Tragedy struck on New Year’s Day in 1991 as flames rose high up into the Sierra Nevada skies from a former gold miner’s shack at the foothills of the mountains. The home of the Karlsen family, in Murphys, California, was ablaze.
In the chaos of the smoke, Karl Karlsen had managed to rescue his three young children – his two daughters and son, Levi. But Karlsen’s wife Christina, 30, was trapped in a bathroom behind a securely boarded-up window that she couldn’t break through.
The heat was too fierce for Karlsen to go back in and she perished in the fire in the house she’d lovingly made a home. Young mum Christina had died of smoke inhalation as she’d cowered terrified in the bathtub with only a washcloth over her mouth for protection. It was a tragedy that would haunt the community.
The fire had seemingly started because of a string of very unfortunate coincidences. Karlsen, who worked for Christina’s dad’s air conditioning and heating business, explained his wife had broken the bathroom window a few days earlier, which explained why it was boarded up with plywood from the outside, preventing her escape.
She’d also left a jug of flammable kerosene in the hallway outside the bathroom thinking it was water – which had been accidentally knocked over. Then a faulty electric light had been placed too close to the carpet, which ignited the blaze.
Firefighters ruled the fire accidental and Karlsen faced life as a single parent. Luckily, just 20 days before the house fire, Karlsen had taken out a life insurance policy on Christina which paid him $200,000.
The widower was able to use the money to move back to his hometown in Varick, New York, buy a house and start his life again. Seemingly, Karlsen was so broken with grief, he didn’t even wait for Christina’s funeral – he left after the fire.
A year later, Karlsen met Cindy Best and they married in 1993. Cindy felt enormous sympathy for the man who had been forced to watch his wife die in such a horrific way.
She cared for Karlsen’s children and they went on to have a son. They built a new life together on a quiet detached farm. But then tragedy struck again 17 years after the fire that claimed Christina.
In 2008, Karlsen’s son Levi, then a 23-year-old divorced father of two was doing a favour for his dad on the farm, looking at an old Chevy pick-up truck that needed some repairs.
It was November 20, and Karlsen and Cindy were at the funeral of a relative. When they returned, they found Levi crushed under the fallen vehicle. He’d been working underneath the truck, that had been propped up with a jack.
The front wheels had been removed and with no safety blocks supporting it, when the jack had broken, it had crushed Levi. Karlsen shouted at Cindy to call 911, but it was too late. his son was dead.
In his grief, Karlsen commented to friends that he couldn’t believe that one man could have so much bad luck in his life. There had also been a fire on his farm in 2002, that had claimed the lives of some prized Belgian horses. Karl had been compensated with an $80,000 insurance payment.
Incredibly, on the day of his death, Levi had signed a will that had left his entire estate – and his life insurance payout – to his dad. So again, Karlsen was in line for a large sum of money. Levi’s death was ruled an accident and Karlsen received $700,000.
Over the next few years, Karlsen’s second wife Cindy started to feel unsettled about how her husband had seemingly done very well out of a string of tragedies.
Could one man really be so lucky? It seemed suspicious that Karlsen had profited so greatly from a policy that Levi had signed the very same day he’d died. That seemed too much of a coincidence. Had Karlsen played a part in Levi’s death? Surely, it was unthinkable.
Cindy hired a private detective to look into Karlsen’s activities and discovered he was investing some of the payout he’d received from Levi’s death into a life insurance policy on her own life. A policy worth a huge $1.2 million.
Terrified for her safety, she took their son and fled to stay with family. Cindy told police her suspicions about Levi, and she agreed to have her conversations with Karlsen recorded.
Over a lunch in November 2012, Cindy questioned her estranged husband and urged him to tell the truth about Levi. Karlsen confessed that he’d been involved in his death. Police brought him in for questioning.
At first, Karlsen said he’d been there but it was an accident – but it was far from that. Then gradually, Karlsen admitted that the day Levi had died, he’d taken his son to a bank where a witness saw Levi sign a will naming his dad as sole beneficiary. After signing the papers, Karlsen had asked Levi to stop by the farm and look at the truck that needed repairs.
With Levi under the vehicle, Karlsen had got into the truck’s front cab, causing it to collapse onto his son. As Levi cried out in agony, Karlsen turned up the volume on the radio to drown out the sounds. Then he’d left to join Cindy at the funeral – returning four hours later to ‘discover’ his son.
Karlsen was charged with second degree murder. Right up until his 2013 trial, he insisted it had been an accident but then he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. He admitted he’d allowed his son to be crushed to death under a truck.
In December 2013, he was sentenced to life in prison and told he would serve a minimum of 15 years.
But the case wasn’t closed. Karlsen’s conviction raised some troubling questions about the death of his first wife, Christina, in 1991. Was it an accident after all? The police investigation in California was reopened.
The insurance policy on Christina’s life was taken out just 19 days before she died. A fact that matched Levi’s case. The boarded-up window stopping her escape seemed to be perfect timing. Not to mention the kerosene that had conveniently spilt on the carpet, close to a faulty light.
Daughter Erin said that she and her late brother Levi had long held the belief that their dad was involved in the death of their mum. Saying that as the house burnt, Karlsen ‘just stood there’ and didn’t try to save his wife.
Karlsen was extradited to California for his trial this year. The prosecution said he had killed Christina for financial gain. Nearly three decades later, the jury found Karlsen, now 60, guilty of first-degree murder.
Christina’s mother, Arlene Meltzer, 78, was in the courtroom when the verdict was read by the jury. ‘I just knew that he had something to do with it,’ she said. ‘It is something a mother always carries in their heart.’
Karlsen was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. He was told he would serve the sentences consecutively – finishing his time in New York for Levi’s death, before coming to California for his second sentence.
The acts of Karlsen beggar belief. He allowed his wife and mother of his children to die in agony and then crushed his son under a truck. Karlsen wanted to get rich and he made sure that happened, no matter what it took.
