Timothy O'Bryan

popular name: The Family of John List

date_of_death: November 9, 1971

age:

cause_of_death: Murdered - gunshot wounds

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: John List was a narcissistic mass murderer who suffered from obsessive-compulsive personality disorder who systematically murdered his mother, his wife and three children on November 9, 1971. Fired from his accounting position at a paper company in Detroit and again at Xerox in Rochester, in 1965 List accepted a position as vice president and comptroller at a bank in Jersey City. Borrowing money from his mother, List moved with his wife, children, and mother into Breeze Knoll, a 19-room Victorian mansion at 431 Hillside Avenue in Westfield. In 1971 he was fired from the bank, deep in debt and with a nearly empty bank account, List would leave the house each morning, pretending to go to work when in reality he parked at the Westfield train station and read the paper until it was time to go home. With the prospects of filing for bankruptcy, going on welfare, losing his mansion and believing his wife and children would all go to hell because of all the evil in the world, List planned the murders for months. On the morning of November 9th in 1971, John drove his children to school and upon returning home, calmly walked up to his wife as she was sipping coffee and shot her in the head. He then walked up to the third floor, kissed his mother on the cheek, and when she asked what the noise was, shot her in the head. And then made a sandwich and drove to the bank to withdrew his mother's account of $250,000 in cash. He then picked up his daughter Patricia (16) and youngest soon Frederick (13) from school and as they entered the home he shot both of them in the head. He then drove to Westfield High School to watch his elder son John Frederick (15) play in a soccer game. After driving John Frederick home, List shot him repeatedly because his son attempted to defend himself. He then arranged all the bodies (except for his mother who was too heavy to bring downstairs) in the once ornate grand ballroom under sleeping bags, turn the temperature down and played classical music over the loudspeakers. The next morning he turned all the lights in the house on and disappeared for 18 years without a trace.

popular name: Silas Jayne

date_of_death: July 13, 1987

age: 80

cause_of_death: Leukemia

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Notorious Chicago-based stable owner implicated in multiple disappearances and murders including the famous 1955 Peterson-Schuessler murder, involvement in the 1956 murder of the two Grimes sisters, and in the 1977 disappearance of heiress Helen Brach.

popular name: Big Jim Colosimo

date_of_death: May 11, 1920

age: 42

cause_of_death: Homicide - gunshot wounds

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: James "Big Jim" Colosimo was the first organized crime leader in Chicago who ran a popular restaurant, Colosimo's Cafe, that was a hot spot for vice in Chicago. Colosimo built his empire on gambling, prostitution and load sharking. When Johnny Torrio, his second-in-command, suggested that Colosimo get into bootlegging - Colosimo said emphatically "No!" as he didn't want any attention drawn to the police. Torrio brought in hitman Frankie Yale and had him killed in his own restaurant. Torrio took over and made a then small-time hoodlum named Al Capone his #2 man to build up the bootlegging operation.