Nathan Carmen | Mystery, Murder, and Millions
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On a Sunday in September 2016, a crew member of the Chinese freighter, Orient Lucky, was walking along the deck. They were trekking along the Atlantic Ocean, over 100 miles south of Martha's Vineyard, surrounded by pulsing blue and white waves. Something caught the crew member's attention. Off in the distance, floating on the waves, was an orange raft. There was a man inside, waving in hopes of catching the freighter's attention. The man,

22-year-old Nathan Carman had been missing for a week after heading out on a fishing trip with his mother. As Carman called the US Coast Guard from the freighter to report what had happened, he asked if they'd found his mother, Linda Carman. He said the 31-foot boat they'd been on, the Chickenpox, had sunk so quickly he didn't have time to register what was happening. "One minute his mother was there," he explained. The next, she was gone.

At a glance, it looked like a terrible accident. But when authorities and Carmen's insurance company started looking into the story, doubts crept in. Carmen's mother was the beneficiary of $7 million from her father's estate. With her gone, Carmen would get that money. That in itself was enough to cast suspicion on young Nathan Carmen. But there were other things that made people think this was more than just an accident. Carmen's wealthy grandfather

John Chocolos, had been murdered in 2013. And although never charged with the murder, Nathan Carman had been a suspect. At the time of this episode, that case remains unsolved. People who listened to Carman talk about the sinking of the boat heard what sounded like an unfeeling, uncaring son reciting facts in a flat voice. His demeanor during interviews was puzzling and it all seemed to be the actions of a guilty man.

But the tall, thin, and brown-haired Nathan Carman had been diagnosed as on the autism spectrum years before. That can account for some of his seemingly strange behavior. Experts say that those on the autism spectrum are no more or less likely to commit crimes than anyone else. As humans, we tend to make value judgments on appearance and demeanor. While this certainly is not the best way to go about things in any instance,

That tendency is something to be especially aware of as we look at the facts of this ongoing case. At the time of this writing, Carmen is being held without bail, waiting for his trial. He stands accused of orchestrating his mother's death. While we wait to see what the courts decide about Nathan's fate, we can look at what we know. We can present the facts so you can come to your own conclusions about Nathan's guilt or innocence. Did he kill his grandfather in 2013?

Was the 2016 fishing trip with his mother nefarious? Or is Nathan Carman innocent? As motives go, money is a common one. And $7 million is a lot of money by anyone's standards. But what kind of person is willing to kill their own mother to live a life of luxury? What elaborate lengths would they go to? Would they risk becoming lost in the Atlantic Ocean to secure the fortune?

We'll seek to answer these questions and more as we explore the not-yet-concluded story of Nathan Carman. Part 1: Troubling Signs What was previously known as Asperger's is now called autism spectrum disorder. It's characterized by higher than average intelligence, impaired social skills, restricted interests, and a desire for consistency. Raising a child with autism spectrum disorder can be difficult.

and it seems that Nathan Carman's parents were not immune. Diagnosed when he was a child, Nathan had help from specialists to cope. He wasn't a social child, and it was rare to see him laugh or smile. In high school, he usually kept to himself, ignoring the inevitable taunting that came his way. However, he wouldn't back down from debates with teachers or other students when he felt he was in the right.

He did well in high school, getting good grades, even if he didn't want much to do with people his own age. While he preferred the company of adults, he was more partial to animals. He developed a close relationship with a horse named Cruz. His maternal grandfather bought him. Nathan was reportedly very close to his grandfather, John Chakalos, who made his fortune in real estate in the 1960s. Nathan was born into a family of wealth.

but it certainly didn't mean that the family was without its own issues. Before Nathan was born, his mother Linda and father Clark were living in California. John Chakalos, Linda's father, lured the couple back to Connecticut by saying he would buy them a Dunkin' Donuts franchise. The couple agreed, but as soon as they were back, Chakalos failed to honor the agreement.

He did, however, buy them a house in nearby Middletown. Chakalos would dote on Nathan, who was his firstborn grandson. He set up a joint checking account for Nathan with nearly $400,000 in it. He also created a trust that was to be used for the boys' college education. But John Chakalos didn't leave his own children out of his good graces, including Linda. There were four daughters from John and Rita Chakalos.

Although he didn't wish to spoil them, he did provide for them, buying them homes and giving significant monthly allowances. Linda, Nathan's mother, was the troublemaker of the family. According to Clark Carman, Nathan's father, Linda would argue with John regularly. By the time Nathan was a teenager, she became convinced that John was trying to steal her son away from her. Confrontations about money and Nathan were commonplace. In December 2010,

Nathan became despondent after his horse, Cruz, died of colic. He withdrew, refusing to talk to his mother except for the occasional request for money. He soon had a meltdown at school that Linda described as a psychotic episode. He reportedly called the vice principal Satan. She noted other delusions and odd behavior. Linda was no stranger to these kind of outbursts. Nathan often erupted on her.

but she'd never seen him act this way in public. Plus, the specifics of the outbursts were worrying. It was as if he was a different person. Shortly after this episode, Nathan was hospitalized. He refused to see Linda, blaming her for his confinement, but he spent many hours with his grandparents, John and Rita. This widened the wedge between Linda and John.

One evening, during a family meeting to determine how best to get Nathan the help he needed, the conversation turned to money. Clark Carman, although long divorced from Linda, was still a part of his son's life. He was unemployed at the time, but when John Chakalos offered him a job, he refused. John then gave an ultimatum. If Clark didn't take the job, he would cut Linda and Nathan off. An argument ensued, which quickly turned to violence.

According to two witnesses, Linda grabbed her father's testicles in a fit. The police report filed by Chacalos accused her of scratching, punching, and kicking him. Linda accused him of shoving her. She was initially charged with assault, but Chacalos later dropped the charges. She even indicated to police after the confrontation that it was about money, specifically his threat to cut her off.

Chacalos couldn't understand why Linda had such trouble getting her life together. She always seemed broke, possibly because of an affinity for gambling. She couldn't hold down a job. Her house was always in disarray. But others who knew Linda said she was a giver. She was active in the Asperger's community, volunteering her time to help other parents of children on the autism spectrum. Before their relationship hit rocky ground,

She would often travel with Nathan on trips to the Caribbean and across the country. But her son seemed to be pulling away from her and closer to her father. And as he advanced toward adulthood, she didn't know how to get him back. She grew more worried about him, even after he was released from the hospital. But things wouldn't get better, and tragedy wasn't far off on the horizon. Part 2: Desperate Measures

Nathan Carman's 18th birthday was fast approaching, but things hadn't improved since the death of his horse, Cruz. His parents were worried that he wouldn't be equipped to deal with the world. His mother had convinced him to live in an RV parked in her driveway since Nathan refused to live with her. But he wasn't taking care of the RV, worried that his living quarters were fast deteriorating. Linda called social services. They sent the police to check on him.

This infuriated Nathan. A couple of days later, he left the RV and didn't come home that evening like he usually did. After Linda filed a missing persons report, she got a letter from Nathan explaining that he'd run away. The only person in his life he didn't blame in the letter was his grandfather, John Chakalos. After Linda and Clark hired a private investigator to locate their son, he turned up in Virginia. He'd been missing for four days.

Things kept getting worse when he returned home and time was running out before he turned 18 and became a legal adult. So his parents turned him over to a behavior modification bootcamp, hoping it would turn him around. Despite most experts believing that these kinds of camps are harmful to those with autism spectrum disorder, Nathan returned home after several months, much improved.

He moved in with a cousin, started taking classes at a local college, and discussed moving to New Hampshire to live in John Chaklos' weekend mansion. Things were looking up for young Nathan. Then in 2013, tragedy struck once again. In the fall of that year, Rita Chaklos died of cancer. With his wife gone, John Chaklos fell into a deep depression. Then, on the morning of December 20th, 2013, Elaine,

one of Nathan's aunts, went to John's house to check on him. She found him shot to death in his bed with bullet wounds to his back and head. There was no sign of forced entry, no bullet casings in the bedroom, nothing missing from the house. John Chakalos was dead, and his four daughters were set to inherit millions of dollars. But the police quickly started looking at those closest to the man, and the last one to see him alive was his grandson, Nathan Carman.

It's important to note here that autism spectrum disorder has never been linked to violence. There's no evidence of a correlation. However, some experts believe that certain traits common with autism spectrum disorder, when combined with psychotic disorders, can facilitate aggression. While the shooting death of John Chakalos remains thus far unsolved, some suggest that Nathan's history could indicate evidence of a psychotic disorder.

Sudden personality shifts, such as that exemplified by Nathan's psychotic episode at school, are not common among those with autism spectrum disorder. And as we'll soon explore, there are some very strange inconsistencies that imply Nathan's guilt in his grandfather's murder. But there are also some holes in the theory that Nathan Carman shot John Chakalos. Motive is a big one. By all accounts, Nathan was incredibly close to his grandfather.

In the years leading up to Chakalos' death, no one had seen them fight or even argue. They seemed to get along just fine, unlike Nathan and his mother, who had regular confrontations. Of course, one possible motive is money. Nathan knew that his mother was set to receive a portion of John Chakalos' fortune upon his death. He also knew that a considerable sum of money would come his way if his grandfather died. The police were not ignorant of the factors at work here,

but as they dug into the case, they would unearth more questions than answers. Part 3: Person of Interest On the evening of December 19th, 2013, Nathan Carman had dinner with his grandfather. The next morning, around 8:30, John Chakalos was found shot to death. He was 87 years old. As a matter of course, police looked to the family for clues. Linda was a suspect, given her tumultuous history with her father,

And since Nathan was the last person to see his grandfather alive, investigators looked to him for answers. But Nathan's story quickly caught their attention. He couldn't tell the police where he'd been around the time of death. Linda said she was supposed to meet Nathan in the early morning hours of December 20th. They had planned to drive to Rhode Island for a fishing trip, but Nathan didn't show up at the scheduled time.

Linda had already gone home when her son called her and said he was at the meeting place, about halfway between the two towns in which they lived. It was four in the morning, a full hour after they were initially supposed to meet. The investigation also turned up some shady dealings. Chacalos' account had been skimming, police discovered. He'd stolen nearly $400,000 from John. He'd received over three years in prison for his crimes. But the matter of Chacalos' murder still remained.

Linda and her three sisters all submitted to and passed polygraph tests. Nathan, however, refused to cooperate. Suspicious, police started looking harder at the young man. Police discovered that Nathan had bought a Sig Sauer Patrol 716 rifle before Chakalos was killed. It was the same caliber as the weapon used in the murder. There was only one problem. Nathan said he'd lost the gun. Investigators couldn't find the weapon.

And when they asked Nathan why he hadn't told them about the weapon before, he claimed to have forgotten about it. A search of Nathan's home yielded other interesting factors. Although none of them damning, police found two other weapons, along with notes on improvised explosive devices and sniper rifles. Neighbors reportedly referred to Nathan as a time bomb and called him "Murder Boy." When they went to search his hard drive for any evidence of planning the crime, police learned that it was gone.

Nathan had discarded the drive. They also found that the GPS unit that had been in his truck was gone. While extremely suspicious, prosecutors didn't feel they had enough to charge Nathan with the murder, the missing weapon, the discarded hard drive, and the gap in Nathan's alibi weren't enough. Nathan remained a person of interest. His mother Linda and father Clark dismissed the allegations outright, insisting that Nathan wasn't capable of killing his grandfather.

Even others close to Chacolos said it wasn't likely. The two were very close. They never argued. Chacolos would take Nathan with him on errands around town. The two would attend meetings together. But as the murder investigation went cold, some people started to believe that Nathan was the killer and that he was going to go free. There was mention of the young man asking detailed questions about the family trust that would disperse Chacolos' millions when he died. And while far from millions,

Nathan did receive around $550,000 after Chakalos died. Using the money, Nathan bought a house and moved to Vermont. But two years later, he was running low on funds again. The lack of money, some say, is motive enough for Nathan's alleged murder of his mother. And like the story surrounding John Chakalos' death,

The story of Linda Carmen's disappearance is full of holes. So full, in fact, that Nathan has been denied bail as he waits for his trial to start. Part 4: Too Many Holes Nathan was anything but an experienced boater. He bought his boat, the Chickenpox, in 2015. And although he and his mother often went fishing together, neither of them had enough experience with deep-sea fishing to be considered proficient.

According to a report from New York Magazine, two different people who discussed boating and fishing with Nathan found that he lacked experience in both subjects. But that didn't keep him from making changes to the boat on the very day he and his mother left on that fateful trip. According to a lawsuit with his insurance company, Nathan removed two trim tabs from the back of his boat, insisting that they served no practical purpose.

Trim tabs are designed to help the boat stay steady while moving at high speeds. After removing these two tabs, there were four holes at the back of the boat that Nathan filled with marine putty. This is the factor that helped a judge rule in the insurance company's favor. The modifications Nathan made to the boat contributed to its sinking, the company's lawyers argued. It negated the insurance company's coverage, meaning they didn't have to pay the $85,000 Carmen was asking for.

What the judgment made no mention of was whether these modifications were done intentionally as part of a plan to murder Linda Carmen. That remains to be seen. But the story Nathan tells about the sinking of the boat leaves much to be desired. According to Nathan, he and his mother headed out from a Rhode Island marina to do some fishing near Block Island on a Sunday in September 2016.

They fished for several hours around Block Island before heading out to Underwater Block Canyon. This, in and of itself, presents some issues. Those who knew Linda said she refused to fish the canyons with Nathan because neither of them was experienced. Although a popular fishing area, it's not a place most people go without a highly experienced guide. There's another problem with this story.

There was no toilet on the boat, and the trip out to Block Canyon would have extended their fishing expedition for much longer than initially thought. Again, those familiar with the area and the type of fishing said it wasn't likely Linda would have agreed to go so far out without facilities on board. Nathan said that after about five hours of fishing for tuna, he heard a strange noise from below deck. When he checked the engine hatch, he saw the boat was quickly filling with water.

He told his mother to reel the fishing lines in while he prepared to abandon ship. The boat, according to him, went down quickly. He swam to the life raft, which had automatically inflated and, after somehow transferring additional supplies into the raft, began calling for his mother. She was nowhere to be found. Although the boat was equipped with an emergency transmitter, Nathan never activated it.

If he had, it would have sent out a beacon to the Coast Guard, along with the boat's location. When asked why he didn't activate the beacon, he said he thought he could handle the problem himself. But, as implied in his story, he also immediately began preparing to abandon the ship, going in and out of the pilot house more than once, but never activating the emergency beacon. And if he was planning to abandon the ship, why had he asked his mother to reel in the lines? There's no good answer.

but that's not where the problems end. When the Chinese freighter rescued Nathan, the captain was surprised to find him in relatively good shape. He wasn't dehydrated or sunburnt. For the most part, he looked fine. After spending nearly eight days on a raft floating in the Atlantic Ocean, how was this possible? The pictures of Nathan taken immediately following his rescue show a man who looks hearty and healthy, albeit a little scruffy. Granted, there was survival gear on the raft,

which could help to account for his relatively unscathed appearance. But even Nathan's location at the time of rescue has fallen under suspicion. If his story is to be believed, it doesn't make sense that he would have ended up where he was rescued after a week adrift. If his boat went down in the Block Canyon area, the tides at the time should have taken him west, but he was found over 30 miles east of where he said the chickenpox went down. Plus, there's the matter of the massive search and rescue efforts

After it was first determined that the boat was missing, the Coast Guard went to work searching thousands of miles of ocean. They found no evidence of the boat, Nathan's raft, or any wreckage after five days of searching. Yet Nathan was found in the search area. If he'd been drifting for a week, how had they not seen him? It all points to foul play. But if we consider for a moment that Nathan planned the whole thing, we must take into account the extreme risk involved.

By sinking the boat and boarding the life raft, he would have had to take on faith that he'd be rescued. It is possible that he researched shipping lanes and possibly even discovered that there would be freighters passing in the area. If that's the case, he could have driven his boat back to shore after killing his mother. He could have hid for several days before heading back out to sea and sinking his boat in a precise spot that would give him the best chance of being rescued.

It would take extensive planning and preparation to pull it off. But those who know Nathan say he was a penchant for planning. In fact, it's common among those diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. There's also the possibility that he didn't plan anything other than a fishing trip. Perhaps they had an argument on the boat and Nathan did something to his mother in a fit of anger, unsure of what to do. He could have panicked and decided to sink his boat.

letting the only evidence of any wrongdoing float to the murky depths. Or perhaps he's completely innocent, despite the holes in his stories. It's a possibility that we must consider. It's possible that things happened just as he said. It wouldn't have taken much for Linda to become tangled in fishing equipment and pulled under with the boat. There one minute, gone the next. Nathan's story certainly didn't fly under the radar,

Shortly after his rescue, authorities launched an investigation into Linda's disappearance. As with Chakalos' death, Nathan refused to cooperate. Given the lack of a body or any real evidence, there wasn't much they could do. When it was clear that the investigation wasn't going to yield results,

Nathan's three aunts, Elaine Chocolos, Valerie Santilli, and Charlene Gallagher filed what is known as a Slayer Petition in New Hampshire civil court. Designed to prevent criminals who kill for inheritance to benefit from their crime, a successful petition would have prevented any of the family fortune from going to Nathan, even if he wasn't convicted in criminal court. And in civil court,

The burden of proof isn't so heavy as in criminal court. But in 2019, a judge dismissed the case, saying that John Chakalos had been a Connecticut resident, and therefore the case had no business in a New Hampshire court, despite Chakalos having a weekend mansion in the state. A similar petition in Connecticut would require that Nathan Carman be arrested for murder, which he hadn't been at the time.

It seemed for several years that Nathan was going to walk away free and rich. But then, in May of 2022, Nathan Carman was arrested and charged with eight criminal counts in a federal indictment. The indictment alleges that Carman killed his mother and his grandfather in a ploy to inherit money. It also charges him with insurance fraud. It's important to note that this is a federal indictment.

And although the murder of John Chakalos is mentioned in the document, Carmen won't be charged with the murder because it will be up to the state of Connecticut to do so. In August of 2022, a federal judge denied bail for Carmen, citing his lack of strong family ties, his history of assault rifle gun purchases, his lack of employment, and the seriousness of the charges as reasons to not grant bail.

he could face life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted. As of late August 2022, the federal district court judge overseeing the trial granted prosecutors more time to prepare for the unusual and complex case. While we wait for this ongoing case to unfold further, we can consider whether Nathan Carman is innocent and why there are so many holes in his story. One thing is for sure,

This case is shaping up to be one of the more interesting in the modern era. From what we know so far, the prosecution is planning on calling experts to testify in regards to ocean currents, wilderness survival, and even naval architecture. Stay tuned for updates as this story continues to unfold.