النص الكامل لحلقة Terrifying & True | John List: The Family Killer Who Hid for 17 Years

unchallenged at the table. Outside 66 00:06:03.980 --> 00:06:08.220 the house, practical arrangements connected the family to other people. 67 00:06:09.019 --> 00:06:13.699 List shared the school carpool with Barbara Bader, the milkman 68 00:06:13.860 --> 00:06:17.680 Herbert Argast, knew the household well enough to bring deliveries 69 00:06:17.759 --> 00:06:23.060 inside and put them directly in the refrigerator. An ordinary 70 00:06:23.180 --> 00:06:26.459 note from Helen could tell him what was needed next. 71 00:06:27.259 --> 00:06:33.060 Those small points of contact would eventually become evidence. For years, 72 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:36.699 they were simply how a family got through the week. 73 00:06:37.370 --> 00:06:43.399 John himself had come from Bay City, Michigan, born in 1925, 74 00:06:43.399 --> 00:06:46.240 He served in the Army during the Second World War 75 00:06:46.740 --> 00:06:51.079 and studied accounting at the University of Michigan afterward. He 76 00:06:51.120 --> 00:06:56.939 married Helen in 1951, during another period of military service. 77 00:06:57.810 --> 00:07:01.889 Their children were born during the Michigan years. Later, his 78 00:07:01.949 --> 00:07:05.829 work for Xerox took his family to the Rochester area 79 00:07:06.009 --> 00:07:09.269 in New York. The bank job and the move to 80 00:07:09.310 --> 00:07:14.189 Westfield were further steps in that professional life. Here was 81 00:07:14.250 --> 00:07:19.790 a man who understood accounts and financial obligations. The difficulty 82 00:07:19.850 --> 00:07:23.649 was not that he had no qualifications. It was that 83 00:07:23.769 --> 00:07:28.000 jobs he obtained did not keep him employed for long. 84 00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:34.100 He lost the bank position in 1966. For months afterward, 85 00:07:34.519 --> 00:07:38.560 a later investigation found he concealed the loss by leaving 86 00:07:38.660 --> 00:07:42.730 home as if he were still working. spending his days 87 00:07:43.170 --> 00:07:48.060 at the train station. The routine continued without the salary. 88 00:07:49.060 --> 00:07:54.220 By April 1968, when Helen's sister, Betty Jean Seifert, visited, 89 00:07:54.759 --> 00:07:59.199 other strains were visible. She later testified that Helen spent 90 00:07:59.540 --> 00:08:03.920 much of the visit in bed. Her sister's condition worried her, 91 00:08:04.519 --> 00:08:08.000 and the house was in need of repairs. The mansion 92 00:08:08.060 --> 00:08:12.360 had not insulated the family from illness, or the cost 93 00:08:12.420 --> 00:08:17.180 of maintaining it. Betty Jean remembered medicines, peanut butter, and 94 00:08:17.459 --> 00:08:21.639 peanuts crowded onto the bedside table. Her visit brought her 95 00:08:21.699 --> 00:08:25.500 past the imposing exterior and into the room where her 96 00:08:25.600 --> 00:08:29.810 sister was spending so much of her time. During a 97 00:08:29.870 --> 00:08:35.769 visit in 1968, Betty Jean's husband, Gene, had a conversation 98 00:08:35.809 --> 00:08:41.019 with List about a different collection in the house. his 99 00:08:41.120 --> 00:08:46.820 crime books. At the eventual trial, Jean recalled List's particular 100 00:08:46.919 --> 00:08:53.970 fascination with unsolved mysteries. Religion remained another constant. List had 101 00:08:54.039 --> 00:08:57.649 taught Sunday school and belonged to the Lutheran Church of 102 00:08:57.690 --> 00:09:01.029 the Redeemer. The minister who had known him during the 103 00:09:01.090 --> 00:09:06.789 Rochester years, Edward Sarisky, remembered a man well-versed in doctrine. 104 00:09:07.409 --> 00:09:12.139 Yet Sarisky later testified that List had struggled to translate 105 00:09:12.179 --> 00:09:17.120 that knowledge into daily life. List would eventually claim that 106 00:09:17.460 --> 00:09:22.220 killing his children could save their souls. His church had 107 00:09:22.259 --> 00:09:26.690 taught him no such thing. That was the explanation he 108 00:09:27.210 --> 00:09:31.490 chose for himself. There was more employment after the bank. 109 00:09:32.029 --> 00:09:35.950 There were attempts to recover. But there were also more 110 00:09:36.029 --> 00:09:41.250 loans against Breeze Knoll. A contemporary account would describe the 111 00:09:41.330 --> 00:09:47.200 original $ 40, 000 mortgage and two smaller mortgages taken out afterward. 112 00:09:48.179 --> 00:09:52.100 The house that had announced the family's arrival was becoming 113 00:09:52.240 --> 00:09:57.549 harder to keep. Meanwhile, Patty's theater group still had rehearsals. 114 00:09:58.169 --> 00:10:02.960 Her brothers still needed robbing. The milk still arrived. The 115 00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:08.710 household kept moving while John's finances fell apart. He had 116 00:10:08.759 --> 00:10:13.049 already demonstrated that he could hide a professional collapse behind 117 00:10:13.110 --> 00:10:17.470 a daily routine. Now the debts were following him home. 118 00:10:18.370 --> 00:10:24.110 The next job did not restore lasting security. By 1969, 119 00:10:24.110 --> 00:10:27.750 another accounting position had ended when the work moved away. 120 00:10:28.570 --> 00:10:33.590 List turned to selling insurance. The commissions did not solve 121 00:10:33.629 --> 00:10:38.740 the household's problems. Behind the impressive address was a financial 122 00:10:38.820 --> 00:10:43.179 situation that could no longer be sustained by the appearance 123 00:10:43.639 --> 00:10:48.950 of employment. The mortgage obligations continued. Two of those accounts 124 00:10:49.009 --> 00:10:52.769 would later appear in a court's findings, with no payment 125 00:10:52.850 --> 00:10:59.809 recorded after November 1st, 1971. The borrowed money had bought time, 126 00:10:59.889 --> 00:11:04.850 but the bills were still coming. Helen's illness had also 127 00:11:04.909 --> 00:11:09.980 become severe. A neurologist who reviewed her medical records would 128 00:11:10.009 -->

00:11:14.159 describe damage affecting her brain as well as her eyesight. 129 00:11:14.899 --> 00:11:19.509 She sometimes stayed in bed because... She feared falling, yet 130 00:11:19.629 --> 00:11:24.889 could still seem perfectly capable during a casual encounter. A 131 00:11:24.950 --> 00:11:30.049 visitor's brief conversation did not necessarily reveal how much help 132 00:11:30.129 --> 00:11:36.529 she required. Helen desperately needed medical care. Years later, her 133 00:11:36.629 --> 00:11:40.129 illness would be offered in a courtroom as part of 134 00:11:40.169 --> 00:11:51.179 her husband's defense for killing her. Patty had begun telling 135 00:11:51.279 --> 00:11:55.980 friends she was afraid of him. Rhonda Conway recalled that 136 00:11:56.100 --> 00:12:01.480 fear years later. Ed Saradocchi remembered Patty saying her father 137 00:12:01.539 --> 00:12:07.490 had asked whether the children wanted burial or cremation. That 138 00:12:07.549 --> 00:12:12.490 was no longer a disagreement about acting or church attendance. 139 00:12:13.070 --> 00:12:16.889 It was a father introducing his children's death into a 140 00:12:16.950 --> 00:12:24.399 conversation about their futures. Yet October also contained a Halloween party. 141 00:12:25.080 --> 00:12:28.919 Chris Day remembered List allowing Patty to host one and 142 00:12:28.980 --> 00:12:34.279 helping them clean up afterward. Normal family moments had not 143 00:12:34.440 --> 00:12:40.470 simply stopped. Outside the house, people saw pieces of the trouble. 144 00:12:41.289 --> 00:12:46.389 Patty's friends heard her fears. Relatives saw how ill Helen was. 145 00:12:47.090 --> 00:12:52.169 The lenders saw missed payments. A firearms application was already 146 00:12:52.269 --> 00:12:57.549 on file before November 9th. That document would become important 147 00:12:57.809 --> 00:13:02.889 in a way its maker had not intended. Long after 148 00:13:02.980 --> 00:13:07.480 List had discarded his name, investigators would still have a 149 00:13:07.559 --> 00:13:11.259 record created while he was using it. In the letter 150 00:13:11.320 --> 00:13:15.120 he later left behind, he said he had first intended 151 00:13:15.179 --> 00:13:19.259 to kill the family, On All Saints Day, November 1st, 152 00:13:19.940 --> 00:13:24.379 he blamed the postponement on travel arrangements. Even in his 153 00:13:24.519 --> 00:13:30.259 own explanation, planning the deaths and planning the escape were entangled. 154 00:13:31.100 --> 00:13:35.860 The dates passed, the family remained alive for another eight days. 155 00:13:36.559 --> 00:13:40.820 His later explanation would connect the threat of poverty to 156 00:13:40.860 --> 00:13:44.929 the threat of losing their faith. He objected to Helen's 157 00:13:45.009 --> 00:13:48.210 wish to leave the church roles and feared what an 158 00:13:48.429 --> 00:13:53.149 acting career might mean for Patty. He was turning choices 159 00:13:53.230 --> 00:13:56.809 the others

might make into reasons they should not be 160 00:13:56.870 --> 00:14:02.009 allowed to make any more choices at all. Patty could 161 00:14:02.049 --> 00:14:06.299 rehearse a role, spend time with friends, and hope for 162 00:14:06.379 --> 00:14:13.409 another production. Her father was choosing a date. Tuesday. November 163 00:14:13.730 --> 00:14:19.850 9th arrived. Thanksgiving was still ahead. Before it came, List 164 00:14:19.889 --> 00:14:24.100 would arrange for people to believe the family was away 165 00:14:24.379 --> 00:14:28.919 until after the holiday. For now, it was a school day, 166 00:14:29.419 --> 00:14:34.139 and the children left the house. Helen and Alma remained 167 00:14:34.200 --> 00:14:38.899 there with him. The sequence reconstructed in court begins at 168 00:14:38.970 --> 00:14:42.740 about 9 in the morning. Helen was sitting at the 169 00:14:42.799 --> 00:14:47.600 breakfast table when John shot her from behind. He then 170 00:14:47.679 --> 00:14:51.539 went upstairs to the quarters where his mother lived. The 171 00:14:51.600 --> 00:14:55.960 appellate court's account describes John and Alma walking into the 172 00:14:56.000 --> 00:15:00.159 third floor kitchen. He shot her there. He left her 173 00:15:00.250 --> 00:15:05.850 upstairs and returned to the first floor. When investigators eventually 174 00:15:05.950 --> 00:15:11.470 searched those rooms, they found toast everywhere. The prosecutor mentioned 175 00:15:11.529 --> 00:15:14.210 it to reporters in the first days of the case 176 00:15:14.990 --> 00:15:18.340 as a clue that the violence had begun in the morning. 177 00:15:19.279 --> 00:15:24.299 In Alma's quarters, a trace of breakfast had outlasted her 178 00:15:24.419 --> 00:15:29.179 own life. In a few movements throughout the house, the 179 00:15:29.240 --> 00:15:34.059 two adult women were dead. The floors of Breeze Knoll 180 00:15:34.159 --> 00:15:39.100 now separated two parts of the crime. Alma remained in 181 00:15:39.159 --> 00:15:44.110 her quarters... Helen's body was moved into the ballroom. The 182 00:15:44.139 --> 00:15:48.850 rooms that had allowed three generations to live together had 183 00:15:48.889 --> 00:15:52.889 become places in which John could keep their deaths apart 184 00:15:53.470 --> 00:15:58.610 while he continued with the day. He cleaned up, and 185 00:15:58.690 --> 00:16:04.289 then he ate lunch. In a 2002 prison interview, ABC's 186 00:16:04.350 --> 00:16:07.220 Connie Chung asked him about that meal. 187 00:16:07.879 --> 00:16:09.779 You ate lunch in the kitchen where you had shot 188 00:16:09.820 --> 00:16:11.019 your wife in cold blood? 189 00:16:11.279 --> 00:16:11.860 That's correct. 190 00:16:12.480 --> 00:16:13.000 How could you? 191 00:16:13.600 --> 00:16:14.100 I was hungry. 192 00:16:14.120 --> 00:16:17.139 It was. 193 00:16:19.889 --> 00:16:20.690 Just the way it was. 194 00:16:21.570 --> 00:16:25.610 The cleanup would leave evidence of its own. Police photographs 195

00:16:25.690 --> 00:16:29.389 show mops in the laundry room sink and bags of 196 00:16:29.529 --> 00:16:33.230 soiled towels in the pantry. He had not made the 197 00:16:33.289 --> 00:16:38.000 violence simply disappear. He had moved its traces out of 198 00:16:38.039 --> 00:16:42.279 his way into the same working rooms the family used 199 00:16:42.799 --> 00:16:47.480 every day. Lunch had separated the murders of the two 200 00:16:47.559 --> 00:16:52.519 women from the killings still to come. There was time 201 00:16:52.580 --> 00:16:57.559 between them, time to stop, to leave, to tell someone 202 00:16:58.139 --> 00:17:01.850 what he had done. The next actions were not a 203 00:17:01.919 --> 00:17:07.170 surrender or a call for help. He went out to 204 00:17:07.230 --> 00:17:12.759 conduct business. There were bonds to redeem, checks to cash, 205 00:17:13.299 --> 00:17:18.400 mail to stop. The afternoon still included contact with people 206 00:17:18.880 --> 00:17:24.519 who would know him as a customer rather than a killer. Inside, 207 00:17:24.880 --> 00:17:29.220 Helen could no longer answer a question. Alma could no 208 00:17:29.279 --> 00:17:35.460 longer come downstairs. Outside, John could still walk into an office. 209 00:17:35.980 --> 00:17:41.940 and request an ordinary service. Nobody behind a counter had 210 00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:46.240 the view a future police officer would have. Through the 211 00:17:46.299 --> 00:17:50.619 ballroom curtain, the children's school day had not ended when 212 00:17:50.660 --> 00:17:54.849 their mother and grandmother died. They would have to return 213 00:17:54.950 --> 00:17:59.369 to a home whose meaning had changed without their knowledge. 214 00:18:00.490 --> 00:18:06.940 One time survives with unusual precision. 137 in the afternoon. 215 00:18:08.119 --> 00:18:11.480 At that minute on November 9th, List was at his 216 00:18:11.920 --> 00:18:16.160 safe deposit box. The bank's records would still be there 217 00:18:16.259 --> 00:18:25.759 when investigators came looking. The court's account also describes roughly $ 2, 000 218 00:18:23.480 --> 00:18:28.779 in savings bonds redeemed, checks cashed, and a visit to 219 00:18:28.819 --> 00:18:33.180 the post office to stop mail for himself and Alma. 220 00:18:34.400 --> 00:18:39.440 While two bodies- lay motionless at home, he was arranging 221 00:18:39.519 --> 00:18:44.819 which ordinary services would cease to reach the house. It 222 00:18:44.880 --> 00:18:50.200 was not a perfect erasure. Checking account activity continued to 223 00:18:50.240 --> 00:18:54.720 leave traces after the date of the killings. His movements 224 00:18:54.799 --> 00:19:01.250 were recoverable. The advantage he gained was time. Nobody outside 225 00:19:01.289 --> 00:19:05.809 the family yet knew those movements needed to be investigated. 226 00:19:06.779 --> 00:19:11.299 Later that afternoon, according to the court's reconstruction, he collected 227 00:19:11.380 --> 00:19:16.500 Patty and took her home. He shot her there. He 228 00:19:16.539 --> 00:19:20.589 then collected Fred and killed him after bringing him home. 229 00:19:21.609 --> 00:19:27.470 Patty was 16. Fred was just 13. The remaining child 230 00:19:27.569 --> 00:19:33.190 was 15-year-old John Jr. A mother involved in the carpool 231 00:19:33.490 --> 00:19:36.920 later testified that she had brought him home When the 232 00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:42.460 boy returned, his father was there. John Jr. was killed last. 233 00:19:43.119 --> 00:19:49.150 Evidence described repeated gunfire and a struggle. Lists later claim 234 00:19:49.190 --> 00:19:53.309 that his victim had been spared suffering cannot be accepted 235 00:19:53.410 --> 00:19:57.430 as the truth of their final moments. He moved the 236 00:19:57.490 --> 00:20:02.589 children's bodies into the ballroom with Helen. Alma remained on 237 00:20:02.630 --> 00:20:05.869 the third floor. Five people who had lived in the 238 00:20:05.910 --> 00:20:10.680 house were now dead inside it. John was the only 239 00:20:10.759 --> 00:20:14.339 member of the household who could still use the telephone, 240 00:20:15.099 --> 00:20:27.450 answer a letter, or explain an absence. With five people 241 00:20:27.589 --> 00:20:33.750 dead inside Bree's Knoll, John List began managing the family's absence. 242 00:20:34.569 --> 00:20:39.210 The court records described calls and notes excusing the children 243 00:20:39.269 --> 00:20:44.200 from school and other activities, arranging his absence from work, 244 00:20:44.819 --> 00:20:51.319 and stopping deliveries. Their supposed trip would carry them beyond Thanksgiving. 245 00:20:52.220 --> 00:20:56.710 A family's disappearance could be made to resemble a temporary 246 00:20:56.809 --> 00:21:02.869 interruption if everyone expecting a particular person received a plausible 247 00:21:02.970 --> 00:21:08.609 reason to wait. At the eventual trial, the milkman remembered 248 00:21:08.690 --> 00:21:14.190 something distinctive about his note. It was neatly written on 249 00:21:14.289 --> 00:21:20.869 lined paper, unlike the scraps Helen ordinarily used. Another witness 250 00:21:20.950 --> 00:21:25.789 recalled taking an evening phone message canceling the next school pickup. 251 00:21:26.549 --> 00:21:29.970 List said the family was traveling to visit a sick 252 00:21:30.150 --> 00:21:36.349 grandmother in North Carolina. He also contacted his pastor. In 253 00:21:36.410 --> 00:21:41.069 reporting published just after the bodies were discovered, the minister 254 00:21:41.150 --> 00:21:45.269 recalled a call on November 9th or 10th in which 255 00:21:45.390 --> 00:21:48.890 List claimed his wife and children had been put on 256 00:21:48.930 --> 00:21:52.859 a plane to North Carolina. Later visits to the house 257 00:21:52.960 --> 00:21:59.380 produced no answer. Inside, List left a very different account. 258 00:22:00.220 --> 00:22:05.279 He wrote to relatives and prepared

instructions about the family's affairs, 259 00:22:06.079 --> 00:22:10.740 including their funerals. For his pastor, he left five pages 260 00:22:10.849 --> 00:22:15.089 admitting the killings and explaining them in his own words. 261 00:22:16.210 --> 00:22:21.710 The letter was dated November 9th. Money and religion ran 262 00:22:21.809 --> 00:22:27.009 through his explanation. He wrote about the family's financial condition 263 00:22:27.579 --> 00:22:32.079 and his fear that the children were drifting away from Christianity. 264 00:22:33.119 --> 00:22:36.079 He cast the killing of Alma as sparing her the 265 00:22:36.140 --> 00:22:39.180 shock of learning what he had done to the others. 266 00:22:40.339 --> 00:22:44.220 He also acknowledged that an explanation could not make his 267 00:22:44.359 --> 00:22:49.789 actions right. The letter was placed in an unsealed file folder. 268 00:22:50.549 --> 00:22:55.950 Other papers lay with it, including financial documents, instructions on 269 00:22:55.990 --> 00:23:01.569 the furniture directed a future visitor toward the Relevant drawers, guns, 270 00:23:01.670 --> 00:23:07.970 and ammunition were left behind, identified by another note. After supper, 271 00:23:08.049 --> 00:23:13.029 the court's chronology says he went to bed. The following morning, 272 00:23:13.130 --> 00:23:16.769 he packed belongings and sent some of them ahead by 273 00:23:16.910 --> 00:23:22.309 railway express. Then he drove to Kennedy Airport. He left 274 00:23:22.349 --> 00:23:27.190 his car in long-term parking with identifying documents and keys 275 00:23:27.319 --> 00:23:32.609 inside it. The parking voucher would establish November 10th as 276 00:23:32.670 --> 00:23:36.670 his arrival date. An airport offered the prospect of a 277 00:23:36.710 --> 00:23:43.230 departure to almost anywhere. It also offered investigators a question 278 00:23:43.289 --> 00:23:48.670 that would take effort to answer. Which flight had he taken? 279 00:23:49.809 --> 00:23:52.710 But the car was not proof that he had boarded 280 00:23:52.789 --> 00:23:57.279 a plane. He returned to New York City by public transportation. 281 00:23:57.900 --> 00:24:02.309 and began a roundabout journey that would end in Colorado. 282 00:24:03.289 --> 00:24:06.309 He had left the car where it suggested one kind 283 00:24:06.349 --> 00:24:12.289 of escape, while in reality he took another. Back in Westfield, 284 00:24:12.369 --> 00:24:18.119 the school excuses and delivery cancellations remained in effect. The 285 00:24:18.180 --> 00:24:23.339 letters waited in their folder. Nobody was coming downstairs to 286 00:24:23.380 --> 00:24:26.960 turn off the music, and the man who had specified 287 00:24:27.039 --> 00:24:31.230 what others should do with the remains of his old life, 288 00:24:31.970 --> 00:24:36.029 was already traveling toward a place where he could introduce 289 00:24:36.069 --> 00:24:42.960 himself again. Thanksgiving came and went. The explanation for the 290 00:24:43.019 --> 00:24:47.700 family's absence had given people a reason to not expect them. 291 00:24:48.539 --> 00:24:52.980 It could not keep giving that reason forever. A holiday 292 00:24:53.089 --> 00:24:59.109 trip should eventually end. A student should return Someone should 293 00:24:59.190 --> 00:25:03.609 answer the door. At Bree's Knoll, a neighbor was watching 294 00:25:03.670 --> 00:25:09.400 the lights go out. Dr. William Cunick lived nearby. When 295 00:25:09.460 --> 00:25:13.559 police spoke with him on December 7th, he described bulbs 296 00:25:13.619 --> 00:25:18.539 burning out without anyone replacing them. The dog had disappeared 297 00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:24.160 from view. He was particularly concerned about Alma living on 298 00:25:24.200 --> 00:25:29.109 the third floor. Patty's absence had also brought two people 299 00:25:29.210 --> 00:25:33.789 from her theater circle to the police. Edwin Ileano and 300 00:25:33.890 --> 00:25:37.930 Barbara Sheridan had not seen or heard from her for weeks. 301 00:25:38.750 --> 00:25:44.500 That afternoon, they contacted headquarters. By evening, a police captain 302 00:25:44.559 --> 00:25:48.299 was speaking with Cunick, trying to establish what had been 303 00:25:48.400 --> 00:25:53.150 happening at the house. Later, Cunick's wife reported that a 304 00:25:53.200 --> 00:25:57.460 white Pontiac had returned to the driveway The car had 305 00:25:57.519 --> 00:26:03.339 been seen there before. When officers arrived at 9.30, they 306 00:26:03.420 --> 00:26:07.789 found Sheridan and Ileano, but not a returning member of 307 00:26:07.869 --> 00:26:12.829 the List family. Friends and neighbors were now gathered around 308 00:26:13.089 --> 00:26:17.950 the same unanswered question. An officer found the unlatched window 309 00:26:18.029 --> 00:26:22.339 adjoining the porch. He entered the dining room, followed by 310 00:26:22.400 --> 00:26:27.059 his partners. Sheridan and Ileano came inside after the police. 311 00:26:27.940 --> 00:26:31.200 The first floor was dark enough to require a flashlight. 312 00:26:31.980 --> 00:26:36.049 The music still came through the intercom. In the pantry, 313 00:26:36.470 --> 00:26:41.769 the officers saw what appeared to be dried blood. Ileano 314 00:26:41.849 --> 00:26:44.950 led them toward the living room and drew back the 315 00:26:45.009 --> 00:26:51.390 large drape at the ballroom entrance. The flashlight. The flashlight 316 00:26:51.990 --> 00:26:57.259 reached four bodies. Their faces were obscured. The search had 317 00:26:57.319 --> 00:27:01.539 begun as an effort to find out why nobody was answering. 318 00:27:02.390 --> 00:27:05.799 Now more police were summoned, and the rest of the 319 00:27:05.839 --> 00:27:10.599 house had to be searched. On the third floor, they 320 00:27:10.660 --> 00:27:16.140 found Alma. Exactly four weeks had passed since November 9th. 321 00:27:16.980 --> 00:27:21.539 The house contained five murder victims

and an absent father. 322 00:27:22.470 --> 00:27:26.410 In the den, the investigators encountered the system of notes 323 00:27:26.710 --> 00:27:31.690 he had prepared. One asked the finder to contact the authorities. 324 00:27:32.309 --> 00:27:37.269 Another identified the drawer containing weapons. Labels on the filing 325 00:27:37.329 --> 00:27:41.589 cabinets named the people who were supposed to take responsibility 326 00:27:42.150 --> 00:27:46.910 for the papers inside. The desk was forced open. Keys 327 00:27:46.990 --> 00:27:50.710 from it gave access to the files. The police did 328 00:27:50.769 --> 00:27:54.759 not have to guess... who had killed the family. In 329 00:27:54.799 --> 00:27:58.480 the folder for his pastor, List had left a confession 330 00:27:58.980 --> 00:28:03.759 in his own writing. They also had a date, November 9th. 331 00:28:04.380 --> 00:28:08.359 The missing family's last day could be checked against the calls, 332 00:28:08.980 --> 00:28:15.259 school arrangements, financial transactions, and other traces outside the house. 333 00:28:16.660 --> 00:28:19.819 Those pieces began to fit together in a way they 334 00:28:19.920 --> 00:28:23.440 could not have done for the milkman, or a boy 335 00:28:23.759 --> 00:28:30.420 answering the telephone. Each had encountered one ordinary request. Investigators 336 00:28:30.460 --> 00:28:36.549 could place those requests beside five deaths. List had successfully 337 00:28:36.630 --> 00:28:40.329 delayed the discovery. He had not made the crime look 338 00:28:40.390 --> 00:28:44.019 like an accident, and he had not left an unknown 339 00:28:44.079 --> 00:28:51.099 intruder as the obvious explanation. The central question was already changing. 340 00:28:52.220 --> 00:29:04.250 Where had he gone? Three days after the police entered 341 00:29:04.309 --> 00:29:08.990 Bree's Knoll, his car was located at Kennedy Airport. The 342 00:29:09.049 --> 00:29:12.930 voucher placed it there on November 10th. The car still 343 00:29:12.990 --> 00:29:18.130 contained the documents bearing his name. Investigators had reached a 344 00:29:18.170 --> 00:29:21.190 place where the man they wanted had stopped using a 345 00:29:21.799 --> 00:29:28.549 readily identifiable possession. Police checked airline passenger lists. List had 346 00:29:28.609 --> 00:29:32.890 left his car at an airport, then taken public transportation 347 00:29:32.970 --> 00:29:37.130 back into the city. The car pointed toward a flight 348 00:29:37.609 --> 00:29:42.180 he had never taken. Meanwhile, the community had to bury 349 00:29:42.259 --> 00:29:47.980 the people whose absence had concealed his escape. The funeral 350 00:29:48.059 --> 00:29:52.980 was held on December 11th. Helen's mother attended. Helen and 351 00:29:53.039 --> 00:29:57.430 the children were buried in New Jersey. Arrangements were made 352 00:29:57.509 --> 00:30:02.480 for Alma to return to Michigan. The family's separation continued, 353 00:30:02.960 -->

00:30:07.859 after death, in practical decisions that someone other than John 354 00:30:08.420 --> 00:30:13.019 now had to carry out. The pastor appealed publicly for 355 00:30:13.079 --> 00:30:16.940 List to make contact. That appeal was directed at a 356 00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:20.900 man who had written an extensive explanation to a minister, 357 00:30:21.519 --> 00:30:25.069 but had not remained to face the people who received it. 358 00:30:26.109 --> 00:30:30.210 He did not come back. The house stayed behind as 359 00:30:30.490 --> 00:30:34.339 the largest physical reminder of the crime. It had held 360 00:30:34.400 --> 00:30:38.240 the bodies for a month. Now it held the association 361 00:30:38.359 --> 00:30:42.079 with them. Whether a person passing it knew the children, 362 00:30:42.519 --> 00:30:46.930 had read a newspaper, or simply knew which house everyone 363 00:30:47.009 --> 00:30:54.569 was talking about. Then in August 1972, it burned. The 364 00:30:54.609 --> 00:31:00.559 contemporary account gives the cause as Undetermined, the building was gone. 365 00:31:01.279 --> 00:31:06.400 The case was not. For Westfield Police Chief James Moran, 366 00:31:06.819 --> 00:31:10.759 the search became something he carried with him. A later 367 00:31:10.819 --> 00:31:15.009 account described him keeping List's FBI flyer in his pocket 368 00:31:15.490 --> 00:31:20.990 for more than 60 years. Any conversation might bring him 369 00:31:21.069 --> 00:31:24.740 to someone who had a useful lead, and he wanted 370 00:31:24.799 --> 00:31:29.119 the picture available. That is a different measure of a 371 00:31:29.160 --> 00:31:33.920 long investigation from a stack of case files. The chief 372 00:31:33.980 --> 00:31:38.329 would retire before List was caught. The man on the 373 00:31:38.430 --> 00:31:43.930 flyer remained someone he wanted found. Police still had the 374 00:31:44.029 --> 00:31:49.049 evidence collected inside. The confession, the financial records, the car, 375 00:31:49.269 --> 00:31:53.910 and the identity of the missing man. None of those 376 00:31:53.990 --> 00:31:58.759 things supplied his current address. A person can be well 377 00:31:58.819 --> 00:32:03.029 documented in one place and almost invisible to that place's 378 00:32:03.109 --> 00:32:09.390 investigators somewhere else. As the search continued, another difficulty grew 379 00:32:09.509 --> 00:32:14.230 alongside it. The surviving pictures showed John List at an 380 00:32:14.410 --> 00:32:18.970 earlier point in his life. Whoever was living under another 381 00:32:19.029 --> 00:32:23.339 name was growing older. The face on a wanted notice 382 00:32:23.460 --> 00:32:28.160 could remain unchanged while the face a neighbor saw every day, 383 00:32:28.819 --> 00:32:33.140 did not. That problem would eventually produce one of the 384 00:32:33.180 --> 00:32:39.509 most famous images in American criminal investigation. First, though, the 385 00:32:39.549 --> 00:32:43.609 man in

those pictures had to become somebody else's neighbor. 386 00:32:44.890 --> 00:32:48.650 And while Westfield was searching for John List, he had 387 00:32:48.750 --> 00:32:53.619 already begun supplying a different name on forms in Denver. 388 00:32:54.789 --> 00:33:00.970 On November 22, 1971, a man using the name Robert P. 389 00:33:01.130 --> 00:33:05.730 Clark applied for a social security card. The address he 390 00:33:05.789 --> 00:33:09.619 supplied was a motel in Denver. In New Jersey, the 391 00:33:09.670 --> 00:33:14.539 List family had not yet been found. In Colorado, their 392 00:33:14.599 --> 00:33:19.640 killer was putting another name into circulation. His new life 393 00:33:19.720 --> 00:33:24.200 began again. considerably below the professional standing he had wanted 394 00:33:24.259 --> 00:33:28.859 to preserve in Westfield. He worked as a cook. An 395 00:33:28.900 --> 00:33:32.759 accountant with an advanced education was earning his living in 396 00:33:32.799 --> 00:33:36.710 a kitchen under a name that concealed the reason he 397 00:33:36.730 --> 00:33:42.329 had come West. That change is especially important because of 398 00:33:42.369 --> 00:33:46.769 the explanations he had left behind. He had described his 399 00:33:46.829 --> 00:33:52.849 family's future as intolerable. Yet, for himself, he accepted a 400 00:33:52.970 --> 00:33:58.250 different job, a different home and the task of starting again. 401 00:33:59.609 --> 00:34:03.910 Losing his former position did not make his own continued 402 00:34:03.990 --> 00:34:10.489 life impossible. The later court record describes the precautions he took. 403 00:34:11.150 --> 00:34:16.170 He altered his appearance periodically, avoided trouble and kept away 404 00:34:16.269 --> 00:34:22.119 from situations he believed might require fingerprints. Even a parking 405 00:34:22.159 --> 00:34:27.090 ticket was something he wanted to avoid. This was not 406 00:34:27.199 --> 00:34:31.769 an uninterrupted succession of narrow escapes like you might see 407 00:34:31.829 --> 00:34:36.349 on a TV show. His method depended on keeping encounters 408 00:34:36.409 --> 00:34:41.989 with authority uneventful or preventing them altogether. The less there 409 00:34:42.070 --> 00:34:46.820 was to investigate about Robert Clark, the less chance anyone 410 00:34:46.880 --> 00:34:52.769 had of discovering John List, beneath the facade. A passport 411 00:34:52.849 --> 00:34:57.489 was a particular concern because, according to the court's account, 412 00:34:57.989 --> 00:35:02.809 he thought applying for one would expose his fingerprints. That 413 00:35:02.929 --> 00:35:06.630 limited the sort of new life he could safely construct. 414 00:35:07.409 --> 00:35:11.010 He was not simply free to travel wherever he pleased, 415 00:35:11.659 --> 00:35:15.480 a procedure most people would treat as routine could bring 416 00:35:15.599 --> 00:35:20.469 his identities together. He stayed in the United States earning

417 00:35:20.510 --> 00:35:24.090 a living and taking care not to supply an obvious 418 00:35:24.219 --> 00:35:30.699 reason for someone to look more closely. As the years passed, 419 00:35:30.920 --> 00:35:35.619 the former accountant returned to accounting. By the middle of 420 00:35:35.659 --> 00:35:39.650 the 1970s, he was working as a tax preparer for 421 00:35:39.829 --> 00:35:43.369 H & R Block and had joined a Lutheran congregation 422 00:35:43.690 --> 00:35:47.590 in Denver. The man in the wanted photograph had not 423 00:35:47.670 --> 00:35:53.840 discarded every recognizable part of himself. His professional skills were useful. 424 00:35:54.320 --> 00:35:58.280 His religion remained part of his life. He changed the 425 00:35:58.340 --> 00:36:02.460 name attached to those things while continuing to move within 426 00:36:02.539 --> 00:36:07.519 a world he understood. That made his concealment less like 427 00:36:07.920 --> 00:36:13.500 a permanent disguise and more like a carefully incomplete introduction. 428 00:36:14.510 --> 00:36:18.289 People could learn real things about him without learning the 429 00:36:18.369 --> 00:36:24.010 thing that would change everything else. They could know his work. 430 00:36:24.710 --> 00:36:28.019 They could know him through church. They could have good 431 00:36:28.119 --> 00:36:32.039 reasons to expect him at a particular place on a 432 00:36:32.079 --> 00:36:36.559 particular day. None of that required knowing what he had 433 00:36:36.619 --> 00:36:38.519 done in a house 2,000 miles away. In 1997, at 434 00:36:38.539 --> 00:36:48.250 a church picnic, he met Dolores Miller. Their acquaintance developed 435 00:36:48.349 --> 00:36:54.000 into a relationship, and in 1985, they married at her 436 00:36:54.039 --> 00:36:59.119 mother's home in Maryland. There was no hurried wedding immediately 437 00:36:59.280 --> 00:37:03.500 after the escape. Years stood between their first meeting and 438 00:37:03.539 --> 00:37:07.809 their marriage. Dolores had known the person called Bob over 439 00:37:07.909 --> 00:37:13.150 a substantial part of her life. When the truth emerged... 440 00:37:13.179 --> 00:37:18.519 It would collide with accumulated experience, not merely a stranger's 441 00:37:18.659 --> 00:37:30.559 convincing story. Dolores would later say she had not known 442 00:37:30.659 --> 00:37:34.800 of his past. Her public disbelief after his arrest is 443 00:37:34.860 --> 00:37:40.280 not necessarily evidence that she knowingly helped him evade the police. 444 00:37:41.210 --> 00:37:44.750 At a news conference a week after the arrest, Dolores 445 00:37:44.809 --> 00:37:48.010 said she had visited him in jail, but had not 446 00:37:48.090 --> 00:37:51.969 discussed the case with him. She still did not believe 447 00:37:52.090 --> 00:37:56.760 her husband was John List. She wanted reporters to stop 448 00:37:56.860 --> 00:38:01.619 calling her and her family. Years before that arrest, the 449 00:38:01.659 --> 00:38:04.840 marriage had brought him into the orbit of a neighbor 450 00:38:04.920 --> 00:38:11.340 named Wanda Flannery. Journalist Joe Sharkey later interviewed Flannery. She 451 00:38:11.389 --> 00:38:17.329 had grown friendly with Dolores, but she disliked and distrusted Bob. 452 00:38:18.110 --> 00:38:22.210 For the moment, however, the neighbor's unease had not produced 453 00:38:22.269 --> 00:38:28.449 an arrest. The name Robert Clark continued to work. Nor 454 00:38:28.510 --> 00:38:35.670 had starting over guaranteed professional security. Contemporary reporting described renewed 455 00:38:35.769 --> 00:38:42.159 financial difficulties. His next substantial move was connected to work. 456 00:38:42.320 --> 00:38:46.840 In 1988, he relocated to the Richmond area, where he 457 00:38:46.920 --> 00:38:52.030 again found employment in accounting. He and Dolores made their 458 00:38:52.070 --> 00:38:57.630 home in Midlothian, Virginia. The years in Colorado were now 459 00:38:57.769 --> 00:39:02.250 part of the history people knew about Bob Clark. The 460 00:39:02.309 --> 00:39:07.650 false identity had acquired something its first Social Security application 461 00:39:08.239 --> 00:39:12.519 could not provide other people who had known him for years. 462 00:39:13.619 --> 00:39:17.050 Before moving into the couple's home, he rented a room 463 00:39:17.130 --> 00:39:21.949 from a man named Wallace Parsons. Parsons became his friend. 464 00:39:22.590 --> 00:39:25.860 The move had supplied another person who knew the accountant 465 00:39:25.929 --> 00:39:30.739 by the name he offered, without knowing why. he needed it. 466 00:39:31.840 --> 00:39:35.699 There is a particularly uncomfortable answer to the question of 467 00:39:36.159 --> 00:39:41.139 why he didn't surrender during all that time. After his capture, 468 00:39:41.559 --> 00:39:46.889 psychiatrist Stephen Simring asked him about the years away. Simring 469 00:39:46.949 --> 00:39:51.239 later testified that List had initially expected to be caught. 470 00:39:51.940 --> 00:39:55.639 When capture did not come, he continued with the life 471 00:39:56.000 --> 00:40:01.190 he had built. Why not confess to someone? Why not 472 00:40:01.409 --> 00:40:06.809 turn himself in? According to Simring's testimony, List answered, quote, 473 00:40:07.550 --> 00:40:13.210 I was enjoying my life. The psychiatrist also recounted List 474 00:40:13.590 --> 00:40:17.400 saying that, with time, He no longer thought about the 475 00:40:17.460 --> 00:40:22.440 deaths every day. Anniversaries would bring them back to him, though. 476 00:40:23.260 --> 00:40:26.880 The people who had buried Helen, Alma, and the children 477 00:40:27.460 --> 00:40:32.739 had received no corresponding new beginning. They still didn't know 478 00:40:32.860 --> 00:40:37.739 where the father had gone. His absence remained an unresolved 479 00:40:37.820 --> 00:40:42.329 part of their lives, while his presence became an ordinary 480

00:40:42.429 --> 00:40:47.280 part of other people's. By the spring of 1989, he 481 00:40:47.719 --> 00:40:52.400 had survived more than 17 years under the borrowed name. 482 00:40:53.199 --> 00:40:57.219 He had employment, a marriage, and a home in another state. 483 00:40:57.860 --> 00:41:01.360 But the move to Virginia had not erased the acquaintances 484 00:41:01.449 --> 00:41:06.230 he left behind in Colorado. One of them already had 485 00:41:06.309 --> 00:41:10.969 reason to look twice at his face. A wanted photograph 486 00:41:11.010 --> 00:41:15.260 has a problem that fingerprints do not. The person in 487 00:41:15.340 --> 00:41:20.500 it keeps getting older. John List had been 46 when 488 00:41:20.539 --> 00:41:24.179 he killed his family. Anyone searching for him in the 489 00:41:24.219 --> 00:41:28.139 late 1980s had to account for the years that had passed. 490 00:41:28.840 --> 00:41:32.510 A stranger might know the man standing beside them and 491 00:41:32.630 --> 00:41:36.989 still fail to recognize the younger face in a newspaper. 492 00:41:38.030 --> 00:41:41.869 Investigators had been working on that problem well before the 493 00:41:42.010 --> 00:41:48.960 television program entered the story. In 1983, Union County Investigator 494 00:41:49.159 --> 00:41:52.760 Edward Johnson asked the New Jersey State Police for a 495 00:41:52.800 --> 00:41:57.530 drawing of how List might have aged. Sergeant Louis Trowbridge 496 00:41:57.590 --> 00:42:01.869 worked from the available photographs and produced an older face. 497 00:42:02.849 --> 00:42:08.289 His drawing circulated beyond police offices and eventually appeared in 498 00:42:08.329 --> 00:42:14.289 a supermarket publication. The FBI also developed an age-enhanced image. 499 00:42:15.019 --> 00:42:20.460 Its laboratory account describes a 1987 request from the Newark office, 500 00:42:21.139 --> 00:42:26.980 answered with newly acquired computer equipment. Specialists could combine and 501 00:42:27.360 --> 00:42:32.409 retouch photographs to suggest changes that time might have made. 502 00:42:33.449 --> 00:42:37.889 The investigators had no current photograph of List. The artists 503 00:42:37.929 --> 00:42:42.570 had to work from the younger man's photos, adding the lines, weight, 504 00:42:42.730 --> 00:42:46.239 or size. Hair loss the years might have brought, but 505 00:42:46.380 --> 00:42:50.099 even the best likeness needed to reach someone who knew 506 00:42:50.139 --> 00:42:55.039 the man behind it. In Colorado, an earlier published image 507 00:42:55.099 --> 00:43:00.579 had reached exactly such a person. Wanda Flannery thought the 508 00:43:00.619 --> 00:43:04.480 man in the story resembled Bob Clark. She brought her 509 00:43:04.539 --> 00:43:10.949 suspicion to Dolores. The possibility was raised, then left unresolved. 510 00:43:12.389 --> 00:43:17.550 No arrest followed that first recognition. Accounts differ over the 511 00:43:17.650 --> 00:43:23.170 exact publication

and timing. What remains consistent across the official 512 00:43:23.250 --> 00:43:28.590 histories and Flannery's later interviews is the important part. She 513 00:43:28.670 --> 00:43:33.849 had associated her neighbor with John List before the famous 514 00:43:33.989 --> 00:43:41.519 television bust appeared. By 1989, investigators were pursuing another way 515 00:43:41.619 --> 00:43:46.110 to reach the public. America's Most Wanted could present the 516 00:43:46.150 --> 00:43:50.329 cases to viewers who would never encounter a police bulletin. 517 00:43:51.110 --> 00:43:54.929 Its format paired a reconstruction of a crime with an 518 00:43:54.989 --> 00:44:00.369 invitation to send information about the person being sought. For 519 00:44:00.409 --> 00:44:06.289 that broadcast, forensic sculptor Frank Bender... made a three-dimensional age-progressed 520 00:44:06.389 --> 00:44:11.130 likeness of List. The state police's own report says an 521 00:44:11.250 --> 00:44:15.730 updated Trowbridge drawing was supplied to the sculptor. The bust 522 00:44:15.849 --> 00:44:21.170 belonged to a longer attempt to make a changing face recognizable, 523 00:44:21.849 --> 00:44:26.769 not a discovery that happened in some kind of isolated invention. 524 00:44:28.389 --> 00:44:32.989 On television, viewers could compare the sculpted face with someone 525 00:44:33.030 --> 00:44:39.840 they knew, On Sunday, May 21st, 1989, the segment aired. 526 00:44:40.639 --> 00:44:44.860 Here is John Walsh in the original broadcast, preserved in 527 00:44:44.920 --> 00:44:49.559 a later ABC News report. The suspect, John List, is 528 00:44:49.619 --> 00:44:53.480 accused of murdering his family 17 years ago. List was 529 00:44:53.559 --> 00:44:59.199 among the viewers. In the 2003 American Justice program, To 530 00:44:59.280 --> 00:45:04.070 Save Their Souls, he recalled what reached his television in Virginia. 531 00:45:04.460 --> 00:45:06.960 I saw the tail end of it. I saw that 532 00:45:07.619 --> 00:45:10.420 it was about me and I saw the bust that 533 00:45:10.460 --> 00:45:14.800 they had. I was surprised at how accurate it was. 534 00:45:14.820 --> 00:45:18.000 I didn't realize that they had that technology. 535 00:45:18.960 --> 00:45:23.619 In Colorado, Flannery watched the case that had already disturbed her. 536 00:45:24.659 --> 00:45:29.119 Bob and Dolores were now living in Virginia, but distance 537 00:45:29.179 --> 00:45:32.940 had not removed them from her memory. She also had 538 00:45:33.039 --> 00:45:37.139 something much more useful than a vague suspicion about which 539 00:45:37.260 --> 00:45:40.829 part of the country he might be in. She could 540 00:45:40.889 --> 00:45:46.690 supply their new address. The broadcast gave Flannery another chance 541 00:45:46.789 --> 00:45:50.409 to act on her suspicion and a way to pass 542 00:45:50.469 --> 00:45:55.469 it along to investigators. According to the FBI's account, she 543 00:45:55.610 --> 00:46:00.800 asked her son-in-law to call. Sharkey later reported that Flannery... 544 00:46:00.730 --> 00:46:03.929 Didn't think the bust looked much like Bob at all. 545 00:46:04.829 --> 00:46:09.519 Other accounts gave the likeness more credit. Either way, she 546 00:46:09.599 --> 00:46:13.920 had a name and an address. Hundreds of people called 547 00:46:14.039 --> 00:46:19.099 after that broadcast. Among those calls was the tip from 548 00:46:19.219 --> 00:46:31.599 Flannery's family. The information from Colorado pointed to a specific 549 00:46:31.679 --> 00:46:35.619 man living in the Richmond area, known as Robert Clark. 550 00:46:36.400 --> 00:46:40.880 Federal agents followed it. On June 1st, 11 days after 551 00:46:40.920 --> 00:46:45.159 the broadcast, they arrested him at the accounting office where 552 00:46:45.199 --> 00:46:49.969 he worked. After 17 years of searching, agents found him 553 00:46:50.030 --> 00:46:54.170 at work in the professional life he had rebuilt for himself. 554 00:46:55.030 --> 00:46:58.889 He denied that he was John List, His denial would 555 00:46:58.949 --> 00:47:03.750 have to survive a fingerprint comparison. His face had aged, 556 00:47:03.849 --> 00:47:10.199 his prints, though, had not. Contemporary authorities cited his military records. 557 00:47:10.739 --> 00:47:16.079 The FBI laboratory's later account identified another source. The gun 558 00:47:16.159 --> 00:47:20.699 permit application list had submitted roughly a month before the murders. 559 00:47:21.599 --> 00:47:25.420 A form he had filled out before the killings. were 560 00:47:25.500 --> 00:47:28.820 prints that could be compared with the man now calling 561 00:47:28.860 --> 00:47:36.670 himself Robert Clark. His new name had accompanied him through jobs, church, acquaintances, marriage, 562 00:47:36.869 --> 00:47:42.130 and another cross-country move. Each of those settings had allowed 563 00:47:42.190 --> 00:47:48.260 him to introduce himself again. The fingerprint comparison did not 564 00:47:48.679 --> 00:47:53.300 require such an introduction. Robert Clark could deny being the 565 00:47:53.340 --> 00:47:56.170 man in the photograph, but he could not make the 566 00:47:56.230 --> 00:48:02.130 prints belong to somebody else. Even with his fingerprints identified, 567 00:48:02.570 --> 00:48:07.079 he continued to call himself Robert Clark. He waived extradition 568 00:48:07.300 --> 00:48:10.900 and was returned to New Jersey in June of 1989. 569 00:48:10.900 --> 00:48:15.920 The following month, at a hearing in a crowded courtroom, 570 00:48:16.480 --> 00:48:20.340 his attorney entered the plea using the identity he had 571 00:48:20.409 --> 00:48:26.829 maintained for years. Quote, My client, Robert P. Clark, pleads 572 00:48:26.949 --> 00:48:33.389 not guilty. Judge William Wertheimer set bail at $ 5 million. 573 00:48:34.829 --> 00:48:39.050 The old indictment was no longer directed at a missing man. 574 00:48:39.570 --> 00:48:43.679 Its charges

were being read with a defendant standing before 575 00:48:43.739 --> 00:48:48.880 the court. But the name was still being contested. For 576 00:48:48.920 --> 00:48:54.300 the defense, proving identity was the state's responsibility. regardless of 577 00:48:54.380 --> 00:48:59.639 what officials had told reporters. List's refusal to acknowledge it 578 00:48:59.739 --> 00:49:03.980 prolonged that part of the case into the pre-trial proceedings, 579 00:49:04.610 --> 00:49:08.590 when he finally admitted who he was. The trial would 580 00:49:08.610 --> 00:49:12.969 turn on a different question. His lawyers acknowledged that he 581 00:49:13.010 --> 00:49:16.969 had killed his family, but argued that his mental condition 582 00:49:17.050 --> 00:49:22.300 prevented the criminal responsibility that the prosecution sought to establish. 583 00:49:23.320 --> 00:49:26.800 He could not be sentenced to death for these crimes. 584 00:49:27.840 --> 00:49:30.679 The capital punishment law in place by the time he 585 00:49:30.760 --> 00:49:34.599 returned to New Jersey did not make that penalty available 586 00:49:34.699 --> 00:49:41.829 for murders committed in 1971. A conviction could instead put 587 00:49:41.869 --> 00:49:46.570 the rest of his life in prison. Prospective jurors were 588 00:49:46.780 --> 00:49:51.559 asked about the newspaper stories and America's Most Wanted. The 589 00:49:51.619 --> 00:49:55.380 court needed people who could hear the evidence without having 590 00:49:55.519 --> 00:49:59.760 already decided the case. The defense asked to move the 591 00:49:59.840 --> 00:50:03.949 trial out of Union County. The judge kept it there 592 00:50:04.630 --> 00:50:08.880 after questioning prospective jurors about whether they could set what 593 00:50:08.920 --> 00:50:14.139 they had heard aside. Then, there was the letter. The 594 00:50:14.179 --> 00:50:18.409 defense first challenged how police had obtained the evidence inside 595 00:50:18.489 --> 00:50:22.690 Breeze Knoll. They had entered without a search warrant, then 596 00:50:22.869 --> 00:50:28.449 opened the desk and files. If that search violated List's rights, 597 00:50:29.150 --> 00:50:34.130 crucial evidence could be excluded. The judge considered the house 598 00:50:34.230 --> 00:50:37.920 List had left the instructions for whoever found it, and 599 00:50:38.300 --> 00:50:42.360 his years away under another name. He ruled that List 600 00:50:42.420 --> 00:50:46.500 had abandoned the property. The court also found that the 601 00:50:46.559 --> 00:50:52.659 bodies and papers would inevitably have been discovered. The evidence stayed. 602 00:50:53.480 --> 00:50:56.969 List had written to his pastor after the killings. His 603 00:50:57.010 --> 00:51:01.389 defense argued that the communication should be protected by the 604 00:51:01.429 --> 00:51:06.250 confidentiality associated with speaking to a minister. He had left 605 00:51:06.309 --> 00:51:11.090 the letter in the house alongside financial papers. His other 606 00:51:11.170 --> 00:51:15.349 notes told whoever found them where to look. He had 607 00:51:15.409 --> 00:51:19.489 arranged for the contents of his desk to be discovered. 608 00:51:20.289 --> 00:51:23.050 The courts concluded that he had not left the letter 609 00:51:23.170 --> 00:51:28.219 with a reasonable expectation that only the minister would read it. 610 00:51:29.050 --> 00:51:33.030 It could be used as evidence. Both sides would use 611 00:51:33.090 --> 00:51:37.239 those same pages to tell very different stories about the 612 00:51:37.280 --> 00:51:42.389 man who wrote them. Defense psychiatrist Sheldon Miller described a 613 00:51:42.429 --> 00:51:47.929 man overwhelmed by pressures he could not resolve. Medical testimony 614 00:51:47.989 --> 00:51:53.980 about Helen's deteriorating condition became part of that argument, along 615 00:51:54.019 --> 00:52:00.059 with List's financial failures and rigid sense of duty. Prosecution 616 00:52:00.099 --> 00:52:06.110 psychiatrist Stephen Simring disagreed. He testified that List understood what 617 00:52:06.170 --> 00:52:10.449 he was doing and knew it was wrong. List himself 618 00:52:10.550 --> 00:52:14.789 did not take the witness stand during the trial. In closing, 619 00:52:14.889 --> 00:52:20.090 defense attorney Elijah Miller pointed to the meticulous arrangements as 620 00:52:20.190 --> 00:52:26.050 signs of disordered thinking. Prosecutor Eleanor Clark argued that the 621 00:52:26.130 --> 00:52:31.550 arrangements demonstrated deliberate action and that the explanations List left 622 00:52:31.630 --> 00:52:36.530 behind served his own interests. The same notes that delayed 623 00:52:36.590 --> 00:52:41.889 discovery were now being examined in a courtroom. The orderly 624 00:52:41.969 --> 00:52:47.489 instructions no longer controlled what happened next. Jurors would determine 625 00:52:47.670 --> 00:52:54.269 what they meant. Deliberations began on April 11th, 1990, and 626 00:52:54.329 --> 00:52:59.130 continued the next morning, then ended with guilty verdicts on 627 00:52:59.269 --> 00:53:06.119 all five counts of first-degree murder. On May 1, 1990, 628 00:53:06.119 --> 00:53:11.190 List stood before Wertheimer for sentencing. He read a statement 629 00:53:11.710 --> 00:53:12.309 to the court. 630 00:53:12.869 --> 00:53:19.570 I remain truly sorry for the tragedy that happened in 1971. 631 00:53:19.570 --> 00:53:22.949 I feel that due to my mental state at the time, 632 00:53:22.969 --> 00:53:26.829 I was unaccountable for what happened. 633 00:53:28.199 --> 00:53:34.420 Wertheimer imposed five consecutive life terms, List appealed the five 634 00:53:34.500 --> 00:53:40.260 consecutive life sentences, and in 1993, the appellate court upheld them. 635 00:53:41.320 --> 00:53:46.099 The judges treated the murders as separate acts against five 636 00:53:46.420 --> 00:53:53.550 successive victims, Alma, Helen, Patricia, John, and Frederick, five people, 637 00:53:54.269 --> 00:53:58.750 each with a life he had ended. List remained in prison. 638 00:53:59.769 --> 00:54:05.090 In 2002, he again expressed regret, yet still hoped for 639 00:54:05.530 --> 00:54:10.420 reunion with his family in heaven. He died in custody 640 00:54:10.920 --> 00:54:17.619 in 2008, aged 82. The man who disappeared had finally 641 00:54:17.760 --> 00:54:21.800 reached the end of his own life. The children remained 13, 15, 642 00:54:21.800 --> 00:54:28.219 and 16 in the record of their deaths. there is 643 00:54:28.300 --> 00:54:33.119 another surviving piece of paper worth putting beside the confession, 644 00:54:34.119 --> 00:54:39.769 the wanted notices, and the court decisions. When reporters revisited 645 00:54:39.829 --> 00:54:44.230 the case decades later, Chris Day, who had dated Patty, 646 00:54:44.909 --> 00:54:49.570 still had a playbill from little Abner. They had both 647 00:54:49.670 --> 00:54:53.869 been in the musical. She had signed his copy. It 648 00:54:53.909 --> 00:54:57.150 belongs to a teenager who had been in a show 649 00:54:57.230 --> 00:55:02.150 with Someone she cared about. Her father left pages explaining 650 00:55:02.210 --> 00:55:06.650 her death, but on the playbill, she left two words 651 00:55:07.409 --> 00:55:11.340 from her life. Love, Pat. 652 00:55:13.820 --> 00:55:17.800 Terrifying and true is narrated by Enrique Couto it's executive 653 00:55:17.840 --> 00:55:22.400 produced by Rob Fields and bobbletopia.com and produced by Dan 654 00:55:22.440 --> 00:55:25.840 Wilder with original theme music by Ray Mattis if you 655 00:55:25.889 --> 00:55:28.469 have a story you think we should cover on terrifying 656 00:55:28.530 --> 00:55:33.010 and true send us an email at weekly spooky at gmail.com 657 00:55:33.230 --> 00:55:34.650 and if you want to support us for as little 658 00:55:34.690 --> 00:55:37.789 as one dollar a month go to weekly spooky.com slash 659 00:55:37.829 --> 00:55:40.340 join your support for as little as one dollar a 660 00:55:40.380 --> 00:55:42.940 month keeps the show going And speaking of, I want 661 00:55:42.960 --> 00:55:45.159 to say an extra special thank you to our Patreon 662 00:55:45.239 --> 00:55:47.980 podcast boosters, folks who pay a little bit more to 663 00:55:48.019 --> 00:55:49.559 hear their name at the end of the show. And 664 00:55:49.639 --> 00:55:54.199 they are Johnny Nix, Kate and Lulu, Jessica Fuller, Mike Eshkewi, 665 00:55:54.500 --> 00:55:58.860 Jenny Green, Amber Hansford, Karen Wemet, Jack Kerr, and Craig Cohen. 666 00:55:58.900 --> 00:56:01.099 Thank you all so much, and thank you for listening. 667 00:56:01.340 --> 00:56:04.820 We'll see you all right here next time on Terrifying 668 00:56:05.000 --> 00:56:05.519 and True.