The familyhad bought the house for around $50,000 in 1965. Returning home, he made several calls to explain that the family had gone to North Carolina to visit his wife's ailing mother, and that he was planning to follow by car. Delores Clark acknowledged at her news conference that she had dismissed the magazine article from her mind and had never shown it to her husband. Mr. Reed declined to specify which companies were called. It especiallybothered him that his eldest, 16-year-oldPatricia, was interested in becoming an actress. Getting his hands on all of his mothers money was part of the escape plan. Asked what Mr. Clark did like, the friend said, ''Baseball, The National Geographic, Walter Cronkite and documentaries. ''He was an introvert galore, if there is such a thing,'' Mr. Oldson said. But he has to pay for what he did. The job was for an entry-level staff accountant at a salary of $24,000. Spouse/Ex-: Delores Miller Clark (m. 19851989), Helen List (m. 19511971), children: Frederick List, John, Jr. He took the name Robert Clark, eventually got an accounting job, and remarried. In a letter to Mrs. Flanery, her neighbor in Aurora, in December, Mrs. Clark wrote that the apartment ''is going to rob us of everything we own.''. If List thought he could just hit the delete button on the fam and waltz off *and* find redemption he may be bitterly disappointed when he finds his advocate was busy for his final court appearance and hes going to have to act as his own defense. I was in despair, List says. ''His father was Germanic, so he had an interest in things Germanic,'' the friend said. By then, he owned a 1974 Volkswagen and had gotten an accounting job working for a company that made cardboard boxes. Its not a good read.full of his BS and tons of grammatical errors and misspellings. He went to the post office to stop the family's mail, then to the bank, where he cashed his mother's savings bonds, checking that he got the correct interest to the penny. certificate. He snapped at me, No family! Wetmore recalled. John List met Helen Morris Taylor, a young widow of an American enlisted man who had died in the Korean War. ''Delores said it wasn't Bob,'' Mrs. Flanery recalled. None of them lying face down! He married Helen and raised three children with her, while working as an accountant in many places, such as New York and New Jersey. Flanery recalls asking Delores Clark then if she thought her husband might be John List. Now you come in List with your perverted religious interpretations and go hog wild. Police didnt discover the bodies until several weeks later. On Nov. 23, 1971, List snapped creeping up behind his wife, Helen, as she was reading at the kitchen table and shooting her in the head. She had a young daughter from her previous marriage. He was actually employed at the time of the murders, at State Mutual Life, and could have found other work. He joined the Army in World War II and later attended the University of Michigan. Mr. Clark moved to Richmond in February 1988. They were married a month later. His 84-year-old mother, Alma, who lived in an upstairs apartment in the house, received a gunshot, too. WebView the profiles of people named Delores Clark. Following the gruesome death of his family. It may be more than coincidence that Miller is the former name of Mr. Clark's wife, Delores, By then, he was assigned to the finance corps, from where he was discharged in 1952. ''I spent a lot of my life on skid row and in cow camps,'' Mr. Wetmore, 71 years old, said in an interview this week. RR. That was not a lie. Although Mr. Clark admitted nothing after his arrest, fingerprints and scars have led investigators to conclude that he and Mr. Bank Vice President and Sunday School Teacher. What a sorry attempt at humor using President Trump at the end. He insinuated that it had been a bad experience.''. '', Mr. Clark formed his own consulting firm, Robert Clark Services. He was vice president and comptroller of a nearby bank, and his family lived in an 18-room mansion with marble fireplaces and an elegant ballroom. For example, he would generally eat his lunch in his orange Volkswagen in the parking lot, with its windows rolled up and classical music playing on the radio. Bob didnt have a car at the time so I helped him move out of the trailer park into an apartment a few blocks east of the motel, he said. Abcarian: Mask mandates? In late 1987, Clark answered an ad from a Virginia employment agency that set up interviews with a Richmond accounting firm. We found his mother up in her third-floor apartment. Taking a Course and Doing Tax. Obituary for Bro. Colorado resident Wanda Flanery contactedpolice about a former neighbor named BobClark who had recently moved away to Richmond, Virginia. On June 2, 1956 she was united in marriage to Ralph L. Miller at Gethsemane Lutheran Church. Fact cannot be objected to unless its status as fact is contested. He lined up the four bodies in the ballroom (he said his mother's body was too heavy to move), put music on the internal intercom, and cleaned up meticulously. Host John Walsh, whose own son had been a murder victim, asked viewers to call in tips. If he wanted out, why did not he disappear without murdering them. In 1965, when List and his family moved to affluent Westfield, N.J., he seemed to be a model of suburban success and propriety. He means it. He also claimed to be suffering from PTSD. Mr. Wetmore helped Mr. Clark move ''one pickup truck's worth load of stuff'' to Denver. Butin a pre-Antiques Roadshowworld, he didntthink to get an appraisal and try to sellthe glass if it really existed, that is. ''He didn't even like football, because, he said, it was just men out there battering their heads together, instead of using their brains.'' Trivia. After gruesomely murdering his entire family, John List had begun living a normal life again. In 1975, Clark joined St. Pauls Lutheran Church in downtown Denver. ''He was living meagerly, said he needed a full-time job,'' Mr. Oldson added. There were more problems. Listlowered the temperature in the house, cued up some organmusic on the intercom system, and told his kids teachers that the family had gone on a trip to North Carolina. By the late 1950s, the family was in a good financial situation as John had been promoted to the position of a general supervisor in the company. He usually chose large apartment complexes where it was easy to remain anonymous. Even from his jail cell in Virginia, where he is accused of being the fugitive John Emil List and awaits extradition to New Jersey to face charges that he murdered five members of his family in 1971, he has neither protested his innocence nor confessed his guilt. He joined a local Lutheran church and, in 1985, married a widow named Delores Clark, with whom he moved to Richmond, Va. The greatest psychopathic distortion: that his suicide would be a sin, but murder and of children wasnt, of a degree excluding him from the God he claimed to seek. Delores attended Washington Park High School. In 1989, Fox network broadcasted a TV show titled Americas Most Wanted, where an episode featured the New Jersey mass murders of John by his family. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement, Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement, and Your Privacy Choices and Rights (each updated 1/26/2023). He and his mother were very close, Werner said. Mr. I remember that I was amazed at the amount of blood that flowed out of her, List says. A deeply tragic case. Gary Morrison, a former chef at the motel, remembered Clark saying he had once been married but his wife had died of cancer. The bodies of Lists 85-year-old mother, Alma, his wife, Helen, 45, and their children, Patricia, 16, John Jr., 15, and Frederick, 13, were not discovered until the evening of Dec. 7, 1971. Delores was born in Racine, January 17, 1935, to John and Cecelia (Nee: Kirkegaard) Poulsen. Delores had mixed emotions about leaving, recalled Flanery, who said they had been neighbors and friends for five years. Asked to check Mr. Clark's resume in their files, the executives found that it was gone. The article had a sketch of how List might look now, and it was a dead ringer for Bob. He died in the prison hospital at the age of 82, in 2008. What no one knew was that John, an accountant, hadtrouble holding onto a job. But, during a four-hour interview, he sought to explain how worries that financial hardship would split his family and turn them away from their faith forced him to make a tough decision. Flanery received two letters from Delores Clark after she moved away. He later moved to California, and then Detroit, where he worked as an accountant in a local firm. ''I was afraid, just in case he was the same man,'' she said. The couple had three children together, while Helens daughter Brenda left home in 1960 after her marriage. If he did it once, he could have done it again, especially since they were having financial problems.. If List simply admitted to his family and creditorsand the IRS thathe was in crisis, a solutionthat didnt involvehomicideand pseudonymscould have beenhammered out. Factor inregular maintenance like painting plusthe HVAC crises liableto befall a Victorian-era structure, and youre asking for some none-too-stately financial drama. He didnt have much stuff then, but later, when I helped him move again, he had begun to acquire more possessions.. ''I had the impression that he was barely eking out enough of a living to buy weenies and a room somewhere. Not sure what youre saying here. He was a devout Lutheran layman and his fingerprints matched those of the fugitive John E. List. Laura Werner, who rented an apartment from the family, remembers List as a sweet little mamas boy. Still more ironic, if List had become President, he could have Xed even more people, and got paid to do it. Ted Bundy did the same, and few would claim he was sane Its far too simplistic to explain this as zealotry! Clark had told her that he had been married previously but that his wife had died of cancer before he came to Denver, she said. Dr. Steven Simring, a psychiatrist who examined List after his arrest years later, told Downtown his "sense of neatness" was the result of a compulsive personality. He went on to wed again, join a new family and live in peace and anonymity for nearly two decades. Lists subsequent FBI arrest at his accounting office made for scintillatingnews around the globe and electrifiedAmericas Most Wantedratings. As I was doing it I knew it was wrong," he said. Jim Clark Bro. As of 2018, Peggy, Dolores, and Connie are still alive. The bodies of the three children were positioned face down, usually indicating some degree of shame or discomfort. In the afternoon, he killed his children as they came home first his daughter Patty, a budding actress at 16; then his youngest, 13-year-old Frederic; and finally 15-year-old John, his namesake and his favorite. And youre obviously a lib. I dont buy the pious excuses in Lists confession letter at face value. On Nov. 9, 1971, after sending his children off to school, List took his two handguns out to the car to load them, then walked into the kitchen and shot his wife from behind as she was drinking coffee. Mr. Reed put Mr. Clark in touch with Charles S. Joyner, one of the two partners in the accounting firm of Maddrea, Joyner, Kirkham & Woody in Richmond. The man did absolutely nothing to call attention to himself. John Emil List was born 63 years ago in Bay City, Mich., the son of a wealthy German immigrant grocer who had married, for the second time, late in life. But he fled to Colorado, assumed a new name and remarried, managing to elude a nationwide manhunt for 18 years. Thats what Ive often wondered, he says. meticulously murdered his mother, wife and three kids. He became increasingly depressed. List had sent word to school that he was taking his children to visit relatives, Moran said. The man called at the insistence of his mother-in-law, who was a friend of Mr. Clark's wife, Delores, and had kept in touch with the Clarks after their move to Virginia. Delores called me on this past Mothers Day, Flanery said. The pollalso determined that homeowners fail to contact their lender because they are embarrassed, dont believe the lender can help, and/or believe it would cause them to lose their home more quickly.. He thought it improper in the eyes of God. The authorities couldnt find List despite a nationally publicized manhunt led by the FBI; the fugitivehad given himself toogenerous a head start. Attorney David Baugh, who represented List in Virginia, offers support.AP Photo/Steve Helber. Was this numbers cruncher really ignorant that the Tiffany chandelier was worth close to $100K? His free time was spent with Delores Miller and volunteering at church. The last thing I remember hearing about Delores Clark is that she finally accepted the fact that her husband was John List. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Internet research turned up a number of statistics that surely would have providedList with some consolation if he faced his sameproblems post-2000. Delores Miller Clark lived a simple life in Denver before she met and married John List, who then went by the name Robert Peter Bob Clark. He took out the last $2,000 on the day of the killings, said Moran, who found the withdrawal slip while searching the house. Few neighbors had been invited to the house. Authorities said that he had been living a quiet life--active in his church, puttering in his yard on weekends--and that he had no problems with the law while a Mrs. Flanery did not call the police, however. His father was a devout Lutheran who also taught at a local Sunday School in Bay City. Until next week, cheers. ''He said he'd been through that before and knew what I meant. When Fox Broadcasting Co. aired his case last month on its Americas Most Wanted television show, more than 200 tipsters called to say they thought they recognized the former mamas boy from Bay City, Mich. I have all the books written on this case but can only put my hands on the one written by Joe Sharkey an excellent read btw! List died in 2008, a one-of-a-kind killer who disposed of his family amidadilemma that seems fairly prosaic in light ofthe last decade or so. I think you mean religious extremists. List worked in Detroit and Kalamazoo, Mich., before rejoining the Army during the Korean War. Academic Background. But back in Denver, his former neighbors did recognize him, and called police. Starting in 1968 and through at least the summer of 1969 she was an original member of the Los Angeles production of Hair. "I approached all of them from behind so they wouldn't realize till the last minute what I was going to do to them," he said. Mr. Joyner relied on the employment agency to verify Mr. Clark's resume. At the time, I remember my roommate coming home and asking, Did you hear they caught John List? Shed grown up in Westfield, where kids made the List propertytheir No. List. Authorities later revealed that John kept lying to his family about his jobs. By 1971, List seemed poised for a total financial collapse and didnt want his wife and kids to bear the shame of going on public assistance. ''I don't know John List. They got him down in Virginia.. He spent his days at the train Ted Oldson, an executive with the accounting firm of Brown, Whitley & Todd, interviewed him for a client, Roberto Distributing, a carpet wholesaler in Denver. However, he was a loner who was not socially active and had very few friends in school and his locality. He was arrested 11 days later, and, after a jury rejected his diminished capacity defense, convicted and sentenced. The Undoing 'Most Wanted,' A Favorite Program. And I picked up a typewriter, and Bobby saw me. Join Facebook to connect with Delores Clark and others you may know. One Memory of Anger, The Richmond friend dismissed that image of Mr. Clark as exaggerated. Afterwards, he dragged his wifes body to the ballroom and made himself lunch and ate it. Northwestern UniversitysInstitute for Policy Researchfound that during the subprime-mortgage-induced Great Recession,8 million Americans lost their jobs and each year lenders foreclosed on4million homes. In an interview, he stated that he did not kill himself because suicide prevents one from going to heaven. Heleft the house everymorning,pretending to go to work when he was really whiling away time reading or sleeping in the train station. List, now 76, is serving five consecutive life sentences for the murders and was interviewed from prison. The investigation also revealed that List for years had been siphoning money from his mothers $200,000 savings account. The resume Mr. Clark used to find a job in Richmond begins in 1972. '', By contrast, Mr. Clark would later tell his friend in Richmond that his first wife had been an alcoholic and a spendthrift who had died of cancer and that he had a daughter who ''was somewhat uncontrollable. Several sources in the book Righteous Carnage mentions his arrogance. Unlike the others, John didn't go quietly, his body jerking as List emptied both the 9 millimeter and the .22 into his son. List had bachelor's and master's in business administration from the University of Michigan and was a C.P.A. His story was made into a hit TV movie starring Robert Blake and was the basis for the movie thriller The Stepfather.. In interviews in the last week, many new details have emerged about Mr. Clark's life over the last 20 years in Colorado and Virginia. He had been fired from all his jobs due to his cold demeanor and his inability to be social with his co-workers. 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