Born in Bay City, Michigan, John List was the only child of German American parents, John Frederick List (1859–1944) and Alma Maria Barbara Florence (Hubinger) 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. In November 1950, as the Korean War escalated, List was recalled to active military service. At Fort Eustis, in Virginia, he met Helen Morris Taylor, the widow of an infantry officer killed in action in Korea, who lived nearby with her daughter, Brenda. John and Helen married on December 1, 1951, in Baltimore, and the family moved to northern California where List served as an Army accountant. After completion of his second tour in 1952, List worked for an accounting firm in Detroit, and then as an audit supervisor at a paper company in Kalamazoo, where their three children were born. By 1959 List had risen to general supervisor of the company’s accounting department; but Helen, an alcoholic, had become increasingly unstable. In 1960, Brenda married and left the household, and List moved with the remainder of his family to Rochester, New York, to take a job with Xerox, where he eventually became director of accounting services. In 1965, he accepted a position as vice president and controller at a bank in Jersey City, New Jersey, and moved with his wife, children, and mother into Breeze Knoll, a 19-room Victorian mansion in Westfield.

On November 9, 1971, John List methodically killed his wife, Helen, 46; his mother, Alma, 84; and his children—Patricia, 16, John, Jr., 15, and Frederick, 13. The murder weapons were his own 9mm Steyr 1912 semi-automatic handgun and his father’s Colt .22 caliber revolver. While the children were at school he shot Helen in the back of the head, and then his mother above the left eye. In the early afternoon he shot Patricia and Frederick in the back of the head as they arrived home. After making himself lunch, List drove to his bank to close his own and his mother’s bank accounts, and then to his elder son’s school to watch him play in a soccer game. He drove John, Jr. home, then shot him repeatedly in the chest and face. List placed the bodies of his wife and children on sleeping bags in the mansion’s ballroom. He left his mother’s body in her apartment in the attic. In a five-page letter to his pastor, found on the desk in his study, he wrote that he saw too much evil in the world, and he had killed his family to save their souls. He then cleaned the various crime scenes, carefully cut his own picture out of every family photograph in the house, tuned a radio to a religious station, and departed. The murders were not discovered until December 7, nearly a month later, due in part to the family’s reclusiveness and refusal to socialize, and in part to notes sent by John List to the children’s schools and part-time jobs stating that the family would be visiting Helen’s mother in North Carolina for several weeks. He also stopped milk, mail and newspaper deliveries. Neighbors noticed that all of the mansion’s lights were illuminated day and night, with no apparent activity within. Finally, when the lights began burning out one by one, they called police.

The case became the most notorious crime in New Jersey history since the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh Baby. A nationwide manhunt was launched. Police investigated hundreds of leads without success. All reliable photographs of List had been destroyed. The family car was found parked at Kennedy Airport, but there was no evidence that he had boarded a flight. Alma was flown to Frankenmuth, Michigan, and interred at the Saint Lorenz Lutheran Cemetery. Helen and her three children were buried at Fairview Cemetery in Westfield. Eighteen years later, on May 21, 1989, the murders were recounted on the television program America’s Most Wanted, which at the time had been on the air less than a year. The broadcast featured an age-progressed clay bust, sculpted by forensic artist Frank Bender, which turned out to bear a close resemblance to List’s actual appearance.John List was located and arrested in Virginia less than two weeks after the episode was broadcast.

On April 12, 1990, John List was convicted of five counts of first degree murder. At his sentencing hearing he denied direct responsibility for his actions: “I feel that because of my mental state at the time, I was unaccountable for what happened. I ask all affected by this for their forgiveness, understanding and prayer.” The judge was unpersuaded: “John Emil List is without remorse and without honor,” he said. “After 18 years, five months and 22 days, it is now time for the voices of Helen, Alma, Patricia, Frederick and John F. List to rise from the grave.” He imposed a sentence of five terms of life imprisonment, to be served consecutively — the maximum permissible penalty at the time. List filed an appeal of his convictions on grounds that his judgment had been impaired by post-traumatic stress disorder due to his military service during World War II and the Korean War. He also contended that the letter he left behind at the crime scene—essentially his confession— was a confidential communication to his pastor, and therefore inadmissible as evidence. Both arguments were rejected. List later expressed a degree of remorse for his crimes: “I wish I had never done what I did,” he said. “I’ve regretted my action and prayed for forgiveness ever since.” When asked by Connie Chung in 2002 why he had not taken his own life, he said he believed that suicide would have barred him from Heaven, where he hoped to be reunited with his family.

John List died from complications of pneumonia at age 82 on March 21, 2008, while in prison custody at St. Francis Medical Center in Trenton, New Jersey. In reporting his death the Newark Star-Ledger referred to him as “the bogeyman of Westfield”. His body was not immediately claimed, though he was later buried next to his mother at Saint Lorenz Lutheran Cemetery in Frankenmuth, Michigan.