I certainly didn’t mean it to come off as victim-blaming. I was trying to highlight the ways that List was different than most family annihilators, who are usually very controlling and domineering over their wives and families. It also kind of supports my theory that List was on the spectrum.

While I’m not blaming her — no one deserves to be killed! — I also think that maybe she wasn’t a very good person. Together they were the perfect storm — a manipulative, demanding wife and a passive-aggressive, obsessive husband. The fact that he thought killing his whole family was somehow easier than just standing up to his wife is what clinches it, for me, that he was insane in a very different way.