In 2016, Nathan Carman was found floating on a life raft off the coast of Rhode Island after the boat he and his mother were on sank.
Now, six years later, he’s being charged with Linda Carman’s murder and has been implicated in the 2013 shooting death of his grandfather, John Chakalos, as part of what prosecutors are calling “a scheme to obtain money and property” from his grandfather’s estate.
“As a central part of this scheme, Nathan Carman murdered John Chakalos and Linda Carman,” the indictment against Carman says, according to The New York Times. “He concocted cover stories to conceal his involvement in those killings.”
The indictment was unsealed in Burlington, Vermont, federal court on Tuesday, and accuses Carman of murdering his mother during the boating trip in September 2016 and lying to authorities about the incident afterward. The indictment does not explain how Carman allegedly killed his mother, but they say he purposefully sunk the boat the two were on that day. Carman spent eight days on a life raft after the boat sank before being found by a commercial fishing ship.
In 2016, after the boat sank, Carman told the Associated Press that he tried to find his mother when the ship began to sank. He told the outlet that he heard a “funny noise” coming from the engine compartment and water started pouring in, sinking the boat in just minutes. He claimed at the time that he saw his mother in the cockpit of the boat and rushed to grab food, flares, and life jackets, but she was gone when he looked back.
“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 told the AP at the time.
Suspicions were raised even at the time of the incident, including the death of Carman’s grandfather three years earlier. He told the AP in the same interview that he had nothing to do with his grandfather’s death.
“My grandfather was like a father to me, and I was like a son to him,” Carman said at the time. “He was the closest person in the world to me, and I loved him and he loved me, and I had absolutely nothing to do with his death.”
A search warrant had been issued in 2014 relating to the death of Carman’s grandfather, Chakalos. The warrant, obtained by the AP, explained that Carman was the last person to see his grandfather alive, had purchased a rifle consistent with the one used in the shooting, and that he discarded his hard drive and GPS unit around the time his grandfather died.
The indictment released Tuesday alleges that Carman shot and killed his grandfather as part of a scheme to obtain his wealth. Carman has not been charged in this killing, however.
The AP reported that Chakalos divvied up his $42 million estate between his four adult daughters, one of whom was Carman’s mother. Carman’s three aunts filed a lawsuit in 2018 in which they accused him killing his grandfather and possibly his mother in order to gain the money. In the lawsuit, they asked a judge to block Carman from receiving his inheritance.
Carman faces eight criminal charges, including murdering his mother and seven charges related to his attempts to obtain his inheritance. If convicted of murder, he faces life in prison. He also faces up to 30 years in prison for each fraud charge.