Global Courant
The man charged with killing his mother at sea during a 2016 fishing trip off the coast of New England has died awaiting trial, federal authorities in Vermont said Thursday.
Nathan Carman, 29, of Vernon, Vermont, was set to go on trial in October in what prosecutors said was a multimillion-dollar scheme to inherit. He had pleaded not guilty last year to fraud and first-degree murder in the death of his mother, Linda Carman of Middletown, Connecticut.
Nathan Carman’s cause of death was not immediately clear.
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One of his lawyers, Martin Minnella, said he was notified of Carman’s death by the US Marshals Service on Thursday.
‘We spoke to him yesterday. He was in good spirits,’ Minnella said. “We had a meeting with some experts via Zoom today at noon. We were prepared to pick a jury on October 10 and we were confident that we would win. It’s just a tragedy, a tragedy.”
The U.S. marshal informed prosecutors that Carman had died “on or about” Thursday, Fabienne Boisvert-DeFazio, spokesman for the U.S. law firm in Vermont, said in a statement. Carman was in the custody of the U.S. Marshal, “as is the case with all pretrial detainees who are incarcerated”.
In September 2016, Carman arranged a fishing trip with his mother, with prosecutors saying he planned to kill her and reporting that his boat sank and his mother disappeared in the accident.
He was found floating in an inflatable raft eight days after leaving a marina in Rhode Island with his mother, who was never found. Prosecutors allege that he modified the boat to increase the chance of sinking. Carman denied that claim.
The eight-count charge also says that in 2013, Carman shot and killed his wealthy grandfather John Chakalos at the man’s Connecticut home as part of a scheme to obtain money and property from his grandfather’s estate. But the indictment does not charge Carman with murder at his death.
Minnella and fellow attorney David Sullivan, both from Connecticut, where Carman grew up, had criticized the charges, including allegations that Carman killed his grandfather, saying that Carman was never charged with that crime.
Nathan Carman arrives in a small boat at the US Coast Guard station in Boston, Tuesday, September 27, 2016. Carman, 29, was reported to have died Thursday awaiting trial in October. (AP photo/Michael Dwyer, file)
“The whole situation would have gone to court,” Minnella said on Thursday. “This young man would have been vindicated.”
Assistant US attorney Paul Van de Graaf said in court in February that Chakalos’ “murder” was part of the fraud charge.
“As a central part of the plan, Nathan Carman murdered John Chakalos and Linda Carman,” the indictment read.
Prosecutors say the inheritance plan spanned nearly a decade and began with Carman buying a rifle in New Hampshire that he used to shoot Chakalos on December 20, 2013 while he slept. in his truck, prosecutors said.
Police have said that Carman was the last person to see his grandfather alive and owned a semi-automatic rifle similar to the one used to kill Chakalos – but the firearm disappeared.
After Chakalos’s death, Carman received $550,000 from two bank accounts his grandfather had opened and which he was the beneficiary of when Chakalos died. He moved from an apartment in Bloomfield, Connecticut, to Vernon, Vermont, in 2014.
He was unemployed much of the time and by the fall of 2016, he was penniless, prosecutors said, and then he arranged the fishing trip with his mother.
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Chakalos’ three surviving daughters sued Carman in New Hampshire Probate Court, seeking to prevent him from receiving any money from Chakalos’ estate. A judge dismissed the case in 2019, saying Chakalos was not a resident of New Hampshire. The probate case has been refiled in Connecticut and is still pending.
Carman’s three aunts – his late mother’s sisters – said in a statement Thursday that they were “deeply saddened” to learn of Carman’s death.
“As we process this shocking news and its impact on the tragic events of recent years, we ask for your understanding and respect for our privacy,” they said in a statement from their attorney, William Michael.
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In 2014, police in Windsor, Connecticut, drafted an arrest warrant charging Carman with murder in the death of his grandfather, but a prosecutor refused to sign it, asking for more information. No criminal charges were filed until the federal indictment.
