John List
John Emil List (September 17, 1925 – March 21, 2008) was a convicted multiple murderer and long-time fugitive. On November 9, 1971 he killed his wife, mother, and three children in their home at 431 Hillside Avenue in Westfield, New Jersey, and then disappeared. He had planned the murders so meticulously that nearly a month passed before anyone noticed that anything was amiss. A fugitive from justice for nearly 18 years who assumed a new identity and remarried, List was finally apprehended on June 1, 1989 after the story of his murders was broadcast on the television program America's Most Wanted. List was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced in 1990 to five consecutive terms of life imprisonment at New Jersey State Prison, where he died in 2008.
Personal background
Born in Bay City, Michigan, List was the only child of German American parents, John Frederick List (1859–1944) and Alma Maria Barbara Florence List (1887–1971). Like his father, he was a devout Lutheran and a Sunday school teacher. In 1943, he enlisted in the Army and served in the infantry as a laboratory technician during World War II. After his discharge in 1946, he enrolled at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he earned a bachelor's degree in business administration and a master's degree in accounting, and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the ROTC.
