UTSKRIFT 🔗
WEBVTT
1
00:00:01.840 --> 00:00:06.580
On the 9th of November 1971, bank worker John List
2
00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:11.429
systematically murdered his wife, mother and three children with a
3
00:00:11.449 --> 00:00:15.800
pair of handguns. He then proceeded to clean and tidy
4
00:00:15.849 --> 00:00:19.329
the family home, cut himself out of every photograph in
5
00:00:19.350 --> 00:00:22.350
the house with a pair of scissors, tune the radio
6
00:00:22.670 --> 00:00:26.829
to a religious station and walk away from his life forever.
7
00:00:28.170 --> 00:00:31.379
It would be decades before this murderer was found. and
8
00:00:31.440 --> 00:00:35.020
longer still before we achieved any kind of understanding as
9
00:00:35.060 --> 00:00:40.399
to why he committed such senseless and terrible crimes. Until
10
00:00:40.439 --> 00:00:43.880
he became one of America's most infamous family annihilators, List
11
00:00:44.189 --> 00:00:48.049
lived a fairly unremarkable life. He joined the US Army
12
00:00:48.409 --> 00:00:51.549
in 1943 and served as a lab technician during the
13
00:00:51.590 --> 00:00:56.070
Second World War. When the conflict concluded and he was discharged,
14
00:00:56.350 --> 00:00:59.469
he studied accounting, before being recalled to active military duty
15
00:00:59.729 --> 00:01:03.659
during the Korean War in 1950. It was during this
16
00:01:03.719 --> 00:01:07.340
time that he met Helen Morris Taylor, the woman who
17
00:01:07.359 --> 00:01:11.599
would later become his wife. Helen had one child from
18
00:01:11.659 --> 00:01:16.019
a previous marriage, a girl named Brenda. After marrying List
19
00:01:16.180 --> 00:01:20.340
and moving with him to Kalamazoo, she had three more, Patricia,
20
00:01:20.680 --> 00:01:25.180
Frederick and John Jr. She also started drinking and developed
21
00:01:25.260 --> 00:01:30.370
an addiction to alcohol, that made her somewhat unstable. List, however,
22
00:01:30.709 --> 00:01:33.849
seemed to be doing well in life. By the 1960s
23
00:01:33.890 --> 00:01:35.969
he had left the army and worked his way up
24
00:01:36.030 --> 00:01:38.790
to being the comptroller of a bank. This was a
25
00:01:38.810 --> 00:01:40.950
job that paid well and allowed him to move his
26
00:01:40.989 --> 00:01:46.829
family into a 19-room Victorian mansion known as Breeze Knoll. He, Helen,
27
00:01:47.109 --> 00:01:50.349
their three children and List's mother all lived there quite
28
00:01:50.409 --> 00:01:54.719
comfortably for several years. Brenda, Helen's daughter from a previous marriage,
29
00:01:55.060 --> 00:01:58.700
did not, however. She married and moved out, something that,
30
00:01:59.019 --> 00:02:02.019
in retrospect, could be seen as a very lucky escape.
31
00:02:03.420 --> 00:02:07.930
Things started to go wrong in 1971. The bank where
32
00:02:07.950 --> 00:02:11.310
List worked closed, and he lost his prestigious and well-paying job.
33
00:02:12.189 --> 00:02:15.870
Humiliated by this, he couldn't face telling his family. So
34
00:02:15.909 --> 00:02:20.219
he didn't. Instead, he would leave for work each day,
35
00:02:20.680 --> 00:02:23.879
and then spend hour upon hour sitting in Westfield train station,
36
00:02:24.270 --> 00:02:27.870
reading newspapers until it was time to go home. To
37
00:02:27.930 --> 00:02:30.590
avoid defaulting on the mortgage, he skimmed money from his
38
00:02:30.629 --> 00:02:34.120
mother's bank account. This went on for months, and his
39
00:02:34.159 --> 00:02:37.560
family had no idea that anything was amiss. For List, however,
40
00:02:37.939 --> 00:02:42.080
things were falling apart. His situation was unsustainable, and it
41
00:02:42.120 --> 00:02:43.819
was only a matter of time before he would do
42
00:02:43.879 --> 00:02:48.960
something drastic. On the 9th of November 1971, without any
43
00:02:49.020 --> 00:02:52.460
visible warning or preparation, List shot his wife Helen in
44
00:02:52.479 --> 00:02:55.050
the back of the head. He then murdered his mother
45
00:02:55.169 --> 00:02:59.030
Alma by shooting her above the left eye. Then, two
46
00:02:59.069 --> 00:03:03.310
murders completed, he settled down to wait. When his 16-year-old
47
00:03:03.349 --> 00:03:06.610
daughter Patricia returned home from school, he executed her with
48
00:03:06.650 --> 00:03:08.500
a shot to the back of the head, then did
49
00:03:08.530 --> 00:03:11.120
the same to his younger son Frederick when he arrived
50
00:03:11.159 --> 00:03:14.539
back at the house. You might well wonder what a
51
00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:17.960
man like List would do after having annihilated most of
52
00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:21.840
his immediate family in a series of cold-blooded murders. Was
53
00:03:21.860 --> 00:03:24.960
he wracked with guilt? Was he an emotional wreck, or
54
00:03:24.979 --> 00:03:29.819
was he simply hungry? You see, after committing four murders,
55
00:03:30.250 --> 00:03:35.090
List did nothing more than calmly make himself lunch. Once
56
00:03:35.129 --> 00:03:37.210
he was done eating, he drove to the bank to
57
00:03:37.270 --> 00:03:40.789
close his own bank account and his mother's too. From there,
58
00:03:41.030 --> 00:03:43.289
he went on to Westfield High School to watch his
59
00:03:43.409 --> 00:03:48.430
eldest and now only son, 15-year-old John Jr., play soccer.
60
00:03:49.659 --> 00:03:52.349
List drove his son home after the games, and, as
61
00:03:52.409 --> 00:03:55.159
soon as they were inside the house, attempted to execute
62
00:03:55.199 --> 00:03:59.319
him too. Something went wrong, however. His son realised what
63
00:03:59.340 --> 00:04:02.080
was happening and attempted to defend himself, meaning that instead
64
00:04:02.120 --> 00:04:04.810
of a single clean shot to the head, John Jr.
65
00:04:04.840 --> 00:04:09.370
died after being shot as many as ten times. List
66
00:04:09.409 --> 00:04:11.110
put the bodies of his wife and children on top
67
00:04:11.150 --> 00:04:13.870
of
Load full transcript
sleeping bags and moved them to the mansion's ballroom.
68
00:04:14.830 --> 00:04:17.329
He left his mother's body in her apartment in the attic,
69
00:04:17.649 --> 00:04:20.560
as she was too heavy to move. He then wrote
70
00:04:20.600 --> 00:04:24.290
a meticulous five-page letter to his pastor, detailing funeral arrangements
71
00:04:24.589 --> 00:04:27.389
and his wishes for the contents of the mansion. He
72
00:04:27.449 --> 00:04:29.209
wrote in the letter that he had killed his family
73
00:04:29.470 --> 00:04:33.050
to save their souls. Murdering them, he said, was the
74
00:04:33.129 --> 00:04:34.689
only way he could be sure that they would end
75
00:04:34.750 --> 00:04:37.569
up in heaven. Having lost his job, he could no
76
00:04:37.610 --> 00:04:40.379
longer properly support them, and he was sure that if
77
00:04:40.439 --> 00:04:44.660
he accepted welfare, the resultant humiliation and change of environment
78
00:04:44.899 --> 00:04:47.860
would cause his children to turn away from the church,
79
00:04:48.339 --> 00:04:52.269
as his wife already had done. The letter conveyed no
80
00:04:52.329 --> 00:04:55.810
remorse whatsoever. As far as List was concerned, he was
81
00:04:55.850 --> 00:05:01.209
doing his family a favour. This favour completed, he cleaned
82
00:05:01.240 --> 00:05:03.980
the house, carefully cut his own picture out of every
83
00:05:04.019 --> 00:05:07.560
family photograph, tuned the radio to a religious station and
84
00:05:07.579 --> 00:05:10.180
set it playing over a tannoy system throughout the mansion.
85
00:05:11.139 --> 00:05:16.269
Then he left home forever. The murders were not discovered
86
00:05:16.290 --> 00:05:19.680
until almost a month later. In part, this was due
87
00:05:19.720 --> 00:05:22.600
to how little the family socialised, but in part it
88
00:05:22.639 --> 00:05:25.980
was also down to the actions of List. Before murdering
89
00:05:26.019 --> 00:05:28.259
his loved ones, he had sent notes to their schools
90
00:05:28.560 --> 00:05:31.009
and jobs stating that they would be visiting a sick
91
00:05:31.069 --> 00:05:34.790
relative for several weeks. He stopped all milk and newspaper
92
00:05:34.810 --> 00:05:37.310
deliveries to the house and left all the lights on
93
00:05:37.730 --> 00:05:40.949
so that the mansion appeared inhabited at night. It was
94
00:05:40.990 --> 00:05:42.790
only once the lights in the windows of the mansion
95
00:05:42.829 --> 00:05:46.240
started burning out one by one that neighbours called the police.
96
00:05:47.509 --> 00:05:50.550
The scene which cops discovered inside the mansion was eerie.
97
00:05:51.389 --> 00:05:54.110
Religious music still played at full blast over the tannoy,
98
00:05:54.470 --> 00:05:57.740
while the stench of death leached through the halls and corridors.
99
00:05:59.300 --> 00:06:02.339
It soon became clear that List was the culprit, but
100
00:06:02.360 --> 00:06:06.480
a massive nationwide manhunt was to bear little fruit.
By
101
00:06:06.519 --> 00:06:09.819
destroying every photograph of himself within the house, List had
102
00:06:09.860 --> 00:06:12.370
made it difficult for police to put together a wanted poster,
103
00:06:12.769 --> 00:06:15.610
and had ensured that his image could not appear on television.
104
00:06:17.120 --> 00:06:19.610
The family car was found parked at John F. Kennedy
105
00:06:19.699 --> 00:06:22.269
Airport in New York City, but it didn't seem that
106
00:06:22.310 --> 00:06:25.009
List had taken a flight, rather that he had simply
107
00:06:25.069 --> 00:06:27.610
parked his car there as a red herring for the police.
108
00:06:29.680 --> 00:06:34.139
In fact, List wouldn't be found until 18 years had passed.
109
00:06:35.620 --> 00:06:37.660
The details of what List did after leaving his New
110
00:06:37.699 --> 00:06:42.069
Jersey mansion would remain a mystery for all that time. Thankfully,
111
00:06:42.449 --> 00:06:45.490
looking back now, we have the answers that were invisible
112
00:06:45.550 --> 00:06:50.029
to the police and the public then. After abandoning the
113
00:06:50.069 --> 00:06:52.990
family car at the airport, List took a train from
114
00:06:53.050 --> 00:06:57.209
New Jersey to Michigan and then on to Colorado. He
115
00:06:57.250 --> 00:07:01.079
settled in Denver in 1972 and adopted a new identity.
116
00:07:02.120 --> 00:07:05.360
His name, he claimed, was Robert Peter Clark, a name
117
00:07:05.420 --> 00:07:08.660
he had borrowed from one of his college classmates. He
118
00:07:08.699 --> 00:07:11.870
worked various jobs and including being an accountant and being
119
00:07:11.910 --> 00:07:15.629
the controller at a paper box manufacturer. He also joined
120
00:07:15.649 --> 00:07:19.709
a Lutheran congregation and ran a carpool for shut-in church members.
121
00:07:20.889 --> 00:07:23.449
It was through a church event that he met Dolores Miller,
122
00:07:23.980 --> 00:07:28.939
who he married in 1985. Together, the couple moved to Virginia.
123
00:07:30.360 --> 00:07:32.699
To all who knew him, Robert Peter Clarke was a
124
00:07:32.819 --> 00:07:36.199
thoroughly ordinary man. It must have been a shock for
125
00:07:36.240 --> 00:07:39.879
many of them then, when, in 1989, his face appeared
126
00:07:39.959 --> 00:07:43.339
on an episode of America's Most Wanted, along with details
127
00:07:43.399 --> 00:07:46.040
of the horrendous crimes he had committed in a previous life.
128
00:07:47.120 --> 00:07:51.689
Within weeks, Robert Peter Clark, or rather, John List, was
129
00:07:51.750 --> 00:07:55.870
taken into police custody. Given the length of time that
130
00:07:55.910 --> 00:07:58.810
had passed since List was last seen, you might wonder
131
00:07:58.870 --> 00:08:01.230
how an accurate picture of him could appear on television.
132
00:08:02.519 --> 00:08:05.189
The image was, in fact, a clay bust that had
133
00:08:05.209 --> 00:08:09.269
been sculpted by forensic artist Frank Bender. It was based
134
00:08:09.329 --> 00:08:11.910
on the scant few images of List gathered by the police,
135
00:08:12.410 --> 00:08:15.550
combined with information about his lifestyle, and a lot of
136
00:08:15.610 --> 00:08:20.860
extraordinarily accurate guesswork. In fact, when you compare the bust
137
00:08:20.899 --> 00:08:25.040
with List's mugshot, Frank Bender's skills of perception seem nothing
138
00:08:25.120 --> 00:08:29.920
short of miraculous. On the 12th of April 1990, List
139
00:08:29.959 --> 00:08:34.600
was finally convicted of five counts of first-degree murder. Despite
140
00:08:34.639 --> 00:08:37.860
his best efforts to absolve himself of responsibility, he was
141
00:08:37.879 --> 00:08:42.360
given the maximum possible sentence at the time, five consecutive
142
00:08:42.419 --> 00:08:48.379
life sentences. List, a cold-blooded family annihilator, would eventually die
143
00:08:48.500 --> 00:08:54.350
in prison at the age of 82. There's one final
144
00:08:54.730 --> 00:08:59.659
strange coda to this terrible story. Breeze Knoll, The expansive
145
00:08:59.720 --> 00:09:03.220
mansion where List murdered his family burned down following an
146
00:09:03.360 --> 00:09:07.200
arson attack less than a year after the killings. On
147
00:09:07.259 --> 00:09:09.840
sifting through the wreckage, it was discovered the skylight in
148
00:09:09.860 --> 00:09:13.830
the ballroom was a signed Tiffany original, worth in excess
149
00:09:14.149 --> 00:09:18.690
of $ 100, 000, more than enough to tide List over until
150
00:09:18.710 --> 00:09:21.850
he could find another job. If only he had looked.
151
00:09:22.769 --> 00:09:25.389
If only he had tried. If only he had been
152
00:09:25.490 --> 00:09:29.250
honest with his family. But for John List, it seemed
153
00:09:29.289 --> 00:09:33.080
he would rather murder five innocent people than simply tell
154
00:09:33.559 --> 00:09:33.919
the truth.