The House on the Hill

Speaker 1 the Creator of Homeland, Claire Danes and Matthew Rees star in the new Netflix series The Beast in Me as ruthless rivals whose shared darkness will set them on a collision course with fatal consequences.

Speaker 2 The Beast in Me is a riveting psychological cat and mouse story about guilt and justice and doubt, now playing only on Netflix.

Speaker 3 Grand Canyon University is one of the largest universities in the country.

Speaker 3 Praised for its community and impact, GCU integrates a welcoming Christian worldview and open discourse into over 300 online programs.

Speaker 3 Redefine your online education through GCU's industry-driven, academically rigorous programs. In 2024, online students received over $161 million in institutional scholarships.
Find your purpose.

Speaker 3 Private, Christian, affordable. Discover available scholarships at gcu.edu/slash myoffer.

Speaker 4 I look up and there's smoke coming out. and I'm like, what the?

Speaker 4 I'm yelling for the kids and I hear, daddy's coming, daddy's coming.

Speaker 5 It's terrible dying in a fire and to know it's family and someone you love and care for.

Speaker 6 This is my sister.

Speaker 7 Her life was really about giving to others. Nobody should have to go through what our family has gone through.

Speaker 8 Are you with your son right now? Is he breathing?

Speaker 9 No.

Speaker 5 Here's a young kid now gone. It just didn't make sense.

Speaker 10 These thoughts kept coming up. I just think it was an intuition.

Speaker 10 I had watched an episode of Dateline and I like had this revelation.

Speaker 12 I said, well, what if I kind of go undercover?

Speaker 8 Part of me feels like I'm walking into a

Speaker 10 booby trap. Oh my god, I think he did it.

Speaker 13 Bad luck that they died?

Speaker 14 What would you call it?

Speaker 16 You're saying that you are completely 100% innocent. Yes.

Speaker 4 If I told you everything, you wouldn't believe what's happened.

Speaker 18 If these hills could talk, imagine the stories they'd tell.

Speaker 21 About the people who came here to California's gold rush country, dreaming of a big break, a last chance.

Speaker 11 or a way out.

Speaker 25 The woman at the heart of this story had dreams of her own.

Speaker 26 This is how they ended.

Speaker 7 Her life was really about giving to others and she didn't care what she sacrificed to do that. That's the person that they'll never forget what a wonderful, sweet person Chris was.

Speaker 18 Our story begins with a catastrophic fire in the old mining town of Murphy's California. It was New Year's Day, 1991.

Speaker 32 It seemed like every firefighter within radio range heard the call.

Speaker 33 A woman was trapped in a burning house.

Speaker 18 That must be a scary feeling when you hear trapped.

Speaker 35 Yeah, fire is a terrible thing.

Speaker 25 Rich Went was a local business owner and volunteer firefighter, one of many who raced up this treacherous, windy road to reach the fire.

Speaker 35 My heart was pounding my chest. I was hyperventilating.
Had a feeling of dread.

Speaker 37 Could you see the smoke?

Speaker 7 Yeah. As you're getting closer?

Speaker 35 We're getting closer. We could see the smoke.

Speaker 9 We're feeling really anxious.

Speaker 38 I jumped in my dad's fire chief's vehicle and went to the fire with him.

Speaker 40 Today, Brian Wilkes is Murphy's fire chief.

Speaker 18 Back in 1991, he was a 17-year-old fire cadet who thought he was going to be part of a rescue.

Speaker 38 I want to save this person. You know, it's that instinct that we need to get there, we need to get there as soon as we can.

Speaker 23 They arrived to an awful scene.

Speaker 34 How bad was the fire?

Speaker 35 It was just consuming the house.

Speaker 36 You know, we

Speaker 35 felt the smoke and the heat, you know, even from here.

Speaker 42 This quiet clearing is where the house was burning.

Speaker 35 And when we go back behind and the flames are just too intense, you know, we just couldn't get in. We couldn't get close.
So we asked the incident commander what do you want to do?

Speaker 35 And he said, surround and drown.

Speaker 13 That's fire speak for drench the house with water.

Speaker 35 After 15, 20 minutes, we got the fire knocked down.

Speaker 35 And then he chose two of us. My partner and I went in.

Speaker 44 You went inside the house.

Speaker 35 Yeah, we were asked to find the body. It was scary.

Speaker 35 And so as we went in, the smoke is still rising. Water's dripping everywhere.
It's a disaster scene. And then I heard it call out.
I found her.

Speaker 45 We just stopped and we.

Speaker 35 We just, you know, were so defeated, dejected.

Speaker 25 Her name was Christina Carlson.

Speaker 46 She was a 30-year-old wife and mother.

Speaker 23 Fortunately, maybe miraculously, her husband Carl and three young children had escaped the deadly blaze.

Speaker 30 They were all being treated in an ambulance by paramedic Pam Geet.

Speaker 48 The children didn't say

Speaker 48 much other than daddy had got them out of the house. Then one of them said that all of their Christmas presents had burned up and that mommy went to heaven.

Speaker 49 Ham says talking to them wasn't easy.

Speaker 48 They would answer things very briefly. They were not really

Speaker 1 connected,

Speaker 48 that I felt

Speaker 50 that they probably

Speaker 48 were suffering some sort of a psychological shock.

Speaker 28 Christina's father, Alexander, had no idea what happened when he arrived at the scene.

Speaker 51 I got in the ambulance.

Speaker 3 I looked around and said, where's Chris?

Speaker 10 And they told me

Speaker 51 one of the kids said

Speaker 36 she's with God or

Speaker 51 the angels took her or something like that.

Speaker 9 And it's going to...

Speaker 45 She wasn't there.

Speaker 18 Art could only imagine the terror of Christina's last moments on earth.

Speaker 25 Now he had to break the news news to the rest of his family, beginning with her sister, Colette.

Speaker 7 I got a call from my dad in the afternoon and he said, he said, I need to tell you something. He said there was a fire out at Chris's house and he said everyone got out but Chris.

Speaker 7 And I said,

Speaker 7 are you kidding me? And he said, no.

Speaker 34 Is it almost unbelievable?

Speaker 52 When you hear that? It is.

Speaker 7 It is because I had just been out at the house. You know,

Speaker 7 I had gone up to my sister's house, I think, on December 22nd.

Speaker 18 Colette was numb.

Speaker 49 Everyone was, including the firefighters.

Speaker 35 I knew her, you know. She used to come in the peppermint stick, the ice cream parlor I owned in.
With her. With her three kids, and some of their fondest memories were

Speaker 35 doing that.

Speaker 35 And here we couldn't save her.

Speaker 35 It was awful.

Speaker 53 When he was leaving the scene that day, young Brian Wilkes remembers he was shaken and sad about the young mother they couldn't save. But he was also grateful the three kids were okay.

Speaker 38 I very clearly remember today a conversation with my dad when we were driving. I think we were driving home from the fire.

Speaker 38 And he makes the comment and he goes, wow, he goes, that dad was a hero today.

Speaker 29 But that day was just the beginning of an epic family drama we've been following for years.

Speaker 26 Now, more than three decades after Christina Carlson's death, the secrets have been revealed. about what happened inside the house that once stood here.

Speaker 25 Disaster strikes again.

Speaker 10 He kind of looked out the window and said, Oh my god, Barnes set on fire.

Speaker 22 Then another painful loss.

Speaker 8 Is he breathing? No. He is not breathing.

Speaker 56 Okay. No.

Speaker 5 Just that numb feeling of

Speaker 5 now. What do we do?

Speaker 40 Deadly accidents keep hitting this family.

Speaker 26 How could that be?

Speaker 53 Almost 30 years after her death in a fire, Christina Carlson's sister Colette still talks about her capacity for joy.

Speaker 7 She just had this incredible laugh that, you know, she laughed very easily. And when she started laughing, she would just, you know, the whole room would, she was contagious with her laugh.

Speaker 42 Her husband Carl speaks of her with admiration.

Speaker 4 When you lose somebody, they're beautiful, but she was just,

Speaker 4 there was the, she was proud.

Speaker 58 What do you mean by proud?

Speaker 4 When she walked, she walked with her head, with her chin up. Not that she was better than you, but

Speaker 4 she was proud of who she was, what she was, and things like that.

Speaker 32 Carl's brother Mike adored her too.

Speaker 40 He'll never forget the day he heard the news.

Speaker 59 How hard was that for you, knowing how she died?

Speaker 5 It was terrible. I mean, the concept of dying in a fire has

Speaker 36 got to be pretty awful.

Speaker 5 And to know it's family and

Speaker 5 someone you love and care for, that's

Speaker 5 hard.

Speaker 53 Carl met Christina 10 years earlier in North Dakota, where he was stationed in the Air Force.

Speaker 61 Christina's first marriage to another airman had just broken up.

Speaker 49 When do you get the first phone call from Christina saying that that she's in love again and it's with Carl?

Speaker 7 She told me she'd met a guy and she was happy.

Speaker 7 I think the next phone call, she let me know that she was pregnant and I said, well, what are you going to do?

Speaker 9 What are you going to do?

Speaker 27 So I said, you can come stay with me.

Speaker 7 And she said, no. She said, we're going to get married.

Speaker 26 Was she happy?

Speaker 13 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 16 Yeah, she was very happy.

Speaker 56 All right, Carl.

Speaker 30 Carl left the Air Force in 1985 and decided to move his little family here to his hometown in Seneca County, New York.

Speaker 26 By then, they had two kids, Aaron and baby Levi.

Speaker 5 Drove in an old antique pickup truck from North Dakota.

Speaker 7 Stand right there, Chris.

Speaker 23 Mike took to Christina right away.

Speaker 1 She was small,

Speaker 5 tiny little girl. She's not very tall at all.
A very simple sweetheart of a kid.

Speaker 34 How did she handle it all, just suddenly being thrust into the Carlson family?

Speaker 5 I think at first she was a little confused.

Speaker 5 Trying to just even keep names straight was a challenge, but she was the type of kid that her glass was always half full.

Speaker 59 Was she a good fit?

Speaker 64 to the Carlson family? Absolutely.

Speaker 5 Yep. She would give it out and as well as take it and

Speaker 5 laugh on the way.

Speaker 65 They were a cute couple.

Speaker 30 Christina, the little cheerleader from the mountains of California.

Speaker 61 Carl, the rough and ruddy country boy.

Speaker 7 They would laugh and joke, and he was this big barrel-chested guy, and my sister, you know, only 4'11.

Speaker 4 We just connected, and she just was a very

Speaker 4 friend.

Speaker 4 Never a bad word to say about anybody.

Speaker 23 Carl found work in the local stone quarry, and soon they had another baby, Katie.

Speaker 30 Christina loved being a mother.

Speaker 5 She'd be on the floor playing with them or teaching them or instructing them or coddling them. And it wasn't just her kids, it was all of our kids.

Speaker 4 Look at those two lovely people over there.

Speaker 61 Christina seemed happy, but Carl wanted more than a life working the quarry.

Speaker 18 And he didn't see a big future for himself in upstate New York.

Speaker 30 Right about then, Christina's father offered a ticket out, a job with a future working in his heating and air conditioning company.

Speaker 51 And I told him, I said, you know, if you ever need a job, just come on out to California and you'll have a job because you can work with me.

Speaker 49 So they moved across the country and eventually settled into that ramshackle house at the top of the long winding road.

Speaker 37 It wasn't much, but it was closer to Colette, and Christina set out to make it special.

Speaker 21 She was a creative, do-it-yourselfer and a great seamstress.

Speaker 7 She went into like home decorator mode and started painting and sewing curtains.

Speaker 7 And, you know, every time I'd go up, I'd be like, wow, wow this looks really good sounds like christina was always trying to make the best out of any situation yes and she usually succeeded you know she'd finished redoing all the bedrooms when um when the fire came through

Speaker 13 christmas 1990 was the last time collette saw her sister alive just days later this was all that was left of the home christina worked so hard on her grieving cousins videotaped the smoldering wreckage in a matter of weeks the house would be razed but this video would survive and raise many questions in the years to come.

Speaker 7 You know, my dad, myself, we were all saying something's not right. You know, something is not right here.

Speaker 4 I'm yelling for the kids, and I hear, Daddy's coming, daddy's coming.

Speaker 44 That tragic day, Carl tells his story, and investigators tell theirs.

Speaker 45 There was a strong smell of kerosene.

Speaker 39 In the grim aftermath of Christina's death, Carl Carlson's brother Mike knew how badly he needed help.

Speaker 59 Did your mind immediately go to those three beautiful children?

Speaker 5 Immediately, you're thinking, well, I got a brother in trouble and

Speaker 5 three little kids depending on him.

Speaker 5 How do we help?

Speaker 35 What do we do?

Speaker 32 The first thing Mike did was head to California.

Speaker 5 Carl was walking around out in the front yard.

Speaker 5 Just a strange scenario.

Speaker 64 So

Speaker 9 we hugged and

Speaker 5 I said, I'll help when I can. Tell me what to do.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 5 he was just numb. He was more of a zombie.

Speaker 5 He just said, I don't know.

Speaker 23 Everyone was wondering how it all happened.

Speaker 21 Carl said that all he knew was that the fire started while he was working around the house. It was New Year's Day.

Speaker 18 The kids were taking naps.

Speaker 71 Christina was bathing.

Speaker 4 I was outside in the garage looking for some stuff to fix a motor in the attic.

Speaker 4 And then I hear Carl. Then I hear Carl Hoger Carlson get the kids.

Speaker 4 So I come out of the garage. There's smoke coming out.
And I'm like, what the? And it's now, it's coming out underneath the front door.

Speaker 72 The videos shot by Christina's cousins are the only images that remain.

Speaker 25 This gaping hole is where Levi's room was and where Carl says he raced first.

Speaker 42 Do you hear Levi calling you?

Speaker 4 No, not a word. So I break the window and

Speaker 4 it's like between, it feels like the sun hits you in the face, a hot a blast there, whatever, blows me back off the porch, you know.

Speaker 18 But he says he managed to pull Levi through the window.

Speaker 4 And just both of us sort of

Speaker 4 tumble backwards onto the porch.

Speaker 18 Then he ran around the house to Aaron and Katie's window.

Speaker 69 How do you rescue your two daughters?

Speaker 4 Well, I ended up getting to the window, have to jump up every time, jump, grab the screen, try to get my fingers into it, pull the screen off,

Speaker 4 do the same thing with the window. And I'm yelling for the kids, and I hear Aaron telling Katie.

Speaker 4 I hear

Speaker 4 Aaron telling Katie, daddy's coming, daddy's coming.

Speaker 18 He says six-year-old Aaron helped three-year-old Katie climb up to a dresser under the window.

Speaker 4 So both girls get a hold of me, we fall back, tumble on the ground, get back up, run them to the truck.

Speaker 18 But Christina was still in the bathroom.

Speaker 61 The fire was burning outside her door, and a board was covering the broken bathroom window, her only way out.

Speaker 46 Do you hear her screaming?

Speaker 4 There's no screaming. There's any, nothing.

Speaker 30 He says he tried to get Christina out of the house, but couldn't get inside.

Speaker 31 He drove the kids to the neighbor's house and called for help.

Speaker 71 But of course, it was too late.

Speaker 67 She died of smoke inhalation.

Speaker 4 How do I explain to my father-in-law, to my mother-in-law,

Speaker 4 that I didn't save their little girl?

Speaker 57 Two days after the fire, Mike says his brother was a mess.

Speaker 59 Did he seem lost?

Speaker 5 Absolutely. I can remember he, I perceive he was still in the same clothes he had on at the fire.

Speaker 5 He still smelled of smoke, looked hair terrible in an old white t-shirt,

Speaker 5 hair a little singed.

Speaker 30 The family helped Carl pull himself together for the memorial service.

Speaker 18 And then Carl took everyone to a place he often visited with Christina, the giant sequoias at Calaveras Big Trees Park.

Speaker 5 He just wanted to get away,

Speaker 5 take a couple hours and get away from

Speaker 5 reality, probably was a good thing for all of us.

Speaker 18 Then it was time to talk about the future.

Speaker 5 What are we doing? If we're going to stay in California, you need to arrange for an apartment.

Speaker 5 That's when he said, I just want to go home.

Speaker 18 So, four days after the fire, Carl packed up his three children and flew back to upstate New York.

Speaker 40 It was yet another blow for Christina's grieving family.

Speaker 7 My sister and I had made a commitment to each other that our kids were going to grow up knowing each other.

Speaker 7 And then it was stripped in five days.

Speaker 44 All Christina's father had left of his beloved daughter was this box of charred photos that he rescued from the house.

Speaker 18 He was hobbled by grief.

Speaker 42 After her death, I wasn't, I was probably more dead than alive.

Speaker 51 I didn't pay attention to a lot of things that I should have, but I just muddled through.

Speaker 51 I didn't care.

Speaker 18 A few days after Carl left, state fire investigator Carl Kent was asked to examine the scene.

Speaker 20 It still looked very much like it did when this video was shot.

Speaker 30 The first thing he noticed was the smell.

Speaker 45 There was a strong smell of kerosene

Speaker 45 in that particular area, and the whole hallway from the master bedroom to the living room was covered with cardboard.

Speaker 57 There had been a kerosene spill in the house a day or two before the fire.

Speaker 31 Carl said the pets knocked over a jug of kerosene along the hallway near the bathroom door.

Speaker 18 The burn patterns indicated the fire also started there.

Speaker 45 And so the area of origin was right in the area of the utility room and the hallway bathroom area.

Speaker 45 She wouldn't have been able to escape out the doorway because there was so much fire right in that area. Had she gotten gotten into the hallway, she would have

Speaker 45 probably inhaled hot gases from the fire itself and seared her lungs.

Speaker 45 And she would have perished from that.

Speaker 27 He wondered, if this father had risked his life to save his children, couldn't he have tried harder to save his wife?

Speaker 45 I think if

Speaker 45 I was in that position, I would do everything I could to get her out of there.

Speaker 42 As far as the DA was concerned, there wasn't enough enough evidence to prove it was anything other than an accident.

Speaker 69 But Kent felt differently.

Speaker 57 This was a fatal fire involving kerosene and a boarded-up window.

Speaker 61 Kent urged his supervisors to let him interview Carl Carlson in person.

Speaker 45 And I asked if they would authorize or send me to New York to interview Carl Carlson. And they said that

Speaker 45 they didn't have the money to do that.

Speaker 18 So the fire investigator moved on to other cases. But his gut told him there was a chance he would someday return to this one.

Speaker 19 At least he hoped so.

Speaker 10 He had told me that he had lost his wife in a fire and he was a single dad raising three kids on his own.

Speaker 10 I felt bad for him and the kids and I

Speaker 10 was drawn to that.

Speaker 11 A new life and a new wife for Carl Carlson.

Speaker 18 Then suddenly, a new tragedy, too.

Speaker 10 He sat upright and kind of looked out the window and said, you know, oh my God, call 911.

Speaker 32 The Finger Lakes region of upstate New York was Carl Carlson's home.

Speaker 49 And now he was back to stay.

Speaker 30 Here in Seneca County, he would rebuild his life among the farms, the fields, the vineyards.

Speaker 18 His old friends and family were looking out for him, but Carl still wondered how he'd manage.

Speaker 4 Coming back home is like, what the hell am I going to do now? I'm not a mom. I'm a dad.

Speaker 4 She was the homemaker. She was the mother.
She bathed the kids. So I don't know nothing about doing braids and things like that.

Speaker 4 I don't know how to take care of, I mean, I know how to take care of kids, but I don't know how to take care of kids.

Speaker 4 Then all of a sudden I get the education that, oh, I got to do school records. I got to do shots.

Speaker 34 Was there a lot of concern for Carl, having just lost his wife?

Speaker 5 Well, I think everybody realized that this poor guy isn't going to do it on his own. He went back to work at the stone quarry for a while

Speaker 5 and then saw an opportunity at a local glass manufacturing plant that had just opened.

Speaker 4 And it's like, I don't want to go back to doing six days a week, not with two, three kids, so they let me work five days a week, 10 to 12 hour days.

Speaker 57 Other people helped out too.

Speaker 30 It's that kind of place. And it all seemed to come together for him when he met Cindy Best in 1992.

Speaker 10 I was into line dancing at the time, and that's where I first met him. We talked about different things.

Speaker 10 You know, he had told me that he had lost his wife in a fire, and he was a single dad raising three kids on his own. And

Speaker 10 his family was into horses, Belgian horses.

Speaker 34 He told you that on the first night? Yes, yeah.

Speaker 9 Wow. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 25 That first meeting led to dating and meeting his kids.

Speaker 34 What did you like most about him?

Speaker 10 I was very attracted to

Speaker 10 the fact that he had children. I

Speaker 10 had been told that I probably would never have children.

Speaker 10 I always wanted to just be a mom.

Speaker 10 And I felt bad for him and the kids. And, you know, I

Speaker 10 was drawn to that.

Speaker 30 Cindy got an instant family when she married Carl in August of 1993.

Speaker 31 They bought the old family farm and house from his parents.

Speaker 47 And then Cindy got pregnant.

Speaker 34 The best news of your life. Right.
That you were going to have the baby you'd always wanted.

Speaker 10 Happiest time of my life. Yep.

Speaker 11 They named him Alex.

Speaker 56 Alex, say hi to the camera.

Speaker 56 Whose birthday is it today?

Speaker 22 As Alex grew up, he became close with his half-siblings, Katie, Aaron, and especially Levi, with whom he had a brotherly bond.

Speaker 75 He was always there for me. We always loved to hang out together.
So, I mean, we had a lot of good times hunting, fishing,

Speaker 75 and just hanging out a lot on the farm, riding horses.

Speaker 18 The family raised and sold Belgian draft horses.

Speaker 75 It's fun to ride a Belgian. They're big.

Speaker 75 Definitely really big horses. But it was fun.

Speaker 67 Colette and her family would visit from California.

Speaker 18 She would tell the kids stories about their moms so they wouldn't forget.

Speaker 7 My niece asked me, she said one time, she said, well, Aunt Colette, I wish you were my mom. I said, oh, honey, I'm nowhere near as nice as what your mom was.
I can't even come close.

Speaker 59 Do you think you've done a good job of keeping her memory alive with them?

Speaker 7 Well, I think I have. You know, the fact that I was on the the phone with Levi, you know, two, three times a week driving to work.
In the afternoon, I'd be on the phone with Erin.

Speaker 7 Katie, whenever I could get her in between her school schedules. So I've been very involved, even though I was involved from a distance.

Speaker 19 Collette noticed that life wasn't easy for the kids as they hit their teen years.

Speaker 46 What's the matter, Levi? Especially for Levi.

Speaker 30 He was struggling in school, acting out.

Speaker 7 With any kid, you know, you have your issues. But

Speaker 69 he wasn't bad.

Speaker 18 And she thought Carl was tough on Levi.

Speaker 7 He wasn't following down Carl's path, but how many of us followed down our parents' path?

Speaker 14 Mike noticed the problems too.

Speaker 34 Carl and Levi didn't seem to have the best relationship.

Speaker 5 No.

Speaker 5 No.

Speaker 5 I think Levi bucked the system a little bit. He was a typical

Speaker 5 teenage boy who knew all the answers.

Speaker 18 The rift widened, and when Levi was only 17, he left home.

Speaker 30 Mike watched it happen with a tinge of sadness.

Speaker 5 Dropped out of school, which didn't help things at all. He jumped and

Speaker 5 didn't look where he was jumping to, and so he didn't have a job. He floated from house to house to different family members.

Speaker 18 Then, in November of 2002, another disaster inflamed the family tensions. Cindy said it happened as Carl got into bed.

Speaker 10 He sat upright and kind of looked out the window and said, you know, oh my God, call 911. The barn's on fire.

Speaker 5 As soon as I left my house, I could see the glow in the sky.

Speaker 22 Another deadly fire.

Speaker 5 Fire trucks are just pulling into the road, down the road, and

Speaker 5 we just stood there and watched it go. Nothing could be done.

Speaker 18 What had happened inside that barn?

Speaker 61 In the fall of 2002, more than 11 years after Christina died in an inferno, the Carlson family was struck again by fire.

Speaker 5 Middle of the night, and Cindy called, and just as soon as I answered the phone, she said the barn's on fire.

Speaker 5 Took off as quick as I could, and as soon as I left my house, I could see the glow in the sky. And as I ran around the side of the barn, a couple of my brothers were there with Carl.

Speaker 5 And fire trucks are just pulling into the road, down the road. And

Speaker 5 we just stood there and watched it go.

Speaker 5 Nothing could be done. It was

Speaker 5 fully engulfed and going down.

Speaker 59 What did Carl say to you when you arrived?

Speaker 5 He mentioned that the horses were still in there.

Speaker 25 Three Belgian draft horses were killed.

Speaker 53 That's tough to hear.

Speaker 59 Horses dying in a fire is pretty tough to take.

Speaker 5 Oh, definitely.

Speaker 34 These were the prized family horses?

Speaker 10 Yeah.

Speaker 10 It's traumatic knowing what, you know,

Speaker 10 those horses were going through. You know, they were locked in that barn.
They couldn't get out.

Speaker 49 And did Carl seem upset?

Speaker 5 Yes and no. I don't think he was overwhelmed with emotion, just, oh, I have one more problem to deal with.
It seemed like within 24 hours, the bulldozers were on site.

Speaker 5 Greydale hauled the horse carcasses away and buried them right away, and the barn was leveled. Within a few days, it was all cleaned up and gone.

Speaker 57 Some family members were upset about the loss of the horses and the old family barn.

Speaker 65 They couldn't ignore the fact that this was the second catastrophic fire involving Carl.

Speaker 34 Did Carl have any explanation as to how this fire could have started?

Speaker 10 He had thought that

Speaker 10 because there was a radio on

Speaker 10 and he thought maybe a spark from the radio had ignited the hay. There was a lot of old hay in there.

Speaker 34 There was an investigation.

Speaker 34 Very short, albeit.

Speaker 10 Very short, yep. And the

Speaker 10 Fire chief had ruled it an accident, you know, pretty much right away.

Speaker 34 So there there wasn't really a reason for you to be suspicious, given that even the fire officials were saying, correct, this was an accident.

Speaker 31 Right.

Speaker 41 But suspicions continued to bubble around Carl and that barn fire.

Speaker 18 Some family members weren't convinced it was an accident.

Speaker 61 Levi was one of them.

Speaker 4 And I had just gotten out of the hospital with a second back surgery.

Speaker 4 And he come home and he made a statement, or my wife told me that Levi was there and made a statement that he thought I burnt the barn down or something like that. So he comes back to the house.

Speaker 39 And it got ugly.

Speaker 18 Their argument that night got so heated, father and son came to blows.

Speaker 10 Levi

Speaker 10 got in his truck to get away from Carl and Carl chased after him.

Speaker 10 I was yelling at Carl, you know, just let him go, you know, leave him alone, let him go.

Speaker 25 And so they did.

Speaker 58 Fully on his own, Levi made a major life decision.

Speaker 18 He got married and soon had two little girls.

Speaker 73 And for a while, things seemed to settle down.

Speaker 10 And, you know, things seemed pretty good for them. But then, you know, they were so young when they got married

Speaker 10 and they just ended up going through

Speaker 10 hard times and decided to get divorced.

Speaker 43 But Coral says they looked out for Levi.

Speaker 4 The kid wasn't going to suffer. We had the babies

Speaker 4 almost every other weekend. So we're still in each other's lives.
He'd come out to the farm, cut firewood.

Speaker 23 And Levi started to grow up.

Speaker 18 He got his GED, got steady work, and tried hard to be a good dad.

Speaker 13 Any old resentments about the past seemed to be fading away.

Speaker 5 I think he had rounded the corner a little bit and

Speaker 5 could see some sort of a path and a direction for his life.

Speaker 4 Got him into the company, and he just flourished. I mean,

Speaker 4 you can work all the overtime he wanted. He had medical insurance.
He's paying now child support. The company was just thrilled with him.
Everything clicked.

Speaker 18 But November 20th, 2008, would change everything.

Speaker 20 Levi came over that day to do work on an old Chevy pickup of Carl's that he kept in the barn.

Speaker 18 Carl and Cindy headed off to a relative's funeral. When they returned home four hours later, Cindy thought it was odd that Levi's vehicle was still parked outside the barn.

Speaker 10 So right then and there, you know, I hit an uneasy feeling that, you know, something wasn't right there.

Speaker 13 Carl went into the barn to check on Levi while Cindy went into the house.

Speaker 30 When suddenly...

Speaker 10 He'd come banging on the window and the door and telling me to call 911. What's going on? The truck's still on my stepson.

Speaker 5 They were just bringing Levi out on the stretcher and putting him in the amulets when I got there.

Speaker 73 Astounding, but true.

Speaker 25 Yet another loss for Carl and his family.

Speaker 10 He was actually like throwing himself up against the wall and he was on the the ground.

Speaker 5 Just trying to grapple with the idea of, wow, this is real.

Speaker 5 My brothers were all standing around with Carl and

Speaker 5 just that numb feeling of now what do we do?

Speaker 8 Is he breathing?

Speaker 9 No.

Speaker 8 He is not breathing.

Speaker 56 Okay. No.

Speaker 73 Carl Carlson had found his son Levi pinned beneath the old pickup truck he'd been working on in the barn.

Speaker 73 His chest is crushed.

Speaker 56 His chest is crushed? No.

Speaker 56 He's probably been under here for hours.

Speaker 73 Carl's brother Mike heard the news and rushed over.

Speaker 5 They were just bringing Levi out on the stretcher and putting him in the ambulance when I got there.

Speaker 18 Levi was taken to the hospital, but the family knew it was hopeless.

Speaker 18 17 years after his mother's terrible death, Levi Carlson died at the age of 23.

Speaker 29 Cindy says Carl came unhinged.

Speaker 10 He was actually like throwing himself up against the wall and he was on the ground.

Speaker 30 Again, there were so many questions.

Speaker 28 Mike wanted to know exactly what happened.

Speaker 5 As we went into the barn to see, the truck was jacked in a very precarious, dangerous scenario. No blocks under it.

Speaker 5 A flimsy little jack holding it up.

Speaker 58 Were you thinking, Levi should have known better than this?

Speaker 27 Absolutely. He knows his way around.

Speaker 64 Absolutely.

Speaker 69 Cars and trucks.

Speaker 5 Here's a young kid,

Speaker 5 my nephew,

Speaker 5 same age as my kids, and now gone.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 5 not knowing any details of what happened, it's just trying to grapple with the idea of, wow, this is real.

Speaker 5 My brothers were all standing around with Carl and

Speaker 5 just that numb feeling of, now what do we do?

Speaker 30 His wife died in a house fire.

Speaker 18 His horses were killed in a barn fire.

Speaker 50 And now his son had been killed in a freak accident.

Speaker 18 So much tragedy surrounding this one man.

Speaker 59 Carl has called himself unlucky.

Speaker 59 Did you see your husband as unlucky?

Speaker 11 I did.

Speaker 10 I did. I felt like it was

Speaker 10 he had

Speaker 10 just one of those guys that had a lot of bad things happen to him.

Speaker 44 But true to form, Carl pulled himself together.

Speaker 10 He had

Speaker 10 read in a magazine article that somebody from New York City was looking for farmers in upstate New York to raise gourmet ducks for restaurants. And

Speaker 10 it was something that he wanted to get into. I felt like it was

Speaker 10 a good thing for him.

Speaker 10 Along the way, somewhere somebody had told him that, you know,

Speaker 10 he could make a lot of money doing it.

Speaker 30 Carl got fired up by this new business and began raising thousands of ducks to sell to New York City restaurants.

Speaker 18 He and Cindy even found themselves starring in an episode of Pitchin' Inn, a Food Network Canada series.

Speaker 13 Carl liked being on TV.

Speaker 10 He did. He liked being in the spotlight.
He liked being recognized. He did.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 34 in your small neck of the woods, that was a big deal.

Speaker 10 It was a big deal, yeah.

Speaker 10 I think he had these visions that he was going to be this famous person, rich and famous.

Speaker 17 Cindy watched her husband's ego swell with all the attention.

Speaker 49 At the same time, she became deeply unhappy and found herself drinking too much.

Speaker 18 So, what changed?

Speaker 34 Why did you start to think things didn't necessarily make perfect sense anymore?

Speaker 9 I'm not sure.

Speaker 10 You know, I can't pinpoint one exact thing.

Speaker 1 Just,

Speaker 10 I just think it was an intuition. You know, and

Speaker 10 I would have these feelings or attacks, you know, every few months.

Speaker 26 She had queasy feelings about the day Levi died and about how he died.

Speaker 77 Was Carl telling the truth about what happened in the barn?

Speaker 10 I was telling myself, it's just you, you know,

Speaker 10 you're being paranoid, you know, and so I would forget about it for a while again.

Speaker 60 It turns out Mike was uneasy about it, too.

Speaker 30 The events of that terrible day kept playing over and over again in his head.

Speaker 44 What did Carl say to you after

Speaker 59 Levi's death?

Speaker 5 Not a lot.

Speaker 5 I went to the hospital.

Speaker 5 And I was in the room with Levi. And Carl came in the room.

Speaker 5 And I don't know what I wanted him to say.

Speaker 5 But he says, how do I explain this?

Speaker 5 And that was it? Not what I was hoping to hear. I don't know really what I wanted to hear.

Speaker 9 But it.

Speaker 5 I didn't see the

Speaker 5 grieving dad that I thought I should have seen, that maybe I wanted to see.

Speaker 18 Mike didn't share his misgivings about Carl with Cindy, but her own fears were growing worse.

Speaker 44 She even started feeling physically ill.

Speaker 10 And, you know, I went to the doctors and,

Speaker 10 you know, we thought, you know,

Speaker 10 treated me with pain medications and everything, trying to make it better.

Speaker 57 But nothing helped, and her smoldering, awful suspicion was evolving into a terrifying conclusion.

Speaker 10 Oh my God, I think he did it.

Speaker 66 Cindy shares her fears with police.

Speaker 18 What were the most useful things she told you?

Speaker 36 About a $700,000 plus insurance policy.

Speaker 32 Then a daring undercover plan.

Speaker 10 I had actually watched an episode of Dateline and I like had this revelation.

Speaker 32 Could Cindy uncover the truth?

Speaker 11 Most holiday gifts end up in a drawer or the back of your closet or accidentally left at your cousin's house. Not this one.
Mint Mobile is offering unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month.

Speaker 11 That's their best deal of the year, aka a holiday gift you'll actually use every single day. Don't get them socks.
Get them premium wireless for $15 a month.

Speaker 11 Shop Mint Unlimited plans at mintmobile.com slash dateline. That's mintmobile.com slash dateline.
Limited time offer. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for 6 months, or $180 for 12 months.

Speaker 11 Plan required. $15 per month equivalent.

Speaker 24 Taxes and fees extra.

Speaker 11 Initial plan term only.

Speaker 11 Greater than 35 gigabytes may slow when the network is busy. Capable device required.
Availability, speed, and coverage vary. See Mintmobile.com.

Speaker 6 The Kia Sportage Turbo Hybrid has a bold design, a spacious interior with 232 horsepower, and a 12.3-inch panoramic display to keep the adventure going and fit with the way you live.

Speaker 6 And with SiriusXM, every drive comes alive, bringing you closer to the music, sports, talk, and podcasts you love, right in your vehicle or on the Sirius XM app.

Speaker 6 Every Sirius XM-equipped Kia Sportage Turbo Hybrid includes a three-month trial subscription to SiriusXM, so the experience begins the moment you drive.

Speaker 6 Learn more at kia.com/slash sportage-hybrid, Kia, movement that inspires.

Speaker 6 If you're a custodial supervisor at a local high school, you know that cleanliness is key and that the best place to get cleaning supplies is from Granger.

Speaker 6 Granger helps you stay fully stocked on the products you trust, from paper towels and disinfectants to floor scrubbers.

Speaker 6 Plus, you can rely on Granger for easy reordering so you never run out of what you need. Call 1-800GRANGER, clickgranger.com, or just stop by.
Granger for the ones who get it done.

Speaker 44 By the fall of 2011, three years had passed since Levi's death.

Speaker 41 As Cindy grew apart from Carl, she kept looking back on the events of the day Levi died and wondered, what really happened in that barn?

Speaker 10 Again, these thoughts kept coming up. kept sinking more into a depression.

Speaker 18 Cindy confided in friends.

Speaker 37 They suggested she call a private investigator.

Speaker 18 That's how she met Steve Brown.

Speaker 12 She walked in the door and she looked very frail, physically, emotionally, just

Speaker 12 sickly weak. Cindy proceeded to tell me what happened that day in 2008.

Speaker 17 And she mentioned something about that day that had always nagged at her.

Speaker 12 Carl said he wanted to check on Levi before they left.

Speaker 29 Carl was alone in the barn with Levi for a few minutes.

Speaker 60 Cindy wondered if he had pushed the truck onto his own son.

Speaker 78 How could that be?

Speaker 12 How could somebody do something like that?

Speaker 58 No one wants to believe they could marry a murderer.

Speaker 9 Right.

Speaker 18 But then Cindy told him another thing that made her wonder if Carl had reason to kill Levi.

Speaker 65 It turns out Carl got a substantial insurance payout on Levi's life.

Speaker 12 She had later found out that Carl was the beneficiary of the policy, not the girls.

Speaker 12 So that really concerned her.

Speaker 24 The policy was for a hefty $400,000.

Speaker 18 What's more, there was an additional $300,000 payment because Levi's death occurred by accident. Brown wanted to talk to Carl without revealing that he was working for his wife.

Speaker 12 I said, well, what if I kind of go undercover and befriend Carl, if you will,

Speaker 12 as a marketer, a promoter for your duck business.

Speaker 53 Cindy thought it might work.

Speaker 12 She arranged the meeting. I came to the farm and sat down at their kitchen table, introduced myself, and

Speaker 12 essentially I just said, you know, tell me about your duck business. And Carl started telling his vision, his dream for the duck business, if you will.

Speaker 34 And he bought it, hook, line, and sinker?

Speaker 10 Yep, he did.

Speaker 34 He did. No clue this was a private investigator.

Speaker 10 Correct, right.

Speaker 30 Steve Brown began spending time with Carl.

Speaker 18 One day, Carl showed him his new electric knife for killing ducks.

Speaker 12 He said, I like the old-fashioned way. And he came up behind me and lifted my neck up and went like this with his hand.
He said, messy, very physical.

Speaker 12 The look in his eye when he tilted my head back, you know, I kind of stepped away and looked at him and said, we're talking about ducks here and chickens, aren't we?

Speaker 12 And you just sense just coldness and emptiness.

Speaker 44 Steve went back and forth about whether he had enough to show police.

Speaker 18 But in February of 2012, the choice was taken out of his hands.

Speaker 49 One of the people Cindy had confided in called Detective John Clear of the Seneca County Sheriff's Office, and he called Cindy.

Speaker 11 How did that go?

Speaker 36 The first thing she said was, thank God you called.

Speaker 18 What were the most useful things she told you?

Speaker 36 The most useful piece of information

Speaker 36 was about a $700,000 plus insurance policy that was paid out on Levi Carlson.

Speaker 18 Detective Clear learned that Carl actually helped Levi sign up for the policy.

Speaker 36 17 days later, the fatal accident happens.

Speaker 18 Carl says he told Levi that if something happened, he would hang on to the money for Levi's daughters.

Speaker 41 Detective Clear learned the girls never got a dime.

Speaker 43 After the death, Carl went on to really spend a lot of money.

Speaker 79 Oh, yes, yes.

Speaker 34 The insurance money.

Speaker 49 What were they spending the money on?

Speaker 36 There was money spent on a lot, a whole multitude of things, home improvement, vehicles.

Speaker 36 A lot of investments were taken out. Carl spent a lot of money on the duck business.
There were some huge payouts on that.

Speaker 18 As he dug deeper, Detective Clear realized Carl Carlson had collected on a number of insurance policies over the years.

Speaker 37 In 1986, Carl's new Dodge Charger caught fire.

Speaker 44 He collected $10,000.

Speaker 18 The fire that killed the horses and took down the barn paid out nearly $115,000.

Speaker 34 A lot of insurance payouts for one man.

Speaker 36 Yes, most people don't have that many tragedies in their life.

Speaker 53 And there was more.

Speaker 36 There was life insurance on both of Levi's daughters.

Speaker 41 If Cindy died, Carl would gain even more money because they shared assets.

Speaker 44 Cindy decided she had to get away from him.

Speaker 10 I was scared that he found out what was going on, and I just decided I couldn't do it anymore. So I ended up calling Alex.

Speaker 18 Her son was over at her friend's house.

Speaker 75 She came and got me, and I came out to the car, and I saw that she had packed all of our suitcases, and our dogs were in the car. And she had told me that there was an investigation going on

Speaker 75 because they thought my dad had killed my brother.

Speaker 18 They started living in hotels. Cindy dodged Carl's calls and so did Alex.

Speaker 25 She knew police were investigating, but it seemed to be taking so long.

Speaker 18 So Cindy decided to do something a little more proactive and very risky.

Speaker 10 I had

Speaker 10 actually watched an episode of Dateline

Speaker 10 where this woman was recording her mother and I like had this revelation and I said, you know, I'm going to start recording conversations with Carl.

Speaker 10 I thought if I could just get him to confess about the barn fire, that that would show his character.

Speaker 21 It was a bold move, maybe a crazy one, but Cindy was ready to take the risk.

Speaker 34 You had undercover officers.

Speaker 21 We had four in there.

Speaker 34 This is a potentially dangerous situation you're walking into.

Speaker 10 I had to convince them that it wasn't a trap.

Speaker 61 Can Cindy wring a confession out of Carl?

Speaker 26 Can the police?

Speaker 56 You don't kill your son. You don't kill anybody for money.
Listen, who's saying anything about money?

Speaker 18 Cindy Carlson had a plan. She decided to secretly record a conversation with her estranged husband, Carl, wearing a small voice recorder tucked under her bra.

Speaker 18 She was hoping she could get him to confess to burning down the family barn and killing all their horses.

Speaker 10 And

Speaker 10 I just started telling him that I was considering getting back together with him, but that I couldn't even consider it unless he started telling me the truth of things that he did.

Speaker 10 during our marriage that he lied about. And he

Speaker 10 said to me, me it sounds like you want me to say that i had something to do with levi's death

Speaker 10 well at that moment i knew that we skipped right over the barn fire i might be able to get him to confess about levi

Speaker 10 she asked him what happened inside the barn the day levi died you know i just kept talking to him and at one point he got to the

Speaker 10 where he said that the truck was jacked up. I know I had asked him, so did you push the truck or was it hard to push? And he said, no, it wasn't.

Speaker 57 Was that a confession?

Speaker 18 Cindy felt like it was.

Speaker 42 She took the recording to the police, but it was inaudible.

Speaker 41 Still, Detective Clear was intrigued and asked her to do it again.

Speaker 36 At our request, she agreed to be wired up to do a second interview under controlled circumstances.

Speaker 40 So Cindy put on the wire and went to meet Carl.

Speaker 34 This is a potentially dangerous situation you're walking into.

Speaker 53 Are you scared?

Speaker 10 I was actually calm because I knew that Carl believed

Speaker 10 my story of wanting to get back together.

Speaker 23 Abigail's restaurant near Seneca Falls would be the meeting place.

Speaker 25 It was mid-November 2012.

Speaker 34 You had undercover officers in the restaurant?

Speaker 36 We had four in there.

Speaker 34 Were they diners?

Speaker 24 Were they waiters?

Speaker 21 Diners.

Speaker 44 The detectives needed Cindy to get Carl to repeat what she said was his confession to Levi's murder.

Speaker 61 But when she started grilling him again, Carl became suspicious.

Speaker 48 Part of me feels like I'm walking into a

Speaker 81 booby trap.

Speaker 81 Yeah, I can imagine you would feel that way.

Speaker 10 I had to convince him that, you know, it wasn't a trap. I offered for him to check my purse.

Speaker 49 It worked, and she got him back on the subject of that day in 2008.

Speaker 81 I asked you if you pushed the truck and you said yes. No, I didn't push the truck.

Speaker 81 I said I had nothing to do, but I said I took advantage of the situation once it happened.

Speaker 81 And that is exactly what it is.

Speaker 81 Carl, you told me that

Speaker 81 you didn't set it up that way, but when you were in there, you saw the opportunity.

Speaker 81 No, after it had happened, then I panicked and saw the opportunity.

Speaker 49 This exchange crystallized John Clear's suspicions about Carl Carlson.

Speaker 36 I felt I understood him to a degree. This is someone who doesn't think like we do.

Speaker 25 They still had no confession, but detectives believed they had enough to bring him in for questioning.

Speaker 56 Go ahead, MC Carl.

Speaker 53 It was the moment of truth.

Speaker 25 If Carl Carlson refused to speak, or if he called in a lawyer, the case could evaporate.

Speaker 31 But Carlson wanted to talk.

Speaker 56 You know, you work, I mean, I work multiple jobs and stuff like that. And

Speaker 56 I mean, I did. I worked my ass off.

Speaker 36 I mean, we were talking about his favorite subject him

Speaker 30 police quickly steered Carl to Levi's death he repeated what he told police in 2008 he found Levi dead after returning home from the funeral went out there and found him

Speaker 56 and

Speaker 56 back you know then we went to the hospital what do you mean you found him I found him dead

Speaker 17 the truck was on him But then Carl let something slip.

Speaker 57 A possible motive.

Speaker 56 You don't kill your son. You don't kill anybody for money.
Listen, who said anything about money?

Speaker 79 What are you talking about?

Speaker 20 The detectives knew they were on the right track.

Speaker 36 There's not a conscience to play to. There's not empathy to play to.

Speaker 36 What do we play to? What does he have? Well, he has an ego, and it's a big one. So that's the strategy that we shifted to, which is I gave him a lot of sympathy and a lot of attention.

Speaker 56 We knew that you were in the Air Force. Yeah.
And we know that you were... What does that have to do with that? Because I respect you for that.
Are you proud of the time you spent there? Oh, I am.

Speaker 56 You should be. You should be proud of that.
And I know that when you were in there, like anybody that does military training, you probably were trained to make life and death decisions. Right.

Speaker 56 I think you just made one when it came to Levi. I think there was a problem and you did what you were trained, what you were programmed to do.
No,

Speaker 56 I wasn't. I don't agree with that.
I don't.

Speaker 18 As the conversation wore on, New York State Police Investigator Jeff Arnold took a different approach and turned up the heat,

Speaker 29 taking Carl back to that moment in the barn.

Speaker 9 Exactly.

Speaker 56 You don't give him help, you let him be crushed under there, and you get in that car and you drive. And you know, you're unemotional.

Speaker 56 Driving along four and a half hours, and you come back and you say, Again, it's showtime for Carl to put on my show. My miraculously, I'm a liar, show.

Speaker 56 And you will run back in the house and go, Oh my god, Sydney, hurry, call 9-1.

Speaker 11 Carl denied it all,

Speaker 60 pushing his buttons wasn't working.

Speaker 18 So clear, dialed it back again.

Speaker 56 You want to give me a chance to help you or not?

Speaker 56 I can't tell you what didn't happen, sir, and I mean it. I don't want you to.

Speaker 18 He listened as Carl talked about injuries he had suffered, botched surgeries, the pain meds he needed.

Speaker 56 Help yourself. I'm really going to get sick soon, okay? And I don't mean to change the subject, sir.
I really don't.

Speaker 49 As the hours ticked by, Clear coaxed and prodded, and Carl Carlson's story began to change.

Speaker 36 Version 2 came out where he admitted that

Speaker 36 Levi was already dead before they left to go to the funeral.

Speaker 56 I made a decision to walk out on my son and not get him up from underneath the truck. Why?

Speaker 26 I panicked.

Speaker 36 Now at that point, there's no doubt in my mind what happened here.

Speaker 22 Then Carlson finally broke.

Speaker 61 He admitted he didn't just find Levi under the truck.

Speaker 53 He saw the truck fall.

Speaker 43 And he may have even caused it to fall.

Speaker 56 I opened the truck door because I had to get inside to move the linkage for the

Speaker 56 truck.

Speaker 56 And when I did, it tipped and it just

Speaker 9 fell over.

Speaker 56 The brutal truth is, you did kill him.

Speaker 56 Whether whatever your intent was,

Speaker 56 the action you took caused the truck to fall on him. The action of

Speaker 56 that. And then the inaction of leaving them there.
Right. Okay.
Attributed or

Speaker 56 Yeah. Well, come with me.
You're under arrest.

Speaker 56 I think you knew that was coming.

Speaker 18 Police charged Carl Carlson with second-degree murder.

Speaker 49 Mike Carlson certainly had his suspicions, but he was heartsick when he actually got the news.

Speaker 5 I would never think anybody could do that to a son.

Speaker 9 I mean, I couldn't.

Speaker 5 see how anybody could do it to a perfect stranger or a wild animal.

Speaker 18 And in fact, Carl had second thoughts about that confession.

Speaker 71 Months later, at his arraignment, he pleaded not guilty.

Speaker 60 The state would have to prove their case against him in court.

Speaker 7 Nobody should have to go through what our family has gone through.

Speaker 41 Not once, but twice.

Speaker 32 Soon, there'd be more than just one case against Carl Carlson.

Speaker 82 We've been waiting just about 24 years now for some closure.

Speaker 49 A year passed in Seneca County, New York.

Speaker 43 Carl Carlson, still in pain, he said, hobbled into hearings as his attorney filed motions to suppress evidence, testimony, and that police interview.

Speaker 18 Most of them failed.

Speaker 19 And then, on November 6, 2013, one day before his trial was set to begin, a surprise that no one saw coming.

Speaker 83 Carl Carlson pled guilty to murder in the second degree in Seneca County Court,

Speaker 83 taking responsibility for the death of his son Levi.

Speaker 79 It's called depraved indifference murder.

Speaker 18 In exchange for that plea, Seneca County DA Barry Porsche said Carlson would be given the minimum sentence, 15 years to life.

Speaker 14 The plea was a relief for Mike Carlson, who attended every hearing that year and came away convinced his brother was guilty.

Speaker 5 The acts of betrayal on multiple levels.

Speaker 5 Betraying your family, your son, your community. It was all about Carl, a sociopath that needed to be the center of attention.

Speaker 20 Even as the family mourned Levi's death, they saw Carl's conviction as an opportunity to reopen the investigation into the awful tragedy from decades earlier.

Speaker 17 The death of Christina Carlson.

Speaker 11 My mother.

Speaker 57 Daughter Erin spoke for the family.

Speaker 82 We've been waiting just just about 24 years now for some closure, for things that transpired in California.

Speaker 82 You know, things that I will never be able to forget, things that my family will never be able to overcome.

Speaker 79 Say one more thing.

Speaker 30 The Seneca County Sheriff echoed Aaron's words.

Speaker 83 I throw a challenge out to California.

Speaker 83 You've been sitting back waiting to see what's happened here. Well, now it's happened.
Now it's your turn.

Speaker 18 Colette had no doubt that a serious investigation into her sister's death was long overdue.

Speaker 7 I am glad that he pled guilty, but I am not settled at all with where I am. Him pleading guilty only solidifies my beliefs that he killed my sister.

Speaker 34 How would you sum up your life since 1991 and the roller coaster you've been on?

Speaker 7 I would say that I feel like I have been living what most people watch on TV. Nobody should have to go through what our family has gone through, not once, but twice.

Speaker 79 Just imagine what Christina went through and that last, those final moments of her life,

Speaker 51 screaming for help.

Speaker 69 It turns out that while he was working on Levi's case, investigator Jeff Arnold also focused on Christina's.

Speaker 59 Why did you take such an interest in Christina's death when you're here in New York State?

Speaker 79 It became personal to me because she's just a great human being who had everything to look forward in life.

Speaker 18 Arnold reached out to investigators in California.

Speaker 44 Once they heard what he had to say about Levi, they decided to reopen the case into his mother's death.

Speaker 18 Arnold stayed on the case too.

Speaker 79 I don't think any of us is this team of investigators out here in New York have ever seen a case like this before. I know personally I have not.

Speaker 22 Arnold spoke to Carl Kent, one of the original California investigators who had retired by this time.

Speaker 45 I knew it was coming. Someday.
You know, I didn't know when.

Speaker 49 Remember, back in 1991, Kent's bosses told him not to pursue the case.

Speaker 18 To the new investigators, he looked like a good source.

Speaker 45 So they contacted me to see if I had any recollection of the fire, and I told them, yes, I did.

Speaker 45 It was a fire that I felt was very suspicious.

Speaker 18 So suspicious that when he left the California Department of Forestry for the last time, he did something unusual.

Speaker 45 I had

Speaker 45 taken

Speaker 45 two boxes of transcriptions and tapes

Speaker 45 and put them in my basement in my house for the mere fact that I thought someday

Speaker 45 somebody, whether it's the kids or somebody else, will come forward with some information and it might be able to open the case again.

Speaker 49 Good thing, too, because all the other evidence had been tossed.

Speaker 45 Yeah, anything that was left

Speaker 45 in the evidence room was

Speaker 45 just purged, gone. It wasn't there anymore.

Speaker 18 So California investigators examined the evidence in Kent's boxes.

Speaker 44 They talked to surviving witnesses and family members who had doubts about Carl's story, and they reviewed Levi's case.

Speaker 39 In light of all that, the Calaveras County DA charged Carl Carlson with first-degree murder in August 2014.

Speaker 25 But Colette knew there was still a long way to go.

Speaker 7 We need closure. We need to know that this man will be put away for the rest of his life.

Speaker 18 Collette made sure prosecutors kept their foot on the gas. When Carlson's extradition from New York seemed to stall, she made phone calls, wrote letters, and used her Facebook page.

Speaker 4 The process was horrible.

Speaker 7 You know, we were set back time and time and time again, and it just seemed like every obstacle that could possibly get in front of us was placed in front of us.

Speaker 18 In 2016, Carl Carlson was finally extradited to Calaveras County, California.

Speaker 70 He sat there for four more years until his trial began began in January of 2020.

Speaker 69 Jeff Arnold had pushed hard on this case.

Speaker 61 So when the trial got underway, he headed for California.

Speaker 3 Carl Carlson should have been held accountable in 1991, and Levi would still be alive.

Speaker 3 But he wasn't held accountable then. Let's make sure he's held accountable now.

Speaker 61 Three decades after his wife Christina died barricaded in a bathroom, Carl would face a jury of his peers.

Speaker 19 But was it too late?

Speaker 16 Christina

Speaker 64 took her last breath, trapped in this coffin.

Speaker 55 Carl Carlson on trial.

Speaker 18 Prosecutors come on strong.

Speaker 86 Their main strategy is to just paint this picture of Carl Carlson because in a way, he's the only physical evidence that's even left of this fire.

Speaker 6 Hi, I'm Jenny Slate.

Speaker 80 And believe it or not, someone is allowing us to have a podcast.

Speaker 11 I'm Gabe Weedman.

Speaker 78 I'm Max Silvestri. And we've been friends for 20 years.
And we like to reach out to kind of get advice on how to live our lives.

Speaker 87 It's called I Need You Guys.

Speaker 78 Should I give my baby fresh vegetables?

Speaker 80 Can I drink the water at the hospital?

Speaker 87 My landlord plays the trombone, and I can't ask him to stop.

Speaker 57 You should make sure that you subscribe so that you never miss an episode.

Speaker 9 I need you, girl.

Speaker 88 If you're an experienced pet owner, you already know that having a pet is 25% belly rubs, 25% yelling, drop it, and 50% groaning at the bill from every vet visit.

Speaker 88 Which is why Lemonade Pet Insurance is tailor-made for your pet and can save you up to 90% on vet bills.

Speaker 88 It can help cover checkups, emergencies, diagnostics, basically all the stuff that makes your bank account nervous. Claims are filed super easy through the Lemonade app and half get settled instantly.

Speaker 88 Get a quote at lemonade.com/slash pet, and they'll help cover the vet bill for whatever your pet swallowed after you y'all drop it.

Speaker 89 Why are more women than ever choosing Natural Cycles? The hormone-free, side-effect-free way to take control of your fertility?

Speaker 89 Natural Cycles is a birth control app that uses your temperature to find your fertile window. It is more than a basic cycle tracking app.

Speaker 89 Natural Cycles is the only FDA-cleared and CE-marked birth control app and has helped millions prevent and plan for pregnancy naturally. Save 15% when you sign up today with code RADIO15.

Speaker 89 Learn more more at naturalcycles.com.

Speaker 18 It was the strangest of family reunions.

Speaker 77 29 years after Christina Carlson's death, her family, including her mother Arlene, gathered in Northern California for the trial of Carl Carlson.

Speaker 49 For Sister Colette, this was a long time coming.

Speaker 7 You know, the day that the jury selection actually began was the day we finally believed that this trial was going to happen.

Speaker 18 The jury saw the video shot by Christina's cousins, and District Attorney Barbara Yook painted a harrowing picture of Christina's last moments in that bathroom, with fire raging outside the door and the only window boarded up.

Speaker 85 I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, that the defendant built Christina a coffin and trapped her in there.

Speaker 74 She was trapped alone,

Speaker 48 naked,

Speaker 74 holding a wash rag, clutching a wash rag to her face,

Speaker 82 trapped with only the panic and sheer terror of a mother who cannot reach her children.

Speaker 47 According to the prosecution, Carl Carlson set the fire to kill his wife and then walked away with hardly a tear.

Speaker 68 And 17 years later, he killed again.

Speaker 86 The prosecution has leaned really heavily into Carlson's prior conviction and Levi's death.

Speaker 18 Dakota Moreland covered the Carlson case as a reporter for the Calaveras Enterprise. We spoke to her mid-trial.

Speaker 86 I'm not sure if they could convict him as easily without that, or at all.

Speaker 17 That's why the prosecution flew New York detective John Clear out to California to make the case that Carl killed Christina for the same reason he killed Levi.

Speaker 36 It's not unusual when you're building what we call a pattern case to use subsequent acts and prior acts.

Speaker 36 But if you can show a clear pattern that is way well beyond the boundaries of chance or pure circumstance, it can help build a case.

Speaker 50 Clear testified about Carl's confession, and he added an additional detail.

Speaker 36 During his allocution in court, he actually admits that his son was still alive when he left to go to this funeral, and that he knew that by leaving him there, it would result in his death.

Speaker 54 The message was clear.

Speaker 17 Carlson was capable of anything.

Speaker 71 Following repeated objections from the defense, the prosecution played most of the New York interrogation and it turned out that much of it was about the California case.

Speaker 56 Tom was telling me

Speaker 56 about a fire with your first wife that concerned him.

Speaker 26 The jury watched as Jeff Arnold asked Carlson about the boarded-up bathroom window.

Speaker 56 So when did you boarded that up weeks a day before the fire? No, it was months, months before. Months before, months before.

Speaker 49 But Colette, who saw Christina just before Christmas, testified that Carl must have nailed that board up only days before the fire.

Speaker 7 It was not boarded up when I was there.

Speaker 25 Carlson also told Arnold he suffered awful injuries as he broke windows to rescue his children, and that the fire was so intense he couldn't save Christina.

Speaker 56 What happened is when the wind, when I broke the window,

Speaker 56 I got hit with a fireball. It took Mary in the face.

Speaker 56 Blew me off the front porch, burned my eyelids together, burned the skin off my face, burned my mustache.

Speaker 22 Jurors watched as Arnold finally unloaded.

Speaker 56 Your wife's in a boarded-up little room and you hear her calling your name from 600 people. It wasn't calling.
It was screaming. Screaming your name.
And yet, you're able to get blown off the porch.

Speaker 56 Open your eyes, your son's uninjured, you're able to grab your uninjured son out where this explosion just took place.

Speaker 56 Without a mark on him, take him out of the house, run around, miraculously save your two daughters, and let your wife

Speaker 56 let your wife perish in this fire.

Speaker 56 With no attempt to rip that board off, that five-wood board off that house and get into that bathroom and help. I went around.
By that time, the fire was all the way around. What am I going to do?

Speaker 48 I don't recall any

Speaker 5 treatable injuries.

Speaker 57 Pam Geet, the paramedic, told the jury Carlson didn't look like someone who had been hit with a fireball.

Speaker 48 He may have had some small abrasions and very minor burns, but nothing that required any immediate treatment. He seemed incredibly calm

Speaker 48 given the circumstances that

Speaker 48 I thought that

Speaker 64 it was a little odd.

Speaker 61 A number of witnesses testified to the same thing, that Carl seemed oddly uninjured and unconcerned. There were even gasps in the courtroom when Colette told the jury a story from that terrible day.

Speaker 71 It was something she told us a few years ago.

Speaker 7 I was standing in the back hall with Carl, and I said, I want to see my sister. And he goes, you can't.
And I said, well, why not?

Speaker 7 And he looked me square in the eye and he said, your sister's a crispy critter.

Speaker 7 Which was shocking to me, to say the least, just with a straight face.

Speaker 43 The prosecution talked a lot about Carl's alleged callousness.

Speaker 71 His family members testified they were troubled that he was up for a sightseeing trip right after his wife was killed.

Speaker 85 They went up to what sounds like Big Trees Park. Do you remember they talked about the big trees and the stump?

Speaker 85 And after sightseeing, the defendant said he wanted to go home.

Speaker 37 He wanted to go to New York.

Speaker 86 I think that their main strategy is to just paint this picture of Carl Carlson because in a way he's the only physical evidence that's even left of this fire.

Speaker 86 He, you know, this is very much a trial of personality in a lot of ways.

Speaker 26 The prosecution also put some of the original investigators on the stand, including Ken Busky, a forensic electrical engineer who specializes in fire causes and origin.

Speaker 91 I was called by a representative of the insurance company, and they wanted me to look at a trouble light, which was

Speaker 63 what they thought was a key piece of evidence from the case.

Speaker 68 Busky says he went to the scene five weeks after the fire and says he couldn't find a likely ignition source.

Speaker 91 The house wiring didn't start it, the washer didn't start it, the dryer didn't start it, the water heater didn't start it, the kerosene heater didn't start it, and the trouble light didn't start it because it wasn't on.

Speaker 21 So Busky took a look at the kerosene stain.

Speaker 18 Pets may have knocked over a container of kerosene the day before the fire, but he saw evidence of a second spill that looked deliberate.

Speaker 91 There was a very distinct pour of what also appeared to be kerosene in a kind of a horseshoe, a U-shape, going across the bathroom door and then around to the other side toward the laundry room.

Speaker 62 He testified that it looked like someone had poured that kerosene and then lit it.

Speaker 91 The edges were very distinct.

Speaker 18 He told the insurance company about his findings and agents looked into it. But the company ultimately decided to pay the life insurance claim.

Speaker 24 $200,000.

Speaker 71 And that's where the alleged motive came in, as district attorney Barbara Yook reminded the jury.

Speaker 84 On December 12th,

Speaker 84 you got the life insurance.

Speaker 82 Life insurance on his wife for $200,000.

Speaker 44 Just three weeks after Carl took out that policy, Christina was dead.

Speaker 40 This was his plan, the DA said.

Speaker 57 This was Carlson's deadly MO.

Speaker 85 It is time to tell the defendant that life is more important than money.

Speaker 85 It is time to tell him that his family members are not a means to an end.

Speaker 84 I ask that you find the defendant guilty as charged.

Speaker 44 But Carl Carlson's defense was ready to punch back, and they would have a theme.

Speaker 30 Where's the evidence?

Speaker 4 What's a grieving husband supposed to do?

Speaker 37 Upset, crying.

Speaker 41 I did.

Speaker 53 And it's all on record.

Speaker 42 The fight is on.

Speaker 91 They had 28 years to put a case together.

Speaker 36 And this is what they've come up with.

Speaker 61 For more than a week, prosecutors had painted Carl Carlson as a cunning killer who deliberately started the fire that killed his wife.

Speaker 18 But now it was the defense's turn to fight back. Carl's attorneys, Lee Fleming and Richard Eskevelt, argued the prosecution's whole case was old.

Speaker 91 They had 28 years to put a case together.

Speaker 36 And this is what they've come up with.

Speaker 49 If anything, they said the case had eroded over time as evidence was thrown out and witnesses struggled with fading memories.

Speaker 36 The same evidence that they rejected in 1991 is what they presented you with today.

Speaker 36 And it wasn't good enough then. It's not nearly good enough now.

Speaker 18 Then they attacked Ken Busky, reminding jurors that he didn't work for any law enforcement agency, but for an insurance company.

Speaker 18 And they said he didn't even begin investigating until the evidence had literally grown cold.

Speaker 86 He didn't go to the scene until five weeks later after the whole house was overhauled.

Speaker 10 Things were taken out.

Speaker 86 It was an unsecured area.

Speaker 36 When he got there, it was largely cleaned out.

Speaker 18 Remember that video Christina's cousins took of the burned down home? Well, they took a second one later on.

Speaker 22 Here's what the house looked like on their original video.

Speaker 77 And here's how it appeared later after being cleared out.

Speaker 17 The timeline is murky, but the defense claims Busky got there after the site was overhauled. This is the bathroom where Christina died.

Speaker 18 Here it is just after the fire, and here again later on.

Speaker 86 The bathtub that she was found in has been cleaned out of debris. There are items left there like gloves and things that weren't there before.

Speaker 86 You know, when the defense argues that it's a contaminated crime scene, I think that's a pretty good argument, to be honest.

Speaker 18 Not only that, but since most of the evidence Busky used in his investigation had been thrown out, they had no way of double-checking his work.

Speaker 36 The items that he tested, along with all the photographs that he took, were given back to his employer, and they were destroyed, is what I understand.

Speaker 59 So there was a lot of what you didn't have in this case that could help you.

Speaker 86 Yeah, we didn't have any of the evidence that Mr. Buskie had to render his opinion.

Speaker 4 They reminded jurors that despite Buskie's findings, the insurance company paid Carl this pristine report that he prepared that told them everything they needed to know and why

Speaker 7 Mr. Carlson started that fire.

Speaker 36 And they said,

Speaker 12 no,

Speaker 36 we reject your report and we're paying the claim.

Speaker 18 With no hard evidence connecting Carl to the fire, the defense argued the case was completely circumstantial.

Speaker 68 Like the life insurance policy Carl took out on Christina, Carl told me the same thing his attorney said in court, that accidents do happen, even when insurance is involved.

Speaker 68 Do you think the timing looks suspicious that you got this insurance policy just a few weeks before she died?

Speaker 4 We can say it looks suspicious, but it was stated in court that this isn't an uncommon thing to happen.

Speaker 34 What's not uncommon to get an insurance policy and then someone dies a few weeks later?

Speaker 4 Or a car accident? Yes.

Speaker 68 Carl says he did try to rescue Christina after he got the kids out.

Speaker 4 I tried saving her by getting the board off the window. Maybe she could get to the window and jump out, which it's only seven feet or whatever to hit the ground.

Speaker 4 The fire and the smoke pushed me back because I don't have equipment to fight that.

Speaker 18 As for the allegations that Carl seemed cold and unemotional after Christina died, he says he was upset and showed it.

Speaker 4 What's a grieving husband supposed to do?

Speaker 37 Upset, crying.

Speaker 9 I did, and it's all on record.

Speaker 4 It's stated in there. Carl was covered in smoke, Carl was crying, and all that.

Speaker 49 Carl said the people who saw him crying have since died. So jurors never heard their testimony.

Speaker 69 Carl didn't testify either.

Speaker 18 So jurors heard from him by watching nearly nine hours of that police interrogation where Carl talked about his son Levi's death.

Speaker 56 I just knew that in my head that all I could do is run.

Speaker 27 How do you think that damaged your defense specifically by being allowed to see this extra stuff?

Speaker 34 I think it was highly prejudicial.

Speaker 36 I think the issue was that you heard Carl,

Speaker 36 who is a talker, he does like to talk, but

Speaker 36 you heard him talking about so many different things that were not relevant to this case, and yet, depending on how you took what he was saying, they could hold it against him.

Speaker 56 I opened the trap door.

Speaker 56 Okay.

Speaker 56 When they did it,

Speaker 44 was your biggest concern that the jury will see what he was accused of doing back in New York? And so, hey, why wouldn't he do this too?

Speaker 9 Absolutely.

Speaker 36 That was the DA's plan the entire time. That was their

Speaker 36 route they took was to try and show that because this occurred in New York, it means that he did what they accused him of doing back in 1991.

Speaker 18 The defense told jurors they couldn't draw any conclusions based on Carl's guilty plea and Levi's death.

Speaker 36 Does Carl Carlson deserve a fair trial?

Speaker 5 Now,

Speaker 50 some people would say,

Speaker 4 well, he admitted to killing his son in New York.

Speaker 36 He doesn't deserve a fair trial.

Speaker 67 And to that, I'd say, if you believe that today,

Speaker 36 based just on that fact, you have an obligation to let the court know that you can't be fair.

Speaker 71 Now, it was up to the jurors.

Speaker 55 A verdict from the jury and tough questions for Carl Carlson.

Speaker 34 You've had two deaths with two life insurance payouts.

Speaker 16 Bad luck that they died.

Speaker 19 Coincidence that you.

Speaker 14 What would you call it?

Speaker 16 I want to hear what you have to call it.

Speaker 18 My interview with Carl Carlson took place near the end of his trial at the Calaveras County Jail, where he'd been held for almost four years.

Speaker 42 He had declined to take the stand, but it turned out he wanted to talk to us about everything, including the death of his son Levi.

Speaker 18 And what he said surprised us: that the whole tearful confession about leaving his son to die underneath a truck was a lie.

Speaker 56 I let him down, I walked away, and I lived with that for four years.

Speaker 47 In a complete turnaround, Carl now says he didn't kill Levi after all, despite his confession to investigators and his guilty plea in court.

Speaker 4 I know I didn't do it and I can prove it.

Speaker 34 Did you walk away from your son getting crushed by the truck?

Speaker 4 No, Levi was alive when I left.

Speaker 15 So you're complete, you're saying that you are completely 100% innocent.

Speaker 16 This is yes.

Speaker 18 Carl says when he left the farm that day, Levi was fine, busy working on the truck in the barn.

Speaker 32 But when he returned...

Speaker 52 So you walk into the barn, you're saying, and you realize that your son...

Speaker 4 He's crushed underneath the truck. And I reached down and grabbed him by the ankle because I could, you know, to touch his actual skin.
And I knew he was dead.

Speaker 18 The reason he told police he did it, he says, was because he was exhausted and in desperate need of pain medication he was using after surgery.

Speaker 4 During the nine and a half hour interrogation, I asked 35 times, please let me have my medicine.

Speaker 56 Man, I got to get my medicine. I haven't had my medicine other than than early this morning.
Can we really get my medicine, please?

Speaker 4 And they said, oh, you don't need them because they'll make you dizzy and fuzzy.

Speaker 4 They're the trained experts. So they can do that.

Speaker 14 So you're saying you admitted to leaving your son to die because you were off your medication?

Speaker 4 Yes. And because you're getting pulverized for nine and a half hours, until you're in those shoes, lady, you have no idea.

Speaker 18 But during the interrogation, detectives repeatedly offered to get Carl a lawyer or let him leave leave altogether.

Speaker 56 You do know you're free. I don't want you to know.

Speaker 56 I'm not going to let you go. They've told me, you know,

Speaker 56 rights. They've said, look, if you want a lawyer, we can stop.

Speaker 56 So you know that if you want a lawyer, you can go a lawyer.

Speaker 30 Instead, he stayed and kept talking.

Speaker 34 I think any dad who's watching will say, no way am I admitting.

Speaker 31 to that when it involves my own son.

Speaker 4 Here's a catch. Until you're on that hot seat, that you're looking at life in prison, how many cases have you done where pleas have been found to be untrue? A lot.

Speaker 11 A lot.

Speaker 4 Because they put you in a position where if you don't take it, you're going away forever.

Speaker 49 What do you say to anyone who's watching this who thinks this is just a bunch of people?

Speaker 11 Don't believe what comes out of

Speaker 11 it.

Speaker 4 Don't believe what comes out of my mouth. Believe what I can prove you on government documents.

Speaker 49 This is the document he's talking about, the death certificate.

Speaker 57 It says Levi died at approximately 3 p.m., about three hours after Carl left the house.

Speaker 60 Carl says it's proof he's innocent.

Speaker 49 Detective John Clear has his own take on it.

Speaker 36 The bottom line is those time of deaths are an educated guess at best. There was no autopsy.
There was no scientific testing done to determine

Speaker 36 an actual time. of death.

Speaker 18 He says it's just another ploy Carl's using to make himself seem like the innocent victim in a string of tragedies.

Speaker 34 Okay.

Speaker 34 Your wife gets a life insurance policy.

Speaker 44 You're the beneficiary.

Speaker 34 She dies in a fire. Your son gets a life insurance policy.
You're named the beneficiary. He dies by getting crushed by a truck.

Speaker 9 Correct.

Speaker 34 So now you've had two deaths with two life insurance payouts.

Speaker 16 Bad luck that they died?

Speaker 13 What would you call it?

Speaker 19 Coincidence that you...

Speaker 14 What would you call it?

Speaker 16 I want to hear what you have to call it.

Speaker 4 Well, I think it's, I've had many other things in my life that have, I've had horses die, I've had a barn fire.

Speaker 52 I mean, I was going to bring that up, too.

Speaker 16 And you've had barn fires, horses.

Speaker 34 I mean, bad luck seems to follow you around. Would you say that you're a victim of bad luck?

Speaker 4 If I told you everything, you wouldn't believe what's happened to me.

Speaker 25 Like the fire that killed Christina, Carl claims he has no idea how it started.

Speaker 18 Did you pour that kerosene and light it?

Speaker 31 No.

Speaker 4 Why would you do that and leave a woman two access points to get out when it could easily pull off the board in the bathroom?

Speaker 34 She didn't have, obviously, access to get out.

Speaker 26 She's in the tub.

Speaker 4 She's got a door and she has a board on the window.

Speaker 49 But in fact she was trapped.

Speaker 43 According to John Clear, that was Carl's M.O.

Speaker 34 You talk about Carl almost that he has a signature of sorts.

Speaker 50 What do you mean by that?

Speaker 36 His pattern is to is to create a hazardous situation, almost like a trap, and then step away and let the trap do its business.

Speaker 19 Carl does acknowledge that some things in this case just look bad for him, like the way people said he behaved after the fire.

Speaker 59 Colette claims that you called Christina a crispy critter after that fire.

Speaker 4 When I got out of the hospital.

Speaker 9 Pretty horrible.

Speaker 4 Well,

Speaker 4 if I did say that, which I don't remember if I did, and I can't believe I would, because

Speaker 4 that would be just horrifically insensitive.

Speaker 15 But you think you might have?

Speaker 4 Or you might have to? No, I don't know.

Speaker 4 I don't believe I did.

Speaker 18 I would just hope that somebody would say, I never said that.

Speaker 76 Well,

Speaker 33 you sort of sound like not sure.

Speaker 4 I've said that to other people, but I'm loaded up with volume.

Speaker 4 Okay?

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 did I say that 100%? Did I not say that 100%? I can't say that.

Speaker 49 Carl's family hasn't stood by him, but there's something he wants them to know.

Speaker 52 What would you say to your surviving children, Aaron, Katie, and Alex?

Speaker 4 I'm sorry for this, for dragging

Speaker 4 our lives

Speaker 4 in this, and that I did not kill your brother. I did not kill Katie and Aaron's mother.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 4 I didn't.

Speaker 18 But jurors would have the last say about how Christina died. Deliberations lasted two days.

Speaker 61 And then the verdict came in.

Speaker 90 We, the jury, find the defendant Carl Holger Carlson guilty of murder in the first degree.

Speaker 39 Inside the courtroom, Christina's family clung to each other in relief.

Speaker 57 Her sister Colette was there too.

Speaker 7 When they read it,

Speaker 7 it was

Speaker 7 a good moment. You know, it was a good moment to

Speaker 7 spend a long time waiting for this verdict to come through.

Speaker 33 Carl Carlson was convicted, ironically, on February 3rd, Levi's birthday.

Speaker 18 He got a life sentence for Christina's murder.

Speaker 40 But today, he's back in New York State, serving 15 to life for killing Levi.

Speaker 57 Today, this is all that's left of the little house on the hill. The remains have settled into this crater.

Speaker 49 How does it feel to be back here after all those years?

Speaker 35 It's very emotional.

Speaker 30 For firefighter Rich Wynne, the guilty verdict offers some measure of comfort.

Speaker 35 You know, I feel such sadness and

Speaker 35 such joy, too, because finally justice was served. He didn't get away with it.

Speaker 44 More than three decades after a fire took Christina Carlson's life, her family finally has answers.

Speaker 26 But even time doesn't heal all wounds.

Speaker 7 I don't think you can

Speaker 7 put a time

Speaker 7 when

Speaker 7 you would miss someone the most.

Speaker 7 You can be doing something around the home, and all of a sudden, you have a memory of something that the two of you used to do together.

Speaker 7 The memories are good.

Speaker 7 I still have her pictures up around my home, and I'm not going to take those down. And so, she's right there in my bedroom with me at all times.

Speaker 11 This time of year, many are checking off their holiday gift lists, but identity thieves have lists too, and your personal information might be on them. Protect your identity with Life Lock.

Speaker 11 Lifelock monitors millions of data points every second and alerts you to threats you could miss. If your identity is stolen, LifeLock will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back.

Speaker 11 Save up to 40% your first year at lifelock.com/slash dateline. Terms apply.