The List Family Murders
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Hi everyone, this is episode number five of Forensic Tales. As always, I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell. And this week, I have a truly bone-chilling case that will leave you questioning absolutely everything. It's a case that took law enforcement 18 long years before they were able to even make an arrest in the case.

And it wasn't until investigators decided to combine two unlikely things to crack the case wide open. Art and forensic science. Oh, and a little help from a popular television show you might have heard of. America's Most Wanted. America's Most Wanted

Our story this week begins in the early 1970s in Westfield, New Jersey. The List family consisted of John List, his wife Helen List, and their three young children, Patricia, John List Jr., and Frederick.

In 1943, John List did as many young men did at this time and enlisted in the U.S. Army where he served in the infantry as a laboratory technician during World War II. John List was a devout member of the Lutheran Church and followed his father's footsteps in becoming a Sunday school teacher at the family's local church.

He was very well educated, earning a bachelor's degree in business administration and even a master's degree in accounting. During his time in the army, as the Korean War escalated, he met his wife, Helen Morris Taylor, a widow of a fellow officer who was killed in action while fighting in the Korean War. Helen had an older daughter, Brenda, from a previous relationship.

and the two married on December 1, 1951. After leaving the Army in 1952 and serving two tours in the war, John worked for an accounting firm in Detroit for a brief period of time, then worked as an audit supervisor at a paper company in Kalamazoo. During this time, John and Helen had three children together.

By 1959, John was promoted to general supervisor of the company's accounting department, and things were going really, really well for his career. From everything that I read about this period, John had a super smooth transition out of the military and into civilian life.

I know that many soldiers, especially those that have fought in wars or have seen combat, have a really tough time adjusting. But again, by all accounts, it seems like John was super successful and really thriving in the accounting industry. His wife, Helen, on the other hand, was having a much harder time adjusting.

Remember, she's already a widow by this point in her life, and who knows what else might have been going on. Personally, I can't even imagine what it would have been like to become a widow at such a young age. So this is when Helen started to drink, and she started to drink a lot. Everything I read while researching this case suggested that Helen was definitely an alcoholic by any standard.

Just one short year later in 1960, Helen's older daughter, Brenda, decided to move out of the List family home largely due to Helen's heavy drinking and the family dynamics at the time. This is also the point the family up and moved to Rochester, New York, because John received a job offer from the big company of Xerox.

On the outside looking in, it would seem as though John List and his family were really the ideal American family. John seemed to be a successful businessman, and as I mentioned before, the family was super religious. John would spend his Sundays teaching Sunday school at the local church, and the family would never miss a Sunday service.

John's mother, Alma, even moved in with the List family and shared the 19-room Victorian mansion in Westfield, New Jersey. Alma actually lived in the upstairs part of the home that they had turned into basically a private little residence for her to live in.

I must say, this 19-room mansion they lived in was absolutely gorgeous. I'll post a picture to my website, ForensicTales.com, so you guys can check it out for yourself. So this is how things remained for the List family for several years, until late 1971. The morning of November 9th, 1971, began just like any other winter morning.

John dropped the kids off at school while Helen and his mother Alma stayed at home in the mansion. After dropping the kids off at school, John sat in his car for a moment. He took out one handgun and then another. Before getting out of the car, John List loaded both handguns. He then drove back to the Victorian mansion, walked inside where his wife Helen was in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee.

He slowly walked up behind her and shot her once in the back of the head, killing her instantly. John then made his way up the staircase towards the upstairs apartment where his 84-year-old mother Alma was sitting at the table eating breakfast. He shot her once in the head, killing her instantly. Helen and Alma wouldn't have even known what hit them.

After killing his mother, John returned downstairs where he dragged his dead wife into the ballroom and began scrubbing up the blood in the kitchen so that when the children returned home from school, they wouldn't know anything about what had happened either to their mother or to their grandmother. Shortly after killing his wife and mother, John did some pretty unusual things.

Now, I certainly don't know exactly how someone is supposed to act after killing two people, especially their own wife and mother. But what John did next is extra strange and pretty terrifying if you ask me. His first stop after killing Helen and Alma was to the post office where he dropped off several letters and notices. Then he made a quick stop at the bank where he cashed his mother's savings bonds.

No one working at the post office or at the bank had any idea what John List had done to his family. Once John returned home to the mansion, he made several phone calls to friends and family, telling everyone that the family had made a last-minute decision to go to North Carolina to visit his wife Helen's mother, who was extremely sick at the time.

He told the family and friends that the family was going to head to North Carolina first and that he was going to follow in the car soon after. He made a special point to call the school that the kids attended and told the school administration that they shouldn't expect the kids in school for a while because they would be visiting their very sick grandmother. Okay, pause.

Before I get to exactly where this story is going, what John is doing here is basically the textbook definition of premeditation. He has obviously put in a ton of thought into doing this. The reason why John made a trip to the post office earlier that morning was to actually shut off the majority of the household bills like the milk delivery and the newspaper.

He cashed his mother's savings bonds to secure a large sum of money, and now with him calling friends and family and the kids' school to let them know that they won't be around the house for a while is just another huge step in planning and executing his evil plan. If that's not cold-blooded, premeditated murder, I don't know what is.

Okay, so after John makes these phone calls, I kid you not, I couldn't even make this part up even if I tried, and I have heard some pretty wild and crazy things while researching these cases. John List sat down and actually ate lunch at the same exact kitchen table where he shot and killed his wife just a few hours before.

Like nothing ever happened. This next part is just even more awful. That same afternoon, John waited for the children to return home after school. One by one. 16-year-old Patricia, or Patty as she was called, came home first. John shot and killed her right upon entering the home. She wouldn't have even known what happened.

Then 13-year-old Frederick was next. Then finally, 15-year-old John Jr. All three List children were shot and killed almost instantly at the hands of their very own father. John then lined up the four bodies in the ballroom of the mansion. Now it's believed that John left his mother Alma in her apartment at the top of the house.

Now, I'm not exactly sure why this is. The only thing I read was that his mother was quite heavy, and it's quite possible that John just wasn't able to physically bring his mother down into the ballroom with the rest of the bodies. After John moved the bodies, he began to write a five-page letter addressed to his pastor. I haven't actually been able to get my hands on the actual letter or a copy, of course, of it,

But he basically told his pastor that he saw too much evil in the world and that he killed his family in an attempt to save their souls. John begins to make his way from room to room. And along the way, he cuts out his own face from each and every one of the family photographs in the house. And I mean every single photo.

There wasn't a single photo in the mansion that John didn't cut up. I don't know or don't understand the reason why John decided to do this. I think my best thought is that he did it essentially to erase himself from the family. The letter itself to his pastor does indicate some feelings of guilt and regret for what he did to his family.

So maybe by cutting his face out of all the family photos was his very own way of just erasing himself out of the picture entirely. The List family murders occurred on November 9th, 1971. It wasn't until almost one month later, on December 7th, that the bodies were discovered.

Okay, I know what you're thinking here. How could no one know that an entire family, two adults and three small children are missing, let alone murdered? Well, let's backtrack a little bit in the story. When John dropped his kids off at school on November 9th, he told the school and their teachers that the kids wouldn't be in class for a couple weeks because they were going to be in North Carolina to see Helen's sick mother.

So the school and the teachers weren't expecting to see the kids for a while. So I would imagine that it really didn't cross anyone's mind when they didn't see them for those couple weeks. And remember, John personally called friends and family and even the neighbors to let them know that the family wasn't going to be home for a while.

So just like the teachers at school, no one really worried because they thought they knew exactly where the family was at. Between November 9th and December 7th, the bodies of Helen, Alma, John Jr., Patty, and Frederick remained in the mansion. Before John List left the house for the final time after the murders...

He left almost every single light on throughout the house. So imagine you're a neighbor of the List family during this time. Each night, you see almost every light on in the house, but you know the family is out of town. So you might be thinking, hey, maybe they just forgot to turn off the lights before they left. I know I'm guilty of leaving a light or two on here and there.

this goes on for days and then it goes on for weeks. Each person who looks at the List house notices the lights on but just assumes no one's home. But then neighbors start to notice that one by one light bulbs are starting to go off throughout the mansion with no sign of the List family anywhere.

Patty's drama teacher was one of the first people to become worried and a little bit suspicious about where the family was. By this point, the kids had been out of school for nearly four weeks. And to the drama teacher, this just didn't seem right for any kid to miss this much school, even if it was to visit a sick grandparent.

So the teacher decided to make a trip to the list house and see for himself what was really going on. The teacher knocked on the front door. No answer. So he knocked again. And still, he got nothing. Ironically, a neighbor observed the drama teacher knocking on the front door and kind of snooping around the house. And the neighbor actually thought that the teacher was trying to break in and burglarize the house.

So the neighbor decided at this point to call the police on the snooping teacher. Police arrived at the house just a few minutes later and confronted the drama teacher. They quickly realized the teacher wasn't trying to burglarize the house, but had wanted to see if the kids and the family were okay. The teacher explained to the police that the kids haven't been in school for weeks and no one has heard from any members of the List family.

After learning that no one has heard from the family in weeks, the two police officers decided to break into the house and perform a wellness check on the family. As soon as they stepped foot into the house, the awful, overwhelming smell of death immediately hit them.

Personally, I have not worked around dead bodies before, and even when I had the opportunity to visit and tour the county morgue here, they do a pretty good job of sanitizing the entire place to get rid of the smell of death.

But from everyone I know who has been around dead bodies, especially those that have been there for a while, they all tell me that death just has this distinct and overwhelming smell to it. So these officers who first encountered the house, the smell of bodies that have been there for almost a month must have just knocked them straight to the ground.

But the smell of death wasn't the only thing that officers would encounter inside that Victorian mansion. Upon entering the house, police officers could hear the faint sound of music playing from the ballroom of the residence. And as they made their way through the house and into the kitchen, they saw dirty clothes just thrown around the middle of the floor.

But as soon as the police officers saw what they believed to be dried blood, they quickly found out the pile of dirty clothes was much more than just that. A few moments later, police discovered the bodies of Helen and three small children. As more police officers started to arrive on scene, they began searching the rest of the house and in the upstairs kitchen, they discovered the body of Alma.

All throughout the mansion, the sound of classical music played from room to room. The police also found an envelope labeled, "To the Finder." And inside the envelope was a letter explaining where certain documents could be found to explain the scene in the house. One letter was written by John to his employer, basically explaining to them how they could find new clients.

Other letters were written towards certain family members to explain why he had done what he did to his entire family. The majority of the letters basically said he did it because the family had been struggling financially for a very long time and that John didn't feel like he could ever keep his wife and family happy. He said they wouldn't be happy on welfare and that he had no choice but to murder them all.

This area of town, Westfield, was an extremely safe community, so most of the responding police officers had absolutely no experience with a crime as brutal as this. In fact, there hadn't been a violent crime in Westfield since the year 1963, so law enforcement knew right away that this case was going to gain national headline news.

and they knew they needed to find the only surviving member of the entire family, John List. The List family murders received national attention as the site of the most notorious felony in New Jersey history since the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby. Police immediately began a nationwide manhunt for John List, the only survivor to the murders.

During this time, police investigated hundreds and hundreds of leads, but came up empty each and every time. Remember, all reliable photographs of John had been destroyed when he went around the house cutting them all out. So police could really only go off of physical descriptions of John from neighbors and friends and super outdated photographs to search for their prime suspect.

Shortly after police discovered the bodies, the family car was found parked at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City. But after searching airline records, there was absolutely no evidence to suggest that John List ever boarded a flight. This is the point in our story where things go cold. Things get quiet. Police had to ask themselves, why?

Where in the world was John List? After the murders, John List hopped on a train and traveled from New Jersey to Michigan and then to Colorado. By 1972, he had settled into Denver and took an accounting job under the alias Robert Peter Clark and went by Bob for short.

Side note here, he actually stole that name from a former college classmate of his. From 1979 to 1986, John List carried on living an entirely new life. It's as if his family never existed. The List family was over and done. He was now a new man, Robert Clark.

In this new life of his, he remarried a woman in 1985 named Dolores Miller, a woman he met at a local church gathering. Dolores Miller had absolutely no idea who the man she was marrying really was. The couple lived a pretty ordinary life in the state of Virginia for several years.

Until one day in May 1989, the nearly 18-year-old List family murders were recounted on a popular television program, America's Most Wanted. Another side note here, the year 1989 is actually the first year America's Most Wanted was on television. So it's pretty awesome what happens next.

The episode showed viewers an age-progressed clay bust of how police investigators believed John List would look nearly 18 years after the murders. Remember, investigators didn't have a good picture of John and relied heavily on physical descriptions provided by friends and family. Police had a forensic artist by the name of Frank Bender construct the clay figure and

Law enforcement often use forensic artists and forensic sketches to help identify potential subjects. Forensic art can actually be something that is done by freehand by some artists, or it can be something that's computer generated, or even in this case, made out of clay.

However the art is constructed, forensic art is an amazing technique used for identification, apprehension, or conviction purposes. Forensic art has made such a huge and important contribution to the field of forensic science because it helps law enforcement and the public really be able to visualize the suspect or even the scene of a crime.

It can be used to sketch out a potential suspect described by a witness or even piece together an entire crime scene. And in the case of John List, forensic art was able to visually recreate a sculpture based on age progression principles in an effort to have someone recognize or think they recognize that person. Forensic art is super impressive, you guys.

Even if you just Google forensic art or side-by-side sketches, you'll get so many pictures of real-life sketches and pictures of what artists have been able to recreate. Some of these, you guys, are so impressive. Like, you can barely even tell the difference between the actual photo of the person and the sketch or the drawing. Personally, I'm super jealous of the talent and skills of forensic artists.

So if any of my Forensic Tales listeners out there are great at drawing or sculpting, you should totally get into the forensic art field. Your talent and your skill is greatly needed in the field of forensic science. And who knows how many more cases or cases you can solve by using forensic art.

On June 1st, 1989, less than two weeks after the America's Most Wanted episode that featured the age-progressed image of John List, he was arrested while at work at a Richmond accounting firm. And here's what happened. A Denver neighbor of John was just sitting at home one night, probably flipping through the television channels looking for something good to watch,

and decided to watch the new episode of America's Most Wanted, as many of us have done. I know I have. And as he's watching the episode, he can hardly believe what his eyes are seeing. Right in front of him, on the television, for the whole world to see, he sees his neighbor, John List. The same man he believes is just a nice and normal family man in the neighborhood.

The neighbor immediately notifies law enforcement and tells them, hey, I was watching America's Most Wanted and that guy, that guy that was featured on the show, I know him. He's my neighbor. Even after John List was apprehended by law enforcement, the guy still maintained his alias of Robert Clark for several more months.

He initially denied the murders and told police that it wasn't his family because, of course, he was Robert Clark. But the murders occurred in New Jersey. He was quickly extradited back to Jersey.

And this whole time he's telling police that they've got the wrong man, that he's not John List, he's Robert Clark. But come on, police had his DNA and his fingerprint because remember, John had previously served in the military. So once they were able to successfully identify him as John List, the gig was over.

and he finally confessed to his true identity on February 16, 1990. It was finally time for John List to go to trial for the murder of his entire family. He explained to the jury that the family's financial troubles began in 1971 when the New Jersey bank he was working for at the time had closed down.

After he lost his job at the bank, he was so ashamed to tell his family what had happened. He would pretend like he was going to work each morning, and he would just sit at the Westfield train station, read newspapers, until it was time for him to return home. This whole time, his wife and family just thought he was getting up each morning to go to work.

and in order to continue to pay the mortgage of that beautiful Victorian mansion, he would secretly steal money from his mother's checking account without her even noticing. On April 12, 1990, John List was convicted of five counts of first-degree murder. At his sentencing hearing, John addressed the court and said, quote,

It's unclear at this point what type of mental illness, if any, John List suffered at the time of the murders. Some reports indicate that he was previously diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.

The judge at John List's hearing wasn't moved at all by his choice words at sentencing. The judge actually had some pretty powerful words for John himself. He said, quote, John List is without remorse and without honor. After 18 years, 5 months, and 22 days, it is now time for the voices of Helen, Alma, Patricia,

Frederick, and John Jr. to rise from the grave. The judge ended up imposing a sentence of five life sentences, all of which to be served consecutively. John List would never be a free man ever again.

John List filed an appeal to his conviction, blaming his actions on his mental state at the time of the murders and further blamed his actions on his service in the military. He also made this claim that the confession letter that he left behind in the house was actually addressed to his pastor and therefore should not have been admitted into evidence during the trial.

Just like the judge at the time of the trial and sentencing, the appellate judge didn't agree with John List and denied his appeal for a new trial. The last thing reported to have ever been said by John List to the public was, quote, I wish I had never done what I did. I've regretted my actions and prayed for forgiveness ever since, end quote.

John List died of complications of pneumonia while in prison on March 21st, 2008. He was 82 years old. The List family murders have inspired so many documentaries and movies over the years, including Judgment Day, the John List story, in which the actor Robert Blake portrayed John List, which super important side note here for my true crime addicts,

Robert Blake has been such a controversial person over the years since being connected to several murders, including his former wife. And guys, I 100% plan to cover Robert Blake in a future episode here on Forensic Tales.

Of course, there's also been a really good episode of Forensic Files on the list murders. And even in 2003, A&E actually featured the story on an episode of American Justice. I will post all of these shows and documentaries to my website, ForensicTales.com, so you guys can binge them anytime you want.

Now, you guys, I clearly remember when I heard this story for the very first time, and it was actually while I was riding my bike.

I was training for my second Ironman triathlon, and this is when I first started to really get into listening to podcasts because I had these super long training rides. I mean, 60, 80, 90, even 100 mile bike rides that I was often doing most of them by myself.

And I discovered podcasts at a way to kind of distract my mind from the hours and hours I was spending on the bike training. So I totally remember listening to one of my all-time favorite podcasts, My Favorite Murder with Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff. Shout out to any fellow murderinos out there.

And on one of these long rides, I think I was doing probably 100 miles that day, I listened to them tell the story of John List and the List family murders. And I was just so taken back by what this man did to his entire family. And the strange things that he did afterwards, like leave the lights on in the house and leave this classical music playing.

And I remember thinking at the time just how grateful I was for forensic science and for forensic art. John List started this brand new life for himself after killing his entire family. He was able to live his life as a totally free man for over 18 years.

And if it wasn't for the forensic artist in this case, I know that John would have gotten away with everything. Forensic art finally gave the List family the justice that they so desperately deserve. The artist's ability to visualize and create these age-progressed clay figure that so closely matched how John actually looked even 18 years later is just mind-blowing to me.

I know I said it earlier, but I totally encourage any of my listeners who aren't sure how they can apply their artistic abilities, consider a career in forensic art. Your skill and your talent is so desperately needed in the field of forensic science. So thank you, forensic art, for taking another killer off of our streets and finally bringing John List to justice.

Thank you.

I want to say a huge thank you to all of my listeners. The first few weeks of Forensic Tales has been an absolutely amazing journey so far, and I couldn't have done it without each and every one of you. So please continue to support my show by leaving Forensic Tales a rating with a review and hit subscribe on whatever app you use to listen to your favorite podcasts.

This will help promote the show and get it out there to other listeners who are just as forensic science obsessed as you and I. You don't want to miss next week's episode because I'm going to tell you how a vacuum solved a Utah cold case.

Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.