New Charges for New York Man Accused in Son’s ’08 Death

A central New York man accused of killing his son to collect $700,000 in life insurance has been indicted on new charges connected to the will that the victim wrote just hours before he died.

Karl Karlsen, 53, of Romulus was indicted Tuesday in a Seneca County court on charges that include concealing a will, perjury, making an apparently false statement and offering a false instrument for filing, according to local media reports.

Authorities said Levi Karlsen’s handwritten will left everything to his father and was notarized at a bank on the morning of Nov. 20, 2008.

Karlsen pleaded not guilty in February to charges he murdered his son for the insurance money. The younger man was found crushed under a truck he’d been working on in a barn on the family’s property in Romulus, about 55 miles southwest of Syracuse. His father told sheriff’s deputies he had returned from a family event and found the truck had toppled off a jack and trapped his son.

Karlsen was arrested last November after investigators learned about a life insurance policy for Levi Karlsen taken out just days before his death, which was initially ruled an accident. He was indicted on charges of second-degree murder and insurance fraud.

According to the new indictment, Karlsen lied while settling his son’s estate when he said Levi didn’t have a will. Karlsen pleaded not guilty Tuesday.

Police in Calaveras County, Calif., said last year they were cooperating with New York authorities and reopening an investigation into a 1991 fire there that killed Karlsen’s first wife, Christena Karlsen.

Karlsen told investigators at the time that he was able to rescue Levi and the boy’s sisters but could not save his wife. He collected $200,000 in life insurance on Christena Karlsen after the fire was declared an accident.

A spokesman for the Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office didn’t initially return a call Wednesday seeking information about the status of that investigation.