‘Walking Time Bomb’ Exploded in Tragedy : Simi Valley: Karen Christensen never got the help authorities said she needed. Murder-suicide was the bizarre final catastrophe.

Richard Simon was still in shock the day after he heard the news.

“This is the worst,” said the Ventura County deputy district attorney. “I’ve never had a defendant of mine kill someone.”

Simon was referring to Karen Marie Christensen, a former Simi Valley resident who on June 19 shot and killed her 15-year-old daughter, Emily, in Simi Valley as the girl prepared for her junior high promotion ceremonies. Christensen then took her own life.

Authorities have still not determined why Christensen took her daughter’s life, and friends of the family are also at a loss to explain the tragedy.

“Obviously, she needed to be institutionalized,” Simon said of Christensen, whom he had prosecuted for setting fire to her Simi Valley house in March, 1990.

“She was a walking time bomb, and she shouldn’t have been out on the street,” Simon said.

But neither Simon nor other Ventura County officials are certain that anything could have been done to prevent the tragedy.

Christensen was placed on probation after the fire and ordered to receive psychiatric counseling, which is common in such cases, authorities said. But because of budget constraints and a heavy caseload, Ventura County probation officials did not make sure that she had sought counseling, they said. Their task was made more difficult by Christensen’s moving outside the county.

Another problem was that the court did not set a date for her counseling to begin. This is a common snag, because some people cannot pay for psychiatric services or may have difficulty getting into a publicly funded program, officials said.

Although Christensen pleaded guilty in December to setting fire to her house, sentencing was delayed until April of this year because of a suicide attempt, Simon said.

When she finally was sentenced on April 12, she was ordered to spend 36 days in jail and was placed on three years probation. However, Christensen spent 12 days in jail after sentencing because she was credited for the 24 days she served before posting bail.

Christensen had faced a maximum sentence of three years in prison for her crime. But Simon said he didn’t push for a prison term because Christensen did not have an extensive criminal background, although she was convicted in 1988 of carrying a loaded gun into a federal building in downtown Los Angeles.

Still, Simon said, “I didn’t see prison as a reality.”

Judge Charles McGrath, who sentenced Christensen, declined to comment on the case.

But Simon and other county officials agree now that what Christensen needed was hospitalization.

What made a commitment difficult was that Christensen had pleaded guilty to setting her house on fire, rather than not-guilty by reason of insanity, Simon said. Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Vincent O’Neill said defense attorneys are generally reluctant to have their clients plead insanity because they run the risk of being locked up longer in a mental institution than they would in prison.

Simon said Christensen’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Howard Asher, had argued that, with counseling, Christensen would be able to overcome her mental problems.

“He was fooled,” Simon said. “He thought she was getting better.”

Asher was on vacation and could not be reached for comment.

“One of the problems was that she could fool people,” Simon said. “She seemed normal. She looked like your average 45-year-old housewife. But inside her head was absolute insanity. She was just absolutely crazy.”

Friends and family described Karen Christensen, a former substitute teacher for the Simi Valley Unified School District, as a loving mother. They said she was a deeply religious woman who was involved in her children’s soccer clubs and church groups.

“She was as good a mother as I have ever known, and she just had to be in a terrible, terrible mental state to even consider what happened,” said Bishop Richard Nickell, leader of the Mormon congregation that Christensen and her children attended.

Nickell said he was a close friend of the family and often had counseled Karen Christensen. He said Christensen was devastated by her 1988 divorce from her husband, J. Dee Christensen, after more than 20 years of marriage. Nickell said she had been troubled since.

J. Dee Christensen could not be reached for comment.

During a memorial service for her last week, Nickell turned to Christensen’s two surviving children, Kim, 18, and Shawn, 22, and said: “Under any other circumstances than those that existed, she would have never harmed a hair on you kids’ heads. You know that, and Emily knows that.”

Karen Christensen’s troubles surfaced the same year as her divorce, according to her probation report.

In January, 1988, Christensen was arrested for carrying a loaded gun into a federal building in downtown Los Angeles. She later told police she thought she was being followed and needed protection.

In July of that year, Christensen was admitted to Simi Valley Adventist Hospital after taking an overdose of antidepressant pills.

Two months later, Christensen was taken into custody by Simi Valley police after she chased a woman in her car. When apprehended, Christensen told police she thought the woman was a CIA agent who had been following her. Police referred her to Ventura County mental health officials for observation.

In March, 1990, a month after Christensen’s depression had led to Emily’s move to live with friends in Simi Valley, Christensen was arrested for setting fire to her house on Tuttle Avenue.

Charles and Janet Warnick, longtime friends of the Christensen family, had agreed to take care of Emily as well as Kim, who had lived with the Warnicks since 1988. The Warnicks would eventually become their legal guardians.

“She was glad that we could take Emily in,” said Charles Warnick Jr., who described himself as Emily’s stepbrother. “But then she was mad because she wished she could” take care of her daughter.

Warnick said Emily and her mother often fought.

“They seemed like they always argued,” he said, adding that Karen came over to visit Emily about once a month. It was at the Warnicks’ house that the shooting occurred.

Since the fire, Christensen had been living with her parents, Oren and Verla Converse, at their Tarzana home in the San Fernando Valley.

Oren Converse said his daughter lived in a detached room at the back of the house. Because of her deep depression, she had been unable to work for the past year but only occasionally saw a psychiatrist, he said.

“We tried to help her every way we could,” he said. “We did everything parents could do. But she was totally helpless.”

In December, 1990, Christensen pleaded guilty to a felony charge of unlawful burning in connection with the house fire.

Before her sentencing in April, Christensen was evaluated by Dr. David Lichten of the Ventura County Corrective Services Agency.

In his report to the court, Lichten described her as “psychotic and exhibiting signs of paranoid schizophrenia, which may have been diet-pill induced.” Christensen was prescribed the drug Elavil for depression and had taken diet pills fairly regularly since the age of 17, according to her probation report.

Christensen told Lichten that she was upset about her husband leaving her and “was at a mental breaking point.” She also told him that she had attempted suicide three times.

Lichten concluded that Christensen “represented a moderate danger to society and to herself,” but said that “this danger could be substantially reduced with treatment.”

Lichten said in the report that Christensen was an appropriate candidate for a new Ventura County mental health program aimed at mentally ill people who had committed crimes. But because Christensen was no longer a resident of the county, she was not eligible for the program.

Under the terms of her probation, Christensen was ordered to receive psychiatric counseling in Los Angeles County, where she lived. But the court did not schedule the treatment.

F. William Forden, director of the Ventura County Corrective Services Agency, said the court allows people some flexibility in getting counseling because there are a number of factors to consider. Among them, he said, are transportation, the ability to pay for psychiatric help and the availability of mental health programs.

His department’s budget constraints and Christensen’s residency outside the county made it more difficult for probation officials to check on her following sentencing, Forden said.

“Out-of-county cases present all kinds of problems,” he said. “Obviously, they are not handy for personal contact.”

In fact, Ron Turk, Christensen’s probation officer, said he did not verify that she was in a counseling program. Turk, whose workload includes 850 cases outside the county, said his only contact with Christensen since her sentencing was by mail.

Turk said she assured him in a letter that she was trying to get help. Asked why he did not attempt to make sure Christensen was receiving therapy, he cited his heavy workload. “I do the best I can,” he said.

Christensen’s brother, Stephen Converse, said she had been attempting to enroll in a psychiatric program but was having trouble gaining admittance because most county- and state-funded programs in Los Angeles were full.

“She was rejected at a couple of places because they said she was too normal,” he said. “They would say that there were too many drug addicts or bad people taking up all the counseling that was available.”

Oren Converse said he and his wife, Verla, had done all they could to see that their daughter got help.

“We had been trying like the dickens to get her signed up,” he said. “Verla had been trying to get her committed. She had been trying up until the time of the tragedy.”

Forden said he was convinced that authorities did all they could to help Christensen.

“I don’t think she slipped through the cracks,” he said. “You have to understand that she had reported that she was trying to get help.

“But any time something like this happens, we obviously didn’t do enough.”

If he had it to do over again, Simon said, he would push for a prison sentence.

“In the future, if I have someone with a mental problem, I’m going to be less concerned with that person and more concerned with the protection of the public,” Simon said.

Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Vincent O’Neill said he hopes that more attention will be paid to cases involving mentally ill people.

“This has been a hard lesson for everyone involved,” he said. “As long as people are not locked up (in a mental institution or prison), you run the risk once in a while that the worst will happen.”

On Friday, another murder-suicide involving a Simi Valley father and his 11-year-old son was reported. Police said that William Boehmer, 57, shot and killed his son, Sean, while the boy was sleeping. Boehmer then turned the gun on himself, police said.

Lt. Robert Klamser said that evidence found at the scene revealed that Boehmer had been planning the deaths for some time. He said Boehmer had been upset over health and financial problems.

Signposts to Tragedy

On June 19, Karen Marie Christensen, 45, shot and killed her 15-year-old daughter, Emily, as she prepared for her junior high school graduation. Christensen then took her own life. Here is a chronology of incidents during the last few years of Karen Christensen’s life:

ARRESTED AT FEDERAL OFFICE

Jan. 25, 1988: Karen Marie Christensen is arrested after walking into the offices of the U.S. Secret Service in downtown Los Angeles carrying a loaded .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol. She claims she was being followed and needed protection.

HOSPITALIZED FOR OVERDOSE

July 21, 1988: Admitted to Simi Valley Hospital after taking an overdose of antidepressants. She was combative and fled in the nude from hospital staff.

FOLLOWED BY ‘CIA AGENT’

Oct. 12, 1988: Chases a civilian employee of the Simi Valley Police Department in her car, frightening the victim, who Christensen said was a CIA agent following her. Christensen is later taken into custody by police and referred to Ventura County mental health officials for observation.

ARRESTED FOR SETTING FIRE

March 21, 1990: Christensen is arrested for setting fire to her home in the 1000 block of Tuttle Avenue in Simi Valley. She is released on $10,000 bail after spending 24 days in jail.

ACCUSED OF THREATS WITH KNIFE

Jan. 25, 1991: Christensen’s mother, Verla Converse, calls her daughter’s doctor to report that her daughter is waving a knife at her.

SENTENCED TO JAIL FOR FIRE

April 12,1991: Christensen is sentenced to 36 days in jail and placed on three years’ probation for starting a fire at her Simi Valley residence. She is also ordered to enroll in counseling program.

SHOOTS DAUGHTER TO DEATH, KILLS HERSELF

June 19, 1991: Christensen shoots to death her 15-year-old daughter, Emily, as she prepares for her junior high school graduation. Christensen then takes her own life.

Source: Ventura County Corrective Services Agency