Carl Folk | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers

Carl J. FOLK

Classification: Murderer

Characteristics: Rape - Robbery - Torture

Number of victims: 1

Date of murder:

December 2,

1953

Date of arrest: Same day

Date of birth: August 30,

1898

Victim profile: Betty Faye Allen

Method of murder: Strangulation

Location: Navajo County, Arizona, USA

Status: Executed by asphyxiation-gas in Arizona on

March 4, 1955

Carl J. Folk is presently approximately 53 years of age. In 1930 he was convicted of the crime of Committing a crime while armed with a Pistol in DeKalb County, Indiana. At that time, according to the investigating officer, the defendant tied up a young man and his girl friend with ropes and was in the process of getting her into the backseat for perhaps some immoral acts, or rape, when the boy was able to get loose and engaged in a struggle with the defendant. The defendant fled, leaving his gun, and was later apprehended and sentenced to the prison of the State of Indiana for one to five years.

In July, 1949, he was arrested for the crimes of rape and contributory delinquency. However, before he was tried, on a complaint by the District Attorney’s office at Albuquerque, New Mexico, he was committed to the New Mexico State Insane Asylum, Las Vegas, New Mexico.

The attorney who defended him in the insanity hearing was also his attorney in the criminal case. The defendant was only in the New Mexico hospital for a period from November 1st 1949, to February 4, 1950, when he was released to the custody of his wife and he has not been under treatment or been returned to the hospital since that date.

As early as December 3rd, 1949, he was released to his wife for a weekend and was released to her for various weekends thereafter until he was finally released without being returned after February 4, 1950. At least one of the doctor's statement with regard to his case received careful scrutiny from another psychiatrist and that psychiatrist stated that this one doctor's diagnosis was based on such slim reasoning that it appeared to be a matter of only wishful thinking.

The defendant was declared sane in April of 1953 based on testimony given in November of 1952 which stated that he had completely recovered. However, before this, he was tried for the crimes of rape and contributory delinquency and was convicted but this conviction was reversed by the Supreme Court of New Mexico on the grounds that the lower Court should have submitted to the jury the question of whether or not the defendant was able to cooperate with his counsel at the time of trial.

He was later allowed to plead guilty to the crime of contributory delinquency; the charge of rape was dismissed and at that line the judge gave him a sentence of five years and the time for the execution of the sentence was indefinitely suspended.

Carl J. Folk left Texas to go to Albuquerque to complete a business deal. He first saw the victim, Betty Faye Allen with her husband, Raymond Bruce Allen, and their small ten month old child at a service station close to Klines Corners, New Mexico.

The Allens ware traveling in a fine trailer house with a pickup and were on their way from Pennsylvania to California to make a new home. Mr. Folk at that time remarked that the Allens had A fine trailer. Carl J. Folk passed the Allens on two or three occasions between Klines Corners and Albuquerque. Then at About the same hour (5:00 to 6:00 p.m.) that the Allen's arrived in Gallup, New Mexico, the defendant entered a store near Chambers, Arizona, called Young's Store, this being on December 1st, 1953, and attempted to purchase some small cotton rope but the proprietor did not have any in stock.

The defendant next appeared at a place called Navajo which is only about 20 or 15 miles west of Chambers towards Holbrook at about 8:00 o'clock in the evening. He arrived at Navajo, heading back towards Gallop in an easterly direction, at a time when the Allens had just left Navajo, heading towards Holbrook and Mr. Folk could not have helped seeing them.

It appears that Mr. Folk was probably on his way back trying to locate the Allens at the time that he saw them leave Navajo as he was headed towards Gallup, but he informed the service station attendant that he was actually going to Holbrook. He gave an excuse for coming back that he thought he was about out of gas, but he only bought $2.00 worth of gasoline.

The Allens then proceeded westward, arriving at Good Water, Navajo County, Arizona, about 9:00 o'clock P.M. They ate at the restaurant there and went to bed. After the Allens were in bed and sound asleep, sometime after the hour of 11:00 pm on December 1st, 1953, Carl J. Folk, after apparently having placed his own car off the road about 600 feet, through a fence on a side road, and which said side road is about one half mile west of Good Water, Arizona, then returned to where the trailer was parked at Good Water, Arizona, in Navajo County, and entered the trailer house with some ropes.

He told the Allens that it was a stick up and ordered then to roll over as he was going to tie them up. He tied them, hand and foot, by the ankles and on the wrists with their hands behind them and had them laying on their stomachs. He asked for the pickup truck keys and made several trips in and out of the trailer getting the keys adjusted and getting the trailer hooked up to the pickup, and to check on the Allens. Before he left Good Water, he had sexual relations with Mrs. Allen.

Then the defendant proceeded with the trailer house and pickup to the point one-half mile west of Good Water where he had turned off the road with his car. During this period of time he stopped and reentered the trailer house on a couple of occasions to check on the Allens. It appears that when he came to the road where he had turned off with his own car he was unable to make the turn with the trailer house and pickup and as a result parked the trailer house and pickup in the barrow pit by the road which led to his own car which he left conveniently parked at a distance of only about 600 feet.

He then reentered the trailer house, found Mr. Allen was about loose or was loose, retied him very tightly and placed him in the front of the trailer house. During the night he apparently raped or attempted -to rape Mrs. Allen on several occasions. He burned her with heat burns in several places upon her body and caused abrasion burns to exist upon her body in various places.

During this period of time he would demand from Mrs. Allen information as to where more money was, insisting that he knew that they had some more money. Mrs. Allen screamed and groaned on many occasions, stating that the defendant was spreading her too far and asking for help. All this time Mr. Allen was tied and helpless in the other end of the trailer.

The defendant apparently did most of the burning in the neighborhood of 5:15 A. M. or after because about that time Mrs. Allen screamed for help from her husband and told him he had to get help. Her husband was able to get his feet loose, and although his hands were very swollen because of loss of circulation from the ropes he was able to get out of the trailer house and stop a truck. Three truck drivers came along and Mr. Allen was cut loose. He immediately ran to his pickup, got a gun, and when Carl J. Folk came out of the trailer house, Mr. Allen shot at him six times but hit him only once. Allen immediately entered the trailer house and found his wife lying on the floor in the nude, apparently lifeless. She had been nude throughout the entire evening having gone to bed nude as was her custom. She had a sheet wrapped tightly around her neck and was dead.

The time at which the truck drivers were stopped was a quarter to seven on December 2, 1953. The doctor's autopsy showed that the woman had been killed by strangulation, and the doctor further testified that a definite mark left on the woman's throat, was the place where the pressure was applied, and also stated that the vaginal area showed signs of edema and trauma. The evidence was conclusive as to the defendant’s guilt.

There was also found in the trailer house a rag saturated with kerosene and also kerosene on the sheets on the bed and on the mattress, thus making it appear that defendant had intended to kill Allen and the child after killing Mrs. Allen; then burn the trailer house; leave the trailer house and get in his car and leave so that no trace would be left of his brutality and the crimes that he had committed during the night.

It appears that when the defendant found that Allen was gone he was upset in his time schedule and when he went out to look for Allen he was surprised at seeing Allen completely untied. He was immediately shot by Allen. There found in the defendants packet was the bill fold and the money belonging to the Allens. As to his mental condition which was raised as a defense at the time of the commission of the acts, we are attaching hereto a copy of the doctors' testimony in the trial as to the man's sanity, We wish to further state that the man vouched for his own competency by acting as a witness in the trial and at no time was anything mentioned regarding any incapacity - as of the time of the trial.

Dated this 18th of February, 1954