Summer Series 2026: The List Family Murders Part 7

Welcome to Summer Series twenty twenty six, The List Family Murders. In this series, we are uncovering the story behind what happened behind the doors of the infamous Westfield, New Jersey mansion. We'll be discussing John List taking the lives of his whole family, his mother Alma, his wife Helen, his sixteen year old daughter Patty, his fifteen year old son John Frederick, and his thirteen year old son Frederick. Let's unpack it all and dive into the inner workings of a man who wanted to erase his whole life and start anew and for eighteen years he was able to do so. Let's go all right, guys, we are jumping in to part seven of Summer Series twenty twenty six, The List Family Murders, and we are going to take it into the time following the murders, where John List left Westfield and created a whole new life for himself, a life that he would continue to live until he was finally caught. So, after John left Westfield, he went to Colorado and he initially was living in a little trailer park area in Golden, Colorado, and he lived in a old silver gray trailer that he had obtained somewhere along the way. So our new character, Robert P. Clark, walked in to a Holiday in westmotel that was in Golden, Colorado and applied for a job. The manager of the hotel noticed that this man was about six foot one inches tall, he weighed about one hundred and eighty pounds, and he had glasses on. He noted that this man had a lighter complexion and he had dark brown hair which he wore a little long and combed straight back. He also noted that there was a touch of gray at this guy's hairline, and he also wore a mustache. Robert P. Clark will go by Bob Clark. So that is what we are going to be calling him for the remainder of this series. So Bob was new to town and he was out of work, and he found this job advertised on a thin piece of cardboard that was taped right to the entrance of the holiday inn. Bob went in and introduced himself and said that he lived across the street, and the manager realized that he was living in the trailer park that was across the street, which was typically occupied by migrants transient type of humans, but in his mind, this guy didn't look like that. He had a very good vocabulary, his glasses made him look like he was a school teacher. And this guy was also always wearing a suit and tie, so he didn't look like somebody that was just passing through. But then again, he also didn't look like the job that he was applying for, which was a cook. He wanted to be a cook at the hotel. The manager asked Bob Clark how old he was, and Bob said he was just over forty, and then proceeded to say that he was from East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the manager went on to tell him that nothing really mattered as long as he could cook, and Bob said that he had been doing all of the cooking most of his life and very much wanted the job. Bob then proceeded to give a fake social security number five two three nine zero seven six three zero. In fact, on November twenty second of nineteen seventy one, which was only twelve days after the killings in Westfield, New Jersey. Robert P. Clark applied for a new social Security number, and at that point in time, John knew that anybody under fifty years old could apply and get a new Social Security number with no questions asked. So this social Security number was issued to a man now known as Robert Peter Clark, formerly known as John List. Now Bob noted his address on this form that he filled out to be the address of a place called Motel Deville, which was located in Denver, Colorado, And on the application he also had written that his mother was named Ruth and Clark and his father was James Peter Clark, and his date of birth was April twenty sixth of nineteen thirty one. So very quickly and very easily he was able to create. This new identity. He gave himself a new birthday, a new age, and a new set of parents. But one thing that didn't change when John made the transition from John to Bob was his personality. He was the same John List that had always been there. And as the story continues, we're going to see a lot of the same themes and a lot of the same issues popping up in Bob's life, the same things that popped up in John's life. Now initial while he was on the run, Bob thought that he was going to be caught pretty quickly. He thought maybe one or two weeks max, and then he would be caught. He had even seen some reports on the local news about the murders in Westfield, and he thought that it was going to be over for him very very quickly. But he knew that he had to try and blend into his surroundings and very much embrace solitude and not be around people that much. He accepted the new job, which was a pay by the hour type of job. So when the manager of the Holiday Inn first offered this job to Bob, he really didn't think that Bob would really come through because this was a job that a lot of people would often accept and then they would just never show up, therefore they would never get paid. But Bob needed the money, so he ended up taking the job as a night cook at the Holiday Inn, and in this job, this was the first time in literal months that he was in a position where he had to interact and be around others. Bob did make some acquaintances at this job, and one of them most notable was a man named Frank Morland, and Frank was the cleaner. He was the one that cleaned the kitchen at the holiday inn. And he was a little bit older than Bob, but he was very friendly, very talkative, and Bob very much liked him. Frank was about ten years older than Bob, but like I said, the two hit it off. And one night they were getting ready to leave, closing things up, cleaning up for the night, and they were just kind of making small talk. Frank had asked Bob where he was from, and Bob instinctually said Michigan. Instantly, he realized that he had made a mistake because Bob Clark had a whole different backstory. He was from Pennsylvania, he wasn't from Michigan. Of course, Frank didn't know any better, so he never caught onto anything with this confession that Bob was actually from Michigan. So with this, Bob realized that he was going to be able to blend into society very very well. Now. Obviously, with Bob and his faith, he would often in the evening time spend his time reading the Bible, reading scriptures, and he had basically just given over the guilt that he felt to God, the guilt that he had felt for murdering his family. He had just basically given that over, which means that he didn't have to carry any of that with him, and he seemed very much to be enjoying his new job. He thought that. Things seemed a lot calmer in Colorado. Even during busy moments in the kitchen where there was a huge rush, everything just seemed to kind of flow and he didn't feel the pressures of his former life on his shoulders. But even with this feeling and not feeling the pressures and feeling rushed, he knew that the money issue was going to be something that followed him into this life as well. He simply just couldn't make enough money to make ends meet no matter what he did. And then all of a sudden, he ended up getting fire from the holiday inn for not being fast enough on the grill. And again, this is a common theme in John Slash Bob's life, and this was something that was very familiar to him, and it made him feel the way it always made him feel when he lost his job. The humility and the shame behind it was so real for him. So since Bob was once again unemployed, he was forced to look for another job. Now this time he was able to get a job as a cook at the Piney Country club in Parker, Colorado. He also helped his friend Frank Morland get a job there as well as a cleaning man. Bob was super grateful for this job. He knew that this was a really good job. He was blessed because he had a good job, he had a place to live, and he was living in Colorado, which he really seemed to enjoy. And Bob did every thing he could to basically stay out of sight. He only went out when it was dark out. He ate in the privacy of a small room when he was out in public, and kept to himself. He spent a lot of time alone in the dark corner of a church, and he felt like living the life that he was living was pretty simple overall. But he did begin to feel a lot more secure in his new role as Bob and in his new surroundings, and he felt more secure about coming out and being around people more. He had a friend in Frank, and Frank was very helpful to him and even helped him move to a new apartment, an apartment that was located on South Columbine Avenue that was located in Denver, Colorado. When Frank had helped Bob move his belongings from the trailer that he was living in to this new apartment. He noted how little belongings that Bob actually had. He was pretty astonished that he had so little to his name. But one thing he did notice when he was helping Bob move was there was a lot of boxes and files and records, and there was a box that was marked tax box. And Frank couldn't help but let the curiosity get the best of him, and he asked Bob what was with all of the tax stuff, and Bob offered up that he was planning on taking a few courses at H and R Block because he wanted to try and earn some extra money by doing taxes. And Frank thought that this fully made sense because when he looked at Bob, he looked at him as a very intelligent guy, and it never really made a lot of sense to Frank as to why Bob was actually a cook, because he was so intelligent, and this whole tax thing really made a heck of a lot more sense than the cook thing ever did. At this point in time, it was nearly three years after the murders, and Bob was starting to feel safe enough to take some smaller risks in his life, although he did stick to working for the smaller obscure companies as a cook and blending into his surroundings as best he could. He decided for the first time since he left Westfield that he was going to list himself in a Denver telephone directory, so he was really starting to feel more like himself. But at the same time, he was very eager to get back to his old profession, which was as an accountant, but he also knew that there was no rush to do this because he was still kind of trying to settle into his life in Denver. And then he ended up switching jobs once again, the third time in three years, and this time he got a job at a restaurant that was in a Denver department store. And for this job, the pay was a little bit more than he had been previously making at the country club, and because he had been this cook for three years, he had years of culinary cook experience. They jumped on the opportunity to hire Bob and have him as part of their team around the same time in Westfield, New Jersey. The date was June second of nineteen seventy four, and the New York Times ran a two paragraph filler blurb that was titled Jersey murders Now. In the article, the special Agent that was in charge of the FBI at the time said that they had no idea where John List was, but that they were not going to be closing the case until he was found. The chief investigator, Robert Bell of the Westfield Police Department, would continue to go to the gravesite regularly at the Fairview cemetery of the List family in hopes that John might possibly turn up on an anniversary or a birthday, but that never happened. Catching John List was so important, especially to the Chief of Police, James Moran. He kept a copy of the FBI bulletin that they had issued. He printed it out, he folded it up, and he put it in his pocket where he wore it every single day. And he had touched it so many times over the years that the edges had become frayed and tattered. In James Moran's career, this was his white Whale case. This is the case that he needed to solve, and he needed to find John List. Interestingly enough, James Moran attended a police convention in Denver, Colorado, in nineteen seventy five, and he stayed at the Brown Palace, which was only three blocks away from where John List aka Bob Clark would eventually end up residing. So it's crazy that this man and the Westfield Police Department spent so many years chasing after somebody and then by chance, he just happened to be in the same town, merely blocks away from the man that he had been chasing after. Imagine if they had run into each other in nineteen seventy five, then this saga wouldn't have gone on all of those extra years that had ended up going on. So back in Westfield, the neighbors of the List family had been trying to do some things to hopefully help catch John themselves. So they tried to get the Council of Lutheran Churches to essentially circulate a flyer with John's photo to all of the churches in the country, all the Lutheran churches in the country, so that way, when John eventually did turn up at one of the Lutheran churches, they would realize it was him and then he would be caught. But ultimately that was decided against and the flyers were never circulated. Who knows if they were, if that really would have made a difference in John being caught sooner. If there's one thing in John's life, it's that his constant is his religion and how dedicated he is to his church and his Lutheran identity. But because this now happened, we simply will never know if it would have made any difference at all. On June nineteenth of nineteen seventy five, Reverend Robert West, who was a pastor of Saint Paul's Lutheran Church, which was located on Grant Street in downtown Denver, Colorado, welcomed a new parishioner to the church membership. It was an official ceremony in which a man named none. Other than Robert P. Clark pledged to become a part of the church family community. Now, it was pretty typical that they would often send for records of memberships from other churches when new members would join, but Bob made it very clear that this was a fresh start for him and there was no records to send for. As Reverend West was getting to know Bob Clark, he noticed that Bob had glanced at one of the flyers that was printed on a bulletin board, and this flyer offered a group type of setting, type of community, and the reverend said that that group would be a great help and is very interesting. Bob of course denied it and said that that wasn't really his style, but Reverend West said that the group was always open and if Bob was interested in it, then he would be more than welcome. Reverend Wes just basically said this was a group of people that were very religious and they liked to talk about it, so if he was ever interested, then that group was there for support and nothing more. After months of attending the church, Bob finally made up his mind to become a very active member of Saint Paul's congregation. Bob found himself seated in a room with many other partygoers who were established congregants, and they were all going around and introducing themselves, and then it came to Bob Clark. So Reverend Wes went on to say that Bob had been coming to church pretty regularly and he had officially decided that he wanted to join the congregation. Bob went on to say that he was brought up Lutheran his whole life, and he ended up coming to Saint Paul's because it was on the bus line and it was convenient. One of the members went on to ask Bob if he was married, and Bob answered that he wasn't married anymore and proceeded to say that his wife had passed away and that she had passed away suddenly from cancer. Now, the congregation instantly was very sympathetic towards Bob, and they didn't ask any further questions. Once he said this, Bob realized that he had in fact found the right people, because yes, they were very caring, they were very religious, but also they didn't try to pry into his personal life, which he was a big fan of, because obviously, when you killed your whole family, you don't want people prying in to your past and all of the bad things you did in your previous life. Bob generally didn't expand much on his past, but he did offer up to Reverend West that he was previously an accountant, and Reverend West asked Bob if he wanted to be on the finance committee for the church, and Bob went on to agree to that and accepted it, and then Bob also expanded that he also used to be a Sunday school teacher, and Reverend West also asked him if he wanted to do that there at the church as well. Now, Bob immediately turned this down and said no, because he said that was a long time ago and it wasn't something that he was interested in doing anymore. And Reverend West was very understanding of this and reassured him that it was fine. Bob was still going to be able to be part of the church even if he didn't want to teach Sunday school. So I think it's really really interesting how Bob is coming out of his shell. He is sharing these little bits and pieces of his former life and feeling comfortable enough to do so. I honestly would love to know what was going through his head at this point in time, because it seems, in my opinion, like he is very much yearning to bring up these things that were at one point in time very important to him in his previous life. He brings up being an accountant, he brings up being a Sunday school teacher, And it's interesting because back when he had that life, he absolutely despised it and wanted no part of it and wanted to distance himself from it. So It's a very interesting dynamic to be inside of the head of John slash Bob, because I just don't know truly what was going through his mind. I don't even know if he knew what was going through his mind. Bob very much, although he was involved in church very much, continued to keep to himself and to those even in the church congregation. He was considered to be a very big introvert, but he was always a very active member of the church. The church honestly became his refuge, and he knew that nobody there at this point knew who he was, and they were all very accepting of him, and that brought him a lot of peace. In nineteen seventy seven, a headline appeared in the National Inquirer and it read quote After six year search, Westfield police can't find a man they say killed wife, mother and children. Where is he? End quote. Although the story was featured in the National Inquirer, it was no longer headline news, It was no longer on the front cover, It was no longer talked about every single day. The story actually was featured on page forty five of a National Inquirer, which was buried deep in a magazine full of sensationalized rumors. So at this point the List murders were very. Much fading from the headlines, and although the Westfield Police Department and the FBI did want to catch John List, it very much did fade in to the background, especially within the media. Bob Clark is still living in his apartment in Colorado, and it has been a full six year since the murders, and he was tired of living life as a cook. This was not the life that he wanted for himself, and he didn't like the fact that he had to wear clothes that didn't match. He was barely squeaking by financially, and he was just tired of cooking all of the time. He was tired of having to live paycheck to paycheck. He wasn't able to even afford a new jacket if he wanted to buy one, and he wanted to very much try and find something full time to work at in his own field. He wanted to go work in accounting. Yet again, Bob ended up meeting with a man named Sheldon Thorne, who was an executive with the accounting firm of Glass, Whiteman and Baker. So Bob had met with him and basically told him that he needed a full time job, said that he was an accountant and he was. Really good at what he does. Sheldon Thorne felt a rush of sympathy for this guy because in his mind, it seemed like he was very down and out on his luck and maybe had been having a difficult time financially, and he was basically starting over in a field that he had once worked in. So although Sheldon hesitated, he realized that he wanted this man to get this job, so set up a meeting with his boss, who was a man named Jim Roberto, and he ended up meeting with Jim Roberto, which we'll get into in a minute, but he essentially became an employee of Roberto Distributing in Denver, which was a carpet wholesaler. So he met with Jim and was officially highed. This was his fourth job since coming to Denver. His starting salary at this job was going to be nine hundred dollars per month, and he was very excited because he was going to be working in his field of accounting once again. And with this new job also came a new place to live. Bob moved into the Newgate Apartments located at ten four hundred West forty fourth Street in wheat Ridge, Colorado. The complex was neat, clean and very inexpensive. Right up good old Bob Clark Sally. Bob rented a furnished apartment which overlooked a large grassy lawn. This was definitely a step up from where he had lived prior, and over the years Bob had slowly accumulated more possessions than when Frank had helped him move into his last apartment, but still generally, overall, although he's accumulated more stuff, Bob remains pretty reclusive. He would eat. Lunch alone, and he would often do so in his used orange Folkswagen that he had bought for himself. He would eat lunch in the car while he listened to his classical music. And everybody that knew Bob thought that he was a little bit strange, but overall he was a very harmless guy. And this classical music that Bob listened to was very much his escape. He enjoyed all versions of classical music between Mozart, Bach, Beethoven. This was the stuff that really calmed him down and help him disassociate from all of his indiscretions in his former life. So in his new job, the man that owned the business, like I said, was name Jim Roberto, so he and Bob started just chatting. They actually ended up getting pretty close. They became friends, and one evening they were talking about some of Jim's marital issues and going back and forth, and Bob responded back to him that he understood because he had been there. And Jim Roberto asked him if he had ever been married, and Bob said that he had been married a long time ago, but he isn't married anymore. And in they're back and forth conversations, Jim talked about how he never wanted to get married again, and. Bob said the same thing. He basically said that he would never marry again because he had a lot of issues in his previous marriage, which we definitely know that that is true. His marriage to Holland was anything but a good time. Little did Bob know that there was a woman named Dolores who was about to enter his life, and Dolores ended up actually coming into Bob's life through an adult singles group that was part of a monthly supper program that was held by another local church in the community, Bob had decided at the last minute to attend this singles group, and that is where he would meet his future wife, Dolores. And I think it is so interesting that in both of Bob's lives, the life is John Lest and the life is Bob, that in both situations he ultimately ends up meeting a woman that he will go on to marry and also meeting a woman that's going to change the trajectory of his life. In the situation where he met Helen at the bowling alley, that was a last minute decision where he was basically told by a friend of his that they were going to go to this bowling alley. He ended up meeting Helen, they ended up marrying having all of these children, and we know how that story ended. And in this scenario, he's going to meet Dolores. They will eventually marry, which we're going to get into, and him meeting Dolores ultimately will end up in him eventually getting caught for being John List. So it's very interesting how even though he's reclusive and he doesn't like to be around people, he always ends up finding himself in these situations that ultimately change his life. In some way, shape or form. So we're now going to get into the night that Bob meets his future wife, Delora, and I do want to preface everything that we are about to get into with Dolores was truly an innocent person in all of this. She truly had no idea who she was getting involved with. Bob was very good at pretending to be who he was. He had no problem leaving behind his former life. He had created this whole new personality for himself. Times were a lot different. There was no social media, there was no Internet, they were in a completely different area. They lived in Colorado. Dolores had no idea who she truly was getting involved with, and I really do look at her as another victim in all of this. So I want to preface all of that before I get into the Dolores of it all, because she is a big part of. The story, a very important part of the story. So I just wanted to kind of give a little background on that before I get into all of it. So Bob decides to attend this singles event and he meets Dolores Miller. She was in her forties. She was tall and thin, around five ten, and had short cropped blonde hair that was curly. Dolores was very timid and quiet and spoke in a soft and low tone, which was very similar to the tone of this mysterious man named Bob Clark that she met. Bob quickly learned that Dolores Miller had been divorced, and he instantly snapped back to a memory of his childhood when he was at church with his father and a woman had spoken out about divorcing her husband and she was completely shunned by the church. But now that Bob. Was an adult and he had lived quite the life, he realized that the rules around divorce were too strict. There was nothing wrong with divorce. I mean, honestly, in the grand scheme of things, if we looking at a man who murdered his entire family, divorce is definitely not the worst thing in the world, Bob. In making conversation with Bob, Dolores asked him about his parents, and he said that they were both deceased, but that they have both lived long lives. Dolores responded back to him that she was very sorry for his loss. Delores then went on to let Bob know that her mom was still alive and actually lived in Baltimore, Maryland, which was a very interesting parallel because Bob then spoke up and said that he had never been there, despite the fact that he had married Helen on December one of nineteen fifty one in Baltimore, that's back when he was known as John List. Bob then went on to. Ask Dolores about her first husband, who she lived with in Baltimore, and he very quickly realized that that was a very sore subject in Dolores's life and very painful for her because there had been some infidelity in their marriage, and that is the reason that Dolores and her first husband separated, her marriage ending very much upset and broke her and she ended up leaving Baltimore and escaping to Denver after the divorce was final. Once she moved to Denver, Dolores was very much struggling to find employment, but she did manage to get a job at the missionary of Fitzsimmons Army Hospital. But the job that she had was very physical. She had to lift and haul boxes and crates, but nonetheless, she was grateful for the job and her new job wasn't too far from where she was living. In Aurora, Colorado. So she was living in a condo apartment in Somerset Village and when she first moved into this place, she thought it was a really nice place. Shortly thereafter, she was robbed and that really upset her and she realized that she possibly wasn't living in the best of places. So this is. Very interesting another parallel between Bob and Dolores. They both are struggling with employment opportunities. They both escaped a previous life and moved to Denver to start anew although one is very different than the other. They both had apartments that they lived in, and they both happened to turn up at the singles event at the church. Bob initially didn't share much with Dolores about himself, other than the fact that he had been married once before and his wife had passed away from cancer. Reverend West was really glad to see that Bob had found somebody that could be a companion for him, because he very much did worry about him because Bob was a loner and he was pretty much always by himself. And then shortly thereafter, soon enough, Bob and Dolores were always together. Although Dolores attended another church in town. She would always attend church regularly with Bob, and Bob was very very. Protective of Dolores. Dolores is described by her peers as very fragile and childlike, and like I said earlier, she was very shy by nature. It bothered Bob that Dolores had to do all of this physical work at the Fitzsimmons Army Hospital. Although Dolores never complained about the work that she had to do and all of her responsibilities, Bob knew that it was wearing on her. She wasn't eating, she was very thin, and Bob did everything he could to try and help her. He would always whip up his German cooking specialties and thought that she deserved everything and then some because she worked so so hard and she was neglecting herself. She wasn't taking care of herself, she wasn't eating properly, and she was working a very physical job. So he felt that the least he could do is help her out and try to make her great nutritious meals. This is also a very interesting parallel because the whole time that Helen was sick, John did take over all of the household duties, but that was really more about caring for the kids and not really caring for Helen. So here we see that he. Has completely become this person that just wants to take care of and nurture this woman who he's interested in. In September of nineteen seventy eight, Bob decided to move to Aurora, Colorado, which was going to be closer to Dolores, and although at this point in time they weren't living together, he knew that he would be living close enough to be able to help her and protect her when she needed it. So Bob moved in to Brentwood on the Park at one two seven oh seven East Mississippi Avenue in Aurora, and this apartment was a few blocks south of Dolores's Somerset Village condo. Brentwood on the Park was a two hundred and eighty five unit rental complex that had a swimming pool, a volleyball court, spacious closets, controlled access, entry, laundry facilities, and even areas to jog. Bob moved into a five hundred and sixty square foot apartment that was unfurnished but did have air conditioning, It had carpet, and it came with a stove, refrigerator, draperies, and storage, and it was also conveniently located on the bus line right off of Interstate two twenty five. When Bob first moved in, the rent was one hundred and fifty eight dollars per month, and that is insane to think that anyone's rent was ever one hundred and fifty eight dollars. You can't rent a place these days for under one thousand. So when Bob moved into Brentwood on the Park, it was basically known as an adult only community. Basically, they didn't allow children to live there. So Bob thought that this was perfect for him because he obviously murdered his own children, so he thought that this was going to be a. Great place to live. When he first went to move in, the. Apartment manager collected the one hundred dollars security deposit from Bob, and she knew right away that Bob was going to be an excellent tenant because he had great credit references. He had credit cards at Sears Wards, Visa and also a MasterCard. When he applied for the apartment, he wrote down the vehicle that he owned, which was a nineteen seventy four Volkswagen. He put down a driver's license number and also wrote in a social Security number and a bank account number. So, like I said, this guy had fully created himself a whole new life and a whole new identity. Under his employment, he listed that he was an account at Roberto Distributing, Incorporated for a year and a half and he was making nine hundred dollars a month. Under his emergency phone contact number, he requested that miss Delores Miller be notified. Under previous employment, he wrote r C. Miller Company, which was nothing. This was not a real company. He literally just made that up. He took the RC from his fake name Robert Clark and the Miller from Dolores Miller. This guy was just out of control, and nobody thought any different. Nobody ever checked any of his references or anything like that to know that R. C. Miller wasn't even a real company. So they just let this guy move on in. And again when he moved in, he only had a few boxes of his personal belongings, but he of course had all of his tax files, and he also had a waterbed, which is so very nineteen eighties of him. And honestly, he just doesn't strike me as a waterbed type of guy. So when he moved in to the apartment, the apartment manager realized that he had a waterbed, and although she also didn't think that he seemed like a waterbed type of guy, she told him that he would need to get waterbed insurance because they did have issues previously at the complex with flooding because of waterbeds. And he said he was ahead of the game and he already had waterbed insurance. And honestly, I had no idea that this was a thing, but it makes total and complete sense, especially when you're thinking of moving into an apartment complex. I have a couple of questions. Are waterbeds still a thing? I'm really not sure, but I will be googling because I am just genuinely curious if they still actually make them. So at this point in. Time, Bob and Dolores are in a relationship, and Dolores very much loved having Bob around, but there were times that she thought that he was a little bit inserting himself into her life a little bit too much. He always had a lot of advice and suggestions about everything from diet to shopping to finances, and he very much liked to have control and plan everything. He was very careful in everything that he did, and he was teaching Dolores how to be methodical in all of her planning as well. But Dolores was welcoming to this part of things because she didn't have anyone else nearby. He was basically the only person she had in Colorado and all of her family that was back in Marylyn thought that maybe it was good for her to have somebody to kind of oversee things for her, But then in the back of her mind, she wondered where all of this was eventually going to lead. Bob and Dolores had spoken about marriage shortly after they met, but they both kind of put the idea on the back burner because neither one of them were truly ready to make that next step. But at this point in time, Dolores was very tired of working and she just wanted to rest. She wanted somebody that would take care of her and cook her meals. And she was also getting older and didn't think that she could do all of the manual labor that she had been doing at her job much longer. And she really did care for Bob. He was very loving to her. He was very devoted in his faith and she had never met somebody that was as spiritual as Bob was. She knew that he would never break God's commandments like her first husband had done, and he would never be unfaithful. Bob often worked at Roberto's all day Saturday and Sunday and had a very dedicated work ethic, but all of his spare time he either spent with dolor or he was doing some volunteer work at Saint Paul's Church. And at this point he is feeling really good in his new life because he was never recognized as being John List, although he really very much was morphing back into John List. Who John List was at his core, and that was a man who was very devoted to his family and working very hard. And at this point in time, he's working hard to provide for a woman who he has professed his love for, and that is Dolores. He also very rarely thought about his former family and his former life. The only time he really thought about anything was the anniversary of their deaths in November. And the new life that he was living with Dolores was an easy life. It was calm and everything fit perfectly together. Bob knew that his mother, Alma. Would have loved Dolores because she was very quiet, she was a hard work and she took care of the house. She was very devoted to God, and she was a Lutheran, which is something that Helen was not. And even though she was divorced, he knew that his mother would have really, really liked her, and she would even take her time and she would prepare meals for the church social events. So in his mind, this woman was so vastly different from his first wife, Helen, and she just made him very happy. So as Bob is off building a whole new life with Dolores. On October sixth of nineteen seventy nine, in Union County, New Jersey, the Superior Court judges were trying to unravel some of the legal things that were left behind after John killed his family and disappeared. There were four life insurance policies that were in question. One was a two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars life insurance policy that John had taken out on himself, and three five thousand dollars life insurance policies that were taken out on each of the kids a year and a half before he took their lives. All of the expenses from the funerals and the burials and everything had never been reimbursed. That was all paid for by an individual from the church out of his own pocket, and he never saw that money again. And he had hoped that maybe with the sale of the house that he would get some of the money back, but then the house was completely demolished in the fire. So he was at this point grasping at strass try and get some of the money back. But there still was one remaining family member that was living, and that was Brenda, Helen's daughter, who actually had been legally adopted by John, but they had a really hard time getting in touch with her. But it had been kind of announced that they were toying around with the idea of having John declared legally dead, and Brenda reached out. She put a call in to State Mutual because she was the one who would benefit financially if her stepfather was declared legally dead because she was the last remaining family member and naturally she would be the one to inherit whatever money there was. So it was argued that since John had been missing since nineteen seventy one, and he had not been seen or heard from, that he should be declared legally dead in order to process and proceed to the matter of the two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars life insurance policy. But there was a lot of people who thought that obviously he went missing and disappeared on purpose because he was on the run, and he probably had gone off and started a whole new life, and that that wasn't a good enough reason for him to be declared legally dead. They then went on to say that all presumption must be that John is out there and is hiding from the authorities, which we know for a fact because he is now Bob Clark, he was in fact hiding from the authorities. On April twelfth of nineteen eighty, a judge ruled that the two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars life insurance policy that had been purchased by John List had in fact lapsed. So with all of that, this judge was no longer forced to raise the question of whether or not John was legally dead or not. But the three five thousand dollars life insurance policies that John had on his three children were still possibly valid, so there was still kind of a chance that the individual who paid for all of the funeral expenses would see some sort of money from that. So they decided that they were going to conduct a separate hearing to discuss the matter of the three life insurance policies, which was scheduled to take place in August of nineteen eighty. Eventually, after a lot of back and forth, it was ruled that the fifteen thousand dollars in death benefits on the insurance policy were not in fact going to be paid out, so Gray's funeral home and the individual who paid for all of the funerals was still out all of that money, which again is just another terrible thing that was left behind after these murders. This guy was just trying to do a good thing, help the community mourn from this horrible loss, put his money forward in hopes that he would eventually get some of it back, and now it's another situation where he's been stuck with the bill. So even though nine years have passed since John murdered his family, the effects of the choices he made and what he did are still having repercussions on the people in Westfield, and this man who paid for the funerals and the caskets and the burial and everything was yet somebody else that was affected by this tragedy that struck Westfield. And while all of this is still going on trying to get all of the legality settled, John has completely moved on. He is no longer John List. He has a whole new life. He's completely moved on with a new woman. He has a new place to live, he has a new state that he lives in, and life is just so vastly different for Bob Clark than it ever was for John List, because at this point in time, Bob thinks that things are looking up, things are getting better, and that he's finally going to break free from everything that has always held him back. He's going to be successful. In his business, He's going to be in a relationship where the love is reciprocated, and he is finally going to achieve that happiness that he's been chasing since he was a child living under his mother's rule and thumb and doing everything that she told him to do. John has been chasing this his entire life, So now what he's experiencing with Dolores is what he thinks is finally going to be his fairy tale and his happy ending. However, we still have a lot more to go in this series, so next week's episode we are getting into the next chapter of Bob and Dolores's life together and all that comes next. I feel like maybe two more parts to the series, maybe three, depending but we are slowly but surely getting there. And I will see you next week for Part eight and the unraveling of Bob Clark. See you guys later. Bye.