An upcoming documentary will delve into the twisted story of a son who is believed to have committed suicide in prison after being accused of killing his own mother and grandfather in a plot to inherit the family estate.
Nathan Carman was a suspect in the death of grandfather John Chakalos after the wealthy 87-year-old real estate developer was shot to death in his Vermont home in 2013, but a prosecutor dismissed an arrest warrant for him pending more information.
But three years later, the young man went on a fishing trip with mother Linda Carman, 54, whose body was never found after the boat sank off the coast of Rhode Island.
Prosecutors alleged that Carman deliberately planned to kill his mother during the excursion – which he denied – before the then 29-year-old committed suicide while awaiting trial at the Cheshire County Jail in Keene, New Hampshire.
Here, FEMAIL has unraveled the true story as Netflix greenlights a documentary on what was described by many at the time as ‘Murder on the High Seas’.
Nathan Carman went on a fishing trip with mother Linda Carman, 54, whose body was never found after the boat sank off the coast of Rhode Island
He was also a suspect in the (right) death of grandfather John Chakalos after the wealthy 87-year-old real estate developer was shot dead in his Vermont home in 2013.
The chilling case arose in September 2016 when Carman and his mother left to go fishing off the coast of New England on his 30-foot fishing boat named the ‘Chickenpox’.
“Nathan Carman intended to kill his mother during the trip,” an indictment said at the time. ‘He also planned how to report the sinking of the “Chicken Pox” and the disappearance of his mother at sea as accidents.’
Before the trip, Carman is said to have modified the boat by removing two forward bulkheads and trim tabs from the hull transom so that it was more likely to sink that day.
Eight days after their departure, he was found clinging to an inflatable life raft off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts, by the crew of a passing freighter.
Linda was nowhere to be found and her body was never found.
Carman told the Coast Guard at the time that he said he heard a “funny noise” in the engine compartment of the boat and then saw water rushing in.
The boat quickly began to fill with water. He swam to the life raft and called for his mother, but never saw her again, he claimed.
The young man denied doing anything to deliberately make the boat unseaworthy, but in 2019 a federal judge in Rhode Island ruled that Carman had contributed to the Chickenpox sinking.
The chilling case arose in September 2016 when Carman and his mother (pictured together) set out to go fishing off the coast of New England on his 30-foot fishing boat.
Before the trip, Carman allegedly modified the boat (photo) by removing two forward bulkheads and trim tabs from the transom of the hull to increase the chance that it would sink.
U.S. District Judge John McConnell issued a written ruling in favor of an insurance company that had refused to pay his $85,000 claim.
But the situation for Carman only worsened when the investigation uncovered a much bigger scandal.
Prosecutors alleged that his scheme to get his inheritance began years earlier when he bought a rifle in New Hampshire.
It was said he used that firearm to shoot his grandfather Chakalos, a World War II veteran, on December 20, 2013, as he slept – just weeks after Carman’s grandmother died of cancer.
Chakalos, a real estate developer, left behind an estate worth nearly $29 million, to be divided among his four daughters.
This meant that his mother would receive $7 million, all of which would go to Carman in the event of her death – as he was Linda’s sole heir.
Police confirmed at the time that Carman was the last person to see Chakalos alive when he had dinner with him the night before his death.
He also owned a semi-automatic rifle similar to the one used in the murder, but the firearm disappeared.
After his grandfather’s murder, the young man received $550,000 from two bank accounts that Chakalos had opened, making him the beneficiary.
Carman moved from an apartment in Bloomfield, Connecticut, to Vernon, Vermont, in 2014.
He was unemployed much of the time and had little money in the fall of 2016 when he hatched the plan to kill his mother, prosecutors said.
Chakalos, a World War II veteran, was shot in his home while sleeping on December 20, 2013
Carman was eventually arrested in 2022, six years after the sinking, for his mother’s death, but pleaded not guilty
Carman had told ABC’s 20/20 that he was misunderstood and an easy target for police because he suffered from Asperger’s syndrome – a condition on the autism spectrum
Carman was eventually arrested in 2022, six years after the sinking, over his mother’s death.
He pleaded not guilty to fraud and first-degree murder and was scheduled to stand trial in October.
An eight-count indictment also stated that Carman shot and killed his wealthy grandfather to obtain money and property from Chakalos’ estate.
But the indictment did not charge him with his grandfather’s murder, and he had consistently denied any involvement in the two deaths.
Carman had told ABC’s 20/20 that he was misunderstood and an easy target for police because he suffered from Asperger’s syndrome, a condition on the autism spectrum.
His former high school classmates, however, painted a more disturbing picture.
They alleged that a parent of a trick-or-treater called the police on Halloween in 2009 because he was handing out resealable bags of fish intestines.
Carman had also taken a fellow student hostage with a knife at school and wrote extensively about making homemade bombs, according to previously revealed police documents.
He was awaiting trial when he was found dead in a county jail cell.
His death was ruled “not suspicious,” meaning investigators determined no one else was involved and no crime had been committed.
The AG declined to release an exact cause and manner of death for the suspect, citing a policy that states officials do not release such information in non-suspicious cases.