What looks like a perfect suburban life… isn’t always what it seems.

In 1971, a quiet New Jersey neighborhood went undisturbed while something unthinkable sat inside a beautiful home. No movement. No noise. No answers.

Inside were five people… and for nearly a month, no one checked.

This episode tells the story of John List — a man who appeared completely ordinary:

• a husband
• a father
• a churchgoing accountant

Until everything fell apart.

But this isn’t just about what happened.

It’s about control.

Image.

Belief.

And the choices people make when they can’t face failure.

Because people lose everything every day.

And almost none of them do this.

🎬 Episode Chapters

00:00 — The House That Waited

00:55 — Chaos, Cats, and a Killer Intro

02:19 — The “Perfect” Life

07:11 — The Secret He Never Told

10:39 — The Day It Happened

11:58 — He Took a Break

13:40 — A Month of Silence

19:16 — The Letter

22:43 — Gone for 18 Years

27:48 — Found… and the Truth Doesn’t Land

41:34 — The House, The Window, The End

🧠 In This Episode

• The timeline of the John List case
• How someone maintained a double life
• The role of control and routine
• Religion as justification vs. belief
• How he disappeared for 18 years
• Why this case still feels unsettling today

🎙️ About The Show

The House of Syx explores true crime through a different lens—focusing not just on what happened, but why.

⚠️ Content Warning

This episode contains discussion of violence and may not be suitable for all listeners.

📩 Contact

Have a case suggestion or something you want us to cover?

houseofsyx@gmail.com

🔚 Final Thought

People lose their jobs.

Their money.

Their homes.

They don’t lose their humanity.

It starts with a house that

looks normal, quiet, street, nothing out

of place. But after a while, people notice

little things. The car never moves. The

lights stay off. No one comes or goes.

Still. No one checks.

Inside the air has gone still heavy. Like

the house is holding something in. Five

bodies sit in the dark waiting and for a

month no one comes looking. Welcome to the

House of Six. Tonight we present suburbia

secrets and sin.

Welcome to The House of Syx. I'm

Jenn.

I'm Jared. I'm a Dr. Evil thing or

something going on

now. You are. You are. Cat is on the

podcast. Yeah. And she has things to say,

but you're not good enough to hear 'em.

Yeah. So this is,

nobody is,

this is what I'm dealing with now.

So,

yeah, she's very happy, except on

screen.

She's so black that she just kind of looks

this little black hole sitting on your

lap.

Yeah.

Hilarious. Yeah. Her claws are dug

in too. I can see that. Yeah. Does it

hurt?

No, not yet.

Not unless Sherlock starts barking.

There you go. And she's gonna sh*t herself

and claw you and you're gonna sh*t

yourself.

And I'm gonna scream and sh*t myself and

everybody. sh*t. The dolls with the cat.

Hey, welcome to the podcast. A,

a, a. Well, I think we just got

banned for the first five minutes of

whatever that was. Anyhow, I know for a

fact that you have heard this story. I

know that you have, because we watched a

TV show on Netflix that referenced this

guy, and I went into a whole diatribe when

they were talking about who it was.

Okay. And you looked at me I was crazy. It

was that show about the watcher that wrote

the letters. Do you remember that?

A little bit.

It had that guy.

That guy. Yep. Oh yeah. I know what

you, yeah. I think he was from

Boardwalk Empire and he played the dad and

he was not a very good husband. Yeah. And

anyhow, this podcast episode is about John

List.

Okay.

This is episode number 25. Welcome.

We have got 38 followers and they are

riveted and most of them are in Vietnam.

True story.

I don't even

have

a comment. I mean, thank you

so many subjects. That's my

response. Were just discussed in that,

right,

right.

Last 30 seconds. Right. So yeah, we

are gonna talk about John List.

Okay.

He remembers folks. You can, I can

see, I see it on his face.

It's, it's, yeah.

Is it coming to you?

Yeah, a little bit.

It's not,

let's dive in.

Okay. Like this guy, we're, we're

gonna talk about a guy who, by all

accounts, was as normal as it gets

suburban house, the whole family church,

every Sunday. He was like, just this

normal dude. And then one day gone,

oh,

yep, yep. They're all gone. No. Yep.

That's the whole story. We'll see you next

week.

You need to clear your throat.

Yeah, I'm good. I did it.

m*rder happens in this house. I'm

gonna tell you why. It's from all the

throat clearing and I just can't take it

anymore. All right, so let's start with

the house. 'cause this is what it all

comes back to for me. You all may not draw

the same conclusion, but for me it all

comes back to the house.

It sits in Westfield, New Jersey. Quiet,

suburban. The kind of place, place, the

kind of place where everything is neat,

predictable, and you know, you're a little

competitive with your neighbors 'cause you

wanna have a slightly nicer car.

Okay.

A slightly greener lawn. Mm-hmm. You know

what I'm saying? Sure.

Right. And this house, they called it

breeze. We need to start naming our houses

again. People, because that. Classy.

Okay.

Alright. Alright. But this house, it

stands out. It is impressive. It is more

space than a family of five needs. It's a

little bit much. Okay. The kind of the

home that says those people are doing

well.

And you go, I can't wink, I just blinked

both eyes at him. But you

made a little clicky

clicky click

sound. I did. I did. I hear you

right. And everything inside is kept

a certain way. It's all neat and tidy,

ordered intentional, carefully maintained.

Everything is amazing about this place.

All right, and inside that house is a man

named John List. Now that's about the most

boring name I've ever heard. His name

might as well have been John Smith. His

wife's name is a drain.

It's sorry for any John. John Smith

out there's

Yeah. No, you're boring. Change your

name. The cat just looked at me and she

was like, can you keep it down?

No. All right. This dude, he is 46 years

old, which is kind of terrifying because

that's one year younger than me, and if

you see pictures of him at this age, he

looks he's 80. We've already talked about

aging.

Yeah.

It's weird how people back in the

day seemed older.

Right.

Sunscreen, use it anyhow. He is 46.

He's an accountant. He is married with

three kids, and they're not the only ones

in the house. His mother lives there too.

Can you imagine?

No,

I would love you, mom. So from the

outside, everything looks fine.

It's normal, totally normal, structured,

orderly, and that's exactly how he likes

it. You hear what I'm saying here? Because

John List is the kind of person who

believes life should make sense. Numbers

should add up. He's an accountant after

all.

Oh, okay.

Rules should be followed, and if

they are not, somebody should fix it.

Hmm. Life doesn't make sense. Just

in a lot of ways,

life doesn't make sense. That is

profound.

That's what I said. You said life

has to make sense.

That is what I said. I had already

forgotten.

This is how his life is going, exactly how

he expects it. The house stays clean,

routine stays intact, and from the

outside, nothing slips, but behind all of

that, something's not adding up. Okay?

Because. John List isn't just managing a

household. He is managing an image. And

bad news bears, he lost his job.

Apparently he's not very good at a job,

okay? But he did this quietly, instead of

telling to anyone, he just kept going to

work. He would get up every day. Dress,

eat breakfast, walk out the door and go

supposedly to his job.

Hmm.

But he doesn't have a job. Okay.

This guy, nothing had changed and at first

it's manageable, a missed payment here, a

bill pushed back a little bit over there.

Yeah, it's fine. It's fine. We can just

keep doing this forever. Right? In this

beautiful house, and that's what he does.

But the problem is the money isn't coming,

the job isn't coming back, and the life

he's built is starting. To collapse, and

for most people, they would probably stop

and ask for help, maybe, oh, I don't know.

Tell your wife.

Yeah, probably.

Let me tell you what, if you lost

your job and you just pretended you didn't

and pretended you were going to work.

First of all, I'd see it on Life 360. I'd

be like, he is at the park.

Right. Just

see, that's weird. I think he's

having an existential crisis. 'cause I

don't think I've ever seen you in a park.

Just kidding. I, I haven't actually. So

anyways, what I'm saying is you, maybe you

make some life changes. Maybe you sell

Breeze, Knoll.

I don't know. Thinking crazy here, but

John List does not do that because to him,

this is not just failure. It's something

deeper, something permanent. He is deeply

religious. Now, for most people this, this

looks normal. You go to church, you pray,

you say the blessing. Those are normal

things to do.

I think. Uh, this is not John Lis kind of

religion.

He's not casual about it. He is

structured, literal, absolute. He believes

in and wrong. He believes in order and in

consequence And more importantly, he

believes that he is responsible for his

family, not just financially but

spiritually

and once that idea takes hold, there is

only one way to fix everything.

eliminate everybody. No, no. JJ

just, that's not what I meant.

It's, it's not what I meant. Well,

let's keep going. Okay. It is November

9th, 1971. Inside the house are the six

people we've been talking about. By the

end of the day, five of them are dead and

John List is gone.

Okay. Well, maybe I was right.

It's morning time. His children get

up and they leave for school. And now

inside the house are John, his wife Helen,

and his mother Alma, at some point that

morning, he harms Helen in the head.

Okay?

Yep. He just goes straight there in

in the back, so she didn't see it coming.

Thank goodness. That's just terrible. He

then gets his mother, next alma list is 84

years old and she is harmed through the

eye upstairs in her apartment.

Okay.

I'm sorry. I'm not going to get

graphic by the way. That's, but still. And

then he sits and he waits and. He waits

for the children to come home. When

Patricia gets back, he takes care of her.

And then when Frederick gets home later,

he takes care of him to, as he takes care

of him as well. Both in the back of the

head. So they did not see it coming. This

is terrible, but maybe at least in this

situation, the best possible way that they

just didn't know it was coming. 'cause

that's, this is their dad.

Mm-hmm.

This is terrible.

There's no silver lining.

There is no silver lining in any of

this. It's all black. Somewhere in the

middle of all of this, he sits down and he

eats lunch. He takes a break, he runs

errands. What he keeps moving through the

day, there's still a day to move through.

By the way, there's not that evening, he

goes to his oldest son's soccer game and

watches him play ball, and then he brings

him home and he takes care of him as well.

Except this time it's, it's multiple times

and there is evidence that this boy

attempted to, to defend himself.

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

He, he saw it coming.

Mm-hmm.

I'm so sorry. Afterward. He arranges

the bodies. He places his wife and

children on sleeping bags in the ballroom.

By the way, they had a ballroom.

We have a ballroom in our house. They're

not the same because this is a normal

household where we don't do that to

people. Anybody just. Clarifying. Okay. ,

He left his mother upstairs. Uh, she was

not arranged, not moved, just where, where

she fell. He just left her there, which

was kind of sad to me.

Yeah,

I mean, this whole thing is sad, but

this is extra sad.

I don't know. He just left her up there.

He turns the heat down and then he

disappears off the face of the earth. Are

you with me so far?

I'm with you.

What are you thinking?

I'm not, this is bad,

this is bad. This is the worst story

ever. And we're telling it. , And then the

house just sits there. Days pass, then

weeks, no one sees John list.

His wife Helen is gone, his mother is

gone. The kids stop showing up to school

and at first everybody just kind of

ignores the fact that this is happening. I

mean, a day or two. Okay. Fine. Maybe

they're sick, the family's away. No, I, I

don't know. But the days keep adding up

and no one calls to explain the, these

missing people and the neighbors start to

notice things.

The lights are always off. The car never

moves and mail starts building up at the

door.

Yeah.

Jenn:

this, somebody pay attention to

something.

It's not dramatic, but like, I'd be

like, look, if Janice. Her car doesn't

move for two days in a row. I know her car

has not moved for two days in a row and

I'm like, I think Janice is sick.

We should go check on Janice. I am. I'm

that nosy neighbor that peeks out their

window and I'm like, oh, Tim's mowing his

yard.

I know when my neighbors do everything,

and I think that's a good thing because if

Janice doesn't go to work for two or three

days, I should go check on Janice. I'm

worried about her.

Well, she's got family.

You have to care about your

neighbors. What if somebody in the family

did something?

Oh boy.

Okay.

Oh boy.

I mean, I know her son mows her yard

and everything, but he could be harboring

some deep seated resentment.

Never ever hope that that Janice is

the one person that never finds this

podcast.

She's a sweet lady, guys. She's a

sweet southern lady. And Janice, if you're

listening, thank you. We appreciate you

and if anything happens, I'm gonna know.

Okay,

we just went off the rails.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So yeah, males, males piling up, cars

still outside this, this is weird. There's

a problem here. Yeah, we should go check

on this. But nothing looks wrong enough to

force anybody to act. And people, if you

see something, say something. I know

that's about terrorism, but also it's

about your neighbors.

To check on 'em. Okay, now, finally,

finally, a month has gone by. Somebody

connected to the family and we don't

exactly know who anymore. It was likely a

teacher or a family friend. They finally

decide to go check. She goes to the house.

Knocks, obviously there's no answer. Walks

around the house looking for signs of

movement, nothing but it.

Something's weird. So she calls the

police, she wants to do

what?

Probably a very distinct odor if

we're paying attention at all.

Well, remember he turned the heat

down.

I understand, but

it's December in New Jersey.

Okay.

Okay. Now, but maybe just from the

outside. I mean, I know houses aren't

airtight, but I don't know how long it

takes for odors to seep out.

Yeah. Now in our house, not long, there's

cracks everywhere. You can see daylight

from inside, but, uh,

joys of a 120 year old house.

Yeah, yeah. We're figuring that out.

But, uh,

so she calls the police.

She calls the police, uh, they get

there. Something, you know, it's locked up

tight. They're, they can't see anything in

the windows, but something's not quite

right.

So they go inside and immediately this is

when the smell is gonna hit them. Yeah.

The, this is bad news bear situation. The

house is quiet, but it's doesn't feel now.

I don't know if police would be like, Hey,

this air feels weird. I don't know. But if

you're gonna already, if you've already

got the door open, you gotta go look.

That's what he said. So he starts moving

room to room, calling out, no response.

Obviously, he gets to the ballroom and

probably pus his guts out. Correct? I

mean, that's what I would do, I assume.

But of course, there you have Helen,

Patricia, Frederick, John, Frederick,

they're all there. Laid out in the

ballroom together on sleeping bags.

This is arranged. That's weird. And then

obviously upstairs they find his his

mother alone in her apartment. And here we

have five people that have been here for

weeks with nobody checking on them.

Yep.

They've been there for weeks, uh,

long enough that.

I don't even know. I don't know what to

say. Autopsies will obviously confirm how

they died, but at that point they didn't

need. Perfect forensic detail to

understand what had happened in that

house. Right? Right. I mean, gunharmed

wounds are pretty clear no matter, , how

much decomposition had happened. ,

Obviously we are in the seventies here, so

you have fingerprinting and blood typing,

but there wouldn't be any type of DNA and

I don't know if you would need it at this

point.

Right. Because obviously we know who they

are and no sign of the one person who

should be there. Mr. John List. Almost

forgot his name.

You did?

I almost said John Lynch, and I'm

like, Nope, Jen, that's not right. His

name is John List. Did you see that pause?

I did. I caught it.

Yeah, he's gone. And a few days

after this discovery, a letter turns up.

Now this is weird timing. He had to have

been paying attention to what was going on

here. Okay. But it is written by. John and

addressed to his pastor. It is several

pages long and it doesn't read a

confession. It's more justification. He

writes that he lost his job, the money was

gone, and there was no way to maintain the

life that he had built.

And more than that, he says he brought

shame on his family. And I quote, I feel

that because of my failure, I have brought

too much shame on all of you. He talked

about his mother, her age, and her health,

the burden he believed that she would

become to his family, which, what, flip

you, John. Okay? We all age.

Let's not be a sh*t about it. Okay, jerk.

And then the letter shifts because this is

not just about money, it is about belief.

He writes that his children were drifting,

that they were losing their faith, that if

things continue, they may not be saved.

And his mind, that was the most danger of

all. He said, and I quote, at least, I am

certain that they have all gone to heaven

now, unquote.

Hmm.

This guy, yeah, they're in heaven,

motherfliper. 'cause you did it bastard.

Now I'm showing a lot of anger here, but

this letter from John did not, he was not

angry, he was not panicking. He obviously

in his mind, did not lose any control. He

was just laying doing what's necessary.

The doubt.

Yeah. Just doing what's necessary,

step by step, why he thought it made

sense.

So obviously it doesn't take long for the

investigation to narrow its focus because

did he, John did it. He did. Solved it.

Solved,

right? There's no theories.

There are no theories. We have

different theories at the end, but that's

not what we're talking about now. My bad.

We go in order.

So John's gone. The husband, the father,

the bastard. He's gone. He's in the wind,

as they would say. So obviously he becomes

the prime suspect. And police begin

looking for him, checking records,

contacts anywhere he might've gone. But

here's the problem. John hasn't just left

the house. He's, he's, he's, he's erased

himself as, uh, investigators dig in.

DA different picture starts to form. He

lost his job, but no one knew. They

realized that he had been getting up and

leaving the house and going to work, going

to work. Air quotes here, because I guess

the park is now work, but they found that

all the money that was gone, the bills

were piling up, and debtors were banging

down the doors at this point.

Apparently

they

weren't banging on the doors during

those four weeks that were in their hair

did

literally not. I guess they just

don't want their money. Huh? Anyways. Uh,

yeah. So,

yep, he disappeared for the next 18 years.

Okay. Okay.

In the wind, this guy.

Yeah.

As they say, it's

pretty good though.

18 years is a pretty good run.

That's

good run.

That's a full formed human adult,

one way to put it.

Yep. That's the only correlation I

had to 18 years. I, I didn't, yeah.

Understood.

Yep. Yep. Let, let's be clear here

that this is not a failure of the

investigators.

Okay, because it was a limitation of what

they had at the time. Once he left the

house, there was nothing to connect him to

anywhere else. He's just gone. There was

no car abandoned nearby, no bodies, no

sightings, just in name that. Stopped

existing. And I did a little bit of

research on this because I was like, okay,

first of all, I know that social security

numbers were issued in the twenties.

We have already established that. So

everybody gets a number, but there was no

centralized database that tracked this.

Sure. So if you got a job, they still

asked for your social security number.

'cause you pay taxes. That's not, you

gotta pay the government, but. Everybody,

employers just took down a number and they

were like, yep, that looks good.

Right?

That's was 7, 8, 9 numbers. Nine

numbers looks good to me, pal. That was

it. Like there was no way of absolutely

confirming that a person was who re they

really said that they were so like, we're

driver's license. Just, I don't even think

they had pictures of them.

I don't know

anymore at that point in time.

Probably not. I don't know. I don't

know when that started.

I didn't look that up. I wasn't

thinking driver's license. I was only

thinking social security number because we

made the joke that my grandmother got the

first social security number. Mm-hmm.

Right? 'cause she was born in the

twenties. Right. That's not true.

But, 'cause she was born at the end of the

twenties also. I can't imagine that the

first number was one. It'd be funny if it

was though. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Anyhow. For

years, there's nothing. He's just, the

case goes cold. Anybody can disappear. If

he left New Jersey, changed his name and

started over, all he had to do was find a

job, which he couldn't keep a job, but

apparently he could find one.

The question is, while he was out just

pretending to go to work, why wasn't he

hitting the pavement? Doing what Boomers

talk about today, about just walking in

and asking for an interview. Why wasn't he

doing that? 'cause that apparently gets

you jobs.

It never got anybody a job after 1952.

Okay.

I. I don't actually know. I've never

done that.

Right. Let's not start.

No, no, that, that would be weird.

Just submit your resume a normal ass

human. That's what you should do. This has

been all over the place. Really, really

has. Yep. So he leaves New Jersey, he

changed his name, he started over.

He finds a new job and builds a new

routine and, he creates a brand new life.

He remarries, he goes back to church. He

teaches Sunday school. Now I, here's a

philosophical question for you here. If

you m*rder five people, can you just go

back to church and be like, well, it's

fine.

Look, I know Christianity is this belief

that you can be forgiven, and I can

appreciate that if you're forgiven for.

Stealing pixie sticks from the seven 11.

Right. When you're 12,

not eliminating your entire family,

not eliminating your entire family.

Right, right.

These feel two very big different

things. The,

the, there's a order of magnitude.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

I just, I, I have a problem with

this, with a man that offed his whole

family teaching Sunday school.

Yeah.

That's, that's problematic.

Yeah.

Of a very high magnitude. Yeah. I

don't agree with it. I just, there are

some things that are bad. There are bad.

You are bad if you do that. Don't do that.

A life lessons.

B,

he was coping man.

Maybe I just don't have enough

forgiveness in my heart.

No, I think, I think you're on. I

think you're good, especially with this

subject.

I do not forgive that. You can get

out of town with that. I am Well, he did.

He got outta town. He he did, he did. He

went direct. He went outta the state even,

right?

Yeah. That this is, this is

terrible. And he was doing all the things

that he did before, minus the m*rdery

things. He was doing all those things

before just under a completely different

name. Right. Years past, almost two

decades. No one. Recognizes him, doesn't

connect it. The man they're looking for

doesn't even exist.

He's in a different state, but this dude

is just paying bills. Finally, uh, yeah,

living quietly. No one looks twice at him

until 1989. This is when the television

show America's Most Wanted heirs. We've

talked about this before, John Walsh. Love

that guy tragically. Why he was doing that

show in the first place, right, was

because of the loss.

Horrible, horrific loss of his son, Adam.

But they featured this case. Okay. And

this man who eliminated his whole family

and disappeared. Here's the problem with

the show at the time, is that no one knows

what he looks anymore. Sure. It's been

almost 20 years. Right? So they brought in

a forensic artist and they do something

new for the time they age him.

Right? Not just the sketch, but a

projection of what he might look like. Two

decades later, and the episode airs and

somewhere. Someone is watching a neighbor,

a woman who's seen him before, talked to

him. They probably went to church

together. She looked at the screen and she

recognized him because she knows him as

Robert Clark.

She calls it in, authorities investigate

and this time there is a trail. He had

been living in Virginia, , working,

blending in, and in 19 89, 18 years after

the m*rderers, he is arrested. This was a

really quiet sort of situation. There was

no confrontation. He just quietly let

himself be handcuffed and walked

himself.

Yeah. Well, yeah. I made it. I made it 18

years. It was a, it was great.

It was a good run. This guy, so he

is brought back to New Jersey, back to

this scene of the crime and the new wife,

she divorces him 'cause she's not crazy.

Right.

That poor woman. What she must have

gone through. That's terrible to find out

that you'd been with somebody for 18 years

and he was this child eliminater.

Still worked out for better for her

than it did previous one.

She got away.

Yeah. Right.

Because who knows? Who knows,

right?

It's just sitting in there waiting

to come out This monster. He goes to trial

in 1990 and it, the facts are very

straightforward. You got five victims. One

house, one man who disappeared and created

a brand new life went back to church.

There's no mystery here, but there is one

question to ask. What the flip?

Hmm.

Actually, it's why, but also what

the, what? During the trial, his

explanation comes back into focus. The

letter, his whole reasoning, the belief

that he was saving them,

right,

because he failed as a provider, failed as

a father, failed as the spiritual head of

the family, which by the way, he did.

He was a massive failure. This guy was a

capital L loser. He, if you do that,

you're, you suck. I'm just, there's no way

around it. And to his, in his mixed up

brain, this was the only way to fix it,

and his defense leaned into that. First of

all, gross, Ew. You know, they droned on

and on about his mental state and his

beliefs and his desperation.

I mean, the prosecution doesn't need to

argue too much because everything he did

kind of speaks for itself. All that

planning, right? Ugh. The sequence, the

disappearance, this was not sudden. He was

very controlled and deliberate. Ew. So

he's found guilty on five counts of

m*rder, and in 1990 he is sentenced to

life in prison.

I'm not sure if maybe Virginia didn't have

the death penalty anymore.

I think state by state. Yeah.

So he's sentenced to life. And what

I, we've talked about this. I think the

death penalty is, I don't know,

feels you're hit or miss on. You're

hit or miss on, yeah,

I am. Hit on it when it's. The worst

of the worst.

John Wayne Gacy. Sure. Ted Bundy. You know

the monster monsters. Everybody else. I

feel if there isn't the most definitive

and solid proof ever, it's dodgy. 'cause

people sit on a, they sit on death row

forever, ever. That,

that's my problem.

Sucking up.

Yeah. That's my

tax dollars.

Yep. That's my problem.

My problem is how do for sure?

For sure. Because we know people have

been.

I understand.

Sentenced to death and then you find

out they didn't do it. And the law of the

country is that it's better for a guilty

man to go free than an innocent man be put

to death, in my opinion. I agree with

them.

Okay.

Facts.

Okay.

Life's lessons. Uh, so anyway,

sentenced to life in 2008. He dies in

custody. He like, he got this, this, this,

this jerk face got to live out his whole

life. He got a whole human, adult human of

more of life, and then he just gets to sit

in prison, working out and eating

spaghetti. Thus, I don't have time for

this.

I do. This is my podcast. This is why

we're here. We make down

for it.

Yeah. So, okay, let's, let's talk

theories. Be there. We, we know who did

it. He, John Lewis did it. Okay. There

nothing about that sus suspects, but I

would to talk about whether or not he

actually believed it. Did he believe he

was saving their souls?

That's what he said.

Oh, I get it.

He said, he said his children were

drifting. They're losing their faith and

this is the only way he could make sure

that they were saved. Maybe he did believe

it.

I think there are a little bit of

wacka dos out there that can. Go with

that. Yeah,

sure. But you know, it doesn't

explain the planning and the waiting and

the way he moved to the day.

He ate lunch, he watched a soccer game.

Why didn't he just wake up guns blazing?

Okay.

And then he disappeared for 18

years. If you are so. Sacrificing. Why

wouldn't you just turn yourself in and go,

well, I saved him.

Well, yeah, but he, you know, he,

that he could have had this plan. I'm

riding this theory on you, right.

Hid this plan because he was saving him.

Then after he did it, he, you know,

settling down and he is like, sh*t, I

didn't make it this far in my plan. And

the fact that now I'm going to go to

prison, what should I do now? My focus was

on saving. These people from their tragic

outcomes. And then I forgot that there's

repercussions, sorry.

But then he just went somewhere else

and got remarried and lived a whole life.

I get it.

That you look, I think that if he

really did believe it, he couldn't just go

and live a whole new life.

Okay. And you know. And say it made

sense.

I mean, he was saying he, they

presented it in a way that he lost

control.

He couldn't deal with this anymore. He

went a whole fricking month with no job.

Then one day he lost control because the,

a bell came in and he was like, oh sh*t.

This is it. Water bill.

Put him over the fliping edge.

A water bill is gonna put us over

the edge after we delayed sod. Different

story.

Oh boy.

But not in this way. Just

thank you.

We're we'll be back for the next

episode.

I just, there's, there's this version

where he's conflicted. He's desperate,

he's trying to make something that's

unbearable. Just makes sense. And there's

this other version where he's just a man

who couldn't deal with his failure.

Sure.

Failures.

Yeah.

And the, he just chose to deal with it in

the most final way possible to avoid it.

Then, you know, maybe it's one, or maybe

it's both, but

five people are still dead.

Yep.

And he walked away and started a

brand new life. Now all I can say is,

thank goodness he didn't have another kid.

Yeah.

Because it would've happened. We

don't know. But you know, people lose

things. All the time. People lose their

jobs, they lose their money, they mo they

lose their houses and their families and

they don't go on a eliminating spree, eh?

No, you're right.

I know I'm right.

But stress can put you over the

edge. I mean, hopefully not this far over

the edge, but fact is stress can put you

over the edge.

I,

I'm going through a lot of stress

now, but I'm, I'm not going over the edge,

so just putting that on record.

Thanks. Yeah. I, you know, I, I hear

you. I mean, I, I think that people do

lose their minds, but people don't end

lives.

Right.

And that, but it shouldn't, you

know, take their family's lives. Yeah. I

mean, that's not love or protection.

No.

You're not saving anybody by taking

their life that's. A choice,

correct?

Uh, most per,

we're on the same page.

Thank goodness. This is probably why

we're married 'cause we're not

psychopaths. Do you think that it's better

for two psychopaths to meet and get

married versus to live with a regular

person who has normal ass thoughts and

isn't a psychopath?

So maybe it they could balance out the

psychopath or is it better for two

psychopaths? So one psychopath doesn't

ruin a normal person and they just, I

don't know how psychology works.

Put a lot of thought into this.

It just came to me.

Okay.

I lost my therapist. I don't have

one. I should probably after this, people

are like, she doesn't have a therapist.

That's weird.

There's signs lady.

Uh, you know, I ghosted. My last

therapist.

You did?

I just stopped talking to him and he

checked on on me once and asked how I was,

and I felt really bad about it because I

was like. I hope he doesn't think I'm

dead.

Oh, geez.

But also, I was too embarrassed to

respond back because I was like, oh sh*t,

I just didn't make another appointment

ever.

That was it.

So, I mean, what do you think? Do you

think he believed it or do you think he's

just a dick?

No, he is just a. Yeah, for real.

He's just a eliminater.

I think it was an excuse.

You can try to, it is an excuse and

also, again, you can try to talk yourself

into things all day long on some

situation, but nope.

You think maybe he was just making

himself feel better,

correct? Yes, I do. Especially if

he truly was a quote man of faith that was

his way to, of coping.

I have a hard time with that. I, I,

I struggle with thinking that people of

faith can do something that, can be a

family annihilator. I, I struggle.

How can you believe in God and take out

your entire family? How can you have a

profound belief because what you think

you're saved? Like that's not

No, I know. Well, that's a whole

nother episode. If we're gonna go down

the, uh. Religious topic

that's not, this is not that kind of

podcast. I don't wanna scare people.

Nope.

I just, I, I just, I'm just saying

that I struggle with thinking that a man

of faith. Could be a man of faith and do

that, not somebody who did something that.

And then later,

correct.

Came to faith. Correct. I can deal

with that more than somebody who truly

believes could do something this and then

just go back to believing.

Yeah, no, I

agree. Like do you just pause your

belief? That's not a belief. Nope. That's

not a, excuse me. That's not faith.

Right. It's a hobby.

That's that's a, that's a hobby. I

don't

made that up.

That's a good one. Yeah. I, I, I

just, I, that's, that doesn't feel right.

Sit. Well, no, it's not,

doesn't

sit right.

There's nothing that should feel

about that.

This is one of those things that I

would, I would want to sit down with God

and be like, how, why? What? That's,

that's one of those subjects that I'm just

like, I will never understand this. Yep.

Maybe I'm not meant to, and that's okay.

Agreed.

Yep. So here we go now. All right.

I'm gonna add one more tidbit. One more

sprinkle on the frosting. Okay. Okay.

Let's go back to the house and talk about

it a little bit more. There is one thing

that stayed behind in that ballroom where

the family was found is a stained glass

window. It is described as a Tiffany liked

stained glass and it.

Is believed it was worth somewhere in the

tens of thousands of dollars.

Okay.

Now John List bought this house. He did

not build it, so he had to have walked

past that stained glass window every

single day and not , truly known.

Mm-hmm.

The value that was above his head.

Mm-hmm.

The whole time. Just sitting there in the

house that he was unable to afford and out

of reach and yeah.

That's interesting.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Yep. He had a home. He had assets.

He could have just sold it. He could have

just sold the house, let alone the

fricking, I don't know how you just sell a

stained glass window 'cause it's a part of

the house.

That's a question for the ages, so, yeah.

So it was interesting. I didn't, I,

I guess I did not remember that they had

caught him in 89 and I definitely did not

remember anything about the fact that it

was on, uh,

America's

most one, America's most

one. I think that was one of the

first major crimes that the show. Right.

Solved.

Right.

That was a really big deal.

Yep. Yep. Now, the house, going back to it

in August of 1972, a fire tears through

the property and by the time it's over

there is nothing left to recover. It burns

to the ground.

Probably needed to after. Yeah,

that whole ordeal.

Yep. The cause is ruled as arson,

but no one is ever charged and just that.

The place where it happened, everything is

gone and whatever was left inside window

valuables, it's, it all burned down. Yeah.

I think that, um, houses where things that

happen. Those are not places that you want

to stick around. Nope. HH Holmes, his

m*rder castle was raised. Dennis Raider's

house was raised.

John Wayne Gacys house raised those, are

they

right?

Yeah. I mean, I would be. I think people,

you know, curiosity gets to people. I

would wanna know if it's haunted and that

I don't that part of me, I would want to

go there because I'm ghosts. But also

that's so disrespectful. So it's just

better. It's so, so breeze. Noel is no

longer standing.

I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. That's it.

That was a happy story.

It, we are here for smiles and

cheer. Yeah, you are welcome.

So it's a good story. Um. Why don't

we do it again in like, you know, say

maybe two weeks.

Two weeks? Yeah. You wanna do it

because that's when episodes drop every

other Tuesday. If I'm on time, and I

usually am.

You're very prompt.

I like, I don't to be late.

Yeah. So, uh,

yep.

Yeah. Yeah. How, how do they find

us? Where do they watch, where do they

listen to us? What do they do? All that

things.

YouTube. @houseofsyx, TikTok, they

suck. Uh, I've got some YouTube shorts.

Those are fun. Yeah, you can find us on

Facebook. You can email us

houseofsyx@gmail.com if you want to send

in some suggestions.

I get so many emails.

I was gonna say if we gotten an

email yet.

No, no.

Okay.

But you could be the first I'm, and

you know, you wanna,

I'm gonna send you an email just to

say, just, just

to, he's gonna make a suggestion.

Right,

right, right.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that is it.

We'll see you next time. This things and

things, and this is how I talk and, uh,

you should stay outta ballrooms.

We, we can't go into our living room now

'cause it's the ballroom. Whatever. Bye.