Detectives Shed New Light on the Vermont Man Who Allegedly Lured His Mom on a Fishing Trip and Then Sank Their Boat

• Authorities have released new information tied to the case of Nathan Carman, a man who was charged with the murder of his mother and suspected of shooting his grandfather before his suicide death in 2023
• The information was shared on the Friday, April 4, episode of 20/20
• “There were too many inconsistencies. There were too many things that just didn’t add up,” Special Agent Eric Gempp said during the broadcast

Detectives investigating the case of a Vermont man, who was charged with the murder of his mother and suspected of shooting his grandfather before killing himself in prison in 2023, have revealed never-before-seen details of his case on ABC’s 20/20.

Nathan Carman was arrested and charged in 2022 in connection with the death of his mother, Linda Carman, who was killed in 2016 while on a fishing trip with Nathan off the coast of Rhode Island, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Vermont. 

Nathan told police in an interview following the incident that he saw “there was water in the bilge” of the boat, according to a recording shared with 20/20. He told his mother to bring fishing lines as he tried to get emergency gear at the wheelhouse, but said that the boat gave way beneath them and they fell into the water, per police. He denied seeing his mother in the water.

Following the incident, Nathan filed an $85,000 insurance claim for his lost boat, and told the insurance companies that he did not radio for help or set off the boat’s emergency locator because he didn’t realize the boat was sinking until it was too late, according to 20/20. He also allegedly claimed, per the program, that the boat drifted eastward.

Oceanographer Richard Limeburner told 20/20 that based on data of the currents in the area, the boat would have drifted the opposite way from which Nathan claimed. Nathan also had reportedly left a bucket of fishing bait in his car.

“There were too many inconsistencies. There were too many things that just didn’t add up,” Special Agent Eric Gempp told 20/20 of Nathan’s story.

Nathan was eventually denied the insurance claim due to “holes in his story,” and a judge also ruled in the insurance companies’ favor, citing the faulty repairs Nathan made to his boat, according to 20/20. However, the ruling did not determine whether Nathan may have intentionally sunk the boat.

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A few years prior to the boat incident, in December 2013, Nathan’s grandfather John Chakalos, a wealthy real estate developer, was found shot dead in his Windsor, Ct., home. The U.S. attorney’s office said in their 2022 press release that Nathan was also suspected in that case.

Christopher McKee, a former lieutenant with the Windsor Police Department, told 20/20 that detectives determined that the person who killed Chakalos most likely used a SIG Sauer rifle after running ballistics tests on the bullet fragments found at the scene of the crime. 

When detectives questioned Nathan about whether he owned any guns, he told them that he only had an air gun, per 20/20. However, it was later determined that Nathan had purchased a SIG Sauer in New Hampshire a few weeks before his grandfather’s death. When confronted with the information, Nathan allegedly told detectives that he “lost” the gun and “didn’t know where” it was. The gun was never found, according to 20/20.

Detectives also noted that there was one hour during the day of his grandfather’s death for which Nathan couldn’t account for his whereabouts. He reportedly claimed that he left his house at 3 a.m. local time and got lost on his way to meet his mom for one of their fishing trips and wasn’t heard from until an hour later at 4 a.m.

Nathan died by suicide in jail on June 15, 2023, prompting the dismissal of his criminal charges, according to 20/20. However, the Windsor Police Department told the news program that the case of Chakalos’ murder is still active. 

“I think [Nathan] is both a victim and a villain in his own story,” Casey Sherman, author of a book about the missing case of Linda Carman called Blood in the Water, told 20/20. “Nathan Carman remains an enigma.”