Kalamazoo pastor corresponded with notorious killer John List for 18 years

http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/03/kalamazoo_pastor_corresponded_1.html
Kalamazoo pastor corresponded with notorious killer John List for 18
years
by LInda S. Mah and Tom Haroldson | Kalamazoo Gazette
Friday March 28, 2008, 8:39 AM

KALAMAZOO -- In the years that convicted killer John List spent in
prison for murdering his wife, mother and three children, a retired
Kalamazoo pastor conducted a monthly correspondence with him.

"It was a good relationship," said the Rev. Louis Grother, who is
retired from Zion Lutheran Church, which List and his family attended
when they lived in Kalamazoo from 1956 to 1961. "I was shocked to hear
of his death. I had no idea he was ill."

List, who was serving a life sentence at New Jersey State Prison for
the murders he committed in 1971 while living in Westfield, N.J., was
transferred on March 18 to Saint Francis Medical Center in Trenton,
N.J., where he died at 2:30 p.m. March 21, Good Friday, of pneumonia
complications. He was 82.

List was a fugitive for 18 years before being captured in 1989 after
being featured on the TV show "America's Most Wanted."

"We renewed our acquaintance when he came up for trial, and I was at
his trial," said Grother, who was asked by a good friend, List's New
Jersey pastor, to contact List after he was arrested.

Although Grother was not able to speak with List at the trial, they
exchanged letters about once a month since List's conviction in 1990,
he said.

Grother said List never wrote about why he killed his family, and
Grother did not press the issue. "We did not talk about the tragedy
but mostly remembrances of when he was in Kalamazoo, things like
that," Grother said.

In a 2002 television interview with ABC's Connie Chung, List said he
killed his family out of fear that they would be torn apart by a
mountain of debt, would lose their home and would drift away from
their Christian beliefs.

"It was my belief that if you kill yourself, you won't go to heaven,"
List told Chung. "So eventually, I got to the point where I felt that
I could kill them, hopefully, they would go to heaven and then maybe I
would have a chance to later confess my sins to God and get
forgiveness."

No excuse, no condemnation

Grother said he would never excuse the horrible crimes List committed
-- in an incident he calls one of the most shocking in his more than
60 years in the ministry -- but neither would he be the one to condemn
List.

Grother's reason for the continued communication with the convicted
killer was simple. "I didn't want him to think that I'd given up on
him. I did it because I love people. I loved this individual. What he
did didn't change that. I don't think that is unique. I think it's
Christian."

List, who was born in Bay City and attended the University of
Michigan, was a supervisor for Sutherland Paper Co. in Kalamazoo
before moving with his family to Rochester, N.Y. His two sons were
born in Kalamazoo, and his daughter attended kindergarten at Milwood
Elementary School.

Grother remembers List, who served as treasurer of Zion Lutheran, as
"very likable, a very quiet individual, the kind of person you'd like
to have as a friend."

During their years of correspondence, Grother said, he never asked
List to confess his crimes. And even if List had, he would not betray
that confidence in public, he said.

Some may find it strange that Grother never asked List about the
motivation for his crimes or whether he felt remorse, but Grother said
he has never been the type to force confessions from parishioners or
people he worked with as a counselor.

Grother said he believes even today that List was a deeply religious
man who truly must have felt his crimes would save his family from a
life of poverty and misery.

List's combination of faith and violence "may be the strangest
contradiction you can imagine," Grother said. But the more time he
spends with humanity, the less these kinds of conundrums surprise him,
said Grother, who is 93.

"A gangster on the street you can understand committing that kind of
violence, but a profoundly religious person, how could a profoundly
religious person do such a thing?" Grother said. "... That is the big
question, and the answer I use all too often is: I don't know."

Although List and Grother did not talk about the murders or whether
List sought redemption, it did not stop Grother from praying for his
old friend. "I wore these knees out praying," Grother said.

The day of the crime

List was an unemployed accountant when he killed his 46-year-old wife,
Helen, as she sipped coffee in their kitchen on the morning of Nov. 9,
1971. He then shot his 84-year-old mother, Alma, in her third-floor
bedroom.

Later that day, List killed his children one by one as they came home.
First Patty, a budding actress. Then Frederick. Then John, his
favorite son, after the unsuspecting 15-year-old put his bookbag down
on a kitchen countertop.

"After I made the plan ... it's just like D-Day, you go in, there's no
stopping after you start," List told Chung in 2002.

List fled the day after the killings, assuming a new identity and
moving first to Denver and later to Richmond, Va. The bodies remained
undiscovered for a month.

A Richmond neighbor watched an episode of "America's Most Wanted" 18
years later and reported List to the authorities.

Ultimately, Grother said he believes List remained a man of faith.
"I'm sure (he) sought forgiveness for what he did," Grother said. "And
the God I know forgives regardless of the deed. He doesn't forgive
just the little sins."

-- Newhouse News Service reporter Rick Hepp and the Associated Press
contributed to this report.
.