'America's Most Wanted' Host Talks About Capturing Westfield Murderer John List

In his  before Fox canceled “America’s Most Wanted,” host John Walsh talked about one of the show’s biggest captures during a speech in Westfield on Sunday.

Walsh, whose show was canceled Monday after 23 years, discussed the capture of Westfield resident John List in 1989 after an airing of his show, then in its first season. List had been on the FBI’s most wanted list for 18 years after he had  his wife, mother and three children in his Westfield mansion in November of 1971.

“It was a huge capture for us,” Walsh said in an interview with Patch prior to his speech.

In the interview and speech, Walsh reminisced about the role of the show in capturing List, who had remarried and was living under the name of Robert Clark in suburban Richmond, Vir. Walsh said the show had captured David James Roberts, a sex offender running a homeless shelter on Staten Island days after the first show in 1988, which he said showed the FBI the power of the show.

Looking to see if the show could tackle a cold case, Walsh said the FBI had approached him with the List case, explaining how List had been on the run since the November 1971 murders, then the largest mass murder in New Jersey history. At the time the show did not tackle cold cases, but Walsh said he wanted to take on the challenge.

“I knew it was going to be a challenge for us,” he said.

During the interview and in his speech, Walsh said the FBI’s request was not the first one he had regarding List. He said that he received multiple letters from Westfield residents and natives regarding List.

List had murdered his family in his Hillside Avenue mansion on Nov. 9, 1971, after he had been plagued by unemployment and mounting debts. List shot his wife, Helen, and mother, Alma, while his children were at school and then killed his children, Patricia and Frederick when they returned from school. List picked up his son, John Jr., from a soccer game and killed him when they returned home.

List had left word with the school and others that the family would be out of town and then fled town, leaving his car at Kennedy Airport. The family’s bodies would not be found for a month.

“The letters that were written from people here was an impassioned plea,” Walsh said in the interview.

Among the letters Walsh said he got before the List case aired was one from a close friend of the List children who said he had regularly visited the families’ gravesite in Fairview Cemetery.

In the interview, Walsh said List’s murder of his three children deeply impacted him in wanting to showcase the case on AMW. Walsh’s son, Adam, was kidnapped from a Florida department store in 1981 and found decapitated days later. His son’s murder would propel Walsh from the world of a South Florida hotel builder to a child safety advocate. Following the murder, Walsh and his wife, Reve, created the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in their Florida home. Walsh’s appearance in Westfield was part of a fundraiser for NCMEC.

Walsh said the main concern was to show the public what List would look like 18 years after the case. Working with a sculpture artist, the show was able to show a model that was almost a clone of List’s appearance in 1989. The work was done working with an 18-year-old photo of List and photos of family members. Walsh noted that the sculpture found a pair of glasses that would mesh with List’s tastes.

“No one had ever done a sculpture on television,” Walsh said of the show’s work.

Following the airing of the show in May of 1989, calls poured into the FBI indicating that the List bust looked like Robert Clark, an accountant and devout churchgoer in Richmond. List had been an accountant and devout churchgoer before the murders. List was arrested at his Virginia home, in a case, which shocked his second wife, who did not know her husband’s true identity.

List was convicted of the case and sentenced to life in prison. List died in 2008 at the age of 82 in prison. During his speech, Walsh praised the judge in the case for keeping List in jail for life.

During a reception prior to the speech, Union County Prosecutor Theodore Romankow was telling attendees that Walsh and his show were benefiting Union County, including the work on the List case. Romankow said the show has also showed several other cases that have involved Union County crimes over the years.

Looking back on the case, Walsh said it’s been part of the reason for the show’s success over 23 years.

“It was the story that launched our program,” Walsh said in the interview.