Episode 9: Sympathy for the devil

Father Wants Us Dead

NJ.com

News, True Crime

4.6 • 3.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 June 2022

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

50 years later, two reporters try to understand what drove John List to commit such atrocities — and the real cost. ------- 'Father Wants Us Dead' is a serial investigative true crime podcast from NJ.com and The Star-Ledger about John List, the accountant and Sunday school teacher who killed his mother, wife and three kids in their Westfield, New Jersey mansion 50 years ago. John List left behind a confession letter, explaining why what he'd done was right, and disappeared to start a whole new life, eluding authorities for nearly two decades. The loss of those innocent lives, the horror and the fear, forever scarred this quiet New Jersey community. New episodes will be released each Tuesday through June 21. For more about the show or to see photos of the List family and the crime scene, visit www.fatherwantsusdead.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	A note to listeners, the following podcast contains material that may not be appropriate for all audiences.
0:06.5	Previously, on Father Wantsus' dead.
0:10.0	We was selling so many papers in the Westfield area that the trucks would have to be sent out to make second deliveries to the news racks because they were selling out within an hour.
0:22.0	I remember that after the first guilty I turned to look at him and he was like, you know, stone-faced.
0:29.0	They did talk to him. I believe my mom went blank asked him why he didn't kill himself.
0:35.0	I think she was a little surprised that he didn't.
0:38.0	But I thought it was appropriate that each of the victims had their own sentence. I ran consecutively so he wasn't going to get out.
0:49.0	I'm Jessica Rimo and I'm Rebecca Everett and this is Father Wantsus' dead.
0:54.0	A podcast about the John List murders from NJ.com and the Star Ledger.
1:00.0	And a podcast just that's nearing the finish line.
1:03.0	Over the last eight episodes, we've watched as John List failed at his career and as a father and husband.
1:11.0	And we've gotten to know the list family members and heard about how each one was cruelly snuffed out.
1:17.0	And we watched List fake his way through a new life. We've seen his downfall and ultimately his death from pneumonia in 2008.
1:26.0	It seems pretty final.
1:29.0	But that's not it. The story of the List family members doesn't end there and it still hasn't ended.
1:36.0	Not really. There's still the fear and loss and the ripples felt by those who are still around.
1:43.0	But it's also that there's just still so much mystery to this. There are questions that we all want answered because it's still so incomprehensible.
1:52.0	Even among other family killings, familiar sides, the case stands out.
1:57.0	Yeah, I mean, familiar side is certainly rare. But as we've learned too well in our years of covering crime, it happens.
2:05.0	But more often they're murder suicides or sometimes delusional killers.
2:10.0	But the List murders we can't put it in a box, right, Jess? It's not a crime of passion.
2:16.0	John List wasn't a serial killer or a psychopath. And he's not so mentally ill that he thinks he's got or something.
	...

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