Vermont Man Charged With Killing His Mom by Letting Her Drown at Sea to Get Inheritance Worth Millions

A Vermont man is accused of killing his mother so that he would inherit his family’s $7 million estate.

28-year-old Nathan Carman is facing eight counts for allegedly murdering his mother, Linda Carman. He allegedly let her drown during a fishing trip near Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts in 2016, according to the New York Post and The Associated Press.

Carman was arrested on Tuesday.

Carman was found eight days after he and his mother departed for their trip on a raft that was floating in the water off the island’s coast. At first, Carman told the Coast Guard that when their boat started sinking, he got into the raft but couldn’t find his mother. However, witnesses tell a different story, saying they spotted Carman taking off the boat’s stabilizing trim tabs from the stern and attempting to seal the holes with an epoxy stick.

Carman’s family has also accused him of murdering his grandfather John Chakalos in 2013. Authorities had their eye on Carman when Chakalos died at his Windsor, Connecticut home after he was shot in the head three times. Carman was allegedly the last person to see Chakalos alive as the two had dinner the night of his death. 

“According to the unsealed indictment, in 2013, Nathan Carman shot and killed his grandfather John Chakalos at Chakalos’s home in Windsor, Connecticut, and, in 2016, killed his mother Linda Carman and sunk his boat during a supposed fishing trip off the coast of Rhode Island,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Vermont said via a statement. “The indictment alleges that both killings were part of a scheme to obtain money and property from the estate of John Chakalos and related family trusts.”

Carman is facing life in prison if he’s convicted of the murder charge as well as up to 30 years if found guilty on the fraud charges.