Tamon Pendergrasss father has already died but his legacy is still alive. Then he sat down and wrote a confession letter to his pastor explaining his financial problems. By 1971, he was still leaving for work every morning, but unknown to his family he was unemployed and unable to pay the bills. '', Mr. Clark formed his own consulting firm, Robert Clark Services. The neighbours called the police when Johns daughter Patricias dancing teacher came home to see why Patricia was not coming to the classes. Thats what Ive often wondered, he says. Now, in his first-ever public comments about the 1971 crime, the 76-year-old former Sunday school teacher says he is waiting to be reunited with them in the hereafter. Yes, and the problem is that some facts are inconvenient to some people, or they infer from the citing of fact that ones making a swipe (and in this case, if the latter, it was a pretty mild one!) And he yelled, 'Put that thing down before your eyeball falls out.' What a sorry attempt at humor using President Trump at the end. A couple of years ago I bought a supermarket tabloid that contained an article on the List murder case, she said. Mr. He recollected that Mr. Clark wore ''things that didn't match'' and seemed to have been ''living hand to mouth, doing bookkeeping work. It was 4 years ago, I believe now youll be cheering people that threaten death on The CIC and his supporters. 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. It meant living above their means, and List eventually had to take out a second mortgage. Mr. Clark took with him no furniture or personal possessions other than boxes of tax materials, a neighbor said. I say this as pro-Trump, regarding the relative silence of liberals at the violence and other crime perpetrated in the name of BLM in 20 as rank hypocrisy viz their complaints against him as his supporters re the Capitol riot. We've received your submission. She had been previously married and had a daughter. I'd tell him I wasn't going to get into that kind of mess again, and he said he wasn't going to either. "It's just like D-Day, you go in, there's no stopping after you start," he said. On June 1, 1989 he was arrested at a Richmond accounting firm after a Denver neighbor viewed the The last thing I remember hearing about Delores Clark is that she finally accepted the fact that her husband was John List. Born in an extremely strict Lutheran family, John was raised as a single child. Lists car, a green 1963 Chevy Impala, was found at John F. Kennedy Airport three days after the bodies were discovered. He did not mention his wife, his mother, or his children. Bob didnt talk much about his past, Wetmore said. Too much drama. 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. His father was a devout Lutheran who also taught at a local Sunday School in Bay City. 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. The rationalization for killing them was his way of eliminating an inconvenience and his own stress. Setting Up From Cooking Back to Accounting. ''He said it was all just terrible.''. The bodies of the wife and children were on sleeping bags in the ballroom, off the kitchen. ''He did everything by hand,'' the executive said. We found his mother up in her third-floor apartment. Bustthe case. Pieced together, they form a portrait of a man with a talent for deflecting attention, a quiet person who led a simple life of work, gardening, television and the Lutheran church. He snapped at me, No family! Wetmore recalled. ''Bob talked about church things so often that he could get monotonous,'' Mr. Bassler said. ''He was an introvert galore, if there is such a thing,'' Mr. Oldson said. Mrs. Stefano also recalled an evening at the Clark home when the conversation turned to the couple's origins. The Second Move Fertile Field For Tax Work. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. 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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. John confessed to committing the murders in February 1990. List have appeared on Federal Bureau of Investigation ''wanted'' posters since then, along with a description of him as an accountant, ''a neat dresser'' and a man who ''may be armed and should be considered very dangerous.''. "I was hungry," he told Downtown, adding with a chuckle, "that's just the way it was.". ''I remember talking to him a few times about marriage, because I was having marital troubles at the time,'' Mr. Roberto recalled. John packed off his children to school and loaded both of his handguns. At this point, five years after the murders, Mr. Clark took the step of seeking full-time employment in his own field. Moreover, his wife was a heavy drinker and she had also contracted Syphilis from her first marriage. In Denver, Clarks acquaintances say they find it hard to believe he is List. She never showed the photo to Mr. Clark. Westfield police did not discover the bodies until nearly a month later. He worried that she and the rest of the family wouldnt get into heaven. See the events in life of John List in Chronological Order, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:John_List_(mugshot).jpg, https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/john-list-10634.php. There were more problems. He means it. He became increasingly depressed. The general manager of the wholesaler, Jim Roberto, confirmed that Mr. Clark had worked for him from 1977 to 1979. Mrs. Clark's job at a warehouse at the Fitzsimmons Army Medical Center did not pay enough to support the two of them, and they began to fall behind on their mortgage payments. Mr. Joyner said Mr. Clark was a hard worker who often arrived at his office, in a two-story brick building in a shopping mall across from a J. C. Penney store, before 8 o'clock and worked straight through till 5, taking lunch at his desk. The first seven episodes of Father Wants Us Dead are available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can subscribe on those platforms to be alerted when new episodes drop every Tuesday through June 21. It became apparent to me they would soon foreclose on the home and the questions of where would we go. The authorities couldnt find List despite a nationally publicized manhunt led by the FBI; the fugitivehad given himself toogenerous a head start. Morrison said that by 1977, Clark had begun to find work as an accountant, List's occupation before he disappeared. Human name disambiguation pages. That was the only time I ever saw Bob show any anger.. Not to this horrific extent but nevertheless in some way that makes me uncomfortable to be around these type of people. Death. '', Although he hesitated before placing Mr. Clark in the Roberto job, ''I couldn't come up with a reason to say no,'' Mr. Oldson said. For the first time, she has her own tour bus. She said the newlyweds were a lot alike. His 84-year-old mother, Alma, who lived in an upstairs apartment in the house, received a gunshot, too. In late 1987, Clark answered an ad from a Virginia employment agency that set up interviews with a Richmond accounting firm. 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. They married in 1985. He settled in New Jersey and took a job at a local bank. In late 1987 Mr. Clark responded to an advertisment placed in a local newspaper by a Virginia empoyment agency. Long-lost ship found at the bottom of Lake Huron, confirming story of tragic collision, TikTok to set default daily time limit of 60 minutes for minors. who writes: In 1895, he bought twenty-two acres of land a few miles northeast, and built a grand Victorian house atop a gentle knoll .. Wittke called his estate Breeze Knoll. ''There were just some certificates hanging on the wall from a staff accountant we used to have, but who is now deceased,'' Mr. Joyner said. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. He was the apple of her eye.. At a church singles party in 1977, Clark met Delores 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.''. That was low. It was the biggest story he could remember, and the local fervor for information was immediate. The bodies of the three children were positioned face down, usually indicating some degree of shame or discomfort. Zealotry is a pejorative term: zealots, as fanatics, are necessarily bad. He lost the bank job, and a succession of subsequent jobs. But their love story came to an end within 14 months. Records from All Packaging indicate that he married Miss Miller a few months before leaving the company, in November 1985. The Undoing 'Most Wanted,' A Favorite Program. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local. After raising her children she was In a three-sentence statement to the court, he said he was sorry for "the tragedy that happened in 1971." Delores called me on this past Mothers Day, Flanery said. Authorities later revealed that John kept lying to his family about his jobs. Bust the case. According to Mortgage Bankers Associationdatacited by the FDIC, lenders foreclose on one in every 200 U.S. homes and one child in every classroom belongs to a family in jeopardy of losing a home because of difficulty meeting mortgage payments. He took the name Robert Clark, eventually got an accounting job, and remarried. On April 4, 1986, Mr. Clark was laid off and, Mr. Bassler said, ''We were sorry to see him go. See All About BORN October 27, 1930 DIED January 21, 2017 He thought it improper in the eyes of God. List. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? New revelations in the episode include what List said through tears to his shocked and heartsick second wife, who hoped it was all some mistake and her husband was really the man she thought she had married Robert Clark when she visited him in jail. 2023 Advance Local Media LLC. Mr. On June 2, 1956 she was united in marriage to Ralph L. Miller at Gethsemane Lutheran Church. The two would have coffee and talk, though not about anything too personal. Sick minds only justify their inconsistent philosophy and thoughts because their logic is egocentric, and lacks logic ( logic as we normal people know it). But ''around 1973'' he was working as a night cook at the Holiday Inn West in Golden, Colo., west of Denver, said Bob Wetmore, one of the few friends Mr. Clark would make in the next few years. For 18 months, Clark kept house and always had dinner waiting for his wife, Flanery recalled. All rights reserved (About Us). In the depressed economy around Denver, Mr. Clark did not do well on his own. He waited until his wife and children arrivedhome one by one,crept up and shot them in the head at close range, and dragged their bodies into the ballroom. He took a new identity and also joined a Lutheran church, where he met his second wife, Delores Miller. Few neighbors had been invited to the house. Of course, facts can be used selectively. He was born as the only child in the highly religious German-American household. Prosaic Life of Suspect in '71 New Jersey Murders, https://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/09/nyregion/prosaic-life-of-suspect-in-71-new-jersey-murders.html. WebDelores Hall - Biography. ''She didn't want to talk,'' Mrs. Stefano said of Mrs. Clark. Another way of characterising them might be to state that he was sick of his mad wife (who some sources say was a public embarrassment to him by getting publicaly drunk and remarking on his lack of sexual prowess, etc), was indifferent to the children, had embezzled the mothers money and needed to off her, was losing the house, and had no job. The man who says he is Robert P. Clark apparently spent 17 years hiding behind little more than a cloak of ordinariness and a penchant for privacy before his arrest on murder charges a week ago, friends and acquaintances said. John List would be 97 years old if he was alive today. The day after the killings, List scoured the house for family photographs, tearing his image out of them so police would have nothing to use in Wanted posters. While List wouldnt meet the legal threshold for madness, he was unquestionably deeply disturbed: mass murder as well as a later life of lies and deceit. "I finally decided the only way to save them from that was to kill them," he said. Then he sat down and ate lunch at the same table where he had shot his wife hours before. Anyone can read what you share. He had been fired from all his jobs due to his cold demeanor and his inability to be social with his co-workers. Ten days after a creepy, glass-eyed bust of John List was shown on Americas Most Wanted, Westfield residents had not heard of a single promising lead. Authorities are not certain just when List arrived in the Denver area, but one Denver man remembered meeting Robert P. Clark in Golden in early 1973, just over a year after the murders. Agree. WebHe began living with a new identity in Virginia, where he was spotted by a local and got arrested. Just as the kids entered from the main door, he shot both of them in the heads as well. A devout Christian. Superior Court Judge William LE. If anyone knows what yearBreeze Knoll was built, please advise. 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). List left a confession letter at the scene, so police had little doubt as to who was responsible for the killings. Id argue that religious zealotry was the EFFECT of a prior cause: mental illness. By all accounts his wife was a good mother and all the children were doing just fine and on a good trajectory. ''And I came in to the hotel from the mountains looking for something to do.''. Picture in Supermarket Tabloid. By then, he owned a 1974 Volkswagen and had gotten an accounting job A favorite television program was ''America's Most Wanted'' on the Fox network. What on earth has your comment got to do with the price of fish? About two years ago, she said, she saw a picture of Mr. With Mr. Wetmore's help, Mr. Clark moved again, in 1977, to Wheatridge. Way roomy. About a year ago, he and Mrs. Clark made a $12,000 down payment on a $76,000 slate-blue single-story three-bedroom house in the planned community of Brandermill, in the southwestern suburb of Midlothian. By 1971, he was still leaving for work every morning, but unknown to his family he was unemployed and unable to pay the bills. WebFrom 1979 to 1986, he was the comptroller at a paper box manufacturer outside Denver. She said she really didnt want to leave Denver, but Bob had been out of work since shortly after they were married and he had finally found this job in Virginia.. And that's the only time. The family did not have a lot of visitors and it took the neighbours 29 days to notice that something was off in the house. Soon after his high school graduation, he joined the United States Army during the Second World War, where he worked as a laboratory technician. "It was my belief that if you kill yourself, you won't go to heaven," he said. I was going to subscribe and refer until I saw that swipe at Trump. Instead she showed the newspaper to Mrs. Clark. He dyed his hair and changed his name to establish new credit accounts and a phony Social Security number. At a recent news conference, she described him as a good husband with a deep and abiding faith in God. He says today he felt he was letting the family down. ''I let it go.''. The Richmond friend said that Mr. Clark told him he had an undergraduate degree in accounting and a master's degree in finance, both from Michigan, and that he was a Certified Public Accountant. Over the years, the John List murders have been featured in films such as Judgment Day: The John List Story and The Stepfather. He murdered his mother, wife and three children in November 1971, due to financial distress and other issues within the family, and fled. Still, Mr. Roberto said, he ''kind of liked him'' and, for some reason, felt sorry for him. It may be more than coincidence that Miller is the former name of Mr. Clark's wife, Delores, What no one knew was that John, an accountant, hadtrouble holding onto a job. Ted Oldson, an executive with the accounting firm of Brown, Whitley & Todd, interviewed him for a client, Roberto Distributing, a carpet wholesaler in Denver. He wanted OUT. I did what I thought was best, she said. However, the marriage was not very good. John List was on the run when they met in 1985 after having murdered his family members about 14 years before. A deeply tragic case. He chose not tocommit suicide because he considered it a sin. 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. A 2005 Freddie Mac-Roper poll also flagged by the FDIC concluded that more than 6 in 10 homeowners delinquent in their mortgage payments are not aware of services that mortgage lenders can offer to individuals having trouble with their mortgage., Hardly atypical. He joined the Army in World War II and later attended the University of Michigan. On their cul-de-sac, the Clarks were described as pleasant but distant. Your email address will not be published. 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