#Karl karlson murder trial

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. Karl Karlsen collected $700,000 as the sole beneficiary of Levi’s life insurance policy, bought 17 days earlier.įour years later, police in New York received a phone tip advising them to look into similarities between Levi’s death and Christina’s. There, in 2008, his 23-year-old son, Levi, was crushed to death in the family’s barn when the truck he was working on apparently fell off its jack. The fire trapped his wife in a bathroom off the hallway Karlsen had recently nailed plywood over its window.Īfter his wife’s death, Karlsen moved his family to the Finger Lakes area of New York. 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. With everything said and done, he and his family are trying to heal from old wounds.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. It appears as if he still dwells in New York and is happy to call that place his home. Now, from what we can tell, Mike, or Michael, prefers to lead his life away from the spotlight and media scrutiny. Mike was in court for every proceeding and lingered after taking the stands to see his brother be found guilty for good. After all, he testified at his trial for Christina Karlsen’s murder as well. Mike simply wanted to close the chapter and move on, but alas, he had to face his brother one more time in 2020. That takes a pretty evil, sick person, and he needed to be put away.” Karl Karlsen It’s hard for me to put my head around leaving your son to die. I think he felt like it was take me to trial and I’ll beat you there.” Mike continued, “He has betrayed his family a number of times.

“He’s always been very boastful, egocentric, whatever you want to call it. “You have to understand Karl a little to know what he’s like,” he said. Mike Karlsen publicly spoke about Karl following the guilty plea deal in connection to Karl’s son’s death, revealing that the only thing that shocked him was his brother’s confession. Mike was not surprised when his brother was charged with murder. And so, everyone just got suspicious about the case and knew that something was wrong. Their relation was quite ordinary by that time, but it grew distant with each passing day, especially as Karl became argumentative and rude. As per court records, Mike described him as stoic and emotionless, adding that he’d isolated his kids as well by not allowing them to interact with cousins freely. In the days that ensued, Karl asked his brother to help him resettle on the farm in New York, but he had already changed. Even when they’d matured, things essentially remained the same in terms of gatherings and socializing, that is, until 1991 came around and Karl’s wife, Christina Karlsen, lost her life in their home in California when it went up in flames.

If it weren’t cousins, then their crowd of five boys and two girls was more than enough to cause mischief and mayhem. Having grown up on their family’s farm in New York, they were a typical big group that roughhoused and was surrounded by relatives at all times, making them very close. Mike Karlsen is one of Karl Karlsen’s six siblings.

Karl karlson murder