On November 9, 1971, 46-year-old accountant John List grabbed his 9mm semi-automatic handgun and his father’s .22 caliber revolver and murdered his mother, his wife, and three of his children in cold blood.
List, the seemingly perfect son, husband, and father, shot the unsuspecting victims methodically, one by one.
List’s first victim was his wife, Helen, whom he shot as she sipped her morning coffee.
He then went up to the third floor and murdered his mother, Alma, in her bed.
The family killer then waited for his daughter and his youngest son to return home from school and shot both of them in the back of the head.
List then made himself a sandwich, closed both his and his mother’s bank accounts, and drove to Westfield High School to cheer for his elder son, John, at his high school soccer game.
He then gave his son a ride home and shot him in the chest.
List laid the bodies of his wife and children on sleeping bags in the mansion’s ballroom, then placed his mother’s body in her apartment in the attic, and composed a letter to his pastor, whom he felt would understand.
In a five-page letter, List claimed that he saw too much evil in the world, and he had killed his family to save their souls.
List feared that his family, confronted with a world full of evil and poverty, would turn away from God; this was the only way to ensure their safe arrival in heaven.
List then removed his face from every family photograph he found inside his nineteen-room mansion and acquired a new identity.
Although the family killer was able to elude justice for nearly eighteen years, his old life caught up with him in 1989.
During its first year on the air, the TV show “America’s Most Wanted” revisited the List family murders and asked a forensic sculptor to create an age-progressed clay bust of the family killer.
With the help of criminal psychologist Richard Walter, forensic artist Frank Bender presented a clay bust that looked remarkably like List, leading one of his neighbors in Richmond to call in a tip.
Eleven days after the episode, List was arrested and eventually sentenced to five consecutive life terms.
To this day, the List family murders remain one of the most horrific cases of familicide in history.
