1971 Family Killer Breaks Silence

Table Of Content

• Chris Pratt, Katherine Schwarzenegger could’ve given Craig Ellwood teardown ‘some honor,’ architect’s daughter says
• What Happened to the List Home?
• Be Tough on Dirt But Gentle on Your Body With the Best Soaps for Sensitive Skin
• Alerts & Newsletters
• NYPD used flash bangs to breach Columbia building where doors were barricaded

The centerpiece of the house was a ballroom with a Tiffany glass ceiling. This is where police found the bodies of List's wife and three children, zipped up neatly in Boy Scout sleeping bags. His 85-year-old mother was found crumpled in a third-floor attic closet, with a dishrag around her mouth.

Chris Pratt, Katherine Schwarzenegger could’ve given Craig Ellwood teardown ‘some honor,’ architect’s daughter says

Eventually he murders each member of his family one-by-one, and flees after leaving their bodies in the house for the neighbors to find weeks later. On November 9, 1971, List murdered his whole family—including his mother, wife and two children—using a 9mm Steyr 1912 semi-automatic handgun and his father’s Colt .22 caliber revolver. While Patricia, Frederick and John were at school, List killed Helen, who was 46 at the time, by shooting her in the back of the head.

What Happened to the List Home?

In an interview with ABC’s Connie Chung in 2002, List said he didn’t kill himself after murdering his own family because he felt that would prevent him from getting to Heaven. All List wanted was to reunite with his wife, mother, and children in the afterlife, where he believed there would be no pain or suffering. When authorities entered the home on Dec. 7, 1971, they heard organ music piped through the intercom system. They also found the five-page note from John List explaining that the bloodied bodies on the ballroom floor were his family members, killed out of mercy. List gave critical financial problems, as well as his perception that his family members were straying from their religious faith, as his motivations for the murders.

Be Tough on Dirt But Gentle on Your Body With the Best Soaps for Sensitive Skin

The 43-year-old collapsed on the kitchen floor, where she would stay while John went upstairs, where his mother was living in a small apartment. They moved again to Detroit, Michigan, where he had several years of success in the accounting field. John also went to college at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in accounting.

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In 1965, when List and his family moved to affluent Westfield, N.J., he seemed to be a model of suburban success and propriety. He was vice president and comptroller of a nearby bank, and his family lived in an 18-room mansion with marble fireplaces and an elegant ballroom. They attended church each week with List's mother, a strict Lutheran who lived with them. The discovery of a series of letters written by him made it clear he was the killer.

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Then, he went up to the third floor and murdered his mother in her bed. Defense attorneys painted List as a man whose parents forced religion upon him, pushing him into a life of insanity. On April 12, 1990, a New Jersey judge proclaimed John List a “man without honor” and sentenced him to life in prison.

With his entire family dead, John List then set out to escape justice for his grisly crimes.

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But with multiple candidates splitting the Republican vote, Boebert’s standing with the MAGA base — which may be 35% or more of the primary electorate — could be enough to send her back to Washington. Bennett, a 61-year-old civil contractor who switched from independent to Republican when Trump became president, wasn’t the least fazed by Boebert’s unruly escapades. Bill Bennett brought his French bulldog, Donald J. Tank, to see Boebert when she dropped by a coffee shop in Elizabeth, farm country about 15 miles east of Castle Rock. Portraits of livestock and multiple crosses filled the small space, which barely contained the 75 or so who crowded in. For some, however, Boebert’s don’t-give-a-flip attitude and not-in-the-least-conventional biography — she’s a high school dropout and became a grandmother at age 36 — make her authentic in a way most politicians aren’t. She cited the personal shambles as the reason she switched districts, moving from western to eastern Colorado.

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The List neighborhood is much as it was in the days of John List, a quiet and starched-upright accountant who only brought attention to himself because he cut his lawn in a shirt and tie. It is a story that still hovers over the neighborhood, although the years have lessened the shock and sadness and dulled the tragedy. John List died on Good Friday, which, for a religious man, speaks unthinkable irony. “I remember thinking ‘Jeez, these people have actually gone through this. This actually exists in the world,’” Dumezweni said of her initial reaction to the story.

"When the bodies were discovered they let local reporters tramp through the through the crime scene." Author and journalist Joe Sharkey later investigated List's life in Denver for his book Death Sentence, which covers the murders in detail. He told her his first wife had died of cancer and moved into her apartment in Aurora, Colorado, 10 miles east of Denver. The case was so gruesome, according to attorney Michael Mitzner who was called to the house that night, veteran police officers were shaken up by what they'd seen. At the scene, murderer John List left behind a horrifying confession note, but the quiet, reserved accountant was nowhere to be seen.

"I don't know whether it was only because he was still jerking that I wanted to make sure that he didn't suffer, or that it was sort of a way of relieving tension," the elder John recalled of the multiple shots he took. But John List had been making these sorts of threats for a while. According to NJ.com, Patty told a friend that her father had been chillingly direct with them, asking the children if they wanted to be buried or cremated.

The bill would require the BLM director to permanently withdraw the rule. The bill passed through the House Committee on Natural Resources in June of 2023. The list of projects by John Lautner is still a work in progress but is gaining in accuracy every day. You can download a list in portable document format (pdf) that is current as of October 2008, prepared by Tycho Saariste, based on the research he and Jan-Richard Kikkert have undertaken since 2006. The two Dutch architects have made it their mission to visit every Lautner building (see this article by his partner in the venture). Mark Z. Barabak is a political columnist for the Los Angeles Times, focusing on California and the West.

'The Watcher's John Graff is based on grim true story of family annihilation - Mashable

'The Watcher's John Graff is based on grim true story of family annihilation.

Posted: Wed, 19 Oct 2022 07:00:00 GMT [source]

In 1972, the tax records of the house stated it was valued at$100,000 (not including the Tiffany ceiling). As far as we know, until John List murdered his family in that home, it was just another mansion by the Watchung Hills. He waited until his wife and children arrived home one by one, crept up and shot them in the head at close range, and dragged their bodies into the ballroom. His 84-year-old mother, Alma, who lived in an upstairs apartment in the house, received a gunshot, too. List was arrested on June 1, 1989, at his accounting firm in Richmond, Virginia, after a former neighbor from Denver, recognized him in an episode of FOX’s America’s Most Wanted that aired in May 1989. Though the show didn’t include a photo of List, it did include an age-progressed clay bust sculpted by a forensic artist that bore a close resemblance to List’s real appearance.

In court, List claimed he was insane to try and avoid a life sentence. The unsuspecting wife showed the agents two photos - one from their wedding day. He appeared to have let his guard down, losing the moustache and moving to Richmond, Virginia with his second wife, and even practising accounting again. However, in fact, List had moved to Denver, Colorado, where he worked as a cook at a Holiday Inn. List had family in Germany and spoke German from his time there during the Second World War.

In fact, he was long gone, as the bodies had lain in the house undiscovered for almost a month, while List had begun a new life under a new identity. The jury found John List guilty, and a judge sentenced him to five life terms in a New Jersey prison. At his trial in 1990, defense lawyers argued that List suffered from PTSD from his military service in World War II and Korea. Expert psychologists believed that List was going through a mid-life crisis — but, as the prosecution pointed out, that was no excuse for killing five innocent people. When America’s Most Wanted aired the story of the murders on May 21, 1989, an audience of 22 million saw Frank Bender’s sculpture.