Karl Karlsen is Indicted on Four Additional Charges

Murder suspect Karl Karlsen arrives at the Seneca County Courthouse in Waterloo in May with his attorney, Lawrence Kasperek (right). The Seneca County District attorney says Karlsen may have set three fires since 1986, including one that killed his first wife, Christina Karlsen, in California.

(Stephen D. Cannerelli | scannerelli@syracuse.com)

Three suspicious fires. Two deaths. More than $1 million of insurance money collected.

The common thread: Karl Karlsen.

Papers filed in Seneca County Court say that in a span of 22 years, Karlsen set fire to a car and a barn and killed his first wife and son -- all for insurance money.

"When defendant runs out of money," District Attorney Barry Porsch wrote in court papers, "he commits another insurance fraud by killing an immediate family member or burning his own property."

Karlsen will go on trial later this month on charges of second-degree murder and insurance fraud in the 2008 death of his son, Levi. Prosecutors say Karl Karlsen hoisted his 5,000-pound pickup truck onto a wobbly jack and had Levi get underneath to work on hydraulic lines -- then knocked the truck over and walked away while Levi suffocated.

Karlsen has pleaded not guilty. In a jailhouse interview with The Post-Standard last year, Karlsen said he did not kill his first wife, Christina, or Levi.

Jurors won't be told, however, about the three fires and the death of Karlsen's first wife Christina. Seneca County Court Judge Dennis Bender has ruled that Porsch cannot introduce those so-called "bad acts" at the trial.

Bender has yet to rule on a second motion that would allow Porsch to use the fires against Karlsen if Karlsen testifies at the trial, set to begin Oct. 25.

Porsch had said in legal papers filed last month he wanted a jury to hear about the fires to show Karlsen had a history of similar crimes.

"The various prior acts of insurance fraud are part of (Karlsen's) continuous scheme to enrich himself," Porsch wrote in legal papers.

Karlsen was never charged in the 1991 fire that killed Christina Karlsen, but authorities in California where the fire occurred reopened their investigation last year. Karlsen was never charged in the incidents involving a car in 1986 and his horse barn in 2002.

Porsch's court papers charge that Karlsen has a history of committing crimes for insurance money:

Karlsen was on the verge of bankruptcy in 1986 when his new Dodge Charger mysteriously caught on fire in his driveway -- after he had removed his belongings. He collected an undisclosed amount of insurance money.

Karlsen was months behind on his $300-a-month rent in 1991 when his wife died in a suspicious fire, trapped in a bathroom that Karlsen had boarded up just days before. He collected a $200,000 life insurance policy that he had bought just three weeks earlier.

In 2002, Karlsen removed four custom horse harnesses from his barn in the Seneca County town of Varick and put them in his house -- just before the barn caught fire. Only 18 days earlier, Karlsen had upped the insurance from $20,000 to $115,000. He collected it all.

In 2008, again beset with money troubles, Karlsen gave New York Life Insurance a $470 check for a $700,000 life insurance policy on his son, Levi. Seventeen days later, Levi, 23, suffocated beneath the pickup truck. Karl Karlsen was the sole beneficiary. He got a check for $707,210.

Virtually all of the money from that life insurance payment is gone, said the financial adviser who sold Karlsen the policy in 2008. Anthony Crisci said Karl Karlsen and his second wife, Cindy, took all the money in what he called a "feeding frenzy." The money had been set aside for Levi's two young daughters.

Karl Karlsen's assets, according to court documents, total $219,281. Most of that -- about $164,000 -- is the value of the vacant family farm in the town of Varick.

Also included in Karlsen's assets: about $20,000 in cash value from two insurance policies.

Contact Glenn Coin at gcoin@syracuse.com or 315-470-3251.