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: James Napoli

date_of_death: December 29, 1992

age: 81

cause_of_death: Natural causes

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: James "Jimmy Nap" Napoli was a New York mobster who was a Caporegime in the Genovese crime family who controlled the largest illegal gambling operation in the United States that employed 2,000 people and grossed over $150 million a year. From numbers, fixed boxing matches and illegal sports bookmaking Jimmy Nap ran his operation from Crisci's Restaurant in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn. In 1978 Napoli was convicted for gambling and sentenced to five years in federal prison. Upon his release from prison his gambling empire had all but disappeared in his absence. A man who enjoyed fine dining and a life of luxury, Napoli was known as a "Gentleman's Gentleman" - intelligent and well-respected who maintained ties to most of the major crime families through the end of his career.

popular name: Frank Palermo

date_of_death: May 12, 1996

age: 91

cause_of_death: Natural causes

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Boxing has a dark history of gangsters, crooked fights and mysterious murders. In the world of boxing at the time, Frank “Blinky” Palermo, a member of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family, was indeed royalty. Along with his partner, Frankie Carbo, a New York Lucchese crime family member, Palermo managed and controlled many of the professional boxers around the country. Although this Philly hustler was only five feet tall, he was a giant at assault and battery, big at bootlegging, jobbing, racketeering, numbers runner, petty thief, shakedown artist, wiseguy - Blinky was a man of many talents. Palermo's partner was Mafioso Frankie Carbo, a soldier in New York's Lucchese family who had been a gunman with Murder, Inc. During the 1940s, Frankie Carbo became a boxing promoter, working along with Ettore "Eddie" Coco, James "Jimmy Doyle" Plumeri, Frank "Blinky" Palermo, Harry "Champ" Segal, & Felix Bocchicchio. The group was known as "The Combination", together they were highly successful in fixing high-profile boxing matches. Even worse Palermo would cheat his stable of fighters out of their share of the purses of their fights. In 1961, the Feds zeroed in on Carbo and Palermo and were charged, tried and convicted of committing a dozens of crimes. Blinky Palermo was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Upon his death, he was laid to rest at Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, PA.