Righteous Carnage: The List Murders in Westfield

by Timothy B. Benford

At about 9 oclock on the morning of November 9, 1971, soon after sending her three children off to school, Helen List sat in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee. She was still in her nightgown and slippers.John List came up behind her and put a 9mm German-made Steyr automatic pistol to the side of her head and fired once. She died instantly. The bullet smashed into the opposite wall... John made his way up the stairs to the third floor where his 85-year old mother, Alma, wearing a housedress, was preparing breakfast in her efficiency kitchenShe was standing near the storage room that adjoined her kitchen when a 9mm bullet ripped through the side of her scull. Alma List was dead before her body crumpled in a heap on the floorThe righteous carnage had begun.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime, Death

332 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Rachel Aranda · Rating 4 out of 5]

It takes some kind of person to kill his wife, mother, and three children (ranging from ages 10-16 years old). It's almost too much for a normal person to fathom, but for one man it is exactly what he did. Many questions popped in my head and I thought this book could provide answers. I did get answers but at the same time I was disappointed that there wasn't another story from the police and FBIs point of view.

Fun Fact: Couldn't believe that John List that he urged his friends and co-workers to watch America's Most Wanted, which is the program that helped catch him after 18 years on the run.

[Carlette Hanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book - had everything I enjoy. The big house, history, psychology, forensics, trial.

[Roseann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating detailed account of these murders. I enjoyed it a lot, because I'm from NJ and remember when it happened.

[Sophiebearsmom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very well researched story. Found several typos which surprised me. Wish author told more about second wife's story. Hard to believe she didn't find him to be strange or find out more about his First wife and previous marriage.

[Caitie · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5 stars An interesting look at the List case, but I feel like it was written too soon after he was convicted. It also read like a stream of consciousness style, which didn’t help matters.

[Lady ♥ Belleza · Rating 4 out of 5]

John E. List was described as soft-spoken, brainy, timid, intellectual, shy, conservative, introverted, a neatnik, organized, and frugal. Fellow church goers remembered him as deeply religious. On November 9, 1971 John List killed his family. Then he disappeared. Family members said he most likely had committed suicide because he could not live with the guilt. They were wrong. It was almost 20 years before he was found and brought to justice. In those 20 years he created a new life for himself.

Through research and extensive interviews with all involved, Benford and Johnson take us through John's childhood, his unhappy marriage, the steps he took to escape Westfield and create a new identity for himself and how he was finally brought to justice.

This is well written, never boring account of what could be New Jerseys most famous crime.

[Hari Brandl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fairly well written book, and I would recommend it to all devotees of the true crime genre. Besides having good syntax and acceptable grammar it is fast paced, informative without being wordy, and avoids editorializing for the most part.
The backstory of the List murders is a lot more convoluted than I was aware of before reading this book and is telling in terms of John List's mental state, and thought-provoking.
Still in all I am left with the bleak thought that an excessively religious up bring molded this man into someone that could not entertain the thought of asking the community for help nor accept welfare or government assistance, yet could murder, in cold blood, the people whom he professed to love and then go onto live with this crime for 18 some years, under an assumed identity, seemingly without remorse until he got caught. Is this what religion does for people?

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too. Many. Irrelevant. Details.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I grew up only a couple of towns over from Westfield in New Jersey. It was then, as it is now, a place for the wealthy (although the town in which I grew up has become the same, sadly). I turned ten years old shortly after the bodies of five of the six List family members were discovered in the ballroom of Breeze Knoll, the imposing and costly mansion in which they lived but could not afford to maintain. The absence of John List never strayed very far from my thoughts. How did he do it, I wondered? How could he just vanish without anyone asking any questions? When I became an adult, and had children of my own, my thoughts grew more complex. How could a father sneak up and each of his three children and slay them with bullets? No matter how bad things got, I could not imagine ever intentionally harming my children. Yet John List had done that very thing.

Righteous Carnage, produced in 1991, is the third book I have read about the List murders. Each book devotes half of its text to the planning and carrying out of the murders, and the other half to the new life List forged for himself as Robert P. Clark in Denver CO. Benford's text is no different, and people as morbidly obsessed by the case as I am will not discover anything new about the case--not that I believe that much remains undiscovered. But the book does recount the story in familiar fashion, and readers will likely find memories rekindled of the story that blazed across the firmament 53 years ago. Benford did manage to interview some of the neighbors, and a select few law enforcement officers involved in the investigation, but even those interactions are now 33 years old. One caveat regarding the Kindle version: The transcription from print to electronic format did not go smoothly. Many sentences end without punctuation in the middle of a line. And other orphaned sentences appear haphazardly at the end of paragraphs, with a dependent clause to call home. People who are not regular readers may find this tendency ditracting and annoying, but I do not believe Benford had anything to do with it.

I remember driving to work one morning in 1989 and hearing on the radio the news that an infamous New Jersey murderer had been apprehended after having been on the lam for eighteen years. I immediately mused that I only knew of one infamous murderer who had been gone that long, so I stopped at a newspaper machine and bought a copy of the Newark Star Ledger. I gasped at the sight of his picture on the front page, above the fold--evidence that I was not the only one through whose thoughts List occasionally drifted. To be clear, I did not live in fear that List would come after me; nor did I ever fear that my own father would gun down me and my siblings the way List did. But I did have occasional youthful nights when I was a child, lying awake at night and shivering with low level dread, that the Boogeyman would appear and bear the face of John List. List himself, convicted in 1990, died in prison in 2008. But his story persists in the memories of those who were there at the time, and Benford recounts the tale as well as anyone.

[Catarina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting way of writing it (going back and forth). I was really (really disappointed) by the absolute lack of details of JE List after the episode of American Most Wanted was brodcasted.
The authors went into so many interesting and valuable details for other aspects of the case but I kind of felt frustrated by that very important part of the story.

[Michael Kocher · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a fairly standard true crime thriller that goes for sensationalism. I don't know what I expected but I was hoping for more of the perspective of the law enforcement that investigated and ultimately captured List.

[Corinne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part biography, part murder mystery, this book was lent to me by a dear friend who grew up in Westifled, NJ where the murders took place (as did my father and his family). The book was a quick and easy read and because I have a general sense of the town and because my friend and family lived in Westfield during the time of the murders, I was intrigued. For anyone who is interested in John List or Westfield, it's most definitely a worthwhile read. That's where my 4 star rating comes from. However, the authors must have been sprinting to publish this book after List was finally captured 18 years post crime. This is evident by the complete inability for the pair to use commas. When I say there were grammatical errors on every page, that's truth! That's hard for a writer to endure, and makes me wonder what the heck Scribner was doing publishing this book so hastily. But anyhow, this was a worthwhile read indeed.

[Sarah Ewald · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fast-read, true crime book that is hard to put down. In November of 1971, John List killed his wife, mother and his 3 children in cold blood. He calmly cleaned up, wrote a few letters to take care of things, and vanished. He disappeared for 17 years, until his story was told on the America's Most Wanted television program, which led to his arrest. Truth is stranger than fiction, and it doesn't get stranger than this.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

This happened in my hometown before I was born. The home has since burned down and a new one was erected. You can visit their grave in the local cemetery where people still leave creepy dolls and toys. The book answers a lot of questions people were dying to know and it is very detailed.

[jcad · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a great book, but it is the story of a shocking and senseless massacre. John List was one of the first people to be caught after being profiled by America's Most Wanted, which adds another layer of intrigue to the story.

[Patricia Bunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A guilty pleasure. I enjoyed reading about the facts of the murder and hoe the finally caught List and brought him to justice. The real life story has a lot of similarities to the Brad Bishop case. He has still not been brought to justice.

[Sara A · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story made my stomach crawl when it was featured on FORENSIC FILES!
I mean a guy that murdered his entire family and fled for nearly a decade only to be caught under an assumed name?
And then to show no remorse in court?
Glad he died behind bars!!

[Debbie Blailock · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can't get much more gruesome than the book!

[Amy Dillon]

I didn't finish it; it was overdue :( Wasn't good enough to renew it from another library. I think I've read it before.

[Donna Humble · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was interesting to read the details of this crime. i had heard the "bare bones" of the case but enjoyed reading the facts.

[Kolleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book if you like family annihilators