The Man Who Killed His Family And Disappeared For 18 Years (True Story Animated)

How did this man who lived in the 19 room mansion, worked as an accountant in a bank and was a sunday school teacher living a seemingly good life suddenly take the lives of his entire family and disappear for 18 years? This is the story of how detectives finally caught John List after nearly two decades. It was 1971. John was in his late 40s when he found himself under a mountain of debt and lost his accounting job. He was skimming money from his mother's bank accounts to pay for the mortgage while fearing that he can no longer support his family. He went bankrupt but refused to go on welfare and didn't want his family to suffer in poverty So he decided the only solution was to take the lives of his wife, three kids, and his own mother. In his words.. "I did it to save their souls" He placed their bodies in sleeping bags lining them up together in the ballroom immediately after he wrote a five page confession letter to his pastor the youngest one struggled a lot and i'm sure many will say how could anyone do such a horrible thing but after it was over i said some prayers for them all that was the least I could do. He sent notes to the kids school saying that the family will be in north carolina for several weeks to visit their sick grandmother. he closed all bank accounts taking the rest of his mother's money and stopped all mail milk and newspaper deliveries to the mansion john lowered the thermostat in the house played church music from the radio and left to start a new life because john's plan was so methodical and his family was very reclusive in the first place for over a month nobody noticed anything it wasn't until the neighbor saw the lights in the house burn out weeks after and realized it still hadn't been fixed and they finally grew suspicious the teachers also realized that the kids hadn't returned to class and felt something was off police was called and the investigation of john list and his family began december 7 1971 law enforcement entered the mansion through an unlocked window immediately they felt how cold the place was and saw the bodies in the ballroom they were all decomposing at this point there was a trail of dried up blood leading to the bathroom it looked like john didn't do that well when cleaning up the crime scene and left the mop and bucket inside the shower the organ music was still playing and soon after they found the five-page confession letter to his reverend police checked all around the room and inside one of the drawers was the revolver and handgun he used john list also meticulously cut out his face in every family photo they found his car parked at the kennedy national airport but there was no evidence of him boarding any flight the detectives had no lead and john list had disappeared without a trace. 1989. Although it's been nearly two decades the new jersey police never gave up on this case newspapers with his face continue to appear with the headline john list still not found after this many years it was possible he took his own life but he could have also started a new one far away around this time a show called america's most wanted was airing its first season and garnered a huge audience that's when detectives contacted john walsh the creator of the show in hopes to get this case on television the plan was to tell the world about john lewis's crime and get someone to call in with information on his whereabouts however the last picture they had of him was from 1970 nobody knew what he would look like 18 years later that's when they hired frank bender a master in forensic sculpting to create a bust of an old john list forensic psychologists were also very important in helping bender imagine list's new look he carefully analyzed the man's entire history his upbringing his fears and his genetics through pictures of his parents and after many hours the physical bust of john list was complete it featured his hawk nose receding hair wrinkles the sagging cheeks and even the same scar behind his ear frank bender also theorized that john list would still be wearing thick glasses as it reminded him of his younger wealthy self to finish off his clay sculpture bender put on a pair of dark rimmed frames different from the ones before he became a fugitive and on may 29th 1989 the john list episode aired on america's most wanted to over 20 million households nine days later john list was arrested his neighbor wanda was watching the episode when she noticed some very striking similarities an accountant glasses man in the 60s with the same facial features as that of the bust and a churchgoer she called the show's tip line phone number just in case bob clark an accountant living in richmond virginia remarried to a woman named dolores miller whom he met at a church gathering robert peter clark real name john list when confronted by detectives he denied ever knowing such a man but the evidence was all there his fingerprints matched the ones on the firearms he used and magnificently he wore the exact same thick rimmed glasses that frank bender had put on the bust his new wife dolores told her story of how they met and after finding out the truth she divorced him immediately for months he kept denying it but on february 16th 1990 liszt confessed to his true identity 18 years ago he parked his car at the jfk airport but instead of taking a flight he took a train to denver colorado to start another life under his new name with everything finally revealed he went on trial and the judge sentenced him to life in prison in an interview in 2002 they asked the list why didn't you take your own life his answer doing that would have barred me from heaven as i wanted to reunite with my family some final facts that i found out while researching this story was that the name of the mansion breeze no was burned down nine months after the crime by an unknown group and destroyed along with the home was a stained glass skylight said to be a tiffany original that was worth a hundred thousand dollars in 1970. in present day this would be worth about 680 000 and this amount of money would have cleared john lewis stepped john walsh the host of america's most wanted donated frank bender's physical bust to a forensic science exhibit which can now be seen inside the alcatraz east crime museum in tennessee hope you all enjoyed this new type of creepy video compared to what i usually post make sure to drop a like subscribe to my channel if you're new and i'll see you guys in the next video

Channel: Steven D

Views: 353,569

Rating: 4.9727516 out of 5

Keywords: animation, animated story, story time, creepy true stories, true crime, creepy, stalker

Id: hq6UgR-26KI

Length: 8min 36sec (516 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 28 2020