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The Murders and Motivation of John List
56 Plays4 months ago
John List is the granddaddy of family annihilation cases. Listen up to why he did it and how he got away with it for 17 years before being brought to justice.
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Transcript
Introduction: Season Three Kickoff
00:00:01
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Caroline, are we ready to record our first episode in season three of Hearth, Home, and Homicide?
00:00:10
Caroline
Yes, let's go.
00:00:12
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
All right. Well, here we go. Hello, listeners. I'm Bridget.
00:00:19
Caroline
And I'm Caroline.
00:00:20
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
You are listening to Hearth, Home, and Homicide, a family production about family murders. Caroline and I narrate each story, and Andy is our producer.
Impact of Family Murders
00:00:31
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
As Caroline and I talk about each family murder, we're wanting to see justice unfold for the for the killer, um whatever that may mean, and whatever that may look like. And we especially want to remember that there are victims of family murder and the ripple effect never ends.
Introducing John List
00:00:54
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So Caroline, today we're going to be talking about the granddaddy of Family Annihilators. I think you called him something else.
00:01:03
Caroline
Yeah, like the archetype in my mind, I know he's not in the first case in the United States. But in my mind, he is this archetype of the family and I later because it's, it's so shocking to me literally murdered your whole family and then went off and created an entire life like it never happened.
John List's Early Life
00:01:22
Caroline
That's, I mean, that is shocking. It's chilling.
00:01:26
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Well, yeah, so let's get into it. We're talking about the murders and motivation of John List. The family and I later we're looking at today is John List and who murdered, he who murdered his mother, his wife, his three children. They'd covered it up and ah they were not discovered dead in their house for almost a month because he was so damn clever. He had a clever plan.
00:01:56
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He was able to change his identity in that ensuing month, move away, get good jobs, marry again, and live comfortably for 17 years until America's Most Wanted facilitated his swift capture.
00:02:11
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And there's even a backstory to how that happened.
00:02:14
Caroline
Yep.
00:02:15
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So who was John List? John List was born on September 17th, 1925 in Bay City, Michigan. Liszt was the only child of German American parents. By German American parents, I mean, these were, ah just got here, em immigrants. And then they had John and he was an only child. And um John Frederick Liszt and Alma Barbara Florence were his parents and they were very devout Lutherans. Alma was a Sunday school teacher.
00:02:55
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And in all respects, they lived, I mean, button down, lived by the code of the Lutheran church. That meant a lot of rights, R-I-T-E-S, not just church, but the way you talked, the way you worked, the way you lived, the things you do and the things you do not do. And they were very devout and they raised ah John that
Education and Marriage
00:03:24
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
way. john ah junior
00:03:26
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
alma As I said, was a school teacher and Liszt graduated from Bay City Central High School in 1943. He was smart and he was also considered a little socially awkward. Now today, we might get him some help with that, but that is not what was going on in 1943.
00:03:54
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
When he graduated in 1943, he went straight into the U.S. Army as a laboratory technician during World War II. Well, this tells me that they figured out pretty darn fast that he was smart.
00:04:09
Caroline
Like science smart, yeah.
00:04:10
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yes. Midway through his stand in the Army, his father died. um So now his mother is a widow, and that's going to play a role in our story.
00:04:23
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
After List was discharged in 1946, he enrolled at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he earned a bachelor's degree in business administration and a master's degree in accounting. And he was commissioned as a lieutenant through the ROTC. Now that's kind of like you're in, but you're not in a barracks with people and you're not, you know, on up.
00:04:54
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
like a Fort Benning or something like that. you're youre You've got lesser duties, but he's still kind of in. He's got his toes still in the water. My guess is that List was keen on earning a little money by joining the ROTC. I don't know for a fact, but you know that sometimes happens. Little did he know that the Korean War was about to include the United States of America, and he would be called back to active duty.
00:05:23
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So, you know, here we see and John List is an only child. He's got immigrant German parents, and I would imagine that they were very protective of him. ah He was expected to live a devout life of church. That's all he knew. He was taught to do good, do no bad, no cussing, no drinking, just devotion to God and get into heaven.
00:05:50
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
That is the whole reason that you are on planet earth. You do good, you worship God, you do everything that the church asks you to do and then you go to heaven. To me it is possible he went into the army, this is made to speculate, to extend this kind of structured life and the prescribed ways of being both via the military but more importantly the Lutheran devotion.
00:06:20
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And, you know, I don't know about you, Caroline, but I think he seems right now like a quiet kind of guy, not well socialized, but, you know, not offensive either.
00:06:29
Caroline
Yeah, I mean, I can picture this family as being like I, you know, outside of being American, I'm not an immigrant. My my family came over really, really, really early on and so.
00:06:41
Caroline
You know, I just feel like I've been here, but his parents are first like he's first generation. So his parents are the immigrants. There's that. So, you know, because in the household, then I think there's possibility that the immigrant family is going to be like Americanize yourself, devote yourself to this country, go in the military or, you know, I mean, that the military has historically in all countries been the way in which someone would raise their station in life.
00:07:08
Caroline
So there's all that going in there. And then the religious piece, I mean, that's pretty common in most households. you know I could see him also getting a bit of a shock maybe, or a distaste, a push for the more socially closed off.
00:07:24
Caroline
When you go into the army and like no one is following that, everyone's cussing, everyone's drinking, they're philandering, you know doing what they do.
00:07:30
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Mm hmm. Going to the bars.
00:07:33
Caroline
ah so
00:07:33
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yeah.
00:07:34
Caroline
Yeah so I could see him this being a very shaping point in his life for a couple different reasons.
00:07:42
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I love all of that because those are but my thoughts, too, that, you know, there's a lot to unpack there. But he's, you know, right this minute, he's kind of a quiet guy, not a lot of social skills. But do I think he went on, you know, ah into town?
00:08:00
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
When he was given a furlough, yes, I do. So in no in November 1950, as I said, he's in the ROTC, the war is coming, List is recalled into active duty. When Korea War escalated and List was recalled into active military service, he was stationed at Fort Eustace in Virginia.
00:08:25
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
This was essentially one of the most significant and pivotal moments of John List's life, in my opinion, because he met Helen Morris Taylor.
00:08:25
Caroline
Right. Right.
00:08:34
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And Helen was the widow of an entry of an infantry officer killed in action in Korea. She had a daughter, Brenda.
00:08:46
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
John and Helen dated, and you know things got serious when Helen told John that she thought she was pregnant.
Marital Struggles
00:08:56
Caroline
Uh-oh.
00:08:56
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So, yes, do I think he went into the town? Yes, I do.
00:09:01
Caroline
It makes more sense now. Thank you.
00:09:03
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yes, yes, yes. And, you know, maybe he was fully and over, you know, over the moon in love with Helen. Maybe he was trying to help her, save her, um you know, do the right thing by her once he had sex with her.
00:09:22
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Um, I don't know, but she was pregnant. They immediately got married. Well, uh-oh, John, because that is not supposed to be happening according to Lutheranism.
00:09:34
Caroline
Oh, what and okay.
00:09:36
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yeah, yeah. No wow to wedlock. No, no sex before marriage. No, I don't know, but no, no, no, no, no, John, but yes.
00:09:44
Caroline
Just did it wrong. You just did it wrong is what I'm hearing.
00:09:46
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
um yes Yes. So, you know, I, i don't I mean, this will come up for me in looking at what he did um later.
00:09:58
Caroline
Okay.
00:10:00
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And, you know, is he really a super straight arrow Lutheran?
00:10:07
Caroline
Well, i have a I have thoughts about it.
00:10:07
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
um
00:10:10
Caroline
I think a lot of people who subscribe very vehemently to um what could be seen as like rules and regulations of any religion, right? But they're like the confines, the boundaries.
00:10:23
Caroline
i think I think that creates a lot of problems. I think it creates a lot of conflict internally and you just can't make good decisions when you're in conflict internally.
00:10:34
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
All right, and I but agree with you in my own life, but the flip side of that is all that turmoil that churns in a human being, all they're lifelong as they explore right from wrong and they explore, why am I feeling this way?
00:10:52
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Okay, I feel better now. What happened to my good feelings? Up and down and all of those things.
00:10:56
Caroline
Yeah.
00:10:58
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And when I think about that, sometimes rigid, organized,
00:11:05
Caroline
Yeah.
00:11:05
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
religion can help a person escape some of that because they just go with their code of honor and they never veer.
00:11:13
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But yeah now here we see John List has veered wide by some. I mean, I think it's perfectly biologically normal.
00:11:13
Caroline
That's true.
00:11:24
Caroline
Well, yeah, it's a pretty common story actually, now that we're looking back.
00:11:25
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I mean, you know.
00:11:29
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Oh, yeah. But anyway, John and Helen married immediately that day, you know, or on so on December 1, 1951 in Baltimore, Maryland.
00:11:34
Caroline
but
00:11:39
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
By the time of this day, Liszt had figured out that Helen was actually not pregnant. So, you know, maybe she claimed that, yeah, a little slip, okay, turns out I'm not pregnant.
00:11:47
Caroline
Oh, snap. That's not good.
00:11:52
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Or she may have claimed that she had a miscarriage. I don't know. But whatever the truth, John Liszt began resenting Helen. And I'm not saying that because I see that. I'm saying that because that is in every ah deep dive into John List that the press and writers have ah brought out that he really resented his wife.
00:12:17
Caroline
Well, I could see that as being, yes, very, because if he didn't want to get married and then she says this thing about being pregnant and and but yeah, let's say it's true and let's say she may be scared, but now they're in this thing and they can't get out and he, I i get it. That's a lot. that's ah There's a lot going on there.
00:12:39
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yes, yes. The army, meanwhile, having their mitts on John List, was recognizing that he, man, this guy has superior accounting skills.
00:12:53
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Remember, he's been back, he's been to college now and he's got a master's in business, I mean, accounting and a bachelor's in business administration.
00:12:59
Caroline
Okay.
00:13:04
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So they saw in him a lot of potential for uh for the military and so they are reassigned him to the finance corps finance corps sounds like you don't have to go into battle but yeah yeah yeah not going to do a lot of accounting uh balancing and counting sheet balancing you know in the trenches so anyway they moved uh the family the whole family to cal well but there was just him and
00:13:17
Caroline
I was just thinking that I'm like, God, that sounds like the sweetest spot that the army has to offer.
00:13:37
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Helen at that time to California. After completion of his second tour in 1952, List worked an accounting firm in Detroit. So he left the military. He went um to Detroit, got a job. And then he worked as an audit supervisor at a paper company in Kalamazoo. So this is, he's still say staying in Michigan, but you know he's not ah you know unwilling to relocate.
00:14:05
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
in order to build his career.
00:14:05
Caroline
Yeah.
00:14:07
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Well, go go for it, buddy. Where his three children were born, so they were all born in Kalamazoo. So maybe he felt like, well, now I'm high enough, I'm making an income that is high enough to support a family.
00:14:20
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Let's make some babies. So by 1959, Liszt has risen to general supervisor of the company's accounting department. Whoa, that's a great.
00:14:31
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
that's great
00:14:32
Caroline
Yeah.
00:14:32
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
um He didn't know that there were dark, dark clouds just ahead. Helen had kept a monumental secret from Liszt until they were married and they had children.
00:14:46
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And not only was Helen an alcoholic, but she had become increasingly unstable because she had syphilis.
00:14:58
Caroline
Oh.
00:14:58
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She had contracted syphilis from her first husband.
00:15:02
Caroline
I mean, you just don't get stories like this anymore. i mean
00:15:05
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
No, they at the time they tried to treat her for it, but it was unsuccessful and her decline began rather early in her life.
00:15:19
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Lisk must have felt horribly wronged by her for not telling him this. First you tricked me into marrying you and now you're going to go insane because that is the road to, yeah.
00:15:30
Caroline
Well, yeah. I mean, all of the turn of the century writers in Paris got syphilis, didn't they? And everything like fell off, like all their, I don't know. I mean, I just know it from movies, but that seems like a very serious thing to have kept from someone before even just getting intimate, let alone getting married and get yourself in a situation where you may or may not have been pregnant.
00:15:51
Caroline
like
00:15:52
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And I could not find one word written about whether he had contracted syphilis.
00:15:56
Caroline
What about their kids?
00:15:58
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Well, I know, i you know, on and on. I mean, you know, ah it's just ah it's a real page turner. What this man is going through at this point in his life.
00:16:07
Caroline
Yeah.
00:16:11
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He's successful on his own.
00:16:14
Caroline
Yeah.
00:16:14
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But when it comes to this string of people he's now responsible for, including his mother,
00:16:17
Caroline
help
00:16:22
Caroline
Yeah.
00:16:22
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She's a widow, so he's the only child.
00:16:25
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So he's taking care of her too. And so he's trying to make money as fast as he can. But look at what is happening to him. Now, do I have sympathy for him later?
00:16:25
Caroline
Yeah.
00:16:36
Caroline
Well, I can I can relate to why he's so upset. I can relate to feeling very annoyed at the things around me because of everything I've contributed.
00:16:39
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yes, yeah. yeah
00:16:46
Caroline
Right. Like he he did everything. But like, right. Even though even when he stepped outside the bounds and this is like what happens. I don't know.
00:16:55
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yeah I mean even you know way back then it's not that way back it's I don't want to say way back this 1952 and the years following that and I was born in 55 so just you know this is just yesterday but anyway but but in truth ah not all states and I still don't know if this is true not all states
00:16:55
Caroline
I'd be upset.
00:17:19
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
uh, tested for, uh, sexually transmitted diseases like gonorrhea and syphilis back in the day. And apparently Michigan was on the, we don't test, we just marry you and collect our fee.
00:17:32
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So, I mean, this is what was happening to him. And, um, some states, he would not have been able to marry her, but, or she would not be able to marry anybody in that state.
00:17:42
Caroline
Oh, interesting. Yeah.
00:17:47
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But apparently they were able to get married in Michigan. So, you know, now he and his family were practicing Lutherans attending church and living in a community of ah similarly situated friends.
00:17:59
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I mean, in other words, they they were friends with people from church. um They didn't have a lot of friends, but they were ah they were the friends they did have were from church.
00:18:08
Caroline
I mean, the syphilis thing would make it difficult to have, you know, close relationships with the small community, don't you think? I mean, everybody would know. And then, I mean, at this time, I don't know, this is big to me.
00:18:19
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yeah. Well, this is big. It's big.
Pressure and Pretense
00:18:25
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And you know, so buckle up because there's more to come that is related to ah the syphilis. Just imagine how far from the discomfort zone John List must have been feeling. I mean, we've seen war. My daddy's dead. I got to take care of my mom. Deceit. You're like you're pregnant. You're not pregnant? You have syphilis?
00:18:49
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
You know, I mean, he's got three kids.
00:18:49
Caroline
and then oh yes many
00:18:51
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
that he act I mean, you know, an unwell spouse whom he resented in the first place and did not trust. You know, that is a hell of a lot for anyone.
00:19:02
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But, you know, John was a very rigid person. He was a very orderly person. And his Lutheran beliefs of strict adherence to a clean life were bearing down on him.
00:19:16
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
You know, he's drifting a little too far from the shore here, but he's trying to still be a devout Lutheran and he's trying to make a very good living for his family. So, you know, I get John List part of him. I do. The good thing in his life was his Lutheran faith and his skills and education as a sought after accountant. In 1960,
00:19:45
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
His stepdaughter, Brenda, married and left the household. And a List moved with the remainder of his family to Rochester, New York, to take a job at an accounting services firm. In 1965, List accepted a position as vice president, vice president and comptroller at a bank in Jersey City, New Jersey.
00:20:10
Caroline
Ooh.
00:20:10
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And he moved with his wife, his children and his mother into a beautiful mansion called Breeze Knoll. A 19 room, 19 rooms, Caroline.
00:20:21
Caroline
Too many rooms.
00:20:23
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I have four or five rooms. I can't even, 19 rooms, Victorian mansion.
00:20:26
Caroline
Nine is too many rooms. Nineteen is a success.
00:20:33
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
God, that'd be hell to heat. located at 431 Hillside Avenue in Westfield, New Jersey. So needless to say, this was the highlight of life for John List.
00:20:46
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He was able to do that because he just thought that I've made it. I'm a vice president.
00:20:53
Caroline
Yeah.
00:20:53
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I'm immune to the vicissitudes of life that that have bitten on my hand but behind all the way up to this point.
00:20:56
Caroline
Yes.
00:21:00
Caroline
Yes.
00:21:02
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So he felt pushing.
00:21:03
Caroline
I feel good about this, though, because this is I mean, this is a nice little snapshot into the American dream. It really truly is. You know, you he came from immigrant parents, went through the military, very, very common springboard.
00:21:17
Caroline
And look at him now, 19 room Victoria mansion. I mean, the last time 19 rooms was useful was when you had 18 servants. So I don't think that part will ever make sense to me, but this make this does feel like a very you know enviable American dream story, like really does, syphilis and all.
00:21:27
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Right.
00:21:42
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I mean, that's such a dark cloud that I just, I'm with you. I have to say, oh yeah, I'm a syphilis.
00:21:48
Caroline
Yeah.
00:21:48
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So anyway.
00:21:49
Caroline
It's pretty common back then. Let's be real. I mean that there was a time just a hundred years ago where that was real, real common. So I guess, I don't know.
00:21:56
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
The home, yeah. um Anyway, the home he was living in was a mansion, an estate situated in an upper cross community in the suburbs of Jersey City. And now he had the most prestigious career as a vice president of a staunch and well-established bank. I mean, he was totally at the top of what you're supposed to be in his mind.
00:22:26
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
In the 1960s, banking executives were at the tippy top of the power heap socially. If you had got a job in a bank, it just meant that you might get robbed, but you were perceived as, well, they know they know you're not a thief.
00:22:43
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
you you know They know you're not a lot of things.
00:22:44
Caroline
Right.
00:22:46
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And so you know it was prestigious. And he was just, He was just at the top. Helen and John did accept some invitations, but there was another cloud.
00:23:01
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Well, it's the same cloud. just to ah It's an annex of the of the syphilis cloud because Helen would show up at these parties and she would humiliate him.
00:23:15
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
It was her sport.
00:23:16
Caroline
Oh no.
00:23:17
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She would literally say things like, You know, my first husband, he's dead, but jeez, he was good in the sack.
00:23:26
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Now, the man I'm married to now, probably the guy who was sit she was sitting right next to, the man I'm married to now, oh my God, he doesn't know how to do jack shit. So, I mean, she was off the rails.
00:23:26
Caroline
Oh no.
00:23:38
Caroline
You know, I kind of believe it. they The only but sort of reference I can think of is like Mad Men kind of showed us this where, you know, you'd have these parties in the sixties with the upper crusts of New York elite and they would, they would get so inappropriately drunk and like do weird. And you know, you think that's for the show, but I'm starting to believe that's how adults behaved back then.
00:24:00
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I'm sure it was. I was a child back then and I have no idea now after hosting this podcast with you for now it's going on. It's the start of our third season. I have no idea what my parents were doing.
00:24:13
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I thought I knew what my parents were doing, but I really have no idea.
00:24:20
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But yeah yeah again, you know, again with the clouds that, you know, yeah,
00:24:23
Caroline
Yeah. So she resents him, too, is what I'm hearing.
00:24:29
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And I don't know what he's saying to her, but I know that she was enjoyed um emasculating him in public.
00:24:39
Caroline
Yeah.
00:24:39
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
That was her favorite go to social skill.
00:24:43
Caroline
Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:44
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So obviously they probably started to not get invited places.
00:24:48
Caroline
Yeah.
00:24:48
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And um I mean, you know, if that wasn't enough, poor Jean List, I mean, I'm just going to have to say that in 1965, he's getting punched left and right, but he's a VP of a local prestigious bank.
00:25:08
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So he's thinking, I'm OK if I can just you know ignore all this other stuff.
00:25:14
Caroline
yeah
00:25:15
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
ah But now, John List is going to be weighed down by changes in society all across 1965 Well, the 60s in general, but in the mid 60s, a lot of things happened, not just the Beatles.
00:25:31
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
It was sharp departure from social hierarchy, sharp departure from social norms. This included changes to every denomination of Christianity.
00:25:42
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
The Catholic Church went through, ah what do they call it, a reformation, a ah you know a modernization.
00:25:51
Caroline
yeah
00:25:51
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And all religions were doing that. And so he was having a personal earthquake um ah and his personality that in included awkward social split girls and a very weird wife, which up until now was just passed off as harmless.
00:26:10
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And, you know, now was standing out like a sore thumb in the 1960s. Like, you know, we're starting to look at you, John, and we're just thinking, ooh,
00:26:18
Caroline
Yeah.
00:26:21
Caroline
Like it was a cork at first and now it's making everyone uncomfortable.
00:26:27
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And he was argumentative if anyone at the bank expected him to soften the edges around the strict conventions of accountancy, his manner of reporting out, his ways of reporting out, who he should hire.
00:26:35
Caroline
oh
00:26:43
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
All of these things were changing. Business management was changing. Everything was changing, Caroline. And he became extremely hard to get along with. If someone came up with what we would today called a process improvement or maybe the continuous improvement program or whatever.
00:27:02
Caroline
Yeah, a lean initiative kind of thing.
00:27:04
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Oh, my God. and You know, all the things that, you know, were really a hit. in the 1960s just coming onto to the scene, he was very belligerent to all of his co-workers, anybody who would come near him.
00:27:15
Caroline
Yeah.
00:27:20
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He thought that would insulate him, but then one day he was fired after just a year as vice president of the bank.
00:27:28
Caroline
Oh no, that seems really fast.
00:27:31
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yes, it does seem really fast.
00:27:34
Caroline
Oh my gosh.
00:27:34
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And now remember he was climbing his way up until he got to VP
00:27:38
Caroline
Yeah. Then he bought that house.
00:27:40
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But when he got to VP, it was like a snap. His people at that echelon, you know, it's not about just getting the job.
00:27:46
Caroline
it
00:27:50
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
It's about observing how other people are behaving and adapting to that level of behavior in so far as your values and morals will allow you to do so.
00:27:57
Caroline
Yes.
00:28:04
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
While he did not Do any adapting? This is a non-adaptable man. Or is it? Look at what he has adapted to.
00:28:15
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He has adapted to two wars. He has adapted to losing his father. He's adapted to moving. That's not easy.
00:28:22
Caroline
Yeah.
00:28:23
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He's adapted to being betrayed by his wife not once, but just every day, every day.
00:28:28
Caroline
That's the big one I think. That's the big one because then you got to live it and face it and you're having kids. Like I just feel like that's the one where we need to look closer at the processing of that because her too. I mean it's a two person dynamic in a marriage and so That whole story, I mean, I'd want to get in the weeds because I feel like that's where a lot of this is.
00:28:52
Caroline
You got to live with those emotions every day. You got to like fake them or push them aside every day. You're living with this person, how they're going to speak to you.
00:29:00
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Well, you just get in your you get in your lane and you don't look left and you don't look right.
00:29:04
Caroline
Yeah, I mean, that's.
00:29:04
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And that doesn't work in ah in a ah come coming to be an accepting society.
00:29:15
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
the The boundaries are getting kind of waffled and everything is changing really fast.
00:29:17
Caroline
Yeah.
00:29:22
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Not only that, but you know in this mansion where he lives, it's a three story mount mansion. And his mother has an apartment of her own on the third floor.
00:29:34
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And so what is he getting from his mother? I don't know.
00:29:38
Caroline
Yeah, she would have been real traditional to still, you know, yeah.
00:29:39
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I don't know. Yes, yes. For all I know, she never came downstairs.
00:29:45
Caroline
Right.
00:29:46
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Good for you, Alma. Anyway, so he's been fired, Caroline.
00:29:48
Caroline
Yeah.
00:29:51
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So let's pretend like he's fired um today.
00:29:54
Caroline
It's a big deal.
00:29:55
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I mean, yeah. So the next day, he got ready for work.
00:30:04
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
he ah Is he going to go out and find a job in secret, like he gets ready for work, but he's really out there talking to other executives, talking to business owners, talking to the local um you know ah service clubs?
00:30:11
Caroline
Right.
00:30:19
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
um you know just Is he doing everything he can to make this being fired just a hitch in his get along? No, no, no, no, no. Instead of finding a new job, ah John Lisk really kind of lost it. He didn't tell anyone that he did not have a job. He left home to go to work every day, even though he had no job. He went to the train station every day and he sat on the same bench and he was reading the newspaper and he was
00:30:52
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
plant Planning, what am I going to do? But it didn't occur to him to walk back home, tell his family, we're going to have to tighten our belts.
00:31:01
Caroline
Right.
00:31:03
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I've got to go find a new job. He didn't do that. I want to go back in time and tell John to, John, I see you on the bench there with your newspaper.
00:31:15
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
You need to read the wanted part of the paper. This is back when that's where you went to get a job.
00:31:21
Caroline
Yeah.
00:31:22
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
um Or you need to go do some, what we call networking, where you just go talk to your contemporaries and you know you make connections and you get back up on your feet and you act as if until you make this right and you get another job.
00:31:38
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And you know I'm saying that to him because I've been fired, I've lost my job, I've quit jobs.
00:31:45
Caroline
yeah
00:31:45
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And every time I did, panic drove me from that point forward.
00:31:51
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
and until i want
00:31:52
Caroline
Pure, pure driving me.
00:31:53
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
chi
00:31:56
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I didn't want to be without my money.
00:31:58
Caroline
Right.
00:31:59
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
i I didn't want to have to stop going to the Oregon coast on my vacation.
00:32:02
Caroline
Right. Right.
00:32:04
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I mean, even camping costs money.
00:32:07
Caroline
Exactly. You need at least 30 bucks in your pocket.
00:32:08
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I mean you know so you you i knew good and damn well.
00:32:10
Caroline
Yeah.
00:32:12
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I guess i mean you know i don't even john i don't even know if John less List applied for unemployment. I don't even know What the status of unemployment was in 1965?
00:32:20
Caroline
Well, now that it's out! Oh, so many assets. We don't need assets. You just need and that it's funny that you say that mom, because i I actually really appreciated growing up hearing a lot of your employment stories.
00:32:33
Caroline
They did pull me out of a lot of what I thought were crises. And then I heard your stories and I was like, Oh, I guess this is just like par for the course.
00:32:39
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yes.
00:32:39
Caroline
But I think the one of the greatest things you used to say a lot. I don't know. I don't know whether you really believed it or if you were just saying it until you did. But you would say It doesn't matter what happens because we have each other. So if we have to live in a box together on the street, we'll be together on the street in a box, but we will have each other and we will take care of each other. And that was like huge to me because it I don't know why, but it just was. And you would always repeat that. like
00:33:12
Caroline
you know, no matter what we are going to figure this out. And if we, even if we get to the street, we will be together and we will have each other and we will have, we will figure it out, you know, and that was, I dunno, it was big,
00:33:25
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yeah, I meant it. I did. I meant it because, um number one, I knew we weren't gonna be living in a box because i I knew everybody in the world is gonna have to live in the box and before I'm gonna get in a box.
00:33:32
Caroline
yeah
00:33:39
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But but I mean, it it it yes, i I would say those things because ah I knew that I got a job before and I can get a job now
00:33:51
Caroline
Yeah. Yeah.
00:33:54
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But it was scary to be without employment, even for like five minutes.
00:33:59
Caroline
Well, and there's that mentality you have was the key, I think, that actually keeps people going.
00:33:59
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But we moved.
00:34:04
Caroline
This idea that I'm freaking out, but I know I'm not, but I know I can do this. But ah you know, it's your ability to hold those two things at one time and to lean into the one that says, but I can figure this out, you know, which John obviously didn't have.
00:34:11
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yes. You know, I always felt like if I got, you know, when I went adrift, when I felt adrift, I would go there in my mind and I would see myself in the middle of the ocean and there's nobody around.
00:34:35
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And I would be thinking about what am I scared of? And I would think to myself, I'm scared of being at the bottom.
00:34:45
Caroline
Yeah.
00:34:46
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And it would be part of my mind that would say, well, let's go there.
00:34:50
Caroline
Oh.
00:34:51
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Let's go there to see that no matter what happens, including I'm at the bottom, I'm still who I am.
00:34:55
Caroline
Yeah. Yeah. That's huge.
00:34:59
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I think that was where I was coming from.
00:35:03
Caroline
Yeah.
00:35:03
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And ah so you know in my mind, metaphorically, I'm swimming down to the bottom of this ocean to make friends with it so I won't be scared when I get there.
00:35:10
Caroline
Yeah.
00:35:14
Caroline
I just feel like we need to be bottling that and teaching it at a very young age because it's part of resilience. I think a part of a personal resilience that really got to have, if you're going to avoid, you know, sitting on a park bench for months thinking that's going to change your lot in life.
00:35:20
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yeah.
00:35:31
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
You've got to look your fear in the face and say, tell me about yourself.
00:35:33
Caroline
Right in the face.
00:35:37
Caroline
Yeah.
00:35:37
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Tell me about yourself. You're going to be my friend. I'm not going to be scared of you.
00:35:42
Caroline
Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:42
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I'm going to keep going until I get back on my feet. So anyway, here we
Descent into Murder
00:35:47
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
have him. He's sitting on a park bench. he He's thinking, and his mind turns to murder.
00:35:54
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Now, you would have a hard time convincing me, Caroline, that his mind turned to murder for the first time that day.
00:36:06
Caroline
Yeah, I agree with you there, right? Yeah, that's a good point.
00:36:10
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But I don't know. Perhaps I'm wrong about that. I don't know.
00:36:15
Caroline
yeah
00:36:15
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I've never been crushed as bad as this man is crushed right here in this part of our story.
00:36:23
Caroline
Yeah.
00:36:24
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But anyway, he had his choices just like I do, just like you do, just like everybody in my family, everybody in my family has lost a job and figured out that, okay, my new job is to find another job.
00:36:28
Caroline
Yep.
00:36:35
Caroline
Yeah.
00:36:39
Caroline
Yes, yeah.
00:36:40
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I mean, so that's just, that's just the way that it is. So I don't have a lot of sympathy for him, but I do have some compassion for him.
00:36:45
Caroline
Right. Right.
00:36:47
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I do.
00:36:48
Caroline
Yeah.
00:36:48
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Reading the newspaper was what he did to pass the time in order to return home to his loving family. I'll put that in quotes, loving family each evening. While leading the stubble life, he stole money from his mother's accounts to keep appearances up.
00:37:05
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He ruminated on how now his now insane wife was taking up witchcraft, but still attending church, because this is what was really going on.
00:37:14
Caroline
Oh, so awkward.
00:37:17
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He ruminated about his daughter. His daughter had gotten very interested in drama. And she was taking on roles at the high school. And the people that she was hanging out with were wannabe actors. And she wanted to be an actor. Her drama instructor at school had a crush on her. So I think she was experimenting around. And Liszt worried about her straying from her faith.
00:37:47
Caroline
Well, he would know, wouldn't he?
00:37:50
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I, you know, somebody needs to tell him, you know, the way that you walk the path of the faithful is you look at your faith and you test it.
00:37:51
Caroline
Sorry.
00:38:03
Caroline
Yeah.
00:38:04
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And it's when you realize I'm nothing without my faith that you will walk that path. And I don't think that it's terrible that his daughter is experimenting be between what her parents did and what she wants to do.
00:38:22
Caroline
Right. Right.
00:38:23
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But he thinks it's just the end of the world. He also plotted about how to get out of the pickle he was in of having no money. He would have to murder his entire family.
00:38:34
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
That's what he came up with.
00:38:35
Caroline
That's what he lived on, of all the options on the, ah okay.
00:38:38
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yes. When he went home each night, he would be surrounded by his family, his wife Helen, his son John Jr., his son Frederick 13, his daughter, the drama queen, ah Patricia at 16. I take that back. I'm not going to call her a drama queen. Drama queen is somebody who's dramatic all the time. I think that she was interested in the hard work of being a thespian.
00:39:06
Caroline
I was just going to say she was a thespian. That's what she is.
00:39:08
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yes.
00:39:09
Caroline
She's trying to be a thespian in New York.
00:39:11
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So yeah,
00:39:11
Caroline
That's great. Where else would you? Yeah.
00:39:15
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
and his mother Alma who lived in the separate apartment on the third floor of the mansion, she was 84. He was plotting to kill them all.
00:39:24
Caroline
That's super crazy.
00:39:24
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He was plotting to kill them all. So let's talk about the murders. We've we've talked about the part that we can kind of be funny about it because It I mean, it's not funny.
00:39:38
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
It's just the whole thing is just so ironic.
00:39:41
Caroline
I mean, you just don't see stories with syphilis involved anymore.
00:39:41
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
This.
00:39:44
Caroline
I genuinely am pushing that out there.
00:39:45
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, right. On November 9th, 1971, John List did what he usually did. He got breakfast for himself and his children. He saw them off to school. He went into the kitchen and sat at the kitchen table in hell and came down and sat whereupon he shot her in the head from behind.
00:40:06
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Okay, so she's dead.
00:40:08
Caroline
Whoa. All right.
00:40:09
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
She's dead. All right, so you're him and she's dead. So he dragged her into the ballroom. Now remember a ballroom from the many mansions that you and I have lived in over our life.
00:40:22
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
A ballroom ah ballroom has a crystal or a stained glass ceiling.
00:40:23
Caroline
via TV.
00:40:28
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
It's got beautiful chandeliers, no furniture except for maybe chairs around the rim of the
00:40:28
Caroline
Yes very tall.
00:40:35
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
of the ballroom. So he dragged her there. Then he came back into the kitchen, cleaned up the blood drag marks. He went upstairs. He shot his mother in the head from behind. Okay. He tried to drag her, but she was too heavy. He wasn't going to drag her downstairs, but no, he got as far as the stair landing right outside her bedroom and he left her there. He covered her with a blanket head to toe. So she's laying on her back, dead as a doornail, and puts a blanket over her head to toe.
00:41:11
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He went to the bank. He came home. He tidied things up, meaning blood removal. Patricia came home. He greeted her and came up behind her while she was getting a snack in the kitchen and shot her in the head.
00:41:27
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
This is his daughter.
00:41:27
Caroline
whoa Whoa.
00:41:30
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He dragged her to the ballroom. He cleaned up. the blood dragged mass. So he's in his own.
00:41:38
Caroline
I mean, he's like methodical.
00:41:39
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He's in his, oh yeah. When Frederick came home, I'll just say ditto.
00:41:46
Caroline
Yeah, God. So same. So so Frederick comes home because I thought his maybe it's his other son that somebody had a soccer game.
00:41:54
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yes. Yes, yes. Frederick is the youngest son.
00:42:01
Caroline
Okay.
00:42:02
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He's the youngest child. He's the youngest of two sons. He went to school, John List, went to school after he dragged Frederick into his body, into the bellroom. He went to school and he watched his son John Jr. play soccer. When John Jr. entered the kitchen, bang, but it was different this time.
00:42:26
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He somehow, John Jr., somehow detected that his father was about to do. He detected what was happening and he fought back. He ran. He generally did not want to die. List wound up shooting his namesake son nine times.
00:42:42
Caroline
Jesus.
00:42:45
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Nine times. He dragged him into the ballroom. Then John List placed the bodies inside sleeping bags. he he He lined them up next to each other, one next to each other, next to each other. He turned the thermostat down as far as it would go. He ate his dinner. He went to bed. He walked up those stairs, Caroline, saw his mother's body, but um mean you know he he's not going to go visit with her. He's going to go to to bed. He's going to get a good night's sleep.
00:43:20
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
The next morning he wrote some instructions for the schools, you know, for the newspaper, all these people saying that the kids and he and Helen would be out of town for a few weeks caring for Helen's relative who was sick. And that would explain why nobody was showing up anywhere. Then he turned on every light in the house and he removed every picture of himself from his home.
00:43:48
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He turned on a classical music channel that played classical music 24 seven. He wrote a five page letter to his pastor. Now this letter is now infamous and it was admitted at his trial, which I'm going to talk about in just a minute. John List got in his car and he drove to Kennedy airport and he left his car there, but he didn't take an airplane.
00:44:18
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He took a train or a bus ah to his next destination. It was a week before police were called to get in the house and see what was going on. That drama the teacher from Patricia's school wanted to know where is my favorite student? And he called the police to join him and going to their house.
00:44:41
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Neighbors had also called police and told them that slowly over the week the lights had been one by one flickering out after burning all day and all night every day for a week. So finally police were on the scene and police entered the house and they saw this terrible scene and they heard what sounded like a a burial dirge throughout the house.
00:45:06
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Now that's a song that would be somber, funeral-esque.
00:45:12
Caroline
yeah
00:45:13
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Basically they walked in at a time when the classical music station was ah playing something on the eerie side, considering what they were looking at.
00:45:19
Caroline
wicked
00:45:22
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I don't think these people ever got over that. Now the mansion had an intercom system, so the music was filling every room of the house. while four dead bodies lay together in their separate sleeping bags and one dead grandmother covered with a blanket on the third floor outside her apartment.
00:45:36
Caroline
Yeah.
00:45:41
Caroline
Oh wait.
00:45:44
Caroline
My God, this is creepy.
00:45:46
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So that was the scene.
00:45:47
Caroline
Super creepy.
00:45:49
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Meanwhile, John List is on the run.
Escape and New Identity
00:45:53
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He had made it to Denver. And he got a new Social Security card under the name Robert Clark.
00:46:00
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
This was somebody he knew from college way back in the day. He just pulled that name out of the air, went into the Social Security office, and got a Social Security card. I lost my card.
00:46:10
Caroline
I mean, gone are the days, you know?
00:46:12
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
No. Gone are the days. Gone are the days. He wouldn't make it to Denver. And he, he no. And, no. Gone are the days.
00:46:23
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And he worked as a fry cook at a diner, and then he got a job as an accountant. So he now so this tells me, OK, you, John List, I just have to say, you back on that bench you know in the train station, you you can walk into Denver and get a fry cook, and then lift yourself up to a accountancy really fast.
00:46:40
Caroline
Yeah.
00:46:45
Caroline
u You You can figure your way out of it. So, okay. So you're right mom. So that actually tells me that there was a bit of a short circuit and instead of sitting on the park bench because he didn't know what to do next.
00:47:02
Caroline
He didn't know what to do next because he really didn't want to continue on with this family.
00:47:06
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Uh-huh.
00:47:06
Caroline
Like that's what I think. I don't think it was like this short circuit around like I'm a failure. I think he was like, this is my shot. I freaking hate these people. These devil people. This is my chance.
00:47:18
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
i You know, I'm not going to say that that is not a logical conclusion, that this man was selfish.
00:47:23
Caroline
Yeah.
00:47:27
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Now, you know, he was an only child.
00:47:28
Caroline
Yeah.
00:47:29
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He was brought up in a causative sort of way.
00:47:35
Caroline
Right.
00:47:36
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And so he got into real life called war. That didn't seem to bug him. But then again, he was in the financial group of the war.
00:47:44
Caroline
Right. He had it.
00:47:45
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And so yeah, then he got into another war there again.
00:47:45
Caroline
Yeah.
00:47:50
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He's you know he's valued for his accountancy's prowess. And so he's still in a bit of a bubble.
00:47:57
Caroline
Yes.
00:47:59
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And then he gets married and it's going to be all roses until he finds out I'm married to a woman with syphilis who lied to me about being pregnant.
00:48:09
Caroline
He was a liar who got me in here out under a lie. Now we're having all these devilish children. She's making fun of me in front of people at parties. Like I could see him spending all that time on the bench, not being confused about how to get out of this mess, but but thinking, do I really want to do that with her and these kids?
00:48:32
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
All I can say is, do I sympathize with John List? No. Do I understand John List? No. Can I connect the dots like I used to in kindergarten?
00:48:48
Caroline
Right.
00:48:48
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yes, I can connect the dots. So that's where I'm at with the M. He's a fry cup and an accountant. He met a woman at the Lutheran Church. He was continuing to go to church all this time.
00:49:01
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He married her, her name was Dolores Miller. I mean, sure, I'm sure she was a wonderful person. She may still be alive, I don't know. She is now going to be Mrs. Dolores Clark, because remember his name is Robert Clark. Eventually they moved to West Virginia where he led, or they led a quiet life, ah Dolores and Robert Clark. And Robert Clark was working as an accountant in making, you know, a good living.
00:49:32
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And so how was he caught? How was he caught?
00:49:35
Caroline
Yeah.
00:49:37
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
In 1988. Now remember, he murdered in 1971.
00:49:42
Caroline
Long time ago, much
00:49:42
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
November. but November 9, 1971.
00:49:46
Caroline
Yeah, not a lot of like, like criminal science had not really come into its own. And I don't just mean DNA. I mean, police ah jurisdictions weren't talking to each other. Still, it was, you know, this is the heyday of the serial killer. And this is why, right? Because they're just, just the policing is still not quite on top of it.
00:50:06
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Well, and let's be clear about how clever John List is.
00:50:10
Caroline
Yeah. ah to
00:50:11
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He turned the thermostat way down so that his family's bodies would not start to stink.
00:50:17
Caroline
yeah so that Yeah, so that he could have ample time because the more time, the less likely it is that the evidence will stick around and you'll get caught.
00:50:18
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
That's why he did that.
00:50:26
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He turned on all the music in every i mean he turned on the the music stations so that they would always appear to have somebody inside who was awake.
00:50:37
Caroline
Yeah.
00:50:37
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
The lights never went out. I mean, he did all of these things to delay the finding of his family by a week.
Capture and Conviction
00:50:46
Caroline
Yeah.
00:50:47
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And so, I mean, you know, some of it is just his intelligence put to the wrong use.
00:50:51
Caroline
yeah
00:50:54
Caroline
yeah
00:50:55
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So how was he caught? In 1988, 17 years later, police in New Jersey beseeched a new show called America's Most Wanted to showcase the list case.
00:51:06
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So these New Jersey people wanted to catch, the the the community police wanted to catch him and they never let it go.
00:51:11
Caroline
Yeah. Yes.
00:51:16
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And the state police wanted to find him and never let it go.
00:51:21
Caroline
I know.
00:51:21
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And because he moved from state to state to state, he the feds, I mean, you know,
00:51:25
Caroline
Yeah.
00:51:26
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
They wanted it, but the the initial call came to America's Most Wanted, which was brand new.
00:51:32
Caroline
Yeah.
00:51:32
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
It's brand new, started by the Fox Network.
00:51:36
Caroline
I remember. I remember that lots was big back in the 80s.
00:51:37
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And yeah, I was very big, very big.
00:51:40
Caroline
Simpson. Oh.
00:51:42
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And I was so, ah John Walsh was someone that I fixated on about how how do you move forward?
00:51:52
Caroline
Yeah.
00:51:53
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
How do you move forward? And I just, of course, was interested in how his son's head was found on an ocean shore. He didn't know who did this. I just really got involved in my mind about what would that be like. And I followed that case. And now here he is on America's Most Wanted trying to catch these people who have gotten away with crime.
00:52:26
Caroline
Yeah.
00:52:26
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And America's Most Wanted, when they got the call from New Jersey, they said, no, we can't take that because it's a cold case. And there's no contemporary photo of the ah person out.
00:52:39
Caroline
Oh, yeah.
00:52:40
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
on And they and you know their viewers were counting on, this is what he looks like.
00:52:45
Caroline
That's what that was.
00:52:45
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
You need to call in if you've seen him.
00:52:47
Caroline
Yes. That's the premise of the show is here's the mug shot.
00:52:48
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
yeah this was the this was still This was the first crowdsourcing
00:52:51
Caroline
Let's find it.
00:52:55
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
technique used for crime fighting, finding criminals who were on the lam. They finally relented when in 1989 a brilliant sculpture made a bust of John List's head at the behest of law enforcement.
00:53:15
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
They based it on earlier pictures of him and then also based it on pictures of his father to age it.
00:53:22
Caroline
Oh, yeah.
00:53:24
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
and then working with a psychologist to figure out his mindset to determine what do you think his hairstyle would be?
00:53:33
Caroline
crying.
00:53:33
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
How would he dress? What type of eyeglasses would he be wearing? Well, one of the things that the psychologist told him is that this is a man who wants to fit in and he is a man who wants to look probably richer than he is.
00:53:52
Caroline
Yeah.
00:53:52
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And so these are the glasses that I think he would wear based on what is contemporarily available for men to wear. This would be the most stylish ah frame and that was everywhere at the time.
00:54:05
Caroline
The parshest.
00:54:07
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yes, it was it was just, you know, if you've got any style at all, you're gonna be wearing these glasses.
00:54:07
Caroline
Yeah.
00:54:12
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Well, that bust was a spitting image of John List, and he they put him on the show. this is what They showcased the murder, the family annihilation,
00:54:23
Caroline
yeah
00:54:26
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And they showed the bust. This is what he would look like. And his neighbors in Denver, from where he had first traveled and in West Virginia, where he was living, came out of the woodwork to report him.
00:54:38
Caroline
Yeah.
00:54:43
Caroline
Oh, wow. Seeing that now, people just don't know how I mean, that shows huge. You can attribute at least 10 or more. There's a dozen or more stories of criminals being captured and as a direct result of an airing of that show.
00:54:55
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Well, I think it's hundreds.
00:54:57
Caroline
hunt Yeah, I mean, just it's amazing.
00:54:57
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I do. It is amazing. Of course, now with the internet, there's crowdsourcing going on all the time.
00:55:06
Caroline
All the time.
00:55:07
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And um there are some very contemporary cases that we can name, but let's get back to John List because he's going to be going to trial.
00:55:14
Caroline
Yeah. yeah
00:55:18
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
When they first nabbed him, they said, is your name Robert Clark? The police did. Yes, it is. And he said, is your name John List? And he said, no. but they arrested him under the name of John Clark and they brought him back to where he is John List, which was back to New Jersey. So John's defense was one of diminished capacity mentally at the time of his family's annihilation. One of the most interesting aspects of the trial was the letter John List wrote to his pastor. It was five pages and here are the highlights.
00:55:53
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So I'm just gonna read the letter, but only as a body of writing, not verbatim line for line, because that would be another, that'd be too long. It was five, it was very intense.
00:56:04
Caroline
Heh.
00:56:05
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
He hand-wrote it after his children were murdered, his wife was murdered, and his mother was murdered by him. But anyway, this is how it was presented from trial.
00:56:15
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So I went out to the trial transcripts and I found what was presented at trial. So here it is, in 1971, The letter was found in Liszt's mansion and the police called, uh, Reverend Pastor Reverend Reibwinkle, um, to come to the mansion. And they, and he came to the mansion and they gave it to him. Now the letter was written in a script on yellow lined paper dated November 9, 1971, the day of the murders.
00:56:49
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
That tells me, that sounds like a legal pad, but it could also be like an accounting pad.
00:56:53
Caroline
i was seeing accounting but lee But yeah, I mean, lawyers are accountants.
00:56:59
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
ah So here is the part of this of the letter that were um discussed. The letter was given to the jury ah in its entirety. But dear Reverend Reimwinkle, I am very sorry to add this additional burden to your work. I leave myself in the hands of God's justice and mercy. God could have helped me out of my distress, but apparently he saw fit not to answer my prayers.
00:57:25
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
This makes me think that perhaps it was for the best as far as the children's souls are concerned. John Liss gave instructions ah in several paragraphs about how each body should be buried. He gave a list of relatives also who should get a letter telling them that their little relatives were dead. So anyway, back to verbatim from the letter. I shot them from behind so they would not suffer.
00:57:55
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Okay, this is me editorializing, aren't you a saint? But anyway, um yes,
00:58:00
Caroline
Yeah, there's a lot of ego already in this letter.
00:58:04
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I shot them from behind so they wouldn't suffer. There was just too much happening. Loss of job, loss of money, wife and daughter already drifting from the faith. Now he based at that on,
00:58:19
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
His wife is practicing witchcraft and has, ah he she's insane at this point. And everything that her daughter his daughter was doing was related to drama. So ah loss of job, loss of money, wife and daughter already drifting from the faith. Everything thing I tried seemed to fall into pieces. I could have gone bankrupt.
00:58:43
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But we could have gone on walk where welfare, but knowing the type of location that one would have to live in, plus the environment for the children, plus the effect of them knowing that they were on welfare was just more than I thought they should or could endure. I had to kill mother because she would have been too stressed with what I had done.
00:59:09
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
After it was all over, I said some prayers for them all from the handbook, and that was the least I could do. And then he went on to note that poverty is a sin.
00:59:23
Caroline
and what for her I have trouble relating to any of this, actually.
00:59:31
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Note the interesting legal argument about the letter I wrote on note to myself in the margins, and so I'm gonna just give a quick lowdown on the amount of work that had to happen between the prosecution and the defense, not wanting to put that letter into, ah there were a lot of hearings about that, they did not want the jury to see it, the defense did not want,
00:59:57
Caroline
Why?
00:59:58
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
but The defense did not want the jury to see it because our they just thought it was too ah two ah yeah or a bad it was and it would hurt their client too much.
01:00:08
Caroline
I roll, I roll inspiring or.
01:00:16
Caroline
Yeah.
01:00:17
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
What's that called? That's just called a
01:00:18
Caroline
Self incriminating or like.
01:00:20
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yes, all yeah. And then the pastor came in and said, hey, that was between him and me.
01:00:24
Caroline
Yeah.
01:00:25
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
That is the sanctity of the church. Well, the judge ruled, after listening to all the arguments, the judge ruled that, look, if you want to have a secret between you and your pastor, you call your pastor up, or you go visit your pastor, or you ask to see them after church, you can do innumerable things.
01:00:44
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
But when you write them a letter and you leave it on the desk, at your house where a family annihilation has occurred, ah we're going to allow that letter because that is not a private conversation between you and your pastor.
01:00:57
Caroline
Yeah.
01:01:01
Caroline
A little bit like less expectation of privacy on that one.
01:01:01
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
That is not protected.
01:01:05
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yes.
01:01:06
Caroline
I like the judge's ruling there because he's right about that. I mean, you would seek out this person if you had a secret to tell them. You wouldn't write them a letter and leave it in a somewhat communal or private location.
01:01:19
Caroline
That isn't theirs.
01:01:19
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Right.
01:01:21
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
John List was convicted and sentenced to multiple life terms. He died in prison from pneumonia at age 82. Now, Caroline, just to put that in perspective, he was 42 when he was annihilated when he had violated his family. He was 59 when he got caught. And here's a footnote to all this, another footnote I'm leaving myself. After his conviction, his house was burned down mysteriously. The ceiling in the ballroom was discovered to be a Louis Comfort Tiffany stained glass ceiling, $100,000 in 1990 worth.
01:02:06
Caroline
Wow.
01:02:06
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So in 1990, he could have sold that for $100,000.
01:02:11
Caroline
Wow.
01:02:12
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So he wasn't being very creative in his thinking, how about we sell the house?
01:02:16
Caroline
That was the number one thing I thought that's what people do when they lose their job. They, they downsize their home. Anyway, it's too late for all that.
01:02:23
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
but he can't have that, that'd be too traumatic. So ironic, and I hope he found out about that while he was still suffering in prison.
01:02:34
Caroline
I still, there's still a part of me that feels like it was never about the money.
01:02:34
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I do.
01:02:38
Caroline
He, he, this was his chance, quote unquote.
01:02:43
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
ah You know what, you and a lot of other people, I kind of briefly, before we say goodbye to our listeners and apologize for any trauma they may have experienced as a result of this podcast,
01:02:57
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
um there are four types of ah family annihilators. According to a BBC ah article I found on a British um study that was done of family annihilators.
01:03:15
Caroline
OK.
01:03:18
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And it has been widely accepted in the psychological community. Four types.
01:03:24
Caroline
Thanks.
01:03:25
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
There's the self-righteous type that blames everything on everybody else. There's the disappointed type. There's the anomic type ah where ah the father sees the family as the result of his economic success.
01:03:44
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And then later when things go wrong, he blames them for it.
01:03:48
Caroline
Hmm.
01:03:49
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
So, and the paranoid type, those who perceive an external threat to the family, like social services or the legal system, he's going to have his children taken away from him.
01:03:58
Caroline
Right, yeah.
01:04:02
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Now I kind of skipped over disappointed because disappointed is actually what I would say fits the Annihilist here, John List.
01:04:09
Caroline
Yes.
01:04:12
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Disappointed family Annihilist, this killer believes his family has let him down and has acted in ways to undermine or destroy his vision of the ideal family life.
01:04:25
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
An example may be disappointment that children are not following the traditional religious or cultural customs of the father.
01:04:33
Caroline
Yeah, I think that's right on the head for this guy. I mean, he really, yeah, I think all of the resentment, anger and frustration was y'all aren't doing it right. Like none of this is right.
01:04:45
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Yep, that's what I think too.
01:04:45
Caroline
So, yeah.
01:04:48
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
um So all I can say about John List is a I don't really have any sympathy for him.
01:04:59
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I don't really have any compassion for him once he started thinking about murdering his family.
01:05:05
Caroline
Yeah.
01:05:07
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
I don't have any, I don't identify with him because if I lost my job, my new job is find another job. um
01:05:19
Caroline
Yeah, that's a yeah.
01:05:19
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
and all of those things. But I will say that there was a lot of pressure building up.
01:05:25
Caroline
Yeah.
01:05:26
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And he was very rigid.
01:05:29
Caroline
yeah
01:05:30
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
And why didn't you just take yourself out, John?
01:05:34
Caroline
Well, and why didn't he talk to his pastor sooner? Why didn't he say some of this stuff to his pastor? I don't i don't want to be with my family. but Like, why didn't he do that? That was what his religion asked him to do. I don't know.
01:05:45
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Oh, good point, Caroline.
01:05:47
Caroline
Yeah.
01:05:47
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Really good point. And on that note, we're going to say goodbye until a couple of weeks from now, we're going to look at another family murder.
01:05:59
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Today's episode is researched, written and narrated by Bridget and Caroline, produced by Andy. Our research is solely based on public domain documents, including legal documents, articles, and books about our subject. Episodes are aired every other week. If you like us, please subscribe. Give us a five star review. Tell your friends about us in person and by social media.
01:06:26
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
All these actions help new listeners find us. So thank you. We appreciate our listeners very, very much. And don't forget to live and let live. So bye bye, Caroline.
01:06:42
Caroline
Bye. bye
01:06:44
Andy, Bridget and Caroline
Bye bye listeners.