Andrew O’Loughlin
Cheryl Paradis
NYC Crime Takes a Bite
8 December 2014
Familial Bond Broken By Bullets: John List Family Annihilation
On November 9th, 1971 John Emil List, an extremely devout Lutheran Westfield, New Jersey resident, who was locally famous in his neighborhood for mowing his lawn while wearing a suit and a tie, murdered five of his family members. The victims of List’s killing spree were his forty-five year-old wife Helen List, his sixteen year-old daughter Patricia List, his fifteen year-old son John List Jr., his thirteen-year-old son Frederick List, and his eighty five year-old mother Alma. Even though these victims were murdered in November of 1971, their bodies were not discovered in their Victorian mansion home until a month later on December 7th, 1971. By the time the crime had been discovered, John List had fled the scene and would not be discovered for another eighteen years. By the standards of modern criminal diagnoses, John List was considered to be a Mass Murderer. Although John List falls under the category of a Mass Murderer, he fits into a more specific subgroup of mass murders, the Family Annihilator. With a horror-film-like crime, infamous recognition around the globe, an eighteen-year long disappearance, and countless mass murderer qualities that fit him perfectly, John List can be categorized as
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List had torn his face out of all of the family photos around the house, he had parked his car at the Kennedy International Airport without booking a flight, and the List home was destroyed by an undiscovered arson criminal on August 30th, 1971, nine months after the murders took place. Helen, John Jr, Patricia, and Frederick were all buried next to one another in cheap caskets and List’s mother Alma was flown back to Michigan. The case eventually fell into the jurisdiction of the FBI. However, the search for List was not successful and the case eventually went