How John List Hid in Plain Sight for 18 Years After Killing His Family

In November 1971, neighbors of the List family started to worry. The lights were on day and night, newspapers were piling up on the front porch, and no one seemed to be coming or going from the 19-room Victorian mansion in Westfield, N.J.

When police visited the large residence in early December, they discovered a gruesome scene. Inside, they found the bodies of John List’s family members, all of whom had been shot to death: his 45-year-old wife, Helen; their three children, Patricia, 16, John Frederick, 15, and Frederick, 13; and his 85-year-old mother, Alma. 

Police estimated that the victims had been dead for roughly a month. John, meanwhile, was nowhere to be found; the family’s 1963 Chevrolet sedan was also missing. Investigators immediately launched a nationwide search for John, a deeply religious, 46-year-old certified public accountant and insurance salesman.

The ensuing investigation would become a decades-long search for a man who had seemingly vanished without a trace.

After discovering the bodies, investigators found a .22‐caliber target pistol and 9‐millimeter pistol in a desk drawer on the home’s ground floor. Both guns had been fired. 

They also discovered a five-page confession John had penned to his pastor, explaining that he had murdered his family to ensure their salvation and save them from financial hardship. 

“At least I'm certain that all have gone to heaven now,” he wrote. “If things had gone on who knows if this would be the case.”

He admitted to shooting the victims from behind because he “didn't want any of them to know even at the last second that I had to do this to them,” he wrote.

“Also I'm sure many will say, ‘How could anyone do such a horrible thing?’” he added.  “My only answer is it isn't easy and was only done after much thought.”

Police also learned that someone had asked the post office to stop delivering mail to the home, and that a note had been delivered to John Frederick and Frederick’s school saying they would not be attending classes for the foreseeable future. Similarly, the director of a local drama club had been notified that Patricia would not be available to try out for a play because of an upcoming family vacation.

Three days later, they found the family’s vehicle at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.

As investigators tried to make sense of the slayings, John was already creating a new life for himself. He moved to Colorado, where he dyed his hair and began calling himself Robert “Bob” Clark. Throughout the mid-1970s, he worked at a hotel, then at a country club and department store restaurant before eventually finding work as an accountant. He met and married a woman named Delores Miller in 1985 and, several years later, the couple moved to Richmond, Va.

Years passed, but police never stopped looking for John. In May 1989, America’s Most Wanted featured the List family slayings, showing an old photograph of John alongside a sculptor’s rendering of what he might look like nearly two decades after the killings.

Wanda Flanery, who had lived near Robert and Delores in Colorado, was watching that night. She recognized the man on the screen as her former neighbor and asked her son-in-law Randy Mitchell to call the tipline.

“I knew it was Bob,” Flanery told The New York Times.

It wasn’t the first time Flanery had wondered about Robert. Two years earlier, she’d read a magazine article on the List case, which included a photograph of John. She showed the piece to Delores, noting the man’s striking resemblance to Robert. 

“I took it over to her and asked, ‘Isn’t this your husband?’” Flanery told The Washington Post.

Delores looked at the image for a moment before denying that the man was her husband. Flanery decided to drop the subject but found herself being more careful whenever she was around Robert.

When police visited Robert in June 1989 at his Richmond office, he denied being John—but his fingerprints were a match. He was arrested, extradited to New Jersey and charged with five counts of murder.

Jean Syfert, Helen List’s sister, was “thrilled.” Delores, however, was shocked. She claimed Robert had told her that his first wife had died of cancer and was a “very sickly lady.”

“I have never known Robert to be anything but a sweet and gentle man of good character,” she said at a news conference not long after the arrest. “We have had a happy marriage filled with mutual respect and love.” 

Authorities briefly considered the possibility that John might be D.B. Cooper, the infamous 1971 hijacker who vanished with $200,000. However, they later ruled him out as a suspect.

John pleaded not guilty to the murder charges by reason of mental defect, otherwise known as an insanity defense. At his trial in April 1990, his attorney, public defender Elijah J. Miller, acknowledged that John had killed his family but argued that the slayings were “something other than murders.”

“He is not a whole person,” Miller said, adding that John had committed the crimes “with love in his heart.”

In the end, jurors convicted John on all five counts. He was sentenced to five life terms, the most severe penalty available to the court.

At sentencing, John continued to deny responsibility for the killings.

“Because of my mental state at the time, I was unaccountable for what happened,” he said. “I ask all affected by this for their forgiveness, understanding and prayer.”

Later, however, he admitted that he knew what he was doing was wrong. He still doubled down on his decision, claiming that he felt killing his family members was the only way to save them.

“I feel when we get to heaven we won’t worry about these earthly things,” John told ABC News during a 2001 prison interview. “They'll either have forgiven me or won’t realize what happened. I'm sure that if we recognize each other that we’ll like each other's company just as we did here, when times were better.”

John died in 2008 from complications of pneumonia at the age of 82.