There was nothing Karissa Fretwell wouldn’t do for her three-year-old son. The single mum, 25, worked day and night to give William – known as Billy – the best future possible. Becoming a mother had turned her life around.
Karissa had struggled after losing her father when she was a teenager and had gone through some difficult years, before finally deciding to become a teacher and settling down to focus on her education.
To support her studies, she took several part-time jobs, including one at a sandwich delivery business – which led to her fateful meeting with Michael Wolfe.
The security guard at a steel manufacturing company went out of his way to get Karissa, then 21, to deliver sandwiches to him most days.
Wolfe was twice her age and, unknown to her, was married. But he helped get her a part-time job at his workplace, charmed his way into her heart and the pair began a relationship.
Karissa was already pregnant by the time she learnt that Wolfe had a wife and ended their relationship. She told friends he had offered to pay for an abortion, but that she had wanted to keep the baby.
In February 2016, Karissa gave birth to the son she named after her father. Billy grew into a happy, friendly boy who loved PAW Patrol, cars and playing with water. They moved into an apartment in Salem, the capital city of Oregon state.
Karissa, who liked to dye her hair, often posted pictures of herself with Billy by her side.
Wolfe he was about child “He has my heart,” she said on social media.
MONEY STRUGGLES
Still focusing on becoming an English teacher, Karissa was studying at Western Oregon University while holding down several jobs. But with long shifts and the cost of childcare, she struggled to find the time – and the money – for her studies.
She really needed Wolfe to contribute to their son’s upkeep.
He’d had no contact with Billy, and Karissa had to get a paternity test to prove the child was his. Once she had the results to show that Wolfe was Billy’s biological child, however, Karissa told friends she was worried as Wolfe had threatened to apply for custody of the boy.
In April 2019, a court ordered him to pay Karissa more than $900 a month in child support, which would have been a massive help to her. The judge had signed the order on 10 May. But just three days later, on 13 May, Karissa and Billy were seen alive for the last time – in her car.
The following day Karissa failed to drop off her son at the babysitter‘s, didn’t turn up for her shifts at work and wasn’t answering her phone.
Relatives who went to her apartment found it unlocked. The TV was on, her bank cards were in the flat, her glasses were on the bed and both her cars were parked outside.
Such a disappearance was out of character for Karissa and on 17 May she and Billy were reported missing. Concerned police officers spoke to Wolfe who claimed the last time he’d seen Karissa had been at the court hearing in April.
But security camera footage put him close to her apartment on 13 May, while data from her mobile phone showed that a text message had been sent from it on 14 May – from an area near Wolfe’s house. Did Karissa send it?
Wolfe eventually admitted that on the day Karissa disappeared he had been to her flat with a peace offering of nappies and toys. He did, however, confess to being unhappy at having to pay child support.
Investigators feared that Wolfe had harmed his ex-mistress and their child.
DESPERATE SEARCH
The community pulled together to look for the mother and son. Search parties scoured the area, while police divers explored rivers and watercourses.
Investigators focused on Wolfe as their prime suspect.
They searched his home, and two properties he was linked to, and while they found no trace of Karissa and Billy, they did discover drugs that could be used to sedate a person.
Then he was listed as a wanted man after disappearing. However, on 24 May he was arrested at a doughnut shop in Portland, Oregon, after somebody recognised him from a “wanted” poster and reported the sighting.
Despite not having found Karissa and Billy, the police announced they had enough evidence, including the mobile phone records, to charge Wolfe over their deaths. On the day after they vanished, Wolfe had visited a tip and a hardware store, where he’d bought rope and a tarpaulin.
He was charged with the kidnapping and murders of Karissa and Billy.
On 15 June their bodies were finally found wrapped in the tarpaulin that Wolfe had bought and covered in debris in remote woodland in Oregon’s Yamhill County.
The bodies hidden on property for which he had a licence to cut firewood and in an area where he went fishing.
Karissa had died from a single gunshot to the head, but Billy’s cause of death remained undetermined. Investigators decided the mother and son had been kidnapped either on the night of 13 May or in the early hours of the following day. They didn’t reveal how.
In June this year, a few days before his trial was due to start, Wolfe, 55, pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated murder over Billy’s death and the second-degree murder of Karissa.
While this meant he would avoid the death penalty, it still left many questions unanswered. How had he got Karissa to leave her apartment? Had he drugged her? Where had she been shot and why had he killed both her and their son?
A month later, Wolfe was sentenced to life in prison, with no chance of parole for 30 years, at Yamhill County Courthouse in McMinnville, Oregon.
It had been a long, three-year wait for Karissa’s family and photographs showing the mother and son laughing, playing and smiling were displayed in the courtroom.
Karissa’s mother, Nyla Bales wore a T-shirt showing a photo of her daughter and grandson with angel wings, alongside the words, “Gone but not forgotten”.
In court, she spoke to Wolfe about Karissa’s devotion to Billy. “She loved that little boy so much,” Nyla said. “She was working full-time and going to college full-time, trying to make a life for them.”
Katrina Kent described her sister, Karissa, as passionate and hardworking, and referred to her nephew’s “contagious smile”.
“You are a monster,” she told Wolfe, who made no statement to the court.
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