TRANSCRIPT 🔗
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John List killed five members of his family, then disappeared
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into an ordinary life. He worked, attended church, and married again.
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For more than 17 years, he escaped capture. Then a
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television broadcast reached someone who already had a reason to
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suspect him.
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What you are about to hear is believed to be real.
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Based on witness accounts, testimonies, and public record, this is
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Terrifying and True.
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Music was still playing when police entered Breeze Knoll. Behind
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a ballroom curtain lay four bodies. Upstairs was a fifth.
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The killer had left instructions for their discovery, but he
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had given himself four weeks to become someone else entirely.
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On December 7th, 1971, friends of 16-year-old Patricia List were
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waiting outside her family's house in Westfield, New Jersey. She
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had stopped turning up for her theater group. Weeks had
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passed without anyone hearing from her. A neighbor had noticed
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other changes. Light bulbs were burning out without being replaced.
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The family dog was no longer around. He was worried
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about the elderly woman who lived on the third floor.
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The children were supposed to be away. Her father had
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made calls, written notes, and given people reasons to wait
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until after Thanksgiving. By December, those explanations had worn thin. Inside,
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John List had prepared a different explanation. A note on
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his desk began with three words. To the finder. It
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directed whoever came looking toward the authorities and the papers
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he had left behind. Finding out who killed this family
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would take very little detective work. Finding the man himself
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would consume years. How could someone leave so much evidence
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behind and still walk into a second life? The answer
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begins before the notes and the empty driveway. When Breeze
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Knoll was home to people whose lives reached far beyond
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its walls. We're telling that story tonight. Before Breeze Knoll
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became a crime scene, it was a family address. The
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Lists arrived in Westfield in 1965. The house had a name,
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a ballroom, and enough space for three generations. John Emil
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List had an accounting background and a bank position. His
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wife was Helen. Their children were Patricia, usually called Patty,
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John Frederick, whom we'll call John Jr., and Frederick, or Fred.
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John's mother, Alma, helped provide the down payment. She moved
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into separate quarters on the third floor. Helen also had
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a daughter from her first marriage, Brenda, who was grown
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and living elsewhere by 1971. Helen's mother lived in North Carolina.
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Her sister had a family of her own. Beyond the
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people sharing this address was a wider family whose lives
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would also be changed by what happened here the house
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had room for Alma without requiring her to share every
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part of the younger family's day a staircase connected the
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floors downstairs were the dining room the pantry the living
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room and farther back the ballroom an elaborate address still
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had a back entrance through which children could arrive with
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their school things There's a family photograph from that year.
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All five members of the younger household are together. The parents,
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their daughter, their two sons. In the school portraits that
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also survive, the children appear separately. Three faces, three young people,
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three lives that reached beyond the rooms their father had purchased.
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Patty found a place in theater. Her drama group brought
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her into contact with people who expected to see her
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at rehearsals and noticed when she was missing. That connection
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would become crucial. Long before those friends had reason to
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call the police, they knew her as someone who belonged
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on stage. Her brothers had their own circles. Rick Bader
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later remembered Monopoly and Risk with Fred. John Jr. played
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soccer and Both boys were scouts. Another visitor, Ed Saradaki,
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remembered Helen defending Fred when his father reprimanded him at dinner.
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John's demands did not go
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unchallenged at the table. Outside
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the house, practical arrangements connected the family to other people.
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List shared the school carpool with Barbara Bader, the milkman
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Herbert Argast, knew the household well enough to bring deliveries
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inside and put them directly in the refrigerator. An ordinary
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note from Helen could tell him what was needed next.
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Those small points of contact would eventually become evidence. For years,
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they were simply how a family got through the week.
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John himself had come from Bay City, Michigan, born in 1925,
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He served in the Army during the Second World War
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and studied accounting at the University of Michigan afterward. He
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married Helen in 1951, during another period of military service.
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Their children were born during the Michigan years. Later, his
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work for Xerox took his family to the Rochester area
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in New York. The bank job and the move to
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Westfield were further steps in that professional life. Here was
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a man who understood accounts and financial obligations. The difficulty
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was not that he had no qualifications. It was that
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jobs he obtained did not keep him employed for long.
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He lost the bank position in 1966. For months afterward,
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a later investigation found he concealed the loss by leaving
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home as if he were still working. spending his days
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at the train station. The routine continued without the salary.
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By April 1968, when Helen's sister, Betty Jean Seifert, visited,
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other strains were visible. She later testified that Helen spent
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much of the visit in bed. Her sister's condition worried her,
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and the house was in need of repairs. The mansion
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had not insulated the family from illness, or the cost
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of maintaining it. Betty Jean remembered medicines, peanut butter, and
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peanuts crowded onto the bedside table. Her visit brought her
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past the imposing exterior and into the room where her
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sister was spending so much of her time. During a
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visit in 1968, Betty Jean's husband, Gene, had a conversation
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with List about a different collection in the house. his
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crime books. At the eventual trial, Jean recalled List's particular
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fascination with unsolved mysteries. Religion remained another constant. List had
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taught Sunday school and belonged to the Lutheran Church of
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the Redeemer. The minister who had known him during the
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Rochester years, Edward Sarisky, remembered a man well-versed in doctrine.
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Yet Sarisky later testified that List had struggled to translate
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that knowledge into daily life. List would eventually claim that
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killing his children could save their souls. His church had
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taught him no such thing. That was the explanation he
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chose for himself. There was more employment after the bank.
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There were attempts to recover. But there were also more
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loans against Breeze Knoll. A contemporary account would describe the
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original $ 40, 000 mortgage and two smaller mortgages taken out afterward.
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The house that had announced the family's arrival was becoming
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harder to keep. Meanwhile, Patty's theater group still had rehearsals.
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Her brothers still needed robbing. The milk still arrived. The
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household kept moving while John's finances fell apart. He had
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already demonstrated that he could hide a professional collapse behind
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a daily routine. Now the debts were following him home.
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The next job did not restore lasting security. By 1969,
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another accounting position had ended when the work moved away.
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List turned to selling insurance. The commissions did not solve
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the household's problems. Behind the impressive address was a financial
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situation that could no longer be sustained by the appearance
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of employment. The mortgage obligations continued. Two of those accounts
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would later appear in a court's findings, with no payment
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recorded after November 1st, 1971. The borrowed money had bought time,
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but the bills were still coming. Helen's illness had also
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become severe. A neurologist who reviewed her medical records would
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describe damage affecting her brain as well as her eyesight.
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She sometimes stayed in bed because... She feared falling, yet
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could still seem perfectly capable during a casual encounter. A
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visitor's brief conversation did not necessarily reveal how much help
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she required. Helen desperately needed medical care. Years later, her
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illness would be offered in a courtroom as part of
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her husband's defense for killing her. Patty had begun telling
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friends she was afraid of him. Rhonda Conway recalled that
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fear years later. Ed Saradocchi remembered Patty saying her father
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had asked whether the children wanted burial or cremation. That
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was no longer a disagreement about acting or church attendance.
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It was a father introducing his children's death into a
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conversation about their futures. Yet October also contained a Halloween party.
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Chris Day remembered List allowing Patty to host one and
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helping them clean up afterward. Normal family moments had not
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simply stopped. Outside the house, people saw pieces of the trouble.
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Patty's friends heard her fears. Relatives saw how ill Helen was.
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The lenders saw missed payments. A firearms application was already
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on file before November 9th. That document would become important
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in a way its maker had not intended. Long after
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List had discarded his name, investigators would still have a
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record created while he was using it. In the letter
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he later left behind, he said he had first intended
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to kill the family, On All Saints Day, November 1st,
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he blamed the postponement on travel arrangements. Even in his
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own explanation, planning the deaths and planning the escape were entangled.
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The dates passed, the family remained alive for another eight days.
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His later explanation would connect the threat of poverty to
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the threat of losing their faith. He objected to Helen's
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wish to leave the church roles and feared what an
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acting career might mean for Patty. He was turning choices
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the others
might make into reasons they should not be
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allowed to make any more choices at all. Patty could
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rehearse a role, spend time with friends, and hope for
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another production. Her father was choosing a date. Tuesday. November
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9th arrived. Thanksgiving was still ahead. Before it came, List
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would arrange for people to believe the family was away
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until after the holiday. For now, it was a school day,
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and the children left the house. Helen and Alma remained
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there with him. The sequence reconstructed in court begins at
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about 9 in the morning. Helen was sitting at the
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breakfast table when John shot her from behind. He then
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went upstairs to the quarters where his mother lived. The
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appellate court's account describes John and Alma walking into the
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third floor kitchen. He shot her there. He left her
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upstairs and returned to the first floor. When investigators eventually
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searched those rooms, they found toast everywhere. The prosecutor mentioned
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it to reporters in the first days of the case
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as a clue that the violence had begun in the morning.
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In Alma's quarters, a trace of breakfast had outlasted her
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own life. In a few movements throughout the house, the
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two adult women were dead. The floors of Breeze Knoll
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now separated two parts of the crime. Alma remained in
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her quarters... Helen's body was moved into the ballroom. The
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rooms that had allowed three generations to live together had
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become places in which John could keep their deaths apart
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while he continued with the day. He cleaned up, and
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then he ate lunch. In a 2002 prison interview, ABC's
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Connie Chung asked him about that meal.
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You ate lunch in the kitchen where you had shot
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your wife in cold blood?
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That's correct.
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How could you?
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I was hungry.
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It was.
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Just the way it was.
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The cleanup would leave evidence of its own. Police photographs
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show mops in the laundry room sink and bags of
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soiled towels in the pantry. He had not made the
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violence simply disappear. He had moved its traces out of
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his way into the same working rooms the family used
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every day. Lunch had separated the murders of the two
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women from the killings still to come. There was time
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between them, time to stop, to leave, to tell someone
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what he had done. The next actions were not a
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surrender or a call for help. He went out to
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conduct business. There were bonds to redeem, checks to cash,
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mail to stop. The afternoon still included contact with people
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who would know him as a customer rather than a killer. Inside,
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Helen could no longer answer a question. Alma could no
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longer come downstairs. Outside, John could still walk into an office.
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and request an ordinary service. Nobody behind a counter had
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the view a future police officer would have. Through the
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ballroom curtain, the children's school day had not ended when
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their mother and grandmother died. They would have to return
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to a home whose meaning had changed without their knowledge.
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One time survives with unusual precision. 137 in the afternoon.
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At that minute on November 9th, List was at his
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safe deposit box. The bank's records would still be there
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when investigators came looking. The court's account also describes roughly $ 2, 000
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in savings bonds redeemed, checks cashed, and a visit to
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the post office to stop mail for himself and Alma.
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While two bodies- lay motionless at home, he was arranging
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which ordinary services would cease to reach the house. It
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was not a perfect erasure. Checking account activity continued to
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leave traces after the date of the killings. His movements
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were recoverable. The advantage he gained was time. Nobody outside
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the family yet knew those movements needed to be investigated.
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Later that afternoon, according to the court's reconstruction, he collected
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Patty and took her home. He shot her there. He
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then collected Fred and killed him after bringing him home.
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Patty was 16. Fred was just 13. The remaining child
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was 15-year-old John Jr. A mother involved in the carpool
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later testified that she had brought him home When the
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boy returned, his father was there. John Jr. was killed last.
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Evidence described repeated gunfire and a struggle. Lists later claim
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that his victim had been spared suffering cannot be accepted
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as the truth of their final moments. He moved the
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children's bodies into the ballroom with Helen. Alma remained on
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the third floor. Five people who had lived in the
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house were now dead inside it. John was the only
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member of the household who could still use the telephone,
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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
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658
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660
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661
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663
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664
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667
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We'll see you all right here next time on Terrifying
668
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and True.