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 murdering 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 rejected an arrest warrant pending more information.
However, three years later, the young man went fishing with his mother Linda Carman, 54, whose body was never recovered after the boat sank off the coast of Rhode Island.
Prosecutors claimed Carman had intentionally set out to kill his mother during the hike, which he denied, before the 29-year-old took his own life while awaiting trial at the Cheshire County Jail in Keene, New Hampshire. .
Here, FEMAIL has unraveled the real story as Netflix greenlights a documentary about what many called at the time ‘Murder on the High Seas’.
Nathan Carman went fishing with his mother Linda Carman, 54, whose body was never recovered after the boat sank off the coast of Rhode Island.
He was also a suspect in the death of grandfather John Chakalos (right) after the wealthy 87-year-old real estate developer was shot to death in his Vermont home in 2013.
The chilling case unfolded in September 2016, when Carman and his mother went fishing off the New England coast in their 31-foot fishing boat called ‘Chicken Pox’.
“Nathan Carman planned to kill his mother during the trip,” an indictment issued at the time said. ‘He also planned how he would report the sinking of the “Chicken Pox” and the disappearance of his mother at sea as accidents.’
Before the voyage, Carman allegedly altered the boat by removing two forward bulkheads and hull transom adjustment tabs to make it more likely to sink that day.
Eight days after his departure, the crew of a passing freighter found him clinging to an inflatable life raft off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, an island off Massachusetts.
Linda was nowhere to be found and her body was never recovered.
Carman told the Coast Guard at the time that he heard a “strange noise” in the boat’s engine compartment and then saw water gushing in.
The boat began to quickly fill with water, and he swam to the life raft and called his mother, but he never saw her again, he said.
The young man denied doing anything to intentionally render the ship unseaworthy, but in 2019, a federal judge in Rhode Island decided that Carman had contributed to the sinking of the Chicken Pox.
The chilling case unfolded in September 2016, when Carman and her mother (pictured together) went fishing off the New England coast in their 31-foot fishing boat.
Before the voyage, Carman allegedly altered the boat (pictured) by removing two forward bulkheads and hull transom trim tabs to make it more likely to sink.
U.S. District Judge John McConnell issued a written decision in favor of an insurance company that had refused to pay his $85,000 claim.
But things only got worse for Carman when the investigation uncovered a much bigger scandal.
Prosecutors alleged that his plan to get his hands on his inheritance had begun years earlier, when he bought a rifle in New Hampshire.
He was said to have used that firearm to shoot his grandfather Chakalos, a World War II veteran, on Dec. 20, 2013, while he was sleeping, just weeks after Carman’s grandmother died of cancer.
Chakalos, who was a real estate developer, left an inheritance valued at almost $29 million, which would be divided among his four daughters.
This meant that her mother would receive $7 million, which would all go to Carman in the event of her death, since he was Linda’s only heir.
Police confirmed at the time that Carman was the last person to see Chakalos alive when she had dinner with him the night before his death.
He also possessed a semi-automatic rifle similar to the one used in the murder, but the firearm disappeared.
After the murder of his grandfather, the young man received $550,000 from two bank accounts that Chakalos had opened and which made him a beneficiary.
Carman moved from an apartment in Bloomfield, Connecticut, to Vernon, Vermont, in 2014.
He was unemployed much of the time and, in the fall of 2016, had few funds when he hatched the plan to kill his mother, prosecutors said.
Chakalos, a World War II veteran, was shot in his home on December 20, 2013, while he slept.
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, for the death of his mother.
He pleaded not guilty to fraud and first-degree murder and was scheduled to go on trial in October.
An eight-count indictment also said Carman shot and killed his wealthy grandfather to obtain money and property from Chakalos’ estate.
But the prosecution did not accuse him of 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.
However, his former high school classmates painted a more disturbing picture.
They claimed that during Halloween in 2009, the father of a trick-or-treater called the police because he had been handing out Ziploc bags full of fish guts.
Carman had also held a fellow student hostage at knifepoint while at school and wrote extensively about how to build homemade bombs, police documents previously revealed.
He was awaiting trial when he was found dead in a county jail cell.
His death was deemed “non-suspicious,” meaning investigators determined no one else was involved and no crime had been committed.
The attorney general declined to reveal the suspect’s exact cause and manner of death, citing a policy that state officials will not disclose such information in non-suspicious cases.