody

if you are lutheran i am not singling you out and saying your people are bad at all i truly believe in my heart there's a lot of good people out there and unfortunately there's some bad ones is what i'm getting at okay thank you telomizu so john then put the bodies of his wife and his children in sleeping bags i've also read that he put them on top of sleeping bags, regardless, sleeping bags were involved. And then he moved them all to like the floor of the mansion's ballroom. When you walk into the front door,

they were all right there based off of photos I saw, but he moved them all into the same room, the ballroom. He left his mother's body upstairs in the attic where her room was at. I guess he gave up trying to move her downstairs. I'm laughing because of how ridiculous this is. Now he was doing this like all throughout the night, apparently.

I think at some point he went to bed. The next day when he woke up, he decided he needed to cut his picture out of all the family portraits in the house when police did show up eventually one day and they needed a photo for the wanted poster that they were sure gonna draw up. They wouldn't have a reference as to what he looked like

and who he was. So he went through every single photo in the house, the photo drawer or whatever, and he cut himself out of every single photo. After doing that, John then turned down the thermostat in the house so it was freezing to preserve the bodies and also to prevent a smell from happening. Correct me if I'm wrong on that, but I'm pretty sure that's what it is.

And then he turns up the radio and then John just vanished. It took nearly a month until police were notified and the murders were discovered. It's said this is mainly because the family really stuck to themselves. They didn't really socialize at all. They didn't really talk to neighbors. They didn't have friends. No one went to go check on them, you know? And then also, John sent letters to like the children's school stating that the family would be visiting Helen's mother in North Carolina for several weeks and that the kids weren't going to be in school. He also called the school to let them know they weren't going to be in school. John had also stopped the mail delivery, newspapers, and milk deliveries. You see, back in the day, milk would be delivered to your front door.

Wild times. John stopped all of that. Nobody's coming to the house at all. Now, the neighbors though, they did notice that the mansion's lights were on day and night. Like they never shut off. They also noticed like there was no movement

happening in the house. They could hear the radio, they saw the lights, but they didn't never saw people coming in and out. They never saw anything. And then finally, the neighbors say that the lights began to burn out one by one by one. So like the upstairs and downstairs and like the lights were just going out.

And once that happened, the neighbors finally called the police. Sometimes it's good to have nosy neighbors, you know? So the neighbors called the police and then the police show up called the police. Sometimes it's good to have nosy neighbors, you know? So the neighbors called the police and then the police show up to the house. They knock, knock, knock, and they're not getting any answer. They peek through the window and guess what they see?

That's when they see the bodies laying on the floor. So police go into the home and they find all the bodies in the ballroom. Unfortunately, it took them a while to find the poor mother all the way upstairs, but they did find her. Then the police launched a nationwide manhunt. Police investigated hundreds of leads without any success. All of the reliable photographs of John

had been destroyed or cut out. So they really didn't even have any idea of what this man could look like. And again, at this point, it had been almost a month. So this John guy, he got a pretty damn good head start. Police then found the family car and it was parked at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City. So police looked into like, did he get a flight? Did he get a ticket?

They could not find any evidence of John buying a ticket or that he boarded a flight at all. So they think that it's just a ruse. So it would take 18 years for police to learn what happened to John. 18 years. Here's what happened according to John and later reports. It said that John left his car at the airport.

So then John had traveled by train and bus. He had traveled by train and bus from New Jersey to Michigan and then to Colorado. So then John settled in Denver in early 1972 and took an accounting job as Robert Peter Clark, aka Bob, which the name of one of his college classmates was Bob Clark. So it's believed that that's why he took his classmates name. And John would say that it was like his friend or whatever. And then they interviewed the friend, the real Robert Clark.

And the friend was like, I have no idea who that is. And then while in Denver, he joined another Lutheran congregation and he ran a carpool for the church members. At one of the church gatherings he met Dolores Miller and he married her in 1985. She had no idea about his past life that his real name was John and all that. February of, the couple then moved to Midlothian, Virginia. I guess in every video I should have like word of the day and have it be a word that I can't pronounce

or I mispronounce because every video, oh, it's all on our teeth. Anyways, so the couple then moved to Virginia where John and his new wife had lived and John was now still using that same name, Bob Clark, which is so weird, because he must have had to like come up with a bunch of paperwork,

because how was he getting these good jobs? And then he just kind of went back to working as an accountant. So John may have like lived the rest of his life in freedom if it weren't for the TV show, America's Most Wanted. Remember? Is that show still on? It should be, because it was pretty damn helpful.

Because this show featured John and the family killings in May of 1989. On the show, they got a forensic sculptor to create a head, a bust they say, showing what John most likely looked like. Now, when America's Most Wanted agreed to feature the John List case, it was considered at the time

to be the oldest case on the program. John had been missing at that point for 18 years. So it was like slim to no chance of them finding it, but hey, it's worth a shot. And then they brought in the forensic artist, Frank Bender, and he's the one who created the bust, what John List would look like to this day. So he made him look aged.

Frank Bender, he had great success in helping capture aging fugitives. He was the best of the best. Now, in order to create a bust of the aging John, Bender went or he consulted with the forensic psychologist in order to make a profile of John. aging John, Bender went or he consulted with the forensic psychologist in order to make a profile of John. His sculpture showed John with like a receding hairline,

sagging jaws and a pair of glasses. And Frank Bender's theory was that John would use glasses to disguise himself as someone more important than he was, which would be proven accurate. And it's nuts how good this guy is, like he was spot on. So the show airs and in Denver, Colorado, a couple was watching and saw the sculpture thing. When they saw it, they're like,

that looks way too similar to our old neighbor. Their old neighbor was John. So when they saw this on the TV, they were like pretty sure that's our old neighbor. So then they called a hotline that they leave on America's Most Wanted and they give a tip and with this tip they were able to locate John. Now when John was arrested he was wearing the exact style of sunglasses that sculpture, forensic sculpture had envisioned and he looked just like it. It was crazy. On June 1st 1989 John was arrested at the San Francisco police station and he was arrested for the first time. that sculpture, forensic sculpture had envisioned. And he looked just like it, it was crazy.

On June 1st, 1989, John was arrested at the Richmond accounting firm after the Denver neighbor viewed the America's Most Wanted broadcast. And John continued to stand by his fake name, that he was Bob Clark. And he insisted that they had the wrong guy. He stood by that for a solid month. You got the wrong guy, my name is Bob Clark and he insisted that they had the wrong guy. He stood by that for a solid month.

You got the wrong guy. My name is Bob Clark. Finally, John was faced with the evidence that they have, which included a fingerprint match with John's military records. And then of course the evidence that they found at the crime scene, which was more fingerprints and shoe prints and stuff like that, hair's DNA.

I mean, he lived there. On February 16th, 1990, my door just closed on its own, oh my God. Anyways, on February 16th, 1990, finally, John confessed his true identity. He was taken to trial and John testified that he was faced with financial difficulties in 1971 after losing his job. Now he didn't want to share this humiliating news with his family so he spent each

work day at the train station reading newspapers until it was time to come home. He ended up taking money from his mother's bank accounts to avoid falling behind on his mortgage which eventually he just ran out of money in general. He goes on to say that he was dealing with his wife's alcoholism, and he really just throws her under the bus, saying that he was also dealing with her untreated syphilis. Now, this is what John says.

By that time, her excessive alcohol consumption and the syphilis had transformed her from an attractive young woman to an unkempt paranoid shut-in that's what john said and he goes on to say that she would frequently publicly belittle john constantly telling him that his sex performance was awful compared to her first husbands john goes on to say that he killed his family to spare them from the humiliation of losing their home and because he hoped they would go to heaven. Psychiatrists say that John never showed any remorse.

He never cried, he never got upset, he never said sorry. Later during the trial, it was confirmed that John suffered from obsessive compulsive personality disorder, and it caused him to consider only two solutions to his little predicament. He could either accept welfare, because he didn't have a job and he was struggling, or he could kill his family. There's no in-between.

John would go on to say that welfare was an unacceptable option, because he and his family would be exposed to ridicule. He would be viewed as a failure and accepting handouts violated his father's teaching. Yeah, well, I think murder would violate your father's teaching as well, but what do I know? So Johns goes on to say with a controlling alcoholic wife and a mother who was just constantly on his case about everything, there was only so much he could handle before he was driven to murder. So finally on October 12th, 1990,

John was convicted of five counts of first degree murder. At his sentencing hearing, he denied direct responsibility for his actions saying, quote, I feel that because of my mental state at the time, I was unaccountable for what happened. I ask all affected for their forgiveness, understanding and prayer, end quote. Geez, the judge was unmoved by this.

He imposed a sentence of five terms of life imprisonment to be served consecutively, which was the maximum penalty at the time. In 2002, John did an interview with Connie Chung. Where's she at? She doesn't do that anymore, does she? And John was asked why he didn't commit suicide. Like if you're gonna kill your whole family

because you're embarrassed, why wouldn't you just kill yourself too, bro? John stated that he didn't want to take his own life because it would forbid him from his entrance into heaven where he hoped to reunite with his family, which I think is such a crock of shit answer because murder is gonna prevent you getting into heaven. Come on, John, you're not thinking.

Finally, March 21st, 2008, John died of complications from pneumonia at age 82 while in custody. Their old mansion is called Breeie's Knoll. It was the home where the murders took place. It was destroyed by arson on August 20th, 1972, which was 10 months after the murders. It's believed, you know, once news got out

that there were murders taking place, that somebody went and like burned it down, which is honestly probably for the better, you know? Which I found this really interesting when i was reading this article it was like destroyed along with this home was the ballroom stained glass skylight which was rumored to be a tiffany original which was worth at least a hundred thousand dollars at the time which today would be worth either about a million or well over a million dollars it's unfortunate that that happened and i a million dollars. It's unfortunate that that happened. And I'm like, you know what's unfortunate?

That the whole family died in the house. Like let the Tiffany stained glass skylight go. A new house was built on the same site in 1974. I wonder if they know what happened. So that is a story about John List and the awful things that he did to his family. It's truly unfortunate that he got to live 18 years of his life out living,

but at least they caught him and he did go to prison. But the whole thing, like that still pisses me off. Thank God for America's Most Wanted. It seems that a lot of men, not all men, okay, I'm not saying that, a handful of men truly believe that murder is easier than divorce. And it's disgusting.

It's so disturbing. That one's crazy. Cause this guy, you would never guess. And I feel like that's one thing we've been learning here on my Monday episodes. The killers never look like a flipping killer. Anyways, I hope that you have a very good day today. Please be safe out there.

Make good choices. Other than that, I hope you have a wonderful day day today. Please be safe out there, make good choices. Other than that, I hope you have a wonderful day. Did I say make good choices? Make good choices. And I'll be seeing you guys later. Bye.