The Hunt for John List (Part 1)

In early December 1971, after a month of watching the lightbulbs in the List house slowly burn out one after another, neighbors finally became concerned about the List family and called the Westfield, NJ police to report their suspicions. Acting on the calls, officers arrived at house on the morning of December 7 to perform a wellbeing check, and when no one answered the door, they managed to gain access to the house through a basement window. When they reached the first floor, the officers found the bodies of the List family—including the couple’s three children—dead from gunshot wounds to the head they’d suffered a month earlier. Noticeably absent from the remains in the house were those of the family patriarch, John List. In his office, investigators discovered a letter List had written to the pastor of his local church, in which he claimed to have murdered his family in order to spare them the pain of living in a world he believed had become corrupt and morally bankrupt. References Associated Press. 1972. "John List is still missing and local police are baffled." Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), February 22: 9. —. 1972. "Highjack-slaying ties denied." Press of Atlantic City, January 15: 4. Bailey, Bruce. 1972. "Worldwide hunt fails to find Wrstfield exec." The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), June 11: 1. Balog, Kathy. 1990. "The confession to his pastor was the most damning of all." The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), April 13: 1. Benford, Timothy, and James Johnson. 1991. Righteous Carnage: The List Murders in Westfield. New York, NY: Scribner. Bullock, Marilyn, and Bruce Bailey. 1971. "The Lists were a neighborhood mystery." The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), December 9: 11. Chung, Connie. 2002. 1971 family killer breaks silence. February 20. Accessed August 1, 2026.