Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 3, 1990 TAG: 9004030393
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A12 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ELIZABETH, N.J. LENGTH: Medium
List, a strictly raised Lutheran, was a "fragmented" product of 19th-century ethics who despaired while his family loosened church ties and felt himself failing as a provider, said defense lawyer Elijah L. Miller Jr.
"He was simply not equipped to cope, to deal with the pressure of our times," said Miller.
Arrested in Virginia in June, List is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of his wife, mother, daughter and two sons at his Westfield mansion Nov. 9, 1971.
"On that fateful day, he slipped from despair into oblivion. . . . He entered hell with his eyes open," said Miller.
"He committed these acts with love in his heart for his mother, wife and children. For the salvation of his family he had to act as he did."
The defense contends List was mentally diseased at the time, a "diminished capacity" argument that would let jurors return a guilty verdict to a lesser charge. "He is still fragmented with a mental disease," Miller said.
Assistant Union County prosecutor Brian Gillet offered a different picture, saying List "systematically executed . . . his own flesh and blood."
List's 84-year-old mother, Alma; wife, Helen, 45; daughter Patricia, 16; and sons John, 15, and Frederick, 13, were "unsuspecting and undeserving victims of this defendant's cruel, evil and calculating mind," said Gillet.
The prosecutor opened his brief statement by reading a five-page letter that List had written his pastor to describe the events and explain that he acted out of economic distress and fear for his family's souls.
List slumped in his chair without apparent emotion.
Gillet told the jury how List stopped the mail and milk deliveries, wrote notes to his children's employers and schools saying the family was going out of town, and settled his financial affairs. Like the accountant he was, List "closed the books, balanced out the accounts before he fled and took on a new life," said the prosecutor.
His careful plan "turned into a day of horror" at the 18-room mansion and become his family's "worst possible nightmare."
After opening statements, witnesses reconstructed the family's final day. Their testimony spoke of an idyllic suburban life, where a car pool took the kids to school, the milkman put the milk in the refrigerator and bank tellers knew their customers by name.
Gene Syfert, who is married to the sister of Helen List, testified that he talked with List about a collection of crime books at the house during his last visit there in 1968.
"He indicated that he was rather obsessed with the unsolved mystery," Syfert said.
Barbara A. Baeder, who with List ran a car pool for their children to and from school, told how she brought John Jr. home. Police say he arrived early, and was the only victim shot more than once. List, in his letter released last week, said John struggled.
"In order to snuff the life out of that young man, the defendant needed more than 10 shots to kill him, his namesake," Gillet said in his opening statement.
Baeder's son, Richard, 13 at the time, remembered taking a telephone message from List the evening of Nov. 9. List said Baeder didn't need to pick up the children because they were going to visit their sick grandmother in North Carolina.
Herbert L. Argast, the milkman, told how he saw a note on the refrigerator saying, "no more milk until further notice." It was written by List on a "nice piece of lined paper" rather than the usual scrap left by Helen List, he said.
Bank employees told how List cashed checks totaling $285, and $2,000 in savings bonds. The town truant officer said she went by the home several times when the children did not come to school for several weeks.
by CNB