S.F. man behind one of city’s most savage crimes to stay behind bars for now.

But he’ll soon get his 18th try at parole

By Heather Knight, Columnist Updated April 25, 2023 5:43 p.m.

The man who perpetrated one of San Francisco’s most notorious, savage crimes must stay in prison for now — but the state’s parole system will give him his 18th chance at release in just three years, setting up his victims for yet more suffering.

On April 18, 1974, Angelou Pavageau climbed through the window of a Victorian home on Kansas Street, tied up Frank Carlson and bludgeoned him to death as his wife, Annette Carlson, screamed in horror. He then raped Annette for hours, beat her, slit her wrists, set her bedroom on fire and calmly left.

Pavageau,  shown in a photo taken Tuesday, was denied parole again but granted another hearing in three years.

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

On Tuesday, Pavageau showed up to his 17th parole hearing, this one held virtually. His close-cropped hair turned gray, his skin wrinkled and his eyes tired, he sat next to his lawyer at a long wooden table. Wearing a baggy, light blue shirt, he told the parole board he’d been rehabilitated and was sorry for what he’d done. But he also made up new lies about that horrific night.

It was the first time Pavageau had appeared at a hearing in roughly 20 years, opting to waive others or stipulate he wasn’t suitable for parole. This time, his odds of release were better than they’d ever been because California has passed laws urging leniency for incarcerated people who committed their crimes before the age of 26 or who have served 20 years and are past the age of 50. Pavageau was just shy of 26 on that horrific night and is now 74. 

Annette Carlson hasn’t attended any of the parole hearings, including Tuesday’s. Unable to bear them, she’s sent a lawyer on her behalf instead. In an interview this month, she told me she hoped the parole board would halt the endless cycle of hearings, each one turning her into a petrified shut-in for weeks or months at a time. 

Under Marsy’s Law, passed by California voters in 2008 to expand victims’ rights, the board could have opted to push off Pavageau’s next hearing by up to 15 years, rather than its standard three, if it didn’t think he’d be suitable for parole by then. 

“It gets harder and harder to be thrown back, to relive what happened, to grieve so intensely, over and over and over again,” Annette told me. “I’m older. I would like closure before I die.”

She didn’t get it Tuesday. Commissioner David Ndudim and Deputy Commissioner Rachel Stern ran the hearing and asked Pavageau questions. After three hours of testimony, they deliberated privately and returned to say they agreed Pavageau wasn’t yet suitable for release, but that he would get another chance to prove otherwise in 2026, despite her attorney’s request for a 15-year delay. The rest of the commission, which wasn’t in attendance, will have 120 days to review the decision, after which it will stand.

After the hearing Tuesday, Annette told me she was “very relieved” that Pavageau will remain behind bars, but also wished the parole board had put off the next hearing for longer.

“I’m just so tired, I can hardly think right now,” she told me, her voice shaking. “I don’t have the words to describe my relief, I really don’t. It’s going to take some time to deal with the trauma of the months leading up to the parole hearing.”

It was only through several twists of fate that Pavageau is still alive and eligible for parole. A jury sentenced him to death, but the California Supreme Court in 1976 ruled the state’s capital punishment statute was unconstitutional. Seventy Death Row inmates, including Pavageau, saw their sentences eased.

At the time, California didn’t allow for a sentence of life in prison without parole, though the state Legislature quickly fixed that. But Pavageau’s sentence couldn’t be changed at that point, and he has been up for parole 17 times since — even though state psychologists in 1991 determined he is “a sadistic sexual psychopath” who cannot benefit from treatment. 

Ndudim and Stern praised Pavageau for good behavior and for participating in some treatment programs, particularly for substance abuse. But they also said he should have taken advantage of programming available to domestic abusers and sex offenders, still seemed to be in denial about his crime and had lied to a state clinician as recently as January about details of the case.

For decades, he also lied about being in a romantic relationship with Frank Carlson and flying into a fit of rage when Frank broke up with him. He said Tuesday he made that story up out of frustration after victims’ rights groups years ago attacked his pregnant wife at an earlier parole hearing. 

Linda Moore, assistant district attorney for San Francisco, said that excuse was also a lie. There was no attack and inmates’ families cannot attend parole hearings, she said.

Pavageau on Tuesday then spun yet another story, telling commissioners he’d been walking down Kansas Street that night in 1974, angry that he’d caught his wife with another man, and started chucking rocks at his neighbors’ homes to let off steam. He claimed Frank Carlson came outside to order Pavageau to stop hurling rocks, and that’s when Pavageau snapped and punched him. 

All previous testimony and evidence showed there was no rock throwing, no outdoor altercation and no punches thrown. Instead, Pavageau scaled a trellis to enter the bedroom of Annette, who was sleeping, and tried to smother her with a pillow. She woke up and screamed for her husband, who was working downstairs. Frank ran upstairs, and Pavageau forced the couple into the kitchen at knifepoint where he mutilated Frank’s skull with a hammer, butcher block and jar full of coins.

The hearing’s most moving moments came when Eric Carlson, Frank’s younger brother, testified about adoring his kind, supportive big brother. Eric was born on Christmas Eve, 1957. Family lore has it that Frank, who was 9 at the time, held Eric that night and told his parents that his baby brother was the best Christmas present he could ever receive.

“I’m appearing on behalf of my brother who’s not able to speak for himself,” Eric said, holding a photo of Frank, framed in gold, and choking up at several points.

He also held up a snapshot of Frank and Annette’s wedding. At just 13, he’d served as Frank’s best man.

“I told him if I did that, then he would have to be the best man at my wedding,” Eric told the commissioners. “I married my wife in 1986. I had no best man at my wedding.”

Eric said the crime not only killed his brother and traumatized his sister-in-law, but also broke their families’ hearts and damaged the firefighters, paramedics, police officers and medical examiners forced to see the savagery of the crime scene. 

Pavageau sat, stone-faced and emotionless, throughout the testimony.

After the hearing, Eric said he was relieved Pavageau would remain behind bars for another three years. He said he wished the next hearing was farther off, but that he’ll be there — whenever and wherever it occurs.

“I’ve attended a lot of these and they are emotional and draining and bureaucratic,” he told me, adding he’d slept fitfully in the weeks leading up to the hearing. “I think I’ll sleep better tonight.”