Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - Religious people aren't all good - The John List story

Episode Date: February 1, 2025

John List murdered his family so that they could get into heaven

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Or even a sane person. Here's an example. So this guy, his name is List. And List has a lot going for him. He has a good marriage. He has three kids. He lives in this huge 19-room mansion. I mean, look at that place.

Plus, he's got a sweet job as vice president for a bank. So bro is doing well. But most importantly, he's very religious. Like, he and his family go to church every week. So you know, he's going to church every week. He's a good person. But one day, everything changes because boom, List suddenly gets laid off from his vice president job at the bank.

And List, he doesn't know what to do. He can't tell anyone that he lost his good paying job. That would be humiliating. So he decides to not tell anyone. He doesn't tell his family. He doesn't tell his friends. Instead, he just keeps going. He wakes up every day.

He gets dressed like he always does. And he tells his family that he's going to work. Instead, he drives to the train station and he just sits in his car and reads the newspaper until it's time to head home. So that his family thinks he's going to work and they don't ask him any questions. And Liss does this for a few months. He just fakes going to work. I guess he's hoping that during this period he'll find another gig to keep him afloat.

I don't know. It doesn't seem like a very good plan. Also, because he's not working, he obviously has no income coming in and his bills start stacking up. particularly his mortgage for that 19-room mansion he and his family are living in. So after months of not working, he owes $11,000 on his mortgage. And this was 1971, so today's dollars he owes about $87 grand. That's a lot of money. So naturally, List starts freaking out.

Like, what's he gonna do? Are he and his family gonna go bankrupt? Is he gonna have to go on welfare? And remember, he's still very religious. So List starts worrying that, he's gonna lose everything and that his family is gonna get so poor that they're gonna turn their backs on his religion and then his wife nor any of his kids will get into heaven. And so this is a big deal for list. Like he can't have his family not getting into heaven.

So he comes up with this insane plan to make sure his fam doesn't get so poor that they turn their back on his religion. Here's the plan. First, he tells everyone they're going on a big family trip, like a vacation. And he stops all the milk deliveries and newspaper deliveries to their home. Then, one afternoon, List is at home, and he gets a couple of pew-pues that he owns out of the garage, and he goes back in the house, and up to his wife, and he points one of them at her, and blam, he unalives her. Then he goes upstairs where his mom is living, because I guess his mom lives in the mansion with him too, and blam, he unalives her as well.

Then he goes downstairs to the kitchen, and he waits for his kids to come home from school. Once they get home, he takes the Pugh Pughs and blam! Blan! He unalives them too. Then he sits down and he writes a five-page handwritten letter to his pastor, and in the letter he explains in detail that he had to unalive his whole family in order to save their souls and make sure they get into heaven. Also, in this letter, he acknowledges that, yeah, he lost his job and he could go on welfare, but then he says he'd have to move out of that 19-room mansion that he loves so.

loves so much and live somewhere that he refers to as undesirable. So this is not just about saving his family souls, it's also that he doesn't want to live in a smaller house. Anyway, then list goes to every family photo in the house and he rips his face out from them so that police won't be able to identify him from his photos. Then he leaves all the lights on in the mansion to make it look like people are still living there and he packs up some of his stuff and he flees. And he travels by train from New Jersey over to Michigan and then all the way down to Colorado and he starts living there. And weeks go by and back in New Jersey, no one thinks much about Liss family being gone. I mean, they were supposed to go on a family trip, so they would be gone.

But then about a month goes by and in the house, light bulbs start burning out and turning off one by one. And the neighbors notice like, I don't think anyone lives there anymore. And so the neighbors end up calling the police. And police come over and they enter the mansion and they find List's families bodies and the five-page letter he wrote so they know who did this. Except there's no trace of him. They don't know where he went. They have no photos to go by so they basically have no leads. Meanwhile, List has been in Colorado, living a brand new life. He changed his identity, he changed his name, he calls himself Bob now. And Bob works different jobs, mostly in restaurant kitchens, keeping quiet, keeping a low profile. And eventually, he ends up living in Denver. And he

settles down there. And he finds work and he joins a local church because, you know, he's still very religious. And after about five years, Bob goes back to working in finance again. I guess he does bookkeeping for a carpet business or something. But that same year, he meets a nice woman at a church gathering and he thinks she is foin and they hit it off and they start dating and eventually they get married now bob obviously doesn't tell her or anyone else his real identity or that he murdered his last family he keeps that a secret but eventually bob and his wife they move from denver all the way over to virginia and there they settle down and they make a nice life for themselves and at this point it's been around 18 years since he unalived his other family and it seems like that

like the world has completely forgotten about the list murders. And dude is never gonna get caught. Until. Alright, now, some of you aren't from the US. Well, in the US, there's a long-running TV show called America's Most Wanted. And on the show, they talk about criminals and people who are wanted by the feds for various crimes. Well, at this time, America's Most Wanted is brand new. It's in its first year.

So everyone is watching it. And one night, boom, the show airs, and they do it. a segment talking about these unsolved murders of this family that happened back in New Jersey 18 years before. And by this point, they figured out that the killer is list. They just don't know where he is. Now, despite him tearing himself out of all those family photos all those years ago, they actually did find some images of him. So they know what he used to look like. And on the TV show, they use those images and they get a forensic artist to make a bust. of what List would look like now, now that he's aged almost 20 years.

And this freaking bust they made, if you compare it to List, it looks almost exactly like him. Like, look at that. Like, that forensic artist nailed it. And so that night, there's this woman watching the show. And she actually used to be List's neighbor. So she sees this America's Most Wanted segment, and she's like, holy shit, that's Bob. That's my old neighbor. And so I guess she calls the police or America's Most Wanted Hotline or whatever.

and she reports that Bob might actually be this killer list. And about two weeks later, the FBI shows up to the accounting firm where Bob works, and bam, they arrest him. Here's his mugshot. And of course, he continues to insist that, no, I didn't murder anyone. My name's Bob. And the feds are like, yeah, sure, List, that's bullshit. But eventually, he confesses, and he's convicted of five counts of first-degree murder,

and he's sentenced to life in prison. And later, at 82 years old, List is in prison and he finally passes away from pneumonia. So. Also, before he finally died, he said that he hopes to be reunited with his family in heaven. Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistant.

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