Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 29, 1990 TAG: 9003290488
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From The Associated Press and The New York Times
DATELINE: ELIZABETH, LENGTH: Long
"After it was all over I said some prayers for them all - from the hymn book. That was the least that I could do," the devout Lutheran and former Sunday school teacher wrote in the 1971 letter to his pastor.
The letter was released after Superior Court Judge William L'E. Wertheimer allowed it as evidence in List's murder trial.
List began the five-page letter by telling the Rev. Eugene A. Rehwinkel, "I am very sorry to add this additional burden to your work. . . .
"I leave my-self in the hands of Gods Justice & Mercy," List wrote. He wrote that God could have helped him in his time of distress, "but apparently he saw fit not to answer my prayers."
"This makes me think that perhaps it was for the best as far as the children's souls are concerned," wrote List. In the letter's final paragraph, List said he is assured of making peace with God "because of Christ dying even for me."
The judge released the letter after denying a defense motion that the document was protected by the priest-penitent privilege. Opening statements are set for Monday.
List's lawyer, Elijah J. Miller Jr., had argued that the letter was a protected communication between List and Rehwinkel, pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Westfield, and that its contents could not be revealed.
Wertheimer said List could have mailed the letter instead of leaving it, "for anyone to find," in an unsealed envelope along with other notes and letters in a file cabinet in the house.
Better still, the judge said, List could have visited his pastor to confess and seek absolution, which would have assured the confidentiality of their dialogue.
But List "was interested more in escape and anonymity than he was in absolution," the judge said.
The letter and other notes left by List and accepted as evidence in the trial appear to make the issue of whether List committed the killings moot.
But earlier this month the judge told prospective jurors that the defense intended to argue that List was suffering from a mental defect at the time of the slayings.
After the killings, List left word with his children's schools to say the family had to visit relatives in North Carolina because of a family emergency.
He ordered his mail stopped by the post office.
He also wrote to relatives asking for their understanding, and to his employer, saying where his business papers could be found. Those letters were in the envelope along with the letter to Rehwinkel.
List drove to New York City's Kennedy International Airport and left his car with the title, keys and his identification cards, police said. Police found the vehicle on Dec. 10.
Prosecution witnesses in the pretrial hearings this week said List flew to Denver and applied for a Social Security card in the name of Robert P. Clark on Nov. 22, 1971.
Investigators have said List resumed work as an accountant, married a woman he met at a Lutheran church in Denver and in 1988 moved with his wife to a suburb of Richmond, Va.
He was arrested on June 1, 1989, by FBI agents at his office after a report of the killings was broadcast on a television program, "America's Most Wanted."
Handwritten in script on yellow lined paper, the letter released Wednesday was dated Nov. 9, 1971. It had been the subject of intense interest since police found it Dec. 7, 1971. Police read the letter and called Rehwinkel to the house, where they let him read it.
Also in the 18-room mansion were the bullet-ridden bodies of List's wife, Helen, 45; children Patricia, 16; John Jr., 15; and Frederick, 13; and List's 84-year-old mother, Alma.
The bodies of Helen List and the children were lined up on sleeping bags on the floor of the sparsely furnished ballroom, and Alma List was found on the third floor.
"I know that many will only look at the additional years that they could have lived but if finally they were no longer Christians what would be gained," List wrote.
"Also, I'm sure many will say, `How could anyone do such a horrible thing.' - My only answer is it isn't easy and was only done after much thought."
List wrote that he shot his family members from behind because he "didn't want any of them to know even at the last second that I had to do this to them." He said he had to kill his mother because the other deaths "would have been a tremendous shock to her."
He had intended to kill them on All Saints' Day, Nov. 1, 1979, because "it would be an appropriate day for them to get to heaven," but his travel arrangements were delayed.
List opened the letter by saying his actions went against all he had been taught and that his account "will not make it right."
He then enumerated his reasons.
List, then a 46-year-old accountant who was selling insurance, said he wasn't earning enough to support the family and was near bankruptcy.
"True we could have gone bankrupt and maybe gone on welfare," he said. But he feared the effects of poverty on the children.
But police investigators have said that List had gradually depleted his mother's $200,000 savings account and that just before fleeing he withdrew the last few thousand dollars.
In the letter, List also worried about what Patricia List's aspirations as an actress "might do to her continuing to be a Christian," and he was upset that his wife stopped going to church and said she wanted to be taken off the church rolls.
"If any one of these had been the condition, we might have pulled through but this was just too much. At least I'm certain that all have gone to heaven now. If things had gone on who knows if this would be the case," he wrote.
List signed the letter "John," then added:
"P.S. Mother is in the hallway in the attic-3rd floor. She was too heavy to move."
by CNB