Christina’s sister, Collette Bousson, said that just hours after his wife’s death, her brother-in-law referred to Christina as “a crispy critter.” Karl’s brother, Mike, who flew out from New York upon hearing of the fire, said Karl had been “emotionless” about the death and suggested they take a sightseeing excursion to Calaveras Big Trees State Park. He collected $114,000 from the insurance. A retired fire insurance investigator from New York testified about a 2002 fire that destroyed Karlsen’s barn and killed three horses. She had told him Lyons would be gone on New Year’s Day for a “polar plunge” swimming event. The daughter of the Karlsens’ closest neighbor, Vic Lyons, said Karl Karlsen had been “very interested” in her father’s schedule, asking her multiple times about when he planned to be at home. ![]() ![]() A friend who had visited the Karlsen house three days before the fire said the bathroom window was not broken or covered over and there was no smell of kerosene. A day before the trial was to begin, he made a deal in which he pleaded guilty to second-degree homicide.Īmong the testimony presented at the three-week trial this month in San Andreas, according to the Union Democrat: The investigation led to Karlsen’s arrest for his son’s murder. The fire trapped his wife in a bathroom off the hallway Karlsen had recently nailed plywood over its window.įour years later, police in New York received a phone tip advising them to look into similarities between Levi’s death and Christina’s. He said kerosene had been spilled on the hall carpet the previous week. He speculated to investigators that the fire, which started in a hallway, was ignited by a trouble light he had been using. Karlsen had collected $215,000 from a life insurance policy purchased three weeks before Christina died of smoke inhalation in their home on Calaveras County’s Pennsylvania Gulch Road, between Murphys and Arnold. Sentenced to 15 years to life in that murder, he was extradited to California to stand trial for the 1991 case.Īfter Monday’s guilty verdict in Calaveras County Superior Court, he is scheduled to be sentenced next month, TV station KOVR reported. The investigation of what was initially ruled an accident was reopened after Karl Karlsen, now 59, pleaded guilty in New York to killing his son - one of the children who escaped the fire. On Monday, their father was convicted of murdering her. On New Year’s Day 1991, 30-year-old Christina Karlsen died in a fire in her home in California’s Gold Country, as her three young children huddled outside.
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