The Annihilator: Bob Clark is John List — Ep. 4 | MK Confidential

August 13, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

In the third week of November 1971, a tall, bespectacled man in a coat and tie sits by the window on a westbound train, watching the Great Plains slide by until the land rises toward the Rockies. He has a suitcase, a briefcase, and just under $2,500 in his wallet. What he does not have yet is a name. Behind him at Kennedy Airport, his family's Impala sits with his Michigan alumni card and accountant's license left in plain view on the front seat. He chose Kennedy on purpose: Newark was closer to his home in Westfield, but Newark is not where a man goes to leave the country. He wants police to find his car at the big international airport, with his passport gone from the house, and assume he has fled to Europe. The FBI runs down every passenger on every flight leaving New York around November 10th and gets nothing. He is not crossing an ocean. He is on a train rolling toward America's heart.

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What you'll learn

1 (00:00) **Opening: The Train to Denver** - John List, having murdered his family, boards a westbound train from New York, leaving a false trail at JFK Airport.
2 (06:06) **Denver: The Night Cook** - Clark begins his new life in a Denver trailer park, working a graveyard shift as a cook to avoid creating a paper trail.
3 (08:45) **A Friend and a Fresh Start** - Clark forms a lukewarm friendship with a co-worker and begins to enjoy his new freedom, seeing his family’s murder as a relief from burden.
4 (12:57) **The Haunting of Westfield** - The List murder house becomes a morbid landmark, is stripped by souvenir hunters, and eventually burns down under suspicious circumstances.
5 (14:14) **The D.B. Cooper Rumor** - The FBI briefly considers that John List might be the famous hijacker D.B. Cooper, who vanished two weeks after the murders.
6 (16:10) **Rebuilding the Old Life** - After six years, Clark rejoins society, taking on the same roles he had before the murders: church treasurer and accountant.
7 (19:38) **Dolores** - Clark meets and marries a devout woman named Dolores Miller, who sees a gentle widower and never suspects his past.

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Guests on this episode

John List

Show Notes

“MK Confidential” begins with a man who is actively getting away with murder. John List arrives in Denver and politely applies for a new Social Security card, under a new name. Robert P. Clark. The people of Denver will never suspect that the quiet, fastidious man who drifted into town aboard a train is a wanted fugitive.

For weeks, while the bodies of his wife, mother, and three children lie on the floor of their family home, John builds a new life around his new name. He picks up work as a night cook line, then in a country club kitchen. Eventually, he reenters the accounting world, telling a series of half-truths about his past. He finds a Lutheran church in Denver, and meets the lovely Delores Miller, a divorcée who finds Bob Clark faithful and trustworthy. They marry in Maryland, where her parents live, and where John married the wife he would later kill.

The image of John List haunts the people of Westfield, and the legend only grows with time. Many on the police force take the case personally; two detectives take it to the TV show, “America’s Most Wanted.” After 18 years on the run, even the missing man’s face is a mystery — until now. This is Episode 4 of the John List story.

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