Further reading for John List
Death Sentence: The Inside Story of the John List Murders by Joe Sharkey
Righteous Carnage: The List Murders in Westfield by Timothy Benford
John List was a murderer of a type that is almost entirely unique to the American landscape. List falls into a category of mass murder called The Family Annihilator, which is about as metal as killer descriptors come. Unfortunately, List is the furthest thing from metal. Family Annihilators do what it says on the box. They kill their families. On November 9, 1971, John List systematically shot and killed his mother, his wife, and three children in their New Jersey home before disappearing into the American landscape, where he would remain at large until 1989 when his case was featured on America’s Most Wanted.
The events leading up to List’s crime are often played down and the story is usually told as one where the father one day snapped and killed everyone but given John List’s entire history, beginning with childhood, it would have been more shocking had murdered no one. List was the product of an extremely conservative family, dedicated to their faith among the Lutheran Protestants of Michigan. If you want a picture of the Lutheran faith, consider that it was founded by a dude who considered the Roman Catholic Church to be too liberal. It’s integration into American culture dovetailed perfectly with capitalism and some of the core tenets of its belief system is that the poor are poor because they are sinners. Get it?
List’s life and personality was cartoonishly dull, which made him the perfect mark to be pushed around by everyone. With a faith and personal philosophy of shoving everything down and accepting your fate, he spent his entire life just taking shit; from everyone, including his wife who was a severely put-upon woman trying to make it through in a society where she was clearly not the sort of person tuned to be a home-maker. List lost numerous jobs, couldn’t deal with people, had no management skills, but pushed forward through life as though these things were not true. The pressure built steadily across the years until the last layoff put him on the edge of financial ruin again and his only conclusion was to kill his family. List had his reasons but those reasons are bullshit and stupid.
Episodes: 438 & 439
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