After losing his lucrative New Jersey bank job, John List, a deeply religious man, decided it was better to kill his family than have them go on welfare and turn away from God. He shot his mother, wife, and three children, then escaped to Colorado, changed his name, and remarried. He was finally caught 18 years later. Asked why he didn’t shoot himself too, List said that those who killed themselves couldn’t go to heaven, whereas if he lived and confessed to God, he’d be forgiven, get into heaven, and be reunited with his family. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.
