The Carman Family Deaths (2025)
Genre: Documentary, crime, thriller
Director: Yon Motskin
Release Date: November 19, 2025 (Netflix)
Stars: Mike Sarraille, Evan Lubofsky, Martin Minnella
Plot: Nathan Carman, a young man who, after a fishing trip with his mother Linda off the coast of New England, survives a week on a life raft while she is lost at sea. The sensational incident renews interest in the unsolved murder of Carman’s wealthy grandfather years earlier, spurring a media frenzy, a war over a vast family fortune, multiple investigations and ultimately federal charges against Carman for murder on the high seas. With unprecedented access to family, friends and investigators, the film is a nautical thriller that explores intimate human mysteries about family, greed, perception, mental health and the unpredictable mind of an enigmatic young man.
* * *
The Uninherited: The Doom of the Carman Dynasty
It began as a miracle at sea and ended as a Greek tragedy in a jail cell. When Nathan Carman was plucked from a life raft in the Atlantic in 2016, drifting alone after eight days, the initial narrative was one of survival against the odds. But as the weeks turned into years, that narrative curdled into something far darker—a Gothic saga of a family dismantled piece by piece, leaving behind a $42 million fortune that no one seemed able to touch without being destroyed by it.
With the release of Netflix’s The Carman Family Deaths (2025), the public has been pulled back into the orbit of a clan defined by a single, corrosive question: Did a grandson liquidate his own bloodline for an inheritance he would never live to spend?
The Patriarch’s Shadow
To understand the end, one must look to the beginning, to John Chakalos. A self-made real estate tycoon, Chakalos was described by family members as a “force of nature,” a man who built nursing homes and amassed a fortune through sheer will. But his wealth cast a long shadow. In 2013, that shadow turned violent when Chakalos was found executed in his Windsor, Connecticut home, shot three times in the head and back.
The murder remains officially unsolved, but the documentary highlights the fracture it caused. While police investigations stalled, the family’s suspicion zeroed in on Nathan, the favored grandson who had dinner with Chakalos the night he died. Nathan, a young man diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, became the “easy mark,” as one observer noted—stoic, socially awkward, and seemingly detached from the grief that consumed his aunts.
The Empty Raft
Three years later, the suspicion deepened into horror. Nathan took his mother, Linda Carman, on a fishing trip off the coast of Rhode Island aboard his boat, the Chicken Pox. When the boat sank, Nathan made it to the life raft with food and water. Linda did not.
The documentary paints a chilling picture of the rescue. Nathan was found in good health, too composed for a man who had supposedly watched his mother vanish into the abyss. “He claimed he didn’t see her,” a prosecutor recounts in the film. “He didn’t hear her.” The Coast Guard investigation later revealed that Nathan had made alterations to the boat—removing trim tabs and drilling holes—that a federal judge would later rule contributed to its sinking. It wasn’t just a tragedy; to investigators, it looked like a disposal.
The War of Attrition
What followed was a legal war of attrition. Nathan’s three aunts—Valerie, Elaine, and Charlene—filed a “slayer petition” in civil court, a desperate bid to block him from inheriting the $7 million share of the estate that would have flowed to him through his mother. They argued that a killer should not inherit from his victims.
Nathan fought back, often representing himself, using his grandfather’s own trust fund to pay for the lawyers defending him against the accusation that he killed his grandfather. It was a surreal legal loop: the estate funding the defense of its potential destroyer. But the walls were closing in. In 2022, federal prosecutors indicted Nathan for the murder of his mother and fraud related to his grandfather’s death, alleging a decade-long scheme to consolidate the family fortune.
The Quiet End
The climax the public expected—a sensational murder trial peeling back the layers of the Chakalos empire—never arrived. In June 2023, just months before his trial was set to begin, Nathan Carman was found dead in his jail cell. He had hanged himself, leaving a note that his lawyers insisted was not a suicide note, but notes for his defense.
With his death, the criminal case evaporated. The federal charges were dismissed, and the legal presumption of innocence remained technically intact. However, the civil battles had already done their work. Nathan died without ever accessing the millions he was accused of killing for. The inheritance remains in the hands of the surviving family, though it is a victory hollowed out by loss.
* * *
The Carman Family Deaths (2025) | Transcript
[haunting music playing]
[woman 1] You know, my dad always said, “Without family, you have nothing.”
[man 1] We had a great family back then.
We all came together.
[woman 1] We all got along.
We were all happy with each other.
And then Nathan comes.
Life just changed.
For everyone, forever.
[reporter 1] Nathan Carman’s mother is missing and is presumed dead.
[reporter 2] Lost at sea during a fishing trip.
[reporter 3] Nathan is at the center of this.
Boats don’t just drop out from under you the way he described it.
[man 2] The middle of the ocean is not a safe place.
What had happened was just a severe accident.
[ominous music playing]
[reporter 4] This isn’t the first time tragedy has hit the Carman family.
[reporter 5] Nathan’s grandfather was found dead in his home of a gunshot wound to the head.
[man 3] The wounds were so severe that you can almost barely make out what could have caused it.
I said, “Whoever killed him is probably sitting in this room right now.”
I have a problem with you.
You were the last one to see your grandfather.
Right off the bat, there should not have been an interrogation.
People on the autism spectrum are frequently misinterpreted.
You know, if you’re different, you’re probably bad.
[man 4] Nathan was seen as the low-hanging fruit.
The easy mark.
All this happened because of greed.
Because of one person’s greed.
[man 5] According to the government, he planned all this.
It’s beyond crazy.
Might as well say he murdered Kennedy.
[woman 1] This whole situation is just one big Greek tragedy.
[music fades] I-I’ve asked myself, did I do the right thing?
I know at the time what I was thinking was I-I need to keep my mom occupied while I’m trying to fix the problem.
[water lapping]
[prosecutor] Did you have an argument with your mother on the boat?
No.
[prosecutor] Have a fight on the boat?
No.
[prosecutor]
Did you kill your mother on the boat?
No.
[prosecutor] Did you sink the boat after you killed your mother?
Objection. Compound question.
[haunting music playing]
[reporter 6] The search continues for two missing boaters off the coast of Rhode Island…
[reporter 7] An update now on a mother and son who haven’t been seen since they left South Kingstown on Saturday on a fishing trip. Tonight, the Coast Guard says…
[man 6] The Coast Guard received a call that there was an overdue vessel in South Kingstown, Rhode Island.
Nathan Carman and his mom, Linda, had decided to go fishing in an area south of Block Island.
When they didn’t return, there was concern about them.
Uh, significant concern.
[reporter 8] The Coast Guard says 54yearold Linda Carman and her 22yearold son Nathan left and never returned from a fishing trip near Block Island on Sunday.
[woman 2] They would go on all these fishing trips, and just like any other time, they were gonna ship out of Rhode Island, the… the marina there.
She thought they’d be back the next day around noon.
[text message whooshes]
Linda was supposed to call me around 12:00, one o’clock.
Between 4:00 and 5:00, I realized she hadn’t called.
So I said, “This isn’t right.”
So I called the police.
I guess the Coast Guard called me after that, and I gave them the information, and they started the search right away.
[reporter 9] The Coast Guard searched the waters off Block Island and then Long Island, meticulously combing 62,000 square nautical miles, an area larger than the state of Georgia.
[Eric] We had negative results on day one.
[reporter 10]
Coast Guard expanded search…
[Eric] Day two.
Hoping to find a mother and son.
[Eric] Day three.
[reporter 11] There is still no sign of Linda and Nathan Carman or their boat, the Chicken Pox.
[Eric] Day four. Day five.
[reporter 12]
They’ve expanded their search to an 11,000mile area off Montauk.
After six days, the search is called off.
[melancholy music playing]
But you can’t just stop searching.
That-that… that really upset me.
And we just kind of had a little vigil to hopefully wait for her.
You know, news that she was found.
[pensive music playing]
[reporter 9] On Sunday afternoon, a remarkable development. The US Coast Guard says a freighter spotted Carman floating alone in a life raft, 100 nautical miles south of Martha’s Vineyard.
[pensive music continues]
[Coast Guard] Nathan, this is United States Coast Guard Boston.
[Nathan] Hello? Yes, I hear you.
[Coast Guard] Uh, yes, sir. I-I… I need to understand what happened.
[Nathan] There was a funny noise in the engine compartment. I looked and saw a lot of water. Boat just dropped out from under my feet. When I saw the life raft, I did not see my mom. Uh, have you found her?
[reporter 13] Of the two boaters missing, only one came back alive.
[reporter 14] Carman’s mother remains missing and is presumed dead. I would just like to thank the public, uh, for their prayers and for their concern for both my mother and for myself.
I’m… feel healthy.
Uh, emotionally, I’ve been through a huge amount.
He’s, uh, lost a little weight, but other than that, he’s doing well.
[Clark, present day]
When I went and picked him up, I got my arms around him, and I think he put his arms over my shoulders.
And, uh, I didn’t want to let go.
Nathan wanted to go to his house.
He wanted to be by himself, which did not surprise me.
You could tell, even though he’s not verbalizing it, the inability to have saved her, I think, was riding on him immensely.
[reporter 15] For the first time, we are seeing Nathan’s rescue from the perspective of the crew. It’s an amazing survival story.
[reporter 16] This is pretty remarkable. He was on the sea for seven days in a four-person inflatable life raft. He had some food and water…
Most people would think, “I’m gonna die out here.”
And… and the way that I handled that was to focus on, uh, what I had to do in order to survive.
[intense percussive music playing]
After the first day, I tried to regiment myself.
Food packs said to eat four per day, and so I was spacing that out throughout the day.
I was trying to focus on keeping myself hydrated.
I did spot the Orient Lucky around midday.
[music fades out]
[man 7] As a writer, I found Nathan’s story really intriguing.
I live near the ocean, you know, live along the coast of New England, and, you know, for a lot of us in these coastal communities, that’s sort of like our backyard.
People thought, “This poor young man, lost his mom at sea.”
It was this heroic survival story, and it was a real feelgood story.
But then the public sentiment started to shift from, “Wow, this is an amazing, miraculous survival story,” to, “This doesn’t seem right.”
[reporter] The captain of the cargo ship that saved Nathan Carman says the 22yearold seemed healthy when he was rescued and did not appear to be suffering from dehydration, hypothermia, or anything else.
[Eric] Circumstances like this don’t happen very frequently.
I mean, seven days in a life raft, floating at the continental shelf, that does not happen frequently at all.
In my 26year career, this is the first one.
This is a picture of Nathan after he jumped out of the life raft into probably 7,000 feet of water, and he’s able to kick and swim to the life ring that’s lowered to him, and he’s able to hold on to it, and then he’s able to get up onto the accommodation ladder, which…
No way.
[pensive music playing]
[Clark] A very difficult situation.
Um… none of us really know what he went through.
[Clark, present day] Him being a suspect, most of that is due to their lack of ability to discern his demeanor as autistic.
Because of his autism, because of his ability to be alone, Nathan, of any individual that I know, could have coped with being lost at sea.
And I’m sure he used all his ingenuity in those eight days.
[foreboding music playing]
[man 8] Prior to Nathan returning, we actually executed a warrant at Nathan’s house to try to determine where they were going, what their intention was going on this trip, um, and really trying to find out if, uh, Nathan had any intent to do any harm to himself or his mother.
We searched his house and his vehicle.
We found some concerning documents.
This one’s titled, “Why I Am Reluctant to Cooperate with the Police.”
“Emotionally, I’m not sure that I can bear another interview.”
Then he goes on to say, “Philosophically, the idea of proving one’s innocence repels me.”
The next is, “Generally, the police are a corrupt and often criminal organization.”
It’s unusual.
I have to say, in all my experience, I’ve never come across anything like that.
It further confirmed our suspicions that he had some type of, you know, ill will upon departing on that fishing trip with his mother.
Myself and another investigator, we meet with him.
Very surprisingly, he agreed to speak to me.
[tape recorder clicks]
[Alfred, on recording] Take me through what happened.
[Nathan] Sure. My mom and I went to Stop & Shop, uh, and I got, uh, something to drink. We drove to the parking lot at Ram Point Marina. We loaded the cooler from the back of my truck with the bait in it onto the boat. [Alfred, present day] Nathan had mentioned he had bought bait, things of that nature.
He did buy eels.
Uh, we found eels used for fishing in his truck, which is, you know, obviously interesting and concerning to us because if he intended to use the eels to go fishing, why’d he leave the bait in his truck, not bring it on the boat?
[on recording] What time did you leave the marina?
[Nathan] I think we left the marina around midnight.
[Alfred] After you headed out, you decided to change the plan and go to the Canyons, correct?
[Nathan] That’s correct.
[Alfred] And that’s a much longer trip, right?
[Nathan] Yes, going to Block Canyon is a much longer trip than going to the vicinity of Block Island.
[mysterious music playing]
[Eric] The decision to go another 60 to 70 miles offshore is not a place for an inexperienced boater.
It’s not something that you do without a tremendous amount of preparation.
[Alfred, on recording] When did you notice that the Chicken Pox was taking on water?
[Nathan] The engine sounded different to me. And I opened the hatch forward of the pilot house, um, and observed a large quantity of water in the bilge.
[Alfred] Did you do a radio distress signal?
[Nathan] No, I did not.
I didn’t think we were going to sink. If you know you’re sinking, you always get on the radio and say, “Distress.” But I knew that a distress signal wouldn’t reach shore.
[Alfred] But it would reach other boats.
[Nathan] I didn’t know if there were any other boats in range, so I…
[Alfred] You didn’t try?
[Eric] If something bad could happen, why not call for assistance on your radio?
The lack of things that were done raised questions.
There’s something more to the story here.
I knew what had happened was just a severe accident, and, uh…
I know if Nathan had the ability, he would have saved his mother.
I’m very grateful to the friends and family, uh, who attended in memory of my mom.
[reporter] Are you sad your aunts didn’t show up?
I wish very much that my whole family could have come together, uh, to pray for my mom.
Uh…
But I made sure that they were invited and that they had an opportunity to come.
[reporter] Have police told you anything about the status of the investigation in Rhode Island?
Uh, I… I wish desperately, uh, that, uh, my mom was rescued.
Uh, I hope that she will be found.
[reporter] Tell us about your relationship with her.
Now I’m gonna drive off.
[reporter] What about your grandfather?
I need to close my door.
[reporter] Okay.
Nathan, take care.
No one called me from the family.
None of the three sisters, none of the cousins.
Did not hear from a soul.
They felt Nathan had murdered their sister.
[uneasy music playing]
He killed our sister, his own mother.
So, yeah, we didn’t… we didn’t want anything to do with him.
It was a horrid thing, just totally horrendous, what happened to our family.
This whole situation’s just one big Greek tragedy.
[intriguing string music playing]
[Charlene] My parents had four daughters.
Elaine was older.
Valerie was the youngest.
And I was two years younger than Linda.
Linda and I were extremely close.
We hung out a lot, and I had a lot of fun with her.
[nostalgic music playing]
We were always there for each other.
We all took care of each other.
It was a great childhood.
Linda was fun. She was very athletic.
She was very much like my father.
[laughing] My father was… he was hardheaded.
And Linda was also hardheaded.
She had 100% of the Greek personality.
[laughing]
[pleasant music playing]
[people laughing, cheering]
[man 1] John Chakalos was my uncle.
He was pretty much a force of nature.
He was a guy that…
He… he was… he was bigger than life.
Worked hard his whole life.
He started different businesses, developed a lot of properties, built nursing homes, assisted living.
After that, it was one right after the other.
[Charlene] As we got older, we got a large house in New Hampshire.
It was grand.
It was 20,000 square feet.
We had an indoor, huge swimming pool.
[Chuck] One summer, he had elephants there.
It was out of this world.
[Charlene] Really, it was at that point that I was like, “Wow, you know, we have money.”
[woman 3] Linda was my best friend.
I knew her for over 30 years.
We… talked about everything.
I heard so much about her background over time.
All the relationships were very dysfunctional, and her father was extremely controlling.
So she said, “I’m going to move to California.”
And he said, “Well, if you do, then I’m disowning you.”
She goes, “Okay.” And she went.
She was tough.
When I met her, she was in the National Guard, and she has three sisters back home that are the complete opposite.
And here’s Linda, and she just broke away.
[Clark] I met Linda out in California.
She was happy most of the time, except when dealing with family.
Took us a while, but we got married.
Her father, John, had promised if we moved back, he would develop a Dunkin’ Donuts franchise for us.
When we got back there, he reneged.
So she ended up having to work for her father, which was not a good situation between those two.
That’s how he operated.
[uneasy music playing]
He liked to control lives, especially his daughters’.
All four of them.
He liked to control everything.
Linda’s fought with her father her whole life.
Back and forth, back and forth.
Because they were a lot alike.
[Clark] John was very volatile.
I had never experienced violence like that in a family situation.
He would, uh… physically push or, or slap or…
To his wife, to his daughters.
That was a constant in the Chakalos family.
Arguments, yeah. Occasional fist fights.
Which, you know, is not normal in most families, but hey, they weren’t killing each other.
None of them went to the hospital.
[ominous music playing]
[police officer] Friday, December 20, 2013, 1335 hours.
Central District Major Crime is at the scene of the John Chakalos residence.
[reporter] It is a dark holiday season. Early Friday morning in Windsor, Connecticut, 87yearold John Chakalos was found dead from an apparent gunshot wound to the head. Investigators are calling it a homicide.
[Clark] Elaine was the eldest.
Walked in and found him, um, literally executed in his bed.
[man 3] I’m gonna tell you, it’s a horror show.
It’s definitely a horror show.
The wounds were so severe that you can almost barely make out what could have caused it.
You could tell there was no struggle that went on.
It was basically the victim lying in the bed, gunshots were to the head.
[Chuck] The top of his head was blown off, and his brain scattered all over the back of the headboard on the wall.
It was… it was beyond belief.
It was beyond belief that the man that I knew my whole life, that was larger than life, and that was… [clears throat] That he was actually dead.
[Charlene] It was just terrible.
My father always did everything for the family.
My dad always said, “Without family, you have nothing.”
And now he was gone.
[Chuck] And then everybody was trying to figure out, “Who did it?”
[detective] Sit over there and we’ll look through this.
Thank you for coming up.
Yeah.
[Linda Gam] She told me what she thought happened.
She said, um, “I definitely think that it was a Mob hit.”
[mysterious music playing]
[Mark] One avenue was, because he was in construction, construction is sometimes linked to organized crime, and he dealt with some pretty shady characters.
[Charlene] My dad was pretty hardheaded.
He was a, you know, shrewd businessman.
When you’re a self-made millionaire, or whatever you want to call my dad, you know, I’m sure he’s stepped on a lot of toes.
[music intensifies]
[Mark] We’re getting things back from the lab, and we’re verifying that the murder weapon was a large-caliber weapon.
[camera shutter clicking]
Usually if it’s someone that’s doing a hit, it’s a smaller-caliber weapon.
They don’t want to make a lot of noise.
Large-caliber weapon makes a lot of noise.
And also, they don’t usually come to someone’s house.
Usually, you disappear.
[intriguing music playing]
Now we’re verifying that this crime that we believe is a break-in, it’s not a break-in for the purposes of taking anything.
It’s a break-in for purposes of doing harm to John.
Now we come to, “Who else?”
Who else has intimate details of him?
His family.
[young Charlene] Daddy, I need some money!
[people laughing] Daddy!
[Charlene, present day]
My dad had a living trust, so we, the four of us, would get the same amount of money each month.
Each girl was receiving, I would say, approximately $25,000 a month, notwithstanding what they would inherit if he should pass away.
[somber music playing]
[Chuck] After the funeral, we all went to Valerie and Larry’s house in West Hartford after that, and they had cops outside just in case anybody was gonna come, you know, and attack the family.
And I’m sitting at the dinner table, and we’re drinking coffee, all the food’s gone, and I’m sitting there looking out the window, and I go, “You know, these cops are sitting outside “trying to protect us from somebody out there,” but I said, “Whoever killed him is probably sitting in this room right now.”
[detective] You know, and that’s when Nathan became a very prominent person, because he was the last to see him the night before.
How’s Nathan doing?
Very upset.
Yeah.
Very like it’s not real.
[Scott] Mmhmm.
There’s no way Nathan would ever do that to his grandfather.
I mean, he adored his grandfather.
And they both loved each other.
I mean, you could see it from day one.
[tender music playing]
Nathan was the firstborn grandson of a Greek dynasty, if you will.
[baby Nathan fussing]
You don’t like it that way.
How come? Oh my!
[Linda Carman] Yeah, sometimes he does.
[John’s wife] Stand up, John.
[Clark] From the beginning, Nathan was number one in Grandpa’s eyes.
He doted on Nathan his whole life, and also interfered his whole life.
[indistinct chattering]
[John] Whack it hard.
[John’s wife] I’ll find a stick.
[John] Okay, watch it.
[Linda Carman] It’s hit!
Hit him in the nose.
That thing’s…
That’s the problem.
Yeah.
[Linda Carman] There you go, Nathan!
Keep going!
He was first diagnosed with autism when he was about four or five.
[Linda Carman] Nathan, say hi!
Hi!
[Clark] We initially had testing done ’cause we didn’t know what it really was.
It was not in the mainstream the way it is today.
[Linda Carman] Proud of you.
[Charlene] Good job.
[Linda Carman] Good job.
[instructor] Right out there with Rachel. Good.
[Clark] Nathan loved horses since the first time he got on one.
Eventually, Linda bought him Cruise.
He fell in love with that horse.
It became his best friend because he didn’t really have any other friends.
[Charlene] It did hurt Linda Nathan didn’t have friends, and that he was different.
[Clark] Psychiatrists helped to an extent, but lots of times, there was interference from the family.
[Charlene] Everyone was perfect in my dad’s eyes, and, uh, Nathan was fine.
“Oh, he’ll be fine. He’ll be fine.”
[Linda Gam] John was old school.
John did not understand why Nathan needed help.
And they used to get in arguments about it.
“Why do you need to take him there?
Why do you need to do this?”
[Linda Carman] Don’t… don’t even start.
Don’t even… You weren’t invited.
You weren’t invited. You weren’t invited.
[Linda Gam] She didn’t want him to have that much influence over Nathan.
But as time went on, that’s exactly what happened.
What about with you and your dad?
Any issues with him?
No. And see, once in a while things would come up.
I’d tell him, “I’m not gonna have this conversation with you.”
“I will have it with an attorney or a therapist in the room.”
“I’m not gonna discuss these things one-on-one because I know where it goes.”
“We get angry, and one of us storms out.”
You know?
And, of course, nothing gets accomplished.
He just seemed like a guy who didn’t like no for an answer.
Right. Yeah.
Or get his way. You know?
Meaning good, but, I mean…
His heart was always in the right place.
It was the way he went about it.
[Lisa] There had been some question as to Linda’s whereabouts during the window of the time that the homicide would have occurred.
You mentioned, um, you had a conversation with your dad the night, uh, before.
[Linda] Mmhmm.
Uh, so going on that, I mean, the best you can, in your own words, the last time you talked to him, and try to, you know, work back to the…
Was it a couple of days in between?
No, it was… Matter of fact, I can…
I don’t know if I called on my cell phone or my house phone.
Um…
It was… it was pretty much a daily thing.
[Scott] Okay.
[Lisa] We were able to get location history from various cell phone providers.
Linda was exactly where she told police that she was.
Linda could not have killed John.
Have a seat.
Nathan.
Thanks for coming in.
Want a water or something?
Yes, please.
Right here.
How are you?
All right.
Good.
[Mark] When he came in our lobby, we get to talking, he introduces himself, I introduce myself, and then he start to kind of… break down and cry, and get kind of a little out of control.
And then he says, he blurts out, “How can I calm down when I just found out my grandfather got his head blown off?”
And the mother finally got to calm him down, but that statement kind of struck me because who of our investigative team let that out?
No one ever let that out.
When you received the phone call, did she share the manner of death in which your grandfather passed?
I still don’t know the manner of death from which my grandfather passed.
Obviously, from the circumstances, that the way you seem to be treating this, it’s either a murder or suicide is what I deduce.
Uh, but I know that you’re calling it suspicious, because that’s what Valerie said.
Uh, but no, she just said that he passed, as far as I recall.
[Scott] I’ve been interviewing people for my entire career, and always felt I was pretty good at it.
You look for emotion, and you look for things that you know you have the right person, type of thing.
And with Nathan, he didn’t get…
You didn’t get the normal reads.
Did you ever… Did he ever ask you to get money out of the drawer…?
Yes, uh… when I… when I moved.
He’s the only person I ever knew who would yell at me for not asking for money.
He… [stammering] He was very generous…
[Mark] The hair on the back of my neck raised.
In other words, my meter was going off that this guy’s…
He… he may be a player in this.
His affect isn’t right.
And throughout all of whatever challenges he has, through autism or whatever, his affect isn’t right.
[woman 4] Right off the bat, there should not have been an interrogation.
He never should have been in that room to begin with because people on the autism spectrum are frequently misinterpreted.
Nathan was talking in very, very stilted terms, and he responded in a way that was not only robotic, but, because he was giving detail after detail, almost seemed cold and calculating.
That, in the eyes of some law enforcement, may be, if you will, a tell that they’re guilty.
I really don’t like speaking against my mom.
I don’t think that she would ever have anything to do with whatever happened to my grandfather.
Uh, but she did tell me on one occasion, I don’t think she used the explicit word “hate,” uh, but said some things.
I asked, “Does that mean you hate him?”
And she clearly indicated yes.
Oh shit.
But I… I really don’t like speaking against my mom.
I just… I… I don’t…
I understand.
I just don’t think that she would do anything.
But they had a strained relationship.
They had questioned me about my movements, what I did, my relationship with him, then they’d throw in a question about Nathan.
Then they would ask me about John’s business associates.
“Was he doing this? Was he doing that?”
And then they’d throw in, “What about Nathan? Where was he?”
“What was he…”
They always kept going back to him.
They’d ask three questions, and the fourth one would be about Nathan.
I’m going to be honest.
I… I have a problem with you.
I have a problem. Let me explain.
I have… My problem, and I’m not speaking on behalf of detective here.
My problem is that you were the last one to see your grandfather.
And that bothers me.
As an investigator, that bothers me.
That bothers me because I don’t have anyone else who was with your grandfather…
But you.
[Nathan] Mmhmm.
Well, you’re… you’re misunder…
That is incorrect.
I… I saw my grandfather.
We went to dinner. We had a good time.
We got back.
I… I left 8:00, 8:30, somewhere in there.
Um, I expected to be hearing…
To be calling the next day to say how we did fishing.
Instead, when we got back from fishing, uh, Joy called, and so we found out he was dead.
[Chuck] According to Nathan, he had dinner with my uncle.
He goes, “They had dinner.
They didn’t get into any arguments.”
“They went their separate ways.”
And then he said he met with his mother to, uh, go on a cod fishing trip at three o’clock in the morning.
[Scott] But there’s a problem.
There’s about an hour that he’s unaccounted for, uh… around the time that we think maybe the homicide happened.
[Lisa] Nathan was supposed to be meeting Linda that night, and he was late.
[prosecutor] Well, why were you over an hour late to… to get to your mom?
I don’t think I left my apartment until after 3:00.
I’m not positive what time I left my apartment.
Um, but I definitely left it very late…
So as we’re going through it, some of his story didn’t add up.
[Nathan] If I’d taken the exit on the south side of Hartford, I’d have gone over the Connecticut River, gotten off the first exit, uh, and basically been at the parking lot where my mom and I were supposed to meet.
But I ended up getting off the wrong exit, and then get turned around.
Uh, and then I mistakenly took the exit on the north side of Hartford to go over the Connecticut River.
And then I… realized pretty quickly that I was, uh, turned around.
[Mark] He said he got lost.
Who gets lost going to their own spot where they’re telling you where to go?
I don’t know.
He got lost.
It’s, you know, three o’clock in the morning, and there’s not too many ways to get lost.
His story is that he got lost off the highway.
I’m not really sure what happened with all that, but it doesn’t give him much of an alibi.
[prosecutor] And your testimony is your mother’s in an empty parking lot at three o’clock in the morning, and you didn’t call to tell her you’re going to be late?
I know that I was rushing, trying to get there on time.
[prosecutor] She called you four or five times during that hour, didn’t she?
I can’t testify to that.
I don’t refute that either.
The Windsor Police Department, their narrative, you know…
I have to put on the reading glasses.
This is troubling.
The neighbor said she heard gunshots at 2:00 in the morning.
And we can account for Nathan at two o’clock in the morning.
Meaning Nathan Carman did not kill John Chakalos.
At 2:00 a.m., Nathan would have been at his apartment, and that is corroborated by surveillance video.
If the loud bang that the neighbor heard was, in fact, a gunshot, and she didn’t have the time wrong, then Nathan has an alibi.
[Mark] I suggested to put the family through some polygraphs.
It was explained, we don’t use polygraphs in a court of law.
Law enforcement, we use it to clear people, which the family agreed to do.
But who didn’t take the polygraph?
Nathan.
Nathan wouldn’t take the polygraph.
[dramatic music playing]
There was some pushback from Nathan’s mother, but she ended up taking it.
We talked to her for about an hour, and…
Do you ever get that sense that someone wanted to tell you something?
That’s how I had…
She wanted to say something, but she never did.
[Chuck] When I took the polygraph, they asked me, “Did you murder John Chakalos?”
I said, “No.”
They go, “Do you know who murdered John Chakalos?” I said, “No.”
And then Linda took it.
She took it a few times.
I think she failed it.
The second time she took it, it was inconclusive.
When they get to the question of, “Do you know who murdered John Chakalos?”
I… I don’t think she could pass that question.
After the murder, Charlene and I talked.
She didn’t say, “I think Nathan did it.”
What she said to me was interesting because she said, “My sister Linda knows more than what… what she’s saying.”
That’s what she picked up on.
[Charlene] My sisters decided to put up billboards for my dad’s murder at the same area of the highway that both Nathan and Linda would be traveling in all the time, for Linda and Nathan to constantly see my dad’s face, to pressure Linda and Nathan to finally, you know, tell us or the police, you know, that Nathan had killed my dad.
[Linda Gam] If Linda really thought that Nathan killed John, I would have heard something in her demeanor, even if she didn’t say it to me.
Like there’s more of something.
“There’s more that you’re not telling me” type of feeling.
I didn’t get any of that from her.
[somber music playing]
[Evan] Linda was very protective over Nathan, and I think she’d protect him at all costs.
It makes you wonder if at that point, Linda could have been trying to make amends for how she handled Nathan when he was a teenager.
Their relationship was very rough, and there was a lot of turmoil there.
[Clark] When Nathan was a teenager, his horse, Cruise, passed away.
That was the biggest loss for Nathan.
Confided in the horse, and really developed a relationship with him.
And then, to all of a sudden lose that…
I think Nathan lost something too.
He wanted to be alone.
Linda had this 32foot camper, so he would stay in there, come in for meals.
And Nathan progressively, uh… stayed in the camper longer and longer, and, uh, became worse.
He took apart the microwave, and he was trying to reassemble it.
He was not coming out, not really talking to anybody.
He actually ended up urinating in bottles.
He was going downhill, mentally.
[Chuck] One member of the family told me that he was being bullied by another kid, and that he pulled a knife on the kid.
At that point, I was thinking to myself that he might hurt himself.
[Clark] We did research, Linda did most of it, as to these camps that help individuals that have, uh, obsessive behavior.
[dark music playing]
[Clark] The camp sent two men to take Nathan in the middle of the night.
He did not want to go.
He was very anxious, pleaded with us, yelling, screaming.
It was terrible. Terrible.
But we had to let him go, and so they physically took him to Utah.
[eerie music playing]
[Evan] This is an 11page letter that Nathan had written to his priest.
“The spread between my mother and I widened, to equal the spread between heaven and hell.”
“The way some parents are committed to having their children grow up to be doctors or lawyers, my mother’s dream is to have a nonverbal autistic child, drooling in her living room, “whose diapers she can change until she grows old.”
“My mother’s pursuit of that dream, and her bullying, characterized my childhood.”
[Clark] When he came home, he had, uh, had a breakdown, really.
He was having some problems about the Church, the devil.
Our decision was made for us, really, that something had to be done.
We took him to Middlesex Hospital in Middletown.
They held him on a psych hold.
Nathan was supposed to be alone, getting therapy, yet John would be there every day.
He even brought him a newspaper every day.
He brought pizza to him, which would really annoy Linda.
We met as a family, John, myself, and Linda, to discuss Nathan.
That did not go real well.
He wanted to take him out, and that was it.
John said he was gonna cut the money.
Linda said she didn’t want the money.
He came at her.
Started to slap her.
Linda wanted him to be institutionalized.
John wasn’t having it.
[Charlene] My dad, I don’t think, wanted to accept that Nathan was terribly sick.
Truthfully, mental illness ran in the family.
Every generation, it was passed down.
This is your Aunt Kiki again.
Want me to sing you a Greek song?
♪ Tiki tiki taki doo
Doki doki diki dee, daffy doh… ♪
[Charlene] My father had a twin sister.
She had depression or some type of, uh, mental illness.
[somber music playing]
[Chuck] My mother would sleep all day during the day.
Didn’t want me to go to school.
I used to walk to the elementary school, and I used to say to her, “Mom, I have to go to school.”
“No, stay here with me.”
And she would cry, and she would…
So, she was suffering from bad depression, and they finally, you know, through doctors and everything, they said, “Look, she needs to go into the hospital.”
Back then, they gave people shock treatments and really fried ’em.
I remember, when I was talking to John, he said, “What they did to my sister was deplorable.”
[Charlene] Back then, they were very barbaric, and so that must have really been tough on my dad to have his twin sister, you know, hospitalized, you know, for a mental illness.
Even though things have changed, I think he still kept that picture in his mind.
That’s why he was resisting Nathan going into treatment.
[music fades to silence]
Hey, big guy.
I guess if you’re watching this, you’re watching this.
You haven’t been in this house, uh, not even to wash your hands after fishing.
This house is very important to me, has a lot of memories, has a lot of history, and I feel it really needs to stay in the family with somebody who does and will cherish it as much as I do.
Um, I’m leaving the house in Middletown to, uh, Michael.
Grandpa is leaving you more than enough assets, and you are the sole inheritor of my trust and everything that’s in there.
So, you have more than enough.
I love you with all my heart, and that’s my decision.
[somber music playing]
[Chuck] He wasn’t talking to his mother or his father, and my Uncle John shows up, and he has Nathan with him.
They’re standing at the door, and I open up the door, he comes in and goes, “I need you to do something for me,” you know.
I go, “Okay.”
And, uh, he goes, “Nathan needs to live here.”
Nathan, he was getting money from John.
I would probably say around $100,000 a year.
John said to him, “You’re gonna go to college fulltime now, and you’re gonna get a parttime job, or,” he goes, “it’s over.”
“No more funding.”
“This is what you have to do, and that’s gonna be the end of it.”
But Nathan, he wouldn’t do it.
He didn’t have the discipline.
He started staying up late at night.
Two, three o’clock in the morning, and I’d hear him pacing around up there.
And you could tell that he needed medication because he’d become very agitated.
But Nathan goes, “I refuse to take any medication whatsoever.”
“I’m not going to a therapist.”
“I’m not going to a psychiatrist.”
And he goes, “My mother thinks I belong in the nuthouse,” and blah, blah, blah, and he goes, “I had enough.”
And he took off out the door in the middle of a snowstorm, running down the road.
[Elizabeth] If someone has a major diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, but they refuse to accept the fact that they have a serious mental illness as well, that can be catastrophic, often with deadly consequences.
[reporter] Developing news. We now know police have executed a search warrant at the home of Nathan Carman.
[foreboding music playing]
[Lisa] Very shortly before the homicide, Nathan purchased the weapon out of state, with an out-of-state driver’s license.
[prosecutor] Exhibit 23, the invoice from Shooters Outpost.
Did you purchase this SIG Sauer semiautomatic assault weapon on November 11, 2013?
I’m going to plead the Fifth in response to that question.
[Lisa] He refused to answer questions about it, he refused to produce the weapon, and at this juncture, law enforcement, to my knowledge, has no idea where that weapon is.
And not only that, but the ammunition used in that weapon matched what was recovered from the crime scene of John Chakalos’s homicide.
[Martin] What boils my blood is the fact that they’re making a lot of assumptions of fact.
It’s not even conjecture!
It could have been 600 different guns that had that same shell.
600 types of guns.
[Lisa] The one thing that definitely stuck out to me as an investigator was this was a weapon, um, that he lied about owning and possessing.
Going back to one of the first interviews, you… you had no guns.
You mentioned something about… an air gun or something like that?
I-I had a, uh… I had a… uh, an air rifle.
Any other purchases of a firearm of any type?
No.
If it wasn’t him, and it wasn’t the weapon that he purchased that was used as the murder weapon for Chakalos, he was given ample opportunity to remedy that lie.
You know, to correct that deception.
[prosecutor] At the Windsor police station, after your grandfather is dead, did you lie to the Windsor police?
[tense music playing]
It’s not a complicated question, Nathan.
With respect to that question, uh… uh, if you want to be more specific, uh, then I’ll answer.
Otherwise, I invoke my Fifth Amendment…
[prosecutor] I’ll give you paper.
List all the lies that you made to the Windsor police.
Would that be easier, to be specific?
How often did you lie to the Windsor Police Department?
There was one, inaccura… I… I…
I-I… I’m pleading the Fifth.
[Chuck] Initially, I defended Nathan when police questioned me because they homed in on him right away.
They go, “Do you think he had anything to do with it?”
They kept saying that to me, and I go, “I don’t think so.”
I go, “‘Cause why?
I mean, how would he be better off?”
I came to find out later that he got money from an insurance policy.
As soon as he gave a death certificate, he received a substantial amount of money that didn’t have to go through a probate.
[man 9] I think one of the biggest pieces of evidence in this case is he had sent a memo to his grandfather’s trust and estates attorney, prior to his grandfather’s death, with very specific questions.
Unbelievably specific questions, and many of them.
It essentially came down to, you know, who has to die first, and when, in order for me to inherit the money?
I think this was a murder, with one motive.
It’s so that Nathan Carman can have money.
[pensive music playing]
[David] They want to attribute a money motive to Nathan for the death of John Chakalos, but they don’t really go into the fact that Nathan Carman’s grandfather, um, was supporting Nathan, uh, bought him a truck, paid his rent, gave him money, um, took care of everything, took care of school.
Who was the person that least benefited from John Chakalos’s death?
Nathan Carman.
Least benefited.
I still to this day believe him.
There was no involvement.
He was never charged, nor was he arrested.
We never were able to get an arrest warrant signed.
There was one submitted.
The assistant chief state attorney, uh, denied it.
People had been through a trial and put on death row for less evidence than what they had on Nathan, and I just thought that was just… just insane.
You know, why wasn’t he even arrested?
[haunting music playing]
[Lisa] After the Chakalos homicide, a priest at the parish at which the Chakalos family attended, he was informed by his assistant that, um, Nathan Carman and Linda Carman were outside in the church.
The Father went out, and he found Nathan kneeling on the altar with his hands outstretched, praying to God.
Linda was sitting in the back of the church, watching.
This went on for about five hours.
At one point, the Father approached behind and somewhat close enough to hear what Nathan was saying.
Nathan was begging for forgiveness.
He was begging God for forgiveness.
[girl screaming]
[young Nathan] You let him get away!
[Linda Carman] Nathan, we hurt him.
No, Hayley, we hurt him.
We hurt him.
[Charlene] What’d he do?
We’re going to let him go.
We can’t let him get away!
Yeah, but we hurt him.
[Charlene] You know what, Nathan?
It’s okay.
You know what, Nathan? The lizard’s okay…
[Linda Gam] Linda was a wonderful mom.
From the moment Nathan was born, Linda was trying to do the best for him.
That’s how her life was, just trying to help her son.
[gentle piano music playing]
She would see something in Nathan and then search and read about it, read about it, read about it, find a specialist, constantly.
Nathan loved his mom.
They had a very special relationship.
She tried to be with him as much as she could.
She was trying to help.
She didn’t want Nathan to go through what she did when she was growing up.
All the negativity, all the yelling in the house, the physicality.
But as he got older, he just backed out of it. He backed away.
[pensive music playing]
[Linda Gam] She wanted to have a better relationship with Nathan, and I think that’s why they would go out fishing.
[Linda Carman] Nice.
[Linda Gam] She didn’t really care for fishing. Didn’t care about it.
She was just trying whatever she could find that would connect them.
[Linda Carman] You measure him in the middle?
[Nathan] He’s fat.
[Linda Carman] Yeah, he is fat.
Bye-bye.
[Linda Gam] She loved him.
I mean, really loved him.
[Clark] After John’s death, Nathan, um…
I can’t say he was more of a loner.
He was himself, in that he, uh, had bought property in Vermont.
[intriguing music playing]
He, uh, was studying and learning how to do all the plumbing.
He did the remodeling inside.
He did it all on… on his own.
[Alfred] It was this massive, you know, house that was under construction.
Ripped down to the studs.
Kind of surprising anyone would live there.
[Clark] Because the family was entirely against him and felt that he was the one that had murdered John, I believe he wanted to, um, I guess immerse himself into something, and concentrate on building his property up.
He was trying to get in the business.
[Chuck] In his mind, he was gonna be a wealthy man, he was gonna be a developer building big, you know, multifloor mansions and skyscrapers and whatever.
And that wasn’t gonna happen.
Before I moved to Florida, I stopped at Linda’s house, and I said to her, “Look, Linda”, “everybody knows that the alibi that Nathan gave is not true.”
“No one believes that story.”
And she goes, “He’s my son.”
She goes, “I’m his mother. He’s my only child.”
And she was very shaken up by it.
I mean, she was in tears.
And she kept saying, “He’s my son. He’s my son.”
I mean…
It took… you could physically see that it was taking a toll on her.
You know, I think in my mind, I think that within the next month or two, she was getting ready to fold up.
And I said, “And you have to be worried, because you’re a loose end.”
[foreboding music playing]
Before I left, I said, “You better never go out on that boat again with that kid, because if you do, he’s gonna be the only one coming back.”
“Something’s gonna happen to you out there, and that’s gonna be the end of you.”
And she said to me, she goes, “You’re not the only one that’s said that to me.”
And that was the last time I ever… ever saw her.
[eerie music playing]
[Evan] The ocean is vast.
The ocean is enormous.
And when you talk about the ocean as being a crime scene, it just gets deeper and deeper and deeper.
[prosecutor] When did you notice that the Chicken Pox was taking on water?
Around midday, on September 18th.
The engine sounded different to me.
Uh, and therefore, I wanted to check the engine.
And I opened the hatch forward of the pilot house, um, and observed a large quantity of water in the bilge.
[prosecutor] And then what did you do?
[Nathan] Then I asked my mom to bring in the fishing lines.
[prosecutor] You didn’t tell your mom you had two feet of water in the boat?
No, I thought she would panic if I told her that.
[prosecutor] So you got two feet of water in the boat.
Rather than tell your mom to put on a life jacket, you told her to bring in the fishing lines.
That’s your testimony?
I asked my mom to bring in the fishing lines.
[prosecutor] Bringing in fishing lines was more important at that moment than putting on a life jacket?
I-I’ve asked myself, did I do the right thing?
Uh, I know at the time, what I was thinking was… I-I need…
One, the lines need to come in.
Two, I need to keep my mom occupied while I’m trying to fix the problem.
I didn’t think the boat was going to sink.
[Eric] Boats don’t do that.
Boats don’t just drop out from under you, sink bow first, the way he described it, and disappear into the abyss of the ocean.
[ominous music playing]
[reporters clamoring]
[camera shutters clicking]
[reporter 1] Opening statements took place in a Providence courtroom in the trial of Nathan Carman.
[reporter 2] An insurance company is suing Carman, who filed an insurance claim for his boat that sunk off the coast of Point Judith back in 2016.
What surprises me the most, to this day, and it’s surprised me since the beginning of this, is why did he file an insurance claim?
If he hadn’t filed a claim, he was gonna be a free man.
So, I believe the insurance company was getting ready to pay the claim.
And this is when we spoke with people at Ram Point Marina.
That day, he had spent the entire day working on the boat, the day he went offshore with his mother.
There was a gentleman that was sitting on the dock that day.
I didn’t see any fishing poles.
I didn’t even see him with food.
It kind of caught my eye when I saw him leaning over the back and drilling two holes.
[Liam] He saw Nathan Carman, and he’s bending over and reaching to the back of the boat with a drill in his hand that had a hole saw bit on it.
He removed the trim tabs from the boat that day.
Trim tabs are metal flaps that are affixed to the stern of the boat.
By taking the trim tabs off, he created a situation where there were holes.
Boaters work on their boats all the time.
They do things to them that probably shouldn’t be done.
They drill holes, they fill ’em…
If you were gonna plan something like this, right?
And you were gonna deal with the trim tabs, would you do that where there’s two or three or four people watching you do this?
Or would you do it in the middle of the night?
I think he wanted to be seen making these “repairs,” taking these trim tabs off.
This gave him a reason for why the boat sank.
A guy whose scheme is to kill his grandfather, wait three, three and a half years, kill his mother, then presents a claim for $85,000.
You’d have to be moronic to do that.
[reporter 3] Nathan Carman breaking his silence after days of testimony in his civil trial against the insurance company for his sunken boat, the Chicken Pox.
Firstly, we don’t know what caused the boat to sink.
Secondly, this isn’t about money.
I almost feel like I have a responsibility to my mom to make sure that the truth comes out.
And Mr. Farrell and the insurers Boat-US made claims against me that are so tremendous, I don’t feel like I can walk away from them.
That’s all I have to say.
[reporter 4] Nathan Carman will not receive the insurance money for his boat, the Chicken Pox.
[reporter 5] A federal judge has determined Nathan Carman’s boat sank either directly or indirectly because of his faulty repairs.
[reporter 6] It all came down to how he repaired four holes he made the morning of the boat’s last voyage.
[reporters clamoring]
[Chuck] That insurance company had the resources that the police didn’t have, and that was his downfall.
Once the insurance company fought the claim and he lost that… that court case, they handed over all the information, and then the investigation clicked up four or five notches.
Now the feds are involved.
[dramatic music playing]
[reporter 7] 28yearold Nathan Carman has been arrested for the murder of his mother, Linda Carman. According to the unsealed indictment, Nathan allegedly killed his mother on the high seas and sunk his own boat.
[reporter 8] The indictment even goes so far as to say he murdered his own grandfather too. All of this allegedly over inheritance.
Nathan was charged with murder on the high seas.
I felt relief because I knew that was a weight off of my family.
We wanted to make sure Nathan was punished, that he was found guilty, and he would never be allowed to do anything like this again.
[Lisa] After a six-year FBI investigation, Nathan was charged in federal court with engaging in a long-term, very calculated scheme to ensure that he would be the beneficiary of the wealth of his grandfather.
[man] Nathan, did you kill your mother?
[Nathan] Not guilty!
[Martin] The problem is there was no scheme.
There never was a scheme.
I have a godson the same exact age as Nathan who has the same autistic stressors that Nathan has.
Nathan Carman. We’re here to see him.
Whatever I have to do within the bounds of law, I am gonna do.
I had a double bypass a year and a half ago.
My doctor says, “Don’t get involved.”
[door buzzes]
I said to my doctor, “If I gotta die in the courtroom with this case, and getting this kid the justice he deserves, so be it.”
[prosecutor] You say that you were at sea in this life raft for approximately seven days after the boat sank?
Is that correct?
Yes, I was at sea in the life raft for seven days after the boat sank.
[eerie music playing]
[Eric] There’s no way that he was in that life raft for the period of time that he said that he was in that life raft.
And what stands out to me in this picture is that Nathan is gripping onto the rail on both sides of the ladder.
And I can’t help but wonder, after seven days in a life raft, how he’s able to do that.
Your body is just not going to be able to manage the ebb and flow and the bouncing and the lack of vision on the horizon.
Physiologically, there’s no way he would have been able to move like he’s moving.
[Lisa] In all likelihood, he would not have been able to swim and climb those stairs without assistance because he would not have been on his feet for seven days.
He would not have been using those muscles.
He would not have had the stamina.
[man] What’s up?
[David] Here he is.
Thanks for coming. David Sullivan.
Absolutely. Nice to meet you.
[man] I did see that the expert said his dexterity was too great to have been at sea for seven days.
Again, I’m gonna disagree.
In that situation, when you know that’s your potential rescue, possibly your only rescue, uh, you know, your adrenaline’s gonna kick up, no matter how exhausted you are.
And I’ve been in those situations where, extreme heat conditions in Iraq, guys are dehydrated.
They’re exhausted.
And when we had an extract under a contact, you saw the guys almost pop out of that exhaustion, that dehydration, and go into action.
[prosecutor] What did you have in the emergency ditch bag?
I remember there being, uh, Datrex emergency food rations.
I remember there being a water maker, a hand held emergency water maker.
[Liam] He’s got, in his life raft, a machine, a device that he had purchased, that would turn salt water into drinkable water.
I have never known anyone, in my experience, on a recreational boat, on a 30foot boat, that has an emergency water maker.
What I took away from reading the account of the boat sinking, is that, uh, on the one hand, you had… you had Nathan’s systematizing, that trait of autism, to have structure and planning, um, that was on display in the fact that Nathan thought through everything he would need in a survival raft, and he had that on a boat that didn’t require it.
Autistic people like me, and by extension, people like him, those traits to have structure and planning are part of our autism.
But, you know, people tend to think we’re up to something, we’re tricky, we’re devious, or we’re just dummies.
At a certain time, so after I had what I called lunch, I was having “brunch,” ’cause the… the life raft… uh… in… the… surviv… the, uh… food packs said to eat four per day, and so I was spacing that out throughout the day.
I did spot the Orient Lucky around midday, uh, when I, uh, stood up in the life raft and looked around.
Science tells us that there is no way, based on the narrative that he told us, that he could have sank at the time he sank, where he sank, even roughly, even loosely, and end up where he ended up and where he was recovered at sea.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Liam] The Coast Guard can figure out how something will drift, based on the size of the vessel, the weight of the vessel.
[Eric] Drift analysis, it’s a refined science.
Wind, current, sea temperature.
All of those factor in, and all of those are monitored multiple times a day at various points throughout the ocean.
There’s buoys in the water.
There are, um, you know, sensors on satellites.
The drift analysis tells us that the pattern of drift would have taken him east to west… which would have put Nathan somewhere… down here.
But definitely not over here.
[music stops]
He would have been 80 miles in the opposite direction if he had sunk in the Block Canyon.
[Martin] Their drift analysis expert said he should have been heading toward New Jersey instead of where he claimed he ended up.
Have you had a chance to look at that?
I did.
With the drift analysis, the reason I put very little weight is, what’s the crosscurrent?
What are the winds doing?
What’s the current underneath the surface?
There’s so many variables that could refute I believe it was one buoy that they were pulling this data.
Ultimately, it’s an imprecise science.
Yeah, in legal terms, we like to refer to that as junk science.
I wouldn’t put this in the bucket of junk science.
These instruments out there are research-grade.
They’re relied upon very heavily for, you know, some of the world’s leading climate research.
And, you know, one of the sort of rules of thumb about data within ocean science, or science in general, is that data doesn’t lie.
[ominous music playing]
[Nathan] When I first spotted the Orient Lucky, I wasn’t sure that it was a ship, uh, because all I saw was…
Looked like a white mass standing up on the horizon.
Uh, and I… my first thought was actually rogue wave, but then I realized that it was too narrow.
Um, and then I…
So I actually went back into the life raft, took a second for myself, and then popped back out just to make sure I’m really seeing this.
I think that Nathan Carman knew that that ship was coming out of Providence, and it was going on that course for an extended period of time before he entered the life raft.
I don’t think he entered that raft until he knew the Orient Lucky was gonna get him.
I believe that Nathan was only in the life raft for a matter of hours and not days, as he described it.
Hours.
There’s a photo of Nathan waving.
The raft is inflated.
The canopy is inflated.
The next photo is Nathan in the water.
The canopy is collapsed.
Raft is starting to lose air.
Attempts were made to locate the raft, but the raft was never located.
Presumably, Nathan took some sort of action to sink the raft.
He had a knife on him in his life vest, and he could have just cut it.
My interpretation of it at the time was that Nathan did not want us to see the condition of the life raft, what was still on the life raft, what equipment he did or didn’t have on the life raft, because it may very well demonstrate that he was not on that life raft for seven days.
[pensive music playing]
[Liam] If he wasn’t in a life raft for seven days, which I believe he was not, then where was he?
I think the most plausible scenario is that shortly after leaving Point Judith that night, on Saturday night, he killed his mother, at some point, disposed of her body, most likely somewhere nowhere near Block Island and nowhere near where the Coast Guard was searching for a good week.
Down south somewhere, you know, mid-Atlantic area, Long Island.
[Lisa] He could hide in plain sight because he knew that the Coast Guard weren’t looking along the coast.
They weren’t looking in marinas.
In all likelihood, he motored along to his own area of refuge.
He was familiar with the Connecticut coastline and the perimeter of Block Island.
There were any number of nooks and crannies and places that he could hide himself and the boat.
Then towards the end of the week, after the Coast Guard had called off their search, he gets in the Chicken Pox, guns it out to the open ocean…
He then got into the life raft and scuttled the boat.
He would have sunk the boat shortly before the freighter came within view, um, so that he would be properly positioned to become rescued, um, immediately.
How in God’s name does he do that?
Did he disappear?
Did he hide under a tree?
Did he hide under a rock?
What’s the kid going, here, there, he’s evading the Coast Guard.
That’s what they’re saying.
And did he plan that this Chinese junk ship that just happened to be going by, that almost ran him over, I understand, that he would be picked up?
It… it’s nonsense.
[intriguing music playing]
[Lisa] The ocean as a crime scene is a challenging environment.
Evidence is lost and destroyed in a matter of seconds.
Because he knew that the odds were enormously high that law enforcement would never be able to find the boat, let alone the body.
We believe the boat is at the bottom of the ocean, Linda’s body is at the bottom of the ocean, and it could well be that the weapon used to kill John Chakalos is at the bottom of the ocean.
[Evan] The ocean’s a place that carries a lot of secrets.
There’s no surveillance.
No cameras, no iPhones.
My foot was pushing the deck down, rather than the ground pushing up against me.
That’s what it felt like just for a moment.
And I remember being in the water, uh, and seeing the roof of the wheelhouse, uh, sliding away, uh, like…
That is…
That’s what happened.
[prosecutor] And where was your mother?
I-I did not see my mom.
[prosecutor] Well, what did you hear from her?
What did she say?
I didn’t hear anything.
[prosecutor] The boat’s sinking.
Your mother still doesn’t say anything?
That’s your testimony?
My testimony is that I did not hear my… my… my mom…
I-I can’t say whether my…
I can say I didn’t hear her.
[prosecutor] And you didn’t see her?
When I was in the water, I did not see her. That’s correct.
[prosecutor] Your mother’s a strong swimmer, isn’t she?
Yes, she was.
[prosecutor] And she’s very safety conscious, right?
That’s correct.
[prosecutor] Did she disappear?
Objection. Your question’s ambiguous.
[haunting music playing]
[reporter 1] We begin At Five with a shocking update on a case we’ve been tracking for years. The man charged with killing his mother off the coast of Rhode Island has died.
[reporter 2] …Nathan Carman was found unresponsive in his cell overnight.
[reporter 3] Jail officials say Nathan Carman took his own life while awaiting a murder-on-the-high-seas trial.
[pensive music playing]
[Charlene] He controlled how he was gonna murder my father.
He controlled how he was gonna murder my sister.
He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in prison.
And so, you know, he controlled taking his own life.
He went out on his own terms.
[gentle music playing]
[Clark] The autopsy said that he committed suicide by hanging from his shoelaces.
No suicide note.
There was no premonition.
There was no, uh, foreboding of that in his, uh, attitude.
He was upbeat up until that point.
So I was totally in shock.
They’re ready to go to trial… and get a call to find out your son just died.
[clicks tongue]
Just hard to accept.
I still don’t. [chuckles sadly]
[Linda Carman and young Nathan chattering]
[Clark] There is no way that Nathan could have killed his mother.
It’s incongruous with everything that was innate in both Linda and Nathan.
He, uh, never harmed a soul.
[Linda Carman] Hey, Nathan James.
What?
[Linda Carman] I love you too much.
Never too much.
We mourned… [sniffles] The loss of Nathan as a child.
[clicks tongue] Um…
And everything he went through.
But we did not mourn, um, what he did.
We felt, um, however it happened, um, justice was done. [sniffles]
[melancholy music playing]
Linda had said, “I can only control my actions.”
“I can’t control anybody else’s actions.”
So I think she kinda knew.
And at that time, we alienated her.
She probably figured, you know…
[sniffles] “I don’t have a family, so do as you will.”
I don’t know.
[Chuck] People try to blame it on Linda.
They say, “Well, his mother didn’t do this or didn’t do that.”
Linda did the best job she could.
I think she was a good mother.
I mean, she cared about the kid.
She loved the kid.
That was her only son.
I think she looked at her complicity in it, and she was saying, you know, “Whatever happens to me happens to me.”
Maybe she figured, “This is a way I don’t have to turn on my son.”
And she went… you know, went to meet her fate.
[melancholy music continues]
[intriguing music playing]
[music fades out]
