The John List Family Grave

 

"I have visited my friend's grave every two or three months for the last 18 years.  I am begging you.  This horrible guy murdered my best friend."

  --Friend of murder victim Frederick List, in a letter to America's Most Wanted.

In November 1971, John List, an accountant from Westfield, New Jersey, brutally murdered five people - his mother, his wife, and their three children, the youngest of whom was just 13 years old.  It was a pre-meditated act that he had planned so meticulously, it took more than a month for the bodies to be found and over 18 years for List to be captured.

By 1989, the case had gone cold.  Detective Barney Tracy, who had worked it from the beginning, approached the new FOX television series America's Most Wanted (AMW), asking them to do an episode on the case.  Series host John Walsh agreed to do the segment after hearing from a friend of one of the victims (see quote above).  Cameras rolled, and the case aired in May of that year.

The story recounted how List had lost his job earlier that year, unbeknownst to his family.  For more than a month, he put on a charade of going to work every day.  At the same time, List noticed what he perceived to be a decline in his family's values.  As a devout Christian, he disapproved of his wife's drug and alcohol addiction and of his daughter's more liberal attitude on life. 

With money growing tight, he feared that the family would be separated, and he didn't want his kids to be raised by strangers, not knowing what values they'd instill.  At this point, he rationed that the only solution was to send them to Heaven before it was too late.  He shot all five in cold blood and never looked back.

The Lists were laid to rest in a family plot at Fairview Cemetery in Westfield, New Jersey.  A single headstone bears most of their names.

The AMW segment included an age-enhanced bust created by forensic artist Frank Bender.  It was a near-perfect match for the 63-year-old List, who had assumed the name Bob Clark and was living with his new wife in Richmond, Virginia.  He was captured nearly two weeks later thanks to viewer tips.

List died in prison at the age of 82.  No one claimed his body, which is rumored to be buried in the prison cemetery.

Trivia

• If you want to learn more about the List family murders, take a voyage to your public library, or Amazon.  It's all in books.
  
  
• This grave is the final resting place for List's wife Helen and the three children, but the fifth murder victim, John's mother Alma, was buried with her husband in Frankenmuth, Michigan.
  
  
• In 1993, Robert Blake, who would later famously be accused of murder himself, landed the starring role in Judgment Day: The John List Story.  Helen was played by Beverly D'Angelo.  You can watch the film in its entirety on YouTube.
  
  
• The forensic bust created for America's Most Wanted is now on permanent display at the Alcatraz East Crime Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.  Other items in their collection include John Wayne Gacy's Pogo costume, DB Cooper hijack money, and OJ Simpson's white Ford Bronco.
  
  
• Fairview Cemetery is also the final resting place of the voice herself, Whitney Houston, who's grave was once profiled by this blog.  Her daughter and parents are buried there as well.

This blog will return on June 27th.