240: Liberace & Karl Karlsen

Liberace was many things. He was a talented pianist. A singer. A showman. He was also… a messy bitch. So buckle up, folks! His struggles as a closeted gay man in Hollywood will have you feeling terrible for him. But his late-in-life relationship with a teenager will have you feeling terrible *about* him.

Then Brandi tells us about a terrible man with an adorable name. When Christina Karlsen died in a house fire, investigators wondered if her husband, Karl Karlsen, might have had something to do with it. He’d managed to rescue their three children. Why not Christina? And was it a coincidence that the fire had started right outside the bathroom, where Christina was taking a bath? 

And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases.

In this episode, Kristin pulled from:
“Confidential pays Liberace,” New York Times, July 16, 1958
“Liberace’s privacy ransacked by estate battle testimonies,” by Peter H King for the Los Angeles Times
“Drinks on the ‘Mirror’ after Cassandra’s remarks,” The Guardian, June 10, 1959
“How about a refund? Tabloid says of Liberace libel award,” Reuters, February 11, 1987
Excerpt from the book, “Liberace: An American Boy,” by Darden Asbury Pyron
Liberace episode of “Reputations,” BBC
Liberace episode of “Biography,” A&E
“Liberace named in homosexual palimony suit,” UPI archives, October 14, 1982
“Liberace v Daily Mirror,” entry on Wikipedia
“Liberace,” entry on Wikipedia
“The boy toy’s story,” by David Segal for The New York Times

In this episode, Brandi pulled from:
“Father Knows Death” episode Accident, Suicide, or Murder
“The Sins of the Father” episode 20/20
“Man Staged Murders Of His Wife And Son As Accidents To Collect Life Insurance” by Joe Dziemianowicz, Oxygen
“Daughters on losing their mother and brother to dad who killed for insurance payouts” by Jenner Smith and Sean Dooley, ABC News
“Karl Karlsen on 20/20: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know” by Alyssa Choiniere, heavy.com
“‘I’ve been through Hell’: Karlsen bares all in 2012 interrogation” by Dakota Morlan, The Calaveras Enterprise
“GUILTY: Calaveras County jury finds Karlsen guilty of first degree murder” by Dakota Morlan. The Calaveras Enterprise
“Karl Karlsen, who killed son for money, will spend life in prison for wife’s murder” by Samantha House, syracuse.com
“‘Karl, get the kids,’ mother, trapped in a house fire, screamed” by Giuseppe Ricapito, The Union Democrat
“Karlsen’s sister in law recalls abuse of Levi and her suspicions about Christina” by Giuseppe Ricapito, The Union Democrat

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