Posted on 03/25/2008 11:15:40 AM PDT by Borges
John List, the devout Lutheran who killed his family, left the bodies in his New Jersey home and spent 18 years as a fugitive, has died at 82.
The state Department of Corrections said that List died Friday in a Trenton hospital. He had been an inmate at Trenton State Prison since he was given five consecutive life sentences in 1990.
List, an accountant and one-time Sunday school teacher, lived in Denver for years after shooting his wife, mother and three teenage children, returning to his previous occupation under an alias and marrying a woman he met at a church picnic. By the time of his arrest, after "America's Most Wanted" aired a segment on the crime, he was living in Richmond, Va., with his second wife.
In a five-page letter left for his pastor, List said he wanted to keep his family close to God. He also covered his tracks, telling his children's schools the family was going to be out of town. The bodies, laid out in the Victorian mansion he owned in Westfield, were not found for a month.
The really buggy weird thing is that he didn’t kill again. At least, as far we know he didn’t.
That was a big question.
One of the other excuses he made in his letters was that he could no longer afford to support his family and that impending poverty would also encourage bad behavior.
He was a complete failure at his job and was barely making ends meet with his terrible commissions. He left town with something like $10,000 in debts - not counting the $10,000 he owed his mother before he slaughtered her.
However, he had apparently stolen $200,000 in life savings from his mother as well.
In 1971, $200,000 was a princely sum of money. What did he spend it all on? According to my aunt, his family didn't live an extravagant lifestyle at all. Did he spend it on Tiffany glass?
May God have mercy on your soul, Mr. List......not like the mercy you gave your own children and their mother.....
Yes.... He seems to have glossed over the part that says “Thou shalt not kill.”
Absolutely. It was one of the weirdest stories ever. I guess the new family behaved themselves.
I think the Tiffany glass was actually in some stained windows that the house had, wasn’t it?
A complete and true psychopath.
God gives you the freedom to do good or evil. It’s called free will.
I don’t think that was the problem. Remember, he KILLED them. That’s not a rational act, even if you claim some heavenly justification. If you kill your family, there should be a good reason ie they stole your dope, you needed the insurance money or the always beloved “they just needed killin”. Killing your family for kicks sounds like a start to a life of serial badness.
Whatever happened to the old favorite “I don’t like Mondays”.
You mean like “Too bad he wasn’t a Mormon?”
He’s receiving his reward....now, and a much more intense one at the resurrection.
Doesn’t He know what will happen?
The glass was in a stained piece that hung horizontally in the parlor area, as I recall. He had no idea that it was worth anything.
Oddly, my 15 year old daughter read about him and asked me last night if he is still living.
See post #30
Not following you on that one!
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