DASTARDLY DADS FROM THE ARCHIVES (Rutgers, New Jersey - 1989)

Account is from Martin Fido and David Southwell, True Crime: The Infamous Villains of Modern History and their Hideous Crimes (2008).

TV Sculpture Tracks Family-Slayer After 20 Years (1989)

JOHN HARDY was a decent middle class accountant, with wire-rimmed spectacles and receding hair; so was John List. John Hardy was a faithful married Lutheran, quietly introverted, rarely talking much above a whisper; so was John List. John Hardy had no children; nor had John List - well, not after the autumn of 1971. Prior to that he had two girls and a boy. He lost them, and his wife, and his mother, in one fell swoop. And the world lost John List for 17 years!

The entire List family had to leave their Rutgers, New Jersey home suddenly to nuse a sick relative in North Carolina, so letters from List informed the children's schools, the bank, the public utilities, the church, and anybody else who needed to know.

The Lists' mansion on the edge of town stood silent and deserted, with random electric lights burning as a precaution against burglary.

The occasional failure of those light bulbs led the neighbours to reflect that the Lists had been away from home an inordinate length of time. After a month passed, police broke into the List mansion.

There, in the freezing ballroom, neatly laid out, were the three children and Mrs. List, all shot. Upstairs in the cupboard, List's mother Alma, also shot.

Investigators revealed that List was almost broke as a result of bad investments, and that he had "borrowed" from his mother to compensate. It was inferred that, unable to control his womenfolk without the aid of purse-strings, he shot his wife and mother, killed the children as tehy came home from school, and fled. Very successfully; his car was in the airport carpark. Mr. List had disappeared.

Crime-reconstruction television company Cosgrove-Muerer broadcase a scultor's impression of how List must look today, with further receded hair and flaccid muscles. and behold many people recognized Mr Hardy of Richmond, Virginia, who denied it, of course. But his fingerprints match List's old army records, and he is now under arrest for murder as John List.