20/20 - True Crime Vault: The Sins of the Father

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

Interviews with daughters of Karl Karlsen, who nearly got away with murdering his wife and son. (Originally broadcast 06/05/20) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This show is supported by Hot and Deadly, a podcast from ID. Hot and Deadly brings you American true crime that is often stranger than fiction. Every week, dive into shocking stories of murder and betrayal, from IRS impersonators in Kentucky to a South Carolina businessman deceived by those closest to him. You'll hear firsthand accounts from investigators, witnesses, and family members as they share the chilling details behind each case. If you love true crime with a southern twist, you're going to want to check this one out. Follow Hot and Deadly so you never miss an episode.

Step into the 2020 True Crime Vault where you'll hear our most gripping stories. You wouldn't stand a chance. I mean, you're gone. He started saying, call 911 Levi is dead. Ma'am, what's going on? The truck saw on my stepson. Oh, my God. This is awful.

His 23-year-old son, Levi dies in his tragedy. At first, it didn't appear to be anything out of the ordinary. Oh. It appeared to be an accident. You know, this was a story that played out in upstate New York. I'm from upstate New York, and I remember people consumed by this story, and it only got more twisted as the year. twisted as the ears went on.

Wherever Carl goes, tragedy takes place. It was a deja-bo moment for Carl. In 91, he had lost his wife and lost his home and everything they owned. How unlucky is this guy? Christina was trapped inside that bathroom with the fire raging just outside that door. It wasn't an accident. I heard my mother screaming. My father had said, mommy's gone to heaven.

It seemed like every couple years something was burning. A lot of people have said when this guy needed money, a family member would die. There's definitely a pattern there. Cindy's concerned, okay, first wife dies in this tragedy. Levi dies in his tragedy. Am I next? Was she convinced there was a killer in her own home? There's Aaron.

Where's Katie? Katie! Katie! Katie! Hi, Katie! My name is Erin DeRosch. My name is Katie Reynolds and Carl Carlson is my father. It does seem surreal sometimes that this is my life.

Does this much bad stuff happen to normal people? He lies and he's able to manipulate people very easy. That's who he's always been. me, I saw the monster more than the man's. This is a story that has really taken years to unfold. I began covering it seven years ago in upstate New York, but really no one could have imagined, no one could have predicted how this would end up.

to 85 Yale Farm Road, which is the Carlson Residence. And the family's quite connected to the community, right? They're a well-known family. They've been here for generations. My grandfather settled right here. We're a large family. Carl is my brother. Carl had five brothers and a sister,

almost all of whom remained in the area. His father was a highway official in that county for almost 50 years. 50 years. His brother was a town counselor. Definitely a family that has a lot of connections. The Carlson family name is a, has always been a very reputable name in Seneca County. Seneca County sits between two of the beautiful Finger Lakes, Seneca and Cager. Pretty much smack in the dab in the middle of the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York or between the cities of Rochester and Syracuse. The village of Seneca Falls is known for its wonderful life. The current

belief is that Seneca Falls was the model for the village of Bedford Falls and it's a wonderful life. Yay! Hello, Bedford Falls! When I met Carl in November of 1992, he was a single dad to his three children. Carlson's first wife, Christina, was 30 years old when she died in a tragic fire. Just years before he would meet his second wife, Cindy Carlson. He seemed like he was a hands-on dad. The youngest, Katie, adored her father. Erin and Levi seemed that they had a special bond.

Levi was amazing. He was so creative. He was very smart, but he had a learning disability. So when it came to bringing home good grades, he couldn't because of the disability. Levi had a difficult life grown up. life growing up. Levi's life was everything that you wouldn't want your kid to grow up with. He went through a rebellious time in his teenage years and him and his father seemed to clash.

As he got older, he got into more of the metal music and you know he kind of changed his appearance a little bit. But deep down he was always still that same goofy kid. He married early, had two young daughters. The marriage didn't pan out. Levi kind of pulled his life together. He was a good young man. He wanted to make better of his life. And November 20th, 2008, 911 received a frantic call from Cindy Carlson.

911, what's location of your emergency? Yes, I live at 885 Firm Road. Okay? I think I needed an ambulance. Levi had come to the home of Cindy and Carl Carlson. at the request of Carl. Carl told me that Levi was going to come out to work on an old farm truck that we had that day.

Our plan was that we needed to attend my aunt's funeral. While Levi is in the garage working under that farm truck, Carl and Cindy are getting ready and dressed to go to a funeral. I went and got in the passenger seat of the car, and Carl had told me that I'm just going to go out and let Levi know that we're leaving. It was just a minute or two. And then Carl came and got in the car. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

He and Cindy leave to go to a funeral, done in Pena, New York. We were gone for four hours. They returned home. Cindy first noticed at Levi's car. Still parked in their driveway. She's kind of concerned. I went into the house and Carl came up to the window in the door and started banging and saying, call 911, Levi is dead.

Ma'am, what's going on? The truck fell on my stepson. The truck fell on your stepson? We just got home, and I don't think he's alive. You don't think he's alive? No, my husband's lifting up the truck. Cindy's basically taken information she got from her husband, Carl, and is relaying it to the 911 dispatcher.

Oh, they want to start CPR. Do you know the CPR? His chest is crushed. His chest is crushed? He's probably been under. for hours. Oh, my God. This is awful. Carl had pulled Levi out from underneath the truck.

And you could see the indentation on his chest. The truck was jacked up by a single railroad type jack. This is the kind of jack that police found? That's similar. similar to railroad jack. And you make for a very weak foundation. And the higher gets the weaker kids. I'll never forget that the team, we all went to this local

junkyard to try to find a similar old farm truck, the weight of it, just to see what it would be like a propped up on a single railroad jack. Would you go under this pickup? I would never go under a truck. I don't like going underneath trucks when they're sitting all four tires on the ground. So you've got it jacked up here with a railroad jack.

Look at that thing, tip, look at that jack going. Just wobbling, that jack is moving. I mean, that's just crazy. It's, it really is. I mean, it's, they have time to get clear of that. You wouldn't stand a chance. You're, you're gone. I mean, you're gone.

The ambulance was there. They were just pulling Levi out of the barn and putting them into the ambulance. When police arrived, what were the parents like? Very distraught, very upset, crying, you know grief-stricken. I remember the sheriff's trying to console Carl because he was so distraught.

Levi was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. Levi's 23 years old at the time of his death. At first it didn't appear to be anything out of the ordinary. Oh, it appeared to be an accident. I get a call from my niece that my nephew has died. I knew as soon as I heard that Levi was gone, that he had done it. I knew every fiber of my being.

I said, I have no idea what he stands to gain from this. But it begs the question, could a father kill his own son? I first met Carl at a line dance. He told me that he could line dance. I was kind of looking for a line dancing partner. Come to find out he really had no clue about line dancing. Even Cindy McCarle, she sees this physically strong, could look in successful in her mind guy

that unfortunately he's dealt with a tragedy of the death of his wife and a house fire in 1991. What he had told me about the fire was that he was that he was was able to pull the children out. By then, the house was engulfed. It had been almost two years. He was heartbroken. He loved her.

I felt extremely sorry for him. I think she was yearning for the family package. He came with a package. It was pretty quick. He'd brought her over to the house and introduced us. And initially, it was a nice change of pace. For me, it was, I'm going to have a mom like all the other little kids my age have. She did initially fill that void.

Sydney now is kind of the instant mother or the mother figure in their life. We were married in 1993. It turns out it wasn't so happily ever after for the Carlson kids. Their life with Carl, as they describe it, was filled with work, chores, discipline. We did the sweeping and the mopping. dusting, every day vacuuming, we cooked. Dad would get home and Cindy would go right to him right away and, you know, Aaron did this or Levi did this,

and you need to take care of it right now. And he did. There were times when if the kids really misbehaved, I would tell him he needed to talk to them. And sometimes I felt like he was overly strict with them. Parle was ruling them with such a tight fist. they couldn't be kids. We always had chores to do.

There was always work to do. He used physical labor as a form of punishment pretty consistently. One time, I don't even know what I'd done, but he wanted me to carry 10 gallon buckets, full to the brim, water back and forth, from the house to the barn, and he would just watch and wait for my body

to physically give out. When it was Levi, he would take him outside. My father told me that Levi was a man so he could take it. As far as physical abuse, I did not see that. He hid it well. Levi moved out when he was 16. It became an escape for him. He needed to get out of the house.

Pretty soon thereafter, he had met Cassie. Levi was 18 when he had his first daughter. And then the second one came two years later. He got married at a young age, and their marriage did not work out. She was really one of the only people in his entire life that had loved him and accepted him for who he was. And losing that was traumatic for him. Prior to Levi's death, his life was on an upswing, you know. He was coming back to the farm more often.

He was able to get a job with one of the factories that was in Geneva. had insurance and stuff that he needed as a father trying to support his children. After Levi's death, the investigation was very cursory. General reports were filed. The doctor signed off on it. There was no autopsy.

It gave every appearance of being an unfortunate accident. It was shortly after Levi died that Carl had told me that Levi had a life insurance policy. The life insurance policy, that's taken out on Levi. It's beyond bizarre. Carl drives Levi, his 23-year-old son, to an insurance office, and introduces Levi to an insurance agent. They wanted to get an insurance policy on Levi, who had two young girls, worked in a glass factory, and felt there were job hazards, and accidental death was a possibility. Carl convinces Levi to

take out of life insurance policy worth $700,000. I didn't realize that Carl actually paid the first premium. I did not know that, and he paid cash. When this life insurance policy is taken out, and the first payment is made, there's provisional coverage, but it's providing that the subject passed a medical exam. Carl and Levi did not tell the agent that Levi had a serious swelling disorder that made it difficult to ingest food,

and that he had been treated for that disorder several years before. The likelihood is that New York Life would have suspended or dropped the policy or we had to rewrite it once Levi's medical conditions were brought to their attention. Levi Carlson's medical exam was scheduled for him the day after he died. Even though Levi didn't make it to that medical exam, the insurance company still paid out to Carl. Dad also made a point to tell me was that Levi had left a will. This was a handwritten meal?

Yes. Saying what? That his father was going to be the sole executor of his estate, and basically disperse the money to his kids. He said that it was barely enough to cover the funeral expenses for Levi. $700,000, that would be paying for a heck of a funeral. It turns out nobody in Carl's life knew about that life insurance money

other than his wife, Cindy. When I questioned Carl, why were you beneficiary? He had told me that because Levi was going through this nasty divorce. Carl made it out to be that Levi didn't trust his ex-wife, that Levi wanted his daughter's taken care of and he trusted his dad. I didn't think it was odd because Levi had worked his way back into the house a little bit more, and him and dad seemed to be getting along pretty good. I just trusted my husband.

There was no reason for me to question anything. The note says all of the assets go to the father to be handed out. Yes. And when was the letter notarized? The day of his death. At the time, law enforcement didn't know about any of this. So once it was ruled an accident, it seemed like it was case closed. It wasn't until four years later that the investigation was reopened.

With everything that you discovered here, what then did you make of what happened to his first life? Suspicious. I went to the house the next day and could not, for the life of me, understand why somebody didn't try to get around. It wasn't an accident. accident. At Desjardin, we speak business.

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That's why we've helped over 4 million Canadians get access to a credit card. Because at Capital One, we say yes, so you don't have to hear another. know. What will you do with your yes? Get the yes you've been waiting for at capital one. dot CA slash yes. Terms and conditions apply. Years before Levi Carl Carlson would die underneath that truck, Carl Carlson had experienced loss before. When Levi died, I assume it was some sort of a deja vu moment for Carl.

that he'd been there before. In 91, he had lost his wife and lost his home and everything they owned. There's beautiful mommy over there. My mom's name was Christina, but everybody was really close to her called her Chris. I had two daughters. One was Susie Homemaker, that was Chris.

The other one was a little sports jock, that was Colette. She was three years older than me. Everybody knew I was her little sister. She didn't see bad in anyone. Even though somebody could have done something horrific, she would find a way to find something positive about them. Carl met his first wife, Christina, when he was in the Air Force. She had told me she'd met a nice guy, and so I asked questions about him.

She seemed very, very excited about this particular person. And then when she told me they were getting married, you know, You know, I wished her the best. And as soon as I could get out there to see her, I got out there. Carl worked at Stone Corrie in Seneca County. And ultimately, Carl moved to California to take a job. He got laid off.

I said, come out here to California. You always have a job out here. I made him a partner in my company. So Carl, out of the blue, just packed everybody up, and he took off to California to strike it rich and famous. And that was a typical Carl adventure. And of course I'm excited because that means my sister and her kids are coming home, so I'm very excited.

The Carlson family lived in the town of Murphys. Murphys is a Gold Rush era town that was settled by pioneers, miners, and it's existed here since the mid to early late 1800s. It's northern California. It's quite a hike from Sacramento, an hour or two. It's quiet backcountry roads. We loved Murphy's. My mom would actually take us on walks, and we would collect leaves and acorns, and we would

go on picnics. Pennsylvania Gulch Road, where the Carlson family settled, was off the highway down a rural road. Where Carl and Christina and their three children was an old mining shack, it was converted into a house but it was it was a difficult environment it was very dilapidated but I remember when we moved in gosh my mom put in a lot of effort to get the house clean she painted it she decorated it she sewed curtain she was a phenomenal seamstress it was amazing when my father wasn't home but when he was home it was very tense he just had a very aggressive personality kind of that personality that either my way or the highway and

and the highway isn't an option, so it's my way. For her 30th birthday, I bought her a glamour shot. I thought this would just be the perfect 30th birthday for her, because she really didn't want to turn 30. Walk into my house, he sees her, tells her, take the makeup off, you look like a whore, and she went to the bathroom and took it off. When things would get to the point where she felt

she didn't want us to witness the arguments or the fights, she would request that they go back to the bedroom. But we heard. I heard. There were some glaring things to me that I didn't like that I talked to her about multiple times. According to Colette, Christina was getting ready to move out,

take the kids with her and move in with her, just wanted to wait, get through the holidays. Christmas morning, 1990. Levi, look at me, please. Let me get your face in this. Thank you, darling. It was the last Christmas we all had together at my mom's house. You know, opening presents, it's her being goofy.

Let's get out of the dinosaurs. Look at this! On January 1st, 1991, it was a day kind of like any other. We were just playing around the house. Carl's daughter, Aaron, recalled him taking a Christmas tree out of the house and dousing it and kerosene. kerosene. He was going to burn the Christmas tree, and he wanted us to watch, so he lined us up and

said that he wanted us to see how quickly a house could burn. And I was just shy of seven, but I assumed it was kind of a lesson, like don't play with matches, don't play with fire, and then we went back inside. Our mom got us ready to go down for our nap. Levi was sleeping in his room, Katie and Aaron were sleeping in their room, and Christine Nina went into the bathroom to take a bath. So while Carl's wife is taking a bath, he says that he was upstairs in the attic,

working on a fan before then going out to the garage. He walks out into the garage, which the garage is probably 50 feet. He's working in the shop, and it's at that point. He hears his wife screaming his name. He comes out, looks, and that's when he sees the smoke. He sees flames, he sees the house is on fire. Here's Christina say, Carl, get the kids.

She loved those kids and she would have done anything for them. I heard my mother screaming, and I went to the door. It was slightly jar, so I kind of, you know, peats out the door. And at four years old, I don't think I really understood what was happening, but I saw it down the hallway. It was engulfed in flames. Carl says, you know, the smoke's pouring out of the house, flames, and he goes up on the portion to Levi's bedroom window and breaks the window.

Carl claims he sees his son there unharmed, so he reaches in, grabs his son by the hair, and throws his five-year-old son out of the house into safety. He then goes to the other side of the house, breaks the window to the girl's bedroom. He was just there and he pulled us out. After saving Aaron and Katie, he said he returned to the house and tried to enter into the door, but there were too many flames.

It's 1991, not everybody has a cell phone, so he leaves this fire scene. We decided his best next course of action would be to go seek out help. I had two different people come to my door Said they had heard on the scanner. There was a fire at the end of Pingol Road. Just walked out here in the street.

I could see the smoke, and I knew I knew where it was coming from. My first thought is, get out there. Emergency services, fire department, the first responders responded the same. The people that were close to Christina had a lot of questions about what happened that day. It's obvious that they're suspicious.

Why he didn't knock this out? There was a $200,000. policy on christina it's just it's all red plaques it makes you wonder just how unlucky is this guy and these are all from the fire from the house it burned christina carlson perished in the house fire They found her doubled over outside of the tub with a rag covering her face. That day, I got out there and, you know, I started looking around. Somebody directed me over to the ambulance. And when I got in the back of the ambulance,

I see the whole family except for my daughter Chris. That's when I realized what had happened. Everybody was rushing around with a purpose. My dad wasn't. And he was just standing there casually like it was any other day. There were people in California who right from the beginning of 1991 believe that Christina's death was not accidental. Christina Carlson's cousins went to the burnt out home and created a video. She took extensive video footage to the inside and outside of the house.

The area where Christina's body was discovered in the bathroom. This here's a bathroom where Christina was found. The bathroom is here. Both of them evaluate the house, look through the ruins. It's obvious that they're suspicious. Why he didn't knock this out? In front of the bathroom window is a board nailed into the wall. Most of the bathroom area is still intact.

You can clearly see the boarded up window to the bathroom. Carl's stories that a few days prior to the fire, his wife was trying to open the bathroom window and she was using a toilet plunger and broke the window. Carl's solution, he said, was to take a warped wooden board that he had in his shop

and use 17 nails to hammer it into the wall. There's no way she could have got that off. Isn't there anything she could have used to get that off? I went to the house the next day. I asked somebody to drive me out there and they said, Colette, you don't want to go out there? And I said, yes, I do. I stood in the bathroom and could not, for the life of me, understand why somebody didn't try to get her out. Between the boarded-up window and the fire raging just outside the bathroom door, she was trapped.

There was no getting out. I asked him, why didn't you get the board off yourself? And he said, by the time he got around and got the kids out of the windows, that it was too late, he couldn't get near him. So after the fire, Carl talks to investigators, and he tells them how he thinks the fire might have started. Carl goes on with a very elaborate story told back in 1991 that days prior to this fire, his wife brought in a five-gilland jug

that was filled with kerosene. They used kerosene heaters in. inside of the house. They have a cat and a dog, and those animals are rough housing, which knocks over the container of kerosene. I do remember there being a spill. On the floor, Mom had towels and blankets piled up, and we were having fun climbing over the top of them. He had been working that day of the fire. He was working in the attic area. Carl says he was using a trouble light up in the attic for light just before he went out

to the garage. Carl's claimed that the trouble light, which either fell from the attic or which he left on the kerosene spill, likely caused the fire. And according to Carl, he says that once the fire began, he did what anyone would try to do to try to save their family. There are a few things that are a little fuzzy, but there are some things that I remember just like it was yesterday. He pulled us out through the window. He took Katie and I to the truck. He told us to get down and not to look. They were kids. Curiosity got the better of us, so we turned around all of us

and we just kind of watched. She watched Carl walk slowly to the house and not make any real attempt to break into the house and save Christina, her mother. My father had said, mommy's gone to heaven. Even before the ambulance has got there, the firefighters, like, while we're sitting in the truck. We didn't understand, of course, the gravity

what it really meant, but we knew, so we were all really quiet. Christina's death has ruled in accidental death. The actual physical cause of death of Christina Carlson was smoke inhalation, which indicates that the fire was not on top of her. We just flew to California as soon as we could get there. He was very stoic, emotionless. And he just said, I want to go home, meaning New York. And at the time it made sense.

In four days. They had everything taken care of and they were off to New York. They were gone before she was even laid to rest. If you really were that concerned about everything that happened, you would stay around and you wouldn't be avoiding talking with detectives or the fire marshal. Carl Kent, who was the investigator for the California Department of Forestry, They had a lot of questions about the cause and who started this fire. And I was requested to come to a fire scene.

I thought the circumstances of the fire were suspicious. There was concern that something wasn't right. And it didn't help that Carl had taken out an insurance policy on Christina just weeks before that deadly fire. Carlson went to an insurance agent and bought a $200,000 policy on his wife. policy on his wife. The fact that the policy was purchased 19 days before Christina's death, I think rang the alarm bells in the head of State Farm Insurance. State Farm brought in Ken Busky. Typically I'm hired by insurance company to

answer what the cause of the fire is. The story they related to me, at least initially made sense as a story that the hot bulb from the trouble light could ignite the kerosene soaked into the carpet. But you know when that investigator looked at that severely burned light. He was able to determine that the filament had not been energized at the time of the fire, meaning the light wasn't on. If a bulb is off, of course, it's not

apt to be the cause of the fire. Mr. Carlson's story simply couldn't have been true. So Ken Busking turns his report into the insurance company telling them he's convinced that this was no accident. This was a set fire by a human being. Well, we clearly know there was only one human being capable of starting their fire. But for whatever reason, that report

didn't stop the insurance company from paying out the claim. Carl was paid $215,000, and it was not explained why their recommendation to not have him be paid out was overlooked. The insurance company did a very good investigation. Law enforcement, it didn't seem, was doing anything. I never saw Mr. Busky's report. I didn't know how Mr. Busky was.

It just seemed like when Carl moved to New York a few days after the fire, it's like everything stopped. And there wasn't much follow-up. I asked if they would front the monies for me to travel back there and interview him. Carl Kent wanted to go to New York to interview Carlson in person, but his superiors turned him down, saying that there just wasn't enough money for that kind of trip. The DA's office said it was a good circumstantial case, but there wasn't enough to prosecute at that time. I was hoping something would happen, but somewhere after maybe the 15th year, I was beginning to think somebody got away with murder.

All these years later, with his 23-year-old son, Levi, dead. There are people who start to wonder, did he get away with murder not once, but twice? You get a phone call. I was asked if we had investigated an accident robbing Levi Carlson's death. Do you remember the call to this day? Oh, yeah. Cassidy's concerned now that the first wife dies in this tragedy, Levi dies in this tragedy.

Am I next? The truck fell on my steps, I don't think he's alive. After Levi died. Oh, my God. Life moved forward. Everyone went about their business. The time marched on, Carl collected a large insurance policy on Levi. If I had known that there was an insurance policy,

I would have gone straight to the Sheriff's Department. Carl received approximately $700,000. He claimed that this money was going to be used for Levi's children, his grandchildren. Levi's insurance money is being spent by Carl and Cindy, not Levi's children. What were they spending money on? Well, it looks like a lot of money went to a duck business, like gourmet duck business. It was just another one of Carl's daydreaming ideas, get rich quick schemes.

The idea was he was going to raise gourmet ducks to sell to restaurants. But what happened is Carl started right away ordering more and more ducks. We went from raising 10, 20 gourmet ducks to thousands. I mean, duck feed for thousands of ducks cost a lot of money. He doesn't know really what he's doing. He's just bailing water. It's losing money left and right. Dad and Cindy, their finances weren't making sense to me.

There was also new vehicles quite frequently. They would constantly be going on vacation. I finally confronted her and I, you know, I said, what is going on here? This doesn't make sense, but she just denied everything. Carl is the person responsible for spending the bulk of that money, and he kept Cindy in the dark. At this time, he's keeping me blind. He doesn't want me to know anything. Because he knows I questioned everything, he's just going to do what he wants to do. That's just how it was with Carl.

Cindy Carlson told us that it was about two years after Levi's death that she actually started to grow suspicious of the man she was married to. There is not one thing that I just said, oh my God, he did it. It happened over time. I would have these panic attacks. I would be in my living room and say, oh my gosh. Did he have something to do with Levi's death? Christina's family said he had something to do with her death. Was she convinced there was a killer in her own home? I think that she suspected it. Cindy Carlson says that during this time she was so terrified of her husband, she started sleeping with a knife under her bed. And finally, she just had to move out.

At the end, when there was very little money left, and Carl kept spending and spending and spending, yes, I took some money because I needed to keep myself live. I had nothing left, and I'm scared. She is concerned enough that she hires a private detective. As a private detective to look into it. It was self-preservation. She probably was concerned for her life when she realized that there was a policy on her.

A private investigator started digging in and finding out, I would be worth $1.2 million to Carl if I was dead. One night, I had called my cousin and told her my fears. I think Carl might kill Levi. She said, why would Carl kill Levi? There's nothing for him to gain from that. from that and I said yes there was you gained $700,000. Cindy's cousin Jackie Hemmel called in a concern that she had to the police.

And you get a phone call. And what are you told? I was asked if we didn't investigate an accident robbing Levi Carlson's death and I looked it up. This family member has got some suspicions concerned that things just aren't ended up. You know, wherever Carl goes, tragedy takes place. takes place and financial payoffs follow suit. Once we started looking into prior incidents, that was the first indication of something wasn't right here.

And so as investigators start to look into Carl Carlson's past, you know, it doesn't take them long to see what is a frightening pattern that dates back decades. The first thing that came up was a car fire from 1986. It was a brand new Mustang, purchased by car. Carl Carlson, had $10,000 insurance on it, and it burned up in his driveway. According to the report we heard was nothing in the trunk,

nothing in the glove box, the car just burned up. And the insurance took care of the payment and he got out from under it. The barn player is another one of those coincidental tragedies. One evening in 2002, I was asleep, and Carl sat up right in bed and looked out the wind. and looked out the window and said, oh my gosh,

the barn's on fire. I knew there were horses in there. There was our prize, Belgian mayor, and two babies. It was devastating to see the barn burning down, which is part of our family's history, and then also to see the loss of these horses that were conveniently just put in the barn. It's around $115,000, Carl's paid out on this barn,

and the horses. Here we go one more time. A tragedy and a payout. I call it blood money. He got an insurance policy from my daughter. He got another insurance policy when he had a barn burn down with expensive horses in it. It was our life.

It seemed like every couple years something was burning. You know, so I mean, I feel like we kind of knew expected it we choose to reach out to Cindy Carlson to further investigation first thing she said was thank God you called when you asked her to help you out she said yes she agreed and put a wire on part of me feels like I'm walking into a booby trap do you want to go through my purse I thought maybe I can get him to confess that was my goal if Carl did this she wanted to give I'm terrified I'm thinking oh my gosh my husband is a murderer

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upstate New York I'm from upstate New York and I remember people consumed by this story and it only got more twisted as the years went on what kind of parents our father would push a truck over on their own child and let them suffer and die It was the most terrifying time in my life. And it becomes a huge story. They asked him, you know what this is about? And he said, oh, you want to talk about my dead wife and dead son? Linda.

So when he says, who could do that, who could kill their wife that way? Well, we already know that we killed your son that way. I told him that I wanted to see my sister. And he said, you can't. She's a crispy critter. That was his term. A crispy critter. He smiled like a Cheshire cat, and he said it's been 22 years.

They haven't caught me yet, and they're not going to. But before Carl would walk away for good, there would be one more unbelievable twist in this case that it's almost impossible to believe. Colette getting the turkey ready. Levi, boy, don't you look handsome today. This wasn't about a job. This was a passion. This was a passion to bring justice. Look at those two lovely people over there.

For Christina Levi and their family. My Biden joy sitting over in the rocker. Investigators in Seneca County get a tip, and that tip is looking to Carl Carlson. Look at that big son-in-law line. That's when the tide starts to shift. So the year was 2012. It was about three years after Levi Carlson had died. And as investigators begin to take a much closer look at this case,

they learned that Levi Carlson had a life insurance policy and that his father, Carl, was the beneficiary to this $700,000 life insurance policy. That seems very odd when Levi had children of his own. Levi had children of his own to leave money to. Yeah, for me, that was enough to reopen the investigation right there. It was the most terrifying time in my life. I decided that I just could not do it anymore. I couldn't live with Carl anymore.

I needed to get out of the house. Shortly after I left is when law enforcement called me. The first thing she said was, thank God you called. and that she said that she also had suspicions. They said they had a tip from a family member that maybe there was something more to Levi's death. That's when we started working together to law enforcement. Cindy was coming in on a regular basis.

It was an ongoing process for months. I think she was almost kind of like, almost wanting to be part of the police investigation team. I was watching a show where a woman was taping her, her mother secretly trying to get her confessed to killing her father. And I remember just thinking, I'm going to do that. I'm going to get a recorder. I'm going to start recording my conversations with Carl.

I met Carl in a busy restaurant, and Carl had actually picked the place, I think, because he was worried that I was recording, and I just told him that I'd consider getting back together with him. came clean or confessed about every single thing he did during our marriage. Every lie he told, you come clean and I'll consider it. He actually confessed. When she came to my office, she was all excited, and she said, he just told me he killed Levi.

And she goes, and I recorded it. I think she pretty much thought that this was the home run. What happened was it was inaudible. It was a pretty poor recording at best, best and surely one that didn't capture all that Cindy thought it captured. But now it's the detectives who have an idea. And they ask Cindy if she's willing to wear a wire to try to get Carl Carlson to confess to this again. We're going to pick a restaurant, we're going to put undercover officers in there,

and we're going to wire her up professionally and see if they can recreate this conversation. And I said yes. She's got the wire on where? Underneath her clothing. And what does he think he's walking into? He thinks he's coming to talk to his wife about getting back together. About reconciliation?

Yes. But she has no plan to get back together. No. She's here for you. Yes. So the two of them are sitting together in the corner and you had private investigators all through the room? Yes.

Several of us sat in the immediate area with other investigators and playing close sitting inside the restaurant nearby. Side two. Yep. Is it up by the fireplace here? What would you like to do? Um, over by the fireplace is good, I think. Is that all right?

Okay. Thank you. This time now he's very suspicious that I want to hear the same things that he said before. Did, I purposely do it? No. Not real. That's not what you told me. Yes, it is.

It is. Part of me feels like I'm walking into a booby trap. He even said, I feel like you're saying. said i feel like you're setting me up how am i going to set a trap do you want to go through my purse carl's denying that he ever made any such admission so we're kind of like taken back like well what did he really tell cody what you know what's going on here i couldn't get him to confess to the same exact thing that he had confessed two days before you can hear cindy carlson pressing her husband carl over and over again she doesn't give up

as the questions become more aggressive carl appears to make a halfway admit I asked you if you pushed the truck and you said yes. No, I didn't push the truck. I said, I did nothing to do it. But I said I took advantage of the situation once it happened. And that is exactly what I said to me. Carl, you told me that you didn't set it up that way, but when you were in there, you saw the opportunity.

No, after it had happened, then I panicked and saw the opportunity. Opportunity, a very strange word for a father to use about a son's death. I would find it very unusual that a parent would refer to the death of their child as an opportunity. For right now, I need to share it. I mean, did it call hard or? No. I mean, you just had to bump it? I mean, it's so wobbly, you know,

because the only thing that was touching the ground is just the back two wheels. Any dessert? Oh, no. No, but I'll have more coffee, thank you. Sure. So then whatever. I mean, what did he make a noise? It was interesting.

I promise. I mean, you think. It's not clear cut, and it's not definitive. By no means that we think this was a slam down. All right, I'll be in touch with you. Okay? All right, bye. So at that point, we knew we were going to be bringing him in for an interview.

And they asked him to come in for questioning. They said, do you know what this is about? And he said, oh, you want to talk about my dead wife and dead son? This isn't going to be a simple interview and a simple confession. And we all kind of know that going into this. Carl's very comfortable with them until they start asking him very pointed questions. That's when the interview turns into an interrogation. What killed?

The truck. How did the truck kill him? It just fell over. I felt like I was getting close. He was close to telling me what really happened that day. You're that close, man. You're close. Let it out.

It was November 23rd, 2012. Go ahead and have a seat, Carol. Carl is picked up by two investigators. He's brought to the Senate County Sheriff's Office into an interview room. And you can see in that interview that Carl's very comfortable with them. I think it's a 23rd, but you know what? Let me check. We want to be sure about this. The investigators are very reasonable with how the

they initially approach it. They mirandize him. We're obligated to read your rights. I want you get nervous about it. We're going to do it because we do everything by the book, okay? So if you have the right to rain silent. Most of the questions we asked, we already knew the answers to. It was just going to be how Carl was going to answer him. You haul them in and you begin asking questions.

How many different stories did he have? Three. What was version one? Version one was essentially the same story that was in the original report. So Carl would tell detectives that after he returned home, from that funeral with Cindy, that he walked out into the garage and discovered his son Levi, crushed underneath that truck. Went out there and found it. You know, then we went to the hospital.

What do you mean he found him? I found her dead. Carl knows that they know something. He doesn't know the extent of what they know. Here's the thing, you confess to your wife. I lied with my wife. No, that's not a lot. I'm just here. Are you ever wired? Yes, we do. I thought he did. It's all recorded. One thing became very clear

is that he liked to talk, and he liked to talk about his favorite subject, which was him. Do you mind if I stand up? No, no. Carl is talking about his history in the Air Force. We knew that you were in the Air Force. His personal injuries.

And it tore three of them. He's going through basically a complete narrative of his life. Yeah, so anyways. We should have back down again. I have to. Because I'm going to. He wants to keep reverting and talking about the pain in his back and how his back's bothering him, and woe me, and forget about that his son's died, his wife's died. Let's worry about Carl and his back problems.

It was typical of him trying to get sympathy throughout the whole interrogation. There's one thing that is stuck in my mind that came from Cindy Carlson. Her exact words were he's a sympathy junkie. And as we got into the latter part of the interview, I gave him a lot of sympathy and a lot of hands-on contact and that did work. Roughly three hours into the interview, his version two starts. Version number two was what? When he went back into the garage to see Levi,

he was already dead. The truck had already been falling over, and I found him dead. You went out there in a truck with rolled over on him? Yeah. And I... I... I don't know.

So you panicked in what regard? Just, I left. So you saw him, did you run over and call medical help? Call 911? No, I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything. Now, was there a phone on the ground or a cell phone or you went back to the house and called 911? No, I went to the funeral.

So he saw his son trapped and dead under the truck and still left for the funeral? Yes. Version 2 is far more ridiculous in version 1. And instead of screaming for help, go and get to the funeral, screaming for help, go and get help, he simply goes, well, okay, my son's dad. I mean, it was an accident, and it's, I blame myself every day. But now when he returns and he finds his son dead underneath the truck is when he flips and goes crazy and starts screaming for help.

I love that kid more than, because I knew he was struggling. I knew he went through when I went through as a kid, you know. I would give my life for that kid. I think throughout the interview he was convinced that he was going to convince us. I mean, he had reason to think that way. He had gotten away with it for a long time. The interview ultimately lasts for nine hours. They put on the pressure harder.

You're only to find one in a chair down here? Carlson asks to move his chair, right? He moves his chair, he puts it in the corner of the room. Both the investigators have literally backed him in the chair. backed him into a corner. Did you tell Cindy that you, when she asked you, if you pushed the car over on Levi, and she asked you, did it push hard? Do you remember telling her no if pushed easy?

I don't remember everything. Could have you said that? I couldn't. If it's on the hall, you can. You keep pushing, and yet a third story emerges. Let it out. Let it out. Let it out.

Let it out. I'll walk with you, man, I walk with you. Was it just a split-second thing? I felt like I was getting closed with him. It's almost like a physical thing you can almost feel it. I thought he was close to telling me something more about what really happened that day. It would turn out Carl Carlson would have one more version of this story. He said that when he went out into that garage,

that his son Levi was still alive and was actually working on the truck. I never heard him? Never heard him. I didn't... I didn't... The accident. I opened a truck door. Okay.

I opened the truck door because I had to get inside to move the linkage for the truck. And when I did it tipped in a joke. You see a car was happening. We've gotten in front. He was damn you walked in there. And now that you fell when you open the door, so take the final step. There is no more.

I'd step in the truck in the fucking night fell. And I was just scared. I don't know why. I can't imagine walking away and leaving your child dying on the floor. They were going to a funeral. Yes. And yet many would argue he had just created one right here in his own garage. We know that there's the real version of the version four, the untold version, where Carl jacked it up on the single post, got Levi to get underneath there, and with all his force, pushes the truck over on him, causes this truck to crash down onto Levi.

What kind of parent, our father, would push a truck over on their own child and let them suffer and die underneath that truck? That evening after the interview of Carl, we arrested Carl for the murder, murder in second degree, and for the insurance fraud. I remember thinking, no, that one in California certainly needs to be looked at a lot harder than it was. I went to go visit him when I was like, I know that you killed my mother. And he smiled like a Cheshire cat, and he said it's been 22 years. They haven't caught me yet, and they're not going to. Once Carl was charged in New York, it gave me a glimmer of hope that maybe we could finally get some traction in Calaveras County. Look at me, please. Please. Chris, thank you.

Two decades after Christina died in that house fire, her sister Colette never gave up. She believed that this was not an accident. It turns out the investigators in New York have been digging into this case as well. Watch Carl. I don't trust that, Mayor. We're interviewed Carl about Levi, obviously, because we're investigators with New York State. But we're going to further this investigation in California. Well, about halfway through the interview, he does make a real off-the-wall remark. He comes out and says, what kind of person does that?

What kind of person kills his own son or his wife? There's nothing that can justify killing your wife, your kids, your uncles, your parents, your... I mean, it'd be different if you killed the... I didn't say you killed your wife. No, I don't, but I'm just saying, you know, that's why I'm saying, wife, kids, whatever. Carl? Did you? No. No, I've already been through that.

No, hell, no, no, and no way in hell. I thought it was a strange thing for him to bring up. California was on his mind, even if it wasn't necessarily on ours at the moment. Does he stick to his story about what he told in 1991? To some degree, yes, and something we didn't know. So was our window in the basket? There was one that was like, extremely, extremely, extremely small. But of course there was that video that Christina's cousin made showing us exactly how big that window was.

This here is a bathroom where Christina was found here. I want a picture of this window. Was it like an old window or... Well, the window was like that big and it was boarded up. Wait, did you board it up? What's that? Did you board it? No, he had to because it was no good.

But you couldn't fit out there. couldn't put, you might be able to put a baby out of it. A baby. You and I are an 80-pound woman. There's no way. That video zoomed in on that bathroom window and you could see it was large enough for a person to get out of it. Why don't you give Carl Big Kiss? Oh, jeez. The investigators ask Carlson about the insurance policy that he had on his wife, Christina, and how long before her death that he actually took that policy out on her. So about how long before do you think? It's...

Was it like, in other people's minds, like, relatively soon? Ah, not. It's gotta be... It's gotta be... It's gotta be like three, four months or something. But detectives already know, and Carl certainly should have known, that he had taken out that life insurance,

policy just 19 days before Christina died. It's very simple. The truth is the truth. But when you start telling lies, it's hard to remember the lies and retell the lies. And for every lie, you tell two lies. And for the two lies, you tell four lies, and it keeps getting compounded. It's interesting the situations you've had occur in your life. me about it. I look back in it. I look at it. You say like it doesn't strike twice. No, it strike, well, I'll tell you what. When friends get around and I we talk about that

and it's like there's no way. How can more person have this much happen? There were so many people that harbored suspicions in 1991. There was documentation from State Farm Insurance, from fire investigators. Fire investigators like Ken Busky, who was hired by that insurance company, all all those years ago back in 1991. Turns out he had even more damning evidence that this fire wasn't an accident, that this fire was intentionally set.

It appeared that the fire had started on the carpet outside the bathroom door, so I was very interested in the carpet for that reason. Busske examined that carpet closely, and he discovered something that was surprising. His report noted that there was evidence of a second kerosene pour right before the fire.

Not the spill that happened from the dog and cat roughhousing around. This pore happened right before the fire. The second spill appeared to be a deliberate pour. Anywhere from a few seconds to a matter of just a few minutes prior to the fire. And so at that point in time, I was thinking that the state of California would proceed

to treat this as if it were a murder. I kept my files and still have my files. And there would be another person who never gave up the evidence that he collected, State Investigator Carl Kent. Carl Kent harbored suspicions for so long that when he retired, he took documents, two boxes of them, with an audio recording, with papers, and kept them. That's the only one that I've ever done that with. I would have loved to go to New York.

I think I could have talked to Carl and it may have taken him. know, five, six, seven, eight, ten hours, who knows, of talking to him, I think we might have been able to get a confession. After Carlson is arrested in New York for the murder of his son, the media catches wind of it, and it becomes a huge story. A man accused of killing his wife and son for the insurance money. Do you have anything to say, sir? Tonight, it's the explosive case, but was the accident really a surprise to everyone?

Because when investigators start digging, a shocking discovery, was there a deadly pattern in this family after all. The media brought so much attention to this case. It was relentless. The pressure that was continued to put on Calvarez County. That's what really got things going. But before he could get to trial, Carlson did something that no one saw coming.

I was thrilled and I was pissed because that was him in control again. Rings, surrounded by a steel cage. You want to play games? We're going to play games. Oh, my God, are you kidding me? This is going to be a war. Stream Survivor Series War Games, November 29th at 7 Eastern on the ESPN app.

It started with a phone call in the early hours of the morning. 9-1-1. What is the address to your emergency? A terrified woman tells the operator she's been kidnapped, assaulted, and that she's trapped in a room with her attacker. He's fallen asleep, so she quietly and ever so carefully finds his phone and calls for help. Is there any way you can get out of the building? I don't know without waking him, and I'm scared. This 911 call began an investigation that would turn the town of Ashland into a crime scene.

We've got something big going on here. The first thing you hit my mind is a monster. A new series from ABC Audio and 2020, The Hand in the Window. Out now, wherever you listen to podcasts. We were never allowed to talk about our mother. But Levi and I would talk about it a lot, about what he remembered, about what I remembered, and about how things just didn't add up.

A year or two before Levi moved out, Levi and I told our father that we knew that he had murdered our mother. Levi was around 17 years old, and Carl had heard that Levi was telling people was telling people that he, Carl, had killed his mother. He was arguing with our father and just blurted it out. I remember is Carl just saying, why would you say that I killed your mother? What are the people going to think?

Levi, God love him. He had a steel spine, so he did not back down. And that only infuriated my father further. And it resulted in a fist bite in the kitchen. After he was jailed, so I went to go visit him. He wanted to be able to give me a hug or something, and he was very pissed off that he was in this box. And he was trying to convince me that he never would have killed her brother, he never would have killed her mom. And I'd just listened to it for a little bit, and I stopped him, and I looked at him, and I looked at him.

I was like, I know that you did this, and I know that you killed my mother. And he paused and it was like he completely calmed down and he looked at me, he smiled like a Cheshire cat and he said it's been 22 years. They haven't caught me yet, and they're not going to. After he was arrested, I was involved as much as I could. I followed every news article.

And I was excited. I wanted that thing to go to trial because there was no way he was going to walk off that thing. There's no trial in Levi's case. After insurance fraud was dropped as a charge, Carlson pleaded guilty. Carlson admitted to killing his son. It was a huge relief to know that we weren't going to have to go through trial. Carl ultimately pleaded to second degree murder. Carl's image is super important.

I felt that in the New York case, when he saw the witness list, including his own children, testifying against him, I think he thought he was going to look back. That was his cowardly way out and not doing that trial. That was him in control again. As a part of his plea deal, Carlson had to stand up in court and tell the judge exactly exactly what he had done to his son. And in this version of the story, he tells the court something more horrifying

than we ever thought before. He admits that he pushed the truck onto his son. He jacked it up on a wobbly jack, knowing that it was life-threatening for someone to be underneath it, and that Levi was still alive when he left. He left his son Levi alive, crushed under that truck. and walked away. It was devastating for me

to have my dad admit that. It wasn't just the loss of my brother. With that one statement, it was the loss of my father too. It was sentenced to 15 years to life in the New York State prison system. He showed no remorse today. It's like it was a game. and it wasn't a game. It was people's lives.

I didn't like the sentence at all. Was my nephew only worth 15 years? Some of the Carlson family say there's more work to be done. Not here, but in California. Then there'd be a turn. Authorities had decided to reopen the investigation into Christina Carlson's death in California back in 1991. For all these years, I've literally thought the man got a woman. way with murder and there was nothing I could do and the hard part is you never forget I think it really was the media exposure in combination with the New York

State Police pushing California and of course the family my aunt God love her my Aunt Colette was on them like white on rice to make sure that this happened we definitely ramped up my activities to try and get their attention that you know we're still out here we're still waiting for justice the authorities in California start digging into the case and they unearthed evidence that had long been forgotten you start to hear about all these former figures that were at the forefront in 1991 getting contacted again so I pick up the phone and I'm totally surprised to hear about

about this case has come back. The DA's office in Calaveras County, they contacted me and says, do you know anything about the fire that happened in 1991? And I go, yes. And they said, do you know where the records are? All these years later, that California Fire Investigator still had those two boxes of evidence sitting

in his basement, and he turned them over to the DA. This evening, a brand new development for the 2020 exclusive you saw here first. The DA there suddenly announces that they're charging Carl Carlson in the death of his first wife, Christina. I was very surprised when California's case went forward. That case was 29 years old. I knew that those witnesses and that evidence were going to be scrutiny. I was very eager to see California's trial play out. We as a family needed to see it play out.

I submit to you, the defendant, built Christina a coffin, and trapped her in there. Christina took her last breath, trapped in this coffin. It just becomes more unbelievable with every development. No one could have seen where this was going. Everybody in the courtroom just kind of sucked in their breath. They were so surprised. This was not an accident. It was intentional.

We want to go to trial. We want to go to trial. My mom never stopped believing. She believed from the very beginning that the trial would actually occur, and she's got a very strong faith, you know, and ultimately she was right. The trial took place in Calaveras County Superior Court. approximately 29 years almost to the date after Christina Carlson died. It was heartbreaking to see my dad in the courtroom.

He turns and looks at me and smiles. Just a normal dad looking and smiling at his daughter. And it brought back all of these emotions. Christina Alexander Carlson. Carlson was so many things to so many people. The defendant, through cold and calculated measures, extinguished the light that was Christina. And he did it on purpose.

The prosecution scores an early victory by convincing the judge to allow them to tell jurors about the previous incidents and all the insurance payouts to Carlson. I'd say it was absolutely foundational to the setup of their case that the jury know not just about the death of Christina, but about the barn fire, about the car fire, about the death of Levi. So when he says, who could do that, who could kill their wife that way? Well, we already know that you killed your son that way.

Carl has a conviction in New York for the murder of his son. I can't argue against that, and I wouldn't try. You're not here to determine whether he's a good and pious man. man. That's not your job. Your job is to determine if the people have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Carl killed his wife and that he did it for money. The first person on the stand was Aaron DeRoche. She knows what happened. She knows what her father did to her mother. She could speak so clearly about the moment that everyone was evaluating.

I testified about his behavior after getting us out of the house. And of course, course, for the few days following the fire. She brought memories of her confronting Carl after his arrest in the death of Levi. It doesn't get much more damning than someone who's supposed to love you unconditionally says, I believe he killed my mother. I know he killed my brother.

I was very nervous to testify. I've never participated in. anything like this before. And it was on the stand that Colette tells jurors this chilling story about the very first conversation she had with Carl Carlson after learning that her sister had died in that fire. I went into the house and I told him

that I wanted to see my sister. And he said, you can't, she's a crispy critter. That was his term, a crispy critter. Everybody in the courtroom just kind of sucked in their breath. I think he truly believed that my sister had burned up in the house and that there would be no evidence, and he was wrong.

But some of the most critical testimony came from that fire investigator hired by the insurance company, Ken Busky. The trouble light didn't ignite this. None of the appliances in the home ignited this. It had to be a person. Applying a flame to the kerosene. Though Carl Carlson barely spoke in person during the trial,

the jury heard him a lot. They heard recordings that were made over the course of his lifetime regarding the investigation into Christina's death. You're not proud of getting money from someone's death. Not proud? Well, I'll tell you where pride comes into it, you break the hole down, you pull your . Ladies and gentlemen, the defendant had motive.

His motive in this case was greed. Greed. The defense was questioning the validity of what happened. We all know that that evidence is 29 years old. The defense's argument seemed to be that if the case wasn't strong enough back in 1991, what would make anything different now? This case was ignored 29 years ago. It was brought to them.

They looked at it. They said, no, pass. There's nothing here. I was looking forward to it being done with, and it was the end of week three when the jurors were finally able to go and deliberate. I really thought this would drag out much longer than it did. But the jury came out and said they had a verdict.

We the jury find the defendant, Carl Holger Carlson, guilty of murder in the first degree. Carlson had no reaction at all. Stone colds. In fact, it looked like he almost expected that verdict. I've never been a more humbled by or grateful to 12 strangers in my... entire life it was everything I wanted he very stoically stood up and he walked away I really wanted to see him look over his shoulder make eye contact with those two girls sit just by eye tell them something say something

to him never looked back he walked away on their mother walked away on their brother and he just walked away on them again but before Carl would walk away for good there would be one more unbelievable twist in this case that it's almost impossible to believe I mean who would take out a life insurance policy on little girls We, the jury, find the defendant, Carl Fulker Carlson, guilty of murder in the first degree of killing Christina A. Carlson. The Monday that the jurors came to a verdict was actually Levi's birthday. He would have been 35 the day that the guilty verdict came in. My mother's death.

It was surreal. So after all of these years that fire back in 1991, it was just weeks ago that Carl Carlson finds himself in the Calaveras County Courthouse to hear his sentence. In this case, the defendant would be sentenced to state prison for a term of life without the possibility of parole. I just want to seem rotten jail. I'm not a vindictive person normally. normally but in this case I am I can't help it we should have never been

investigating the death of Levi this family went to enough in 1991 it should have ended that but it turns out that there are people in Carlson's life who think had he not been arrested he may have been trying to get away with murder yet again after Carl collected on Levi's death additional policies are taken out on the two granddaughters. Dad had life insurance policies out on both of my brother's daughters. Levi's widow said that she had recently got a visit from Carl

after many, many months of no contact at all, wanting to renew his contacts with his granddaughters and get them out to the farm. Most people don't even realize that you could take out life insurance policies on your grandchildren. I was scared half to death. an accident was going to happen with one of them. Eventually, Cindy cashed out those policies

to make sure that there was nothing hanging over the heads of her granddaughters. It's a relief to know that we don't have to worry for ourselves, for our children, for our nieces, for our nephews. It felt really good that some justice was finally done for this family. It's way overdue. I found these.

This is the first time Erin and Aunt Collette have seen them in a long time. But they are her rings. This is her classroom. She's teeny tiny little fingers. My sister was real small. I mean, I don't think anything, you know, of any value. Real monetary value, but it's got obviously the sentimental value for us.

There were so many twists and turns in this case. And one of the things that I think brings real, comfort to the family is that Levi is now buried right next to his mother Christina in Murphy's California. They are actually together in Murphy's. I'm very happy that he got to be buried next to mom. I go and I sit and just wonder if I've done enough for her kids. I tried to make sure that they knew their mother through me and now you know with Levi there it's they're there together.

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