Man killed his mother at sea to inherit family’s estate, US says

A Vermont man lured his mother on a fishing trip off the coast of Rhode Island in 2016, killed her and sank the boat in a scheme to inherit his family’s estate, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

Eduardo MedinaThe New York Times
Published : 11 May 2022, 04:39 AM
Updated : 11 May 2022, 04:39 AM

An indictment unsealed in federal court in Burlington, Vermont, on Tuesday accuses Nathan Carman, 28, of Vernon, Vermont, of killing his mother, Linda Carman, while boating in September 2016 and making false reports to authorities about what had happened on the high seas.

Federal prosecutors do not specify how they believe Carman killed his mother, but they say his boat, named Chicken Pox, was purposefully sunk. Nathan Carman spent eight days adrift at sea before the crew of a commercial ship, the Orient Lucky, found him floating on a life raft.

In 2013, as another part of his scheme, Carman used his Sig Sauer rifle to shoot and kill his grandfather, John Chakalos, who became wealthy by building and renting nursing homes and other real estate ventures, in Windsor, Connecticut, the indictment states. Carman was not charged with that killing, according to the indictment.

“As a central part of this scheme, Nathan Carman murdered John Chakalos and Linda Carman,” the indictment states. “He concocted cover stories to conceal his involvement in those killings.”

The indictment does not state how much money Carman could have inherited. The Associated Press reported that as his mother’s only heir, he would have received $7 million.

One of the eight criminal counts that Carman faces accuses him of killing his mother, who had “a strained relationship” with her son, said the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Vermont. The seven others are related to Carman’s attempts to get money from Chakalos’ estate, which was worth tens of millions of dollars, or from insurance companies.

Carman was arrested Tuesday and could not be reached for comment. The Office of the Federal Public Defender for the District of Vermont, which is representing Carman, did not respond to a phone call seeking comment Tuesday. He is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday.

William Michael, a lawyer for Linda Carman’s three sisters, who sued Nathan Carman in 2018 to block him from inheriting money and accused him of killing their father and sister, did not immediately respond to a phone call seeking comment Tuesday. Their lawsuit is pending, according to The Associated Press.

Suspicions about Linda Carman's death first arose in September 2016 when the Coast Guard found Nathan Carman on an inflatable life raft without his mother. Her body was never recovered.

They had set out on a fishing trip after 11 pm Sept 17, 2016, to spend time together on Nathan Carman’s boat. It was Linda Carman’s “principal way of interacting with her son,” the indictment states.

By that time, Chakalos had been dead for three years, and Nathan Carman had already received $550,000 as a result. The money had been mostly spent by fall 2016 because he had been unemployed for long stretches, the indictment states.

Federal prosecutors say that Carman had planned and prepared for the killing of his mother in several ways: He removed trim tabs — metal plates that help to stabilise performance — from the boat and removed his computer from his home to prevent officials from reviewing it while he was away.

He also planned to report the sinking of the Chicken Pox and his mother's disappearance as “accidents,” the indictment states.

Linda Carman had “believed that she would be returning home by noon the next day, as evidenced by the float plan she left with friends,” the indictment states.

Nathan Carman told The Associated Press in 2016 that “what happened on the boat was a terrible tragedy that I am still trying to process and that I am still trying to come to terms with.”

He added that he did not know “what to make of people being suspicious,” and that he had “enough to deal with.”

The indictment also states that Carman tried to defraud the company that insured his fishing boat.

The US attorney’s office did not say why its investigation lasted years and did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday.

In 2019, a federal judge in Rhode Island ruled that Carman contributed to the Chicken Pox sinking, according to The Providence Journal.

If convicted of the murder charge, Carman would face life in prison.

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