The Dateline episode “The House on the Hill” investigates the death of 30-year-old Christina Karlsen. On New Year’s Day 1991, her husband Karl Karlsen and their three young children (ages 6, 5, and 4) escaped a fire in their Murphys, California home — but Christina did not. She was found trapped inside a bathroom: the only window in the bathroom was covered with a sheet of plywood.
Four days after the fire, Karlsen moved his family to upstate New York (Seneca Hill) and later collected $200,000 from an insurance policy he had taken out just two weeks before his wife’s death.
More than 20 years after Christina’s death, Karl Karlsen pleaded guilty to killing his and Christina’s 23-year-old son Levi Karlsen in 2008. Karlsen convinced Levi to work on a truck in the garage. The father knocked the truck off a jack while Levi was working underneath it, causing his son to be crushed to death.
Karl Karlsen had taken out a $700,000 insurance policy on his son just weeks before his death. In 2012, Karl Karlsen was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for his son’s death. A judge said Karlsen was not “fully human.”
Authorities initially reported Levi Karlsen’s death as an accident. But in 2011, when Karl Karlsen’s second wife Cindy Karlsen discovered that her husband had taken out a $1.2 million life insurance policy for her, she alerted the authorities.
The New York Times reports that according to court documents, Ms. Karlsen worked with the police and wore a wire which captured her husband admitting to causing the truck to fall on his son.
In February 2020, Karl Karlsen, who is now 59, was found guilty also for the murder of his wife Christina. He was extradited to California, where he will be sentenced on March 17.
Murder for financial gain is considered a “special circumstance” under California law and could qualify Karlsen for the death penalty. However, as of March 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom ordered an official moratorium on executions. According to The Union Democrat, Karlsen’s lawyers said they plan to appeal the conviction.
Learn more about Christina and Levi on the Facebook page managed by Christina’s sister Colette. Dateline airs Fridays at 9 pm on NBC.
.jpg){kind=link}