Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of murder. Reader discretion is advised.
“Sins of the Father” is an episode of The Interrogation Tapes that will be aired on ABC 20/20 on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at 10 p.m. ET. The episode follows the crimes and conviction of Karl Karlsen. The synopsis of the episode reads, “A man finds himself in the crosshairs of an hours-long interrogation as detectives seek to unlock decades of deadly family secrets after the death of his wife and son.”
Levi Karlsen was 23 years old when he died while working at their family farm in November 2008. He was crushed by a truck owned by his father, Karl Karlsen, which fell off a single jack. Years earlier, in 1991, Karl’s first wife, Christina, was found dead inside their home. This was after he contacted the emergency services claiming that their house was burning down, ABC News reported.
At the time of his death, Levi Karlsen was a divorced father of two children. Only 17 days before the “accident” that killed Levi, Karl Karlsen reportedly convinced him to get a life insurance policy. His father remained the sole beneficiary and the first payment on the policy was made by Karl. Levi reportedly trusted his father with allocating his money to his daughters. As per the outlet, Karl collected $700,000 as a payout after Levi’s death.
Similarly, Karl Karlsen took a life insurance policy for his wife, Christina Karlsen, just 19 days before she died in the mysterious fire. Karlsen collected $200,000 from the policy and moved to New York along with his children only days after her death.
When was Karl Karlsen charged with the murder of his wife and son?
Levi Karlsen was found dead by Karl’s second wife, Cindy. The New York Times reported that in 2011, Cindy found out that Karl had invested the money he got from Levi’s life insurance policy into a $1.2 million insurance in her name. This made her suspicious, so Cindy reported her husband’s activities to authorities. Moreover, she agreed to help the police and recorded her husband as he confessed to orchestrating Levi’s murder.
Cindy wore a wire as she probed Karl to reveal the truth about Levi’s death. They were at a crowded restaurant then, and Karl told her that he had removed the truck’s front tires and raised the vehicle on a single jack right before his son went to work on it. The police then caught Karl and questioned him for nearly 10 hours, during which he repeatedly denied his involvement in Levi’s murder, as per another report by ABC News.
Meanwhile, CBS News reported that Karl Karlsen was then charged with second-degree murder and insurance fraud. During his trial, he was offered a plea deal which promised him 15 years to life. The accused then pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to 15 years. In 2020, he was charged with the first-degree murder of Christina and was found guilty. He was then sentenced to life in prison without a chance for parole, according to Oxygen.
The episode of The Interrogation Tapes that will delve into the crimes of Karl Karlsen will be aired on ABC 20/20 on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at 10 p.m. ET.
