CHILD WARNING EFFORTPOST John List - Family Annihilator (CW, Photos + Info)

John Emil List lived with his wife, mother, and three kids in a home off of Hillside Avenue of Westfield. He was known as a devout Christian, and regularly attended the local Lutheran Church. He worked as an accountant and was known to be a very successful one at that, able to provide his family with material wealth.

While most people would have seen this as living the dream, the family had some secrets. His wife, Helen, was a distant relative to John. She was also nearly blind from Syphilis from a previous partner. She was unable to walk, and also happened to be the only woman John was ever intimate with. They were married by a ‘shotgun wedding' in response to a pregnancy scare that happened to be false. It is thought John held a lot of resentment over this, and was unhappy in his marriage. On top of this, John and his family were living above their means, causing them to plummet into lower tax brackets. It wasn't long before John left his firm and began selling insurance in attempt to stop this spiral.

Some other struggles involved the children. One problem in particular happened to be 16 year old Patricia Marie, who was involved in marijuana use and theatre, both of which John saw as unchristian.

On November 9 1971, John set his plans into motion. A few weeks prior, he had called a family meeting and asked each member what their ideal funeral was like. In the days prior, he had mailed out letters to friends, teachers, co-workers, etc to cover up why the family would no longer be seen in these places. John started November 9th, as he did any other day, and dropped the kids off at school. When he returned, Helen was having breakfast in the kitchen, where he shot her in the back of the head with a .22 caliber.

He then made his way to the attic, where his 84 year old mother, Alma, stayed and gave her a kiss. He then shot her in the back of the head as well. Afterwards, he want out to complete some chores, such as stopping the mail. After returning home, he ate lunch.

Later that day, he picked the kids up from school and when entering the house, shot Patricia in the back of the head as well. He then executed his 13 year old son, Freddie.

While all of the previous murders had gone smoothly, this was not the case for his 15 year old son, John. John has noticed what his father was doing before he could surprise him, and after the first shot John was not dead. List stood over his son's body and shot him over and over in the heart as he thrashed on the ground, with both the .22 and a nine millimeter he had also been carrying.

John then arranged his family's bodies in the family ballroom, all in sleeping bags. He left notes with each body to explain why he did it. He left his Mother in the attic, the note explaining she was too heavy for him to move to the ballroom.

John managed to cover his tracks well enough to delay the finding of the bodies until December 7th, when one of Patricia's drama teachers came by to check on her. He discovered the family in the ballroom and called the police.

A manhunt was immediately started for John, as he had not only confessed in these notes, but left the bodies and the murder weapon. His car was found in a parking lot at Kennedy Airport and the trail was lost.

17 years later, investigators still had nothing but dead ends. This was until May 21, 1989, when they took a shot in the dark by airing an episode about John on Americas Most Wanted. That night, a man named Robert P. Clark was attending a church in Midlothian, Virginia.  While he was there, several friends of his were calling the hotline set up to take leads phoned in by viewers. They recognized their friend the same man. This ‘Robert' was married, and swiftly arrested.

His lawyer persuaded him to admit he was John List, so they could attempt to prevent damaging evidence from being admitted to the case. His attorneys painted him as a man who had religion forced on him, pushing him to insanity. his lack of remorse, premeditated escape plans, and the coldness of the notes found lead to a life sentence conviction on April 12, 1990.

John died in Prison on March 21st, 2008 due to pneumonia.