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On November 9, 1971, after taking his children to school, List returned home. Armed with a 9mm Steyr M1912 semi-automatic pistol, which had been kept in the house since his discharge from the reserves in 1946, and retrieving an old .22 caliber revolver that had belonged to his father, who died in 1944, List went to the back of the house, where he shot his 45-year-old wife, Helen, in the back of the head. The criminal then returned to the television, where his 84-year-old mother, Maria, was sitting, unaware of the shots. He stood in front of her and instantly shot her in the forehead. List then sat down to read the newspaper. Several hours later, his 13-year-old son, Frederick, and 16-year-old daughter, Patricia, returned home. Upon seeing them, List shot them both in the back of the head. The murderer then went to the nearest ATM, withdrew all the money from the family's bank account, and went to a rugby match in which his 15-year-old son, John Jr., was participating. After watching the game, he picked up his son and took him home. At home, he shot the teenager four times – three times in the chest and heart, and once in the head.[2][3]

After the murders, he moved the bodies of his wife and children to the living room, and moved his mother's body to the attic. List wrote a 5-page letter addressed to the priest of the church the Lists attended and to the police. In it, he attempted to describe all the motives for the crime and asked for forgiveness. He left the letter on his desk in his study. After that, List tuned the radio to a religious station and, turning on the lights in all the rooms of the house, left. He returned to the school where his children studied and left a letter with the administration, stating that the children would be absent from school for a month due to a family trip to North Carolina to visit his wife's relatives. At the school, List and his children were well-regarded by the administration, and the letter did not raise any suspicions. He then went to his wife's workplace, where he said that she was seriously ill and would also be absent from work for some time, and he was also believed there.

It wasn't until 17 and a half years later – May 21, 1989 – that the List case was featured on the "America's Most Wanted" program, and thanks to an anonymous tip, John Emil List was arrested on June 1, 1989. By this time, the 63-year-old criminal had changed his name to Robert Peter Clark and had remarried a woman named Dolores Miller.