John Frederick List, a 15-year-old male, did not die of natural causes but was a victim in a familicide. On November 9, 1971, in their sprawling Westfield, New Jersey home, John Frederick, his mother Helen, 47, sister Patricia, 16, and brother Frederick, 13, were methodically shot and killed by their father, John Emil List. The patriarch also murdered his own 84-year-old mother, Alma, who resided with the family. After the murders, John Emil List vanished and successfully eluded authorities for nearly two decades, creating a new life under a false identity.
The crime was premeditated with chilling precision. List, a seemingly devout Lutheran and Sunday school teacher, had been facing severe financial difficulties that he kept hidden from his family. On the day of the murders, he waited until his children left for school before he shot his wife and mother. As his children returned home one by one, he murdered them.
He even attended his son John's soccer game before killing him later that day. List laid the bodies of his wife and children on sleeping bags in the mansion's ballroom. In a five-page letter to his pastor, he explained that he saw too much evil in the world and had killed his family to save their souls. To delay the discovery of his crimes, he had stopped mail and newspaper deliveries and informed the children's schools that the family would be away visiting a sick relative. It wasn't until almost a month later, on December 7, 1971, that the bodies were discovered.
For 18 years, John List lived as Robert 'Bob' Clark, moving to Colorado and then Virginia. He remarried and lived a quiet life, his dark past a well-kept secret. The cold case was reignited in 1989 when it was featured on the television show 'America's Most Wanted.' A viewer recognized the age-progressed bust of List and alerted the authorities. On June 1, 1989, he was arrested in Virginia. Initially, he denied his true identity, but fingerprint evidence confirmed he was John Emil List.
Extradited to New Jersey, List was tried and convicted of five counts of first-degree murder in 1990. He was sentenced to five consecutive life terms in prison. In court, he expressed little remorse, stating he believed his actions were a result of his mental state at the time. John Emil List, the man responsible for the death of his entire family, including his son John Frederick List, died in prison custody from complications of pneumonia on March 21, 2008, at the age of 82. He had stated that he did not take his own life after the murders because he believed suicide would prevent him from being reunited with his family in heaven.
