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On the 9th of November 1971, bank worker John List
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systematically murdered his wife, mother and three children with a
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pair of handguns. He then proceeded to clean and tidy
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the family home, cut himself out of every photograph in
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the house with a pair of scissors, tune the radio
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to a religious station and walk away from his life forever.
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It would be decades before this murderer was found. and
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longer still before we achieved any kind of understanding as
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to why he committed such senseless and terrible crimes. Until
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he became one of America's most infamous family annihilators, List
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lived a fairly unremarkable life. He joined the US Army
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in 1943 and served as a lab technician during the
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Second World War. When the conflict concluded and he was discharged,
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he studied accounting, before being recalled to active military duty
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during the Korean War in 1950. It was during this
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time that he met Helen Morris Taylor, the woman who
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would later become his wife. Helen had one child from
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a previous marriage, a girl named Brenda. After marrying List
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and moving with him to Kalamazoo, she had three more, Patricia,
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Frederick and John Jr. She also started drinking and developed
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an addiction to alcohol, that made her somewhat unstable. List, however,
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seemed to be doing well in life. By the 1960s
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he had left the army and worked his way up
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to being the comptroller of a bank. This was a
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job that paid well and allowed him to move his
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family into a 19-room Victorian mansion known as Breeze Knoll. He, Helen,
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their three children and List's mother all lived there quite
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comfortably for several years. Brenda, Helen's daughter from a previous marriage,
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did not, however. She married and moved out, something that,
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in retrospect, could be seen as a very lucky escape.
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Things started to go wrong in 1971. The bank where
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List worked closed, and he lost his prestigious and well-paying job.
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Humiliated by this, he couldn't face telling his family. So
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he didn't. Instead, he would leave for work each day,
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and then spend hour upon hour sitting in Westfield train station,
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reading newspapers until it was time to go home. To
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avoid defaulting on the mortgage, he skimmed money from his
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mother's bank account. This went on for months, and his
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family had no idea that anything was amiss. For List, however,
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things were falling apart. His situation was unsustainable, and it
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was only a matter of time before he would do
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something drastic. On the 9th of November 1971, without any
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visible warning or preparation, List shot his wife Helen in
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the back of the head. He then murdered his mother
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Alma by shooting her above the left eye. Then, two
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murders completed, he settled down to wait. When his 16-year-old
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daughter Patricia returned home from school, he executed her with
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a shot to the back of the head, then did
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the same to his younger son Frederick when he arrived
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back at the house. You might well wonder what a
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man like List would do after having annihilated most of
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his immediate family in a series of cold-blooded murders. Was
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he wracked with guilt? Was he an emotional wreck, or
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was he simply hungry? You see, after committing four murders,
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List did nothing more than calmly make himself lunch. Once
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he was done eating, he drove to the bank to
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close his own bank account and his mother's too. From there,
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he went on to Westfield High School to watch his
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eldest and now only son, 15-year-old John Jr., play soccer.
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List drove his son home after the games, and, as
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soon as they were inside the house, attempted to execute
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him too. Something went wrong, however. His son realised what
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was happening and attempted to defend himself, meaning that instead
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of a single clean shot to the head, John Jr.
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died after being shot as many as ten times. List
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put the bodies of his wife and children on top
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of
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sleeping bags and moved them to the mansion's ballroom.
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He left his mother's body in her apartment in the attic,
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as she was too heavy to move. He then wrote
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a meticulous five-page letter to his pastor, detailing funeral arrangements
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and his wishes for the contents of the mansion. He
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wrote in the letter that he had killed his family
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to save their souls. Murdering them, he said, was the
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only way he could be sure that they would end
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up in heaven. Having lost his job, he could no
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longer properly support them, and he was sure that if
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he accepted welfare, the resultant humiliation and change of environment
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would cause his children to turn away from the church,
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as his wife already had done. The letter conveyed no
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remorse whatsoever. As far as List was concerned, he was
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doing his family a favour. This favour completed, he cleaned
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the house, carefully cut his own picture out of every
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family photograph, tuned the radio to a religious station and
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set it playing over a tannoy system throughout the mansion.
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Then he left home forever. The murders were not discovered
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until almost a month later. In part, this was due
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to how little the family socialised, but in part it
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was also down to the actions of List. Before murdering
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his loved ones, he had sent notes to their schools
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and jobs stating that they would be visiting a sick
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relative for several weeks. He stopped all milk and newspaper
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deliveries to the house and left all the lights on
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so that the mansion appeared inhabited at night. It was
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only once the lights in the windows of the mansion
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started burning out one by one that neighbours called the police.
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The scene which cops discovered inside the mansion was eerie.
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Religious music still played at full blast over the tannoy,
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while the stench of death leached through the halls and corridors.
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It soon became clear that List was the culprit, but
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a massive nationwide manhunt was to bear little fruit.
By
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destroying every photograph of himself within the house, List had
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made it difficult for police to put together a wanted poster,
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and had ensured that his image could not appear on television.
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The family car was found parked at John F. Kennedy
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Airport in New York City, but it didn't seem that
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List had taken a flight, rather that he had simply
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parked his car there as a red herring for the police.
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In fact, List wouldn't be found until 18 years had passed.
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The details of what List did after leaving his New
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Jersey mansion would remain a mystery for all that time. Thankfully,
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looking back now, we have the answers that were invisible
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to the police and the public then. After abandoning the
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family car at the airport, List took a train from
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New Jersey to Michigan and then on to Colorado. He
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settled in Denver in 1972 and adopted a new identity.
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His name, he claimed, was Robert Peter Clark, a name
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he had borrowed from one of his college classmates. He
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worked various jobs and including being an accountant and being
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the controller at a paper box manufacturer. He also joined
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a Lutheran congregation and ran a carpool for shut-in church members.
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It was through a church event that he met Dolores Miller,
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who he married in 1985. Together, the couple moved to Virginia.
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To all who knew him, Robert Peter Clarke was a
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thoroughly ordinary man. It must have been a shock for
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many of them then, when, in 1989, his face appeared
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on an episode of America's Most Wanted, along with details
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of the horrendous crimes he had committed in a previous life.
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Within weeks, Robert Peter Clark, or rather, John List, was
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taken into police custody. Given the length of time that
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had passed since List was last seen, you might wonder
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how an accurate picture of him could appear on television.
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The image was, in fact, a clay bust that had
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been sculpted by forensic artist Frank Bender. It was based
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on the scant few images of List gathered by the police,
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combined with information about his lifestyle, and a lot of
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extraordinarily accurate guesswork. In fact, when you compare the bust
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with List's mugshot, Frank Bender's skills of perception seem nothing
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short of miraculous. On the 12th of April 1990, List
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was finally convicted of five counts of first-degree murder. Despite
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his best efforts to absolve himself of responsibility, he was
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given the maximum possible sentence at the time, five consecutive
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life sentences. List, a cold-blooded family annihilator, would eventually die
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in prison at the age of 82. There's one final
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strange coda to this terrible story. Breeze Knoll, The expansive
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mansion where List murdered his family burned down following an
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arson attack less than a year after the killings. On
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sifting through the wreckage, it was discovered the skylight in
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the ballroom was a signed Tiffany original, worth in excess
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of $ 100, 000, more than enough to tide List over until
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he could find another job. If only he had looked.
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If only he had tried. If only he had been
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honest with his family. But for John List, it seemed
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he would rather murder five innocent people than simply tell
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the truth.