HARTFORD, Conn. — Nathan Carman, who was rescued at sea after what he called a freak boating accident in 2016 that took his mother’s life, was accused by federal authorities in Vermont Tuesday of killing her and his grandfather in a cold-blooded scheme to increase his share of a family inheritance.
The U.S. Attorney’s office in Vermont released an indictment that charges Carman had been scheming since 2012 to increase his share of the fortune his grandfather, John Chakalos, intended to leave to his daughters and their designees upon his death. Chakalos was a nursing home developer who had homes in Windsor and Chesterfield, New Hampshire.
The indictment accuses Carman of shooting his grandfather to death as he slept in his home in Windsor on Dec. 20, 2013, after persuading his grandfather to put hundreds of thousands of dollars in two bank accounts in his name.
After Chakalos was killed, Carman received about $550,000 — $150,000 from a college fund account and another $400,000 from an account that named he and his mother, Linda Carman, as beneficiaries.
Carman moved to Vermont, and by 2016 he had spent most of the money and was low on funds, according to the indictment.
In September 2016, Nathan Carman arranged to go on an offshore Tuna fishing trip with his mother on a boat he had bought and called the Chicken Pox.
“He also planned how he would report the sinking of the Chicken Pox and his mother’s disappearance at sea as accidents,” the indictment charges.
Prior to the trip, Nathan Carman told his mother that they would be fishing in the immediate vicinity of Block Island. They left from Ram Point Marina in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, at approximately 11:13 p.m. on Sept. 17, 2016. Linda Carman believed that she would be returning home by noon the next day, according to a float plan she left with friends.
The indictment charges that before leaving the marina with his mother, Carman altered the boat in a way that would make it sink — he allegedly removed two forward bulkheads and removed the trim tabs from the stern leaving to holes in the hull close to the waterline.
Also, before leaving on he fishing trip, federal authorities allege, Carman removed his computer from his home, preventing law enforcement from reviewing the computer while he was away.
Carman is accused of sinking the Chicken Pox off eastern Long Island on Sept. 18. When the boat failed to return, the U.S. Coast Guard launched an exhaustive search, which continued for eight days, until the crew of a freighter Orient Lucky spotted Carman drifting in a life raft off Martha’s Vineyard.
