The Tragic True Story Behind The Carman Family Deaths

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In 2016, 22-year-old Nathan Carman, who has autism and comes from a well-off family in New England, was rescued after being lost at sea for eight days. He and his mother, Linda, had been on a fishing trip off the coast of Rhode Island when they disappeared. Unfortunately, Linda was never found, and authorities began investigating her disappearance.

In 2022, Nathan was accused of murdering his mother, Linda, allegedly to gain access to her inheritance. He died by suicide while in jail in 2023, before a trial could take place. Although the case is officially closed, it’s still being explored in the new Netflix documentary, The Carman Family Deaths, which will be released on November 19th.

Nathan received an autism diagnosis when he was young. In a documentary about his case, his father and lawyer argue he’s innocent, claiming investigators unfairly targeted him due to his autism. However, police and the FBI agent involved explain why they found his actions questionable. The documentary includes Nathan’s own words, taken from police interviews and his statements to the media.

Here’s how The Carman Family Deaths presents both sides of a complicated case.

The case for Nathan’s innocence

Detectives became suspicious of Nathan after his grandfather, John Chakalos, a wealthy man, was fatally shot in 2013 – a crime that remains unsolved. They believed Nathan might have been motivated by the desire to inherit his mother’s share of the family fortune. An indictment in 2022 claims that the deaths of both Linda and her father were part of a plan to gain control of John Chakalos’s money and assets, including family trusts.

The documentary features a video Linda made for her son, revealing she didn’t intend to leave him her house. She recorded the message during a difficult time when they weren’t speaking. Investigators also discovered a memo Nathan sent to his grandfather’s lawyer before his death in 2013, where he asked what he would inherit from both his grandfather and mother.

According to autism experts featured in the documentary, details in the case were misunderstood by police. Elizabeth Kelley, a lawyer specializing in autism, explains that autistic individuals like Nathan are often misinterpreted because their precise and detailed way of speaking can come across as emotionless or even suspicious to law enforcement. John Elder Robison, an autism advocate who identifies as autistic himself, points out that Nathan’s tendency to plan ahead is a common trait of autism, but that people unfamiliar with autism may assume it means he was hiding something.

Throughout the film, Nathan’s father, Clark Carman, maintains his son’s innocence, claiming Nathan wasn’t the one who harmed Linda. He argues that police mistakenly considered Nathan a suspect because they didn’t understand how his autism affected his behavior.

The filmmaker believes Nathan’s autism and his comfort with solitude would have uniquely prepared him to survive being lost at sea. He’s confident Nathan relied on his resourcefulness during those eight days.

Clark described his wife’s death as a tragic accident, and expressed his belief that Nathan would have rescued her if he could have.

He described Nathan as being very downcast when he got home, clearly weighed down by his failure to save her.

The people who think Nathan killed his mother

I have to say, watching the documentary, I was struck by how easily this could have been avoided. Apparently, when Nathan’s boat started having trouble, he didn’t do the most basic things – like use his radio to call for help. He told police, and it’s included in the film, that he just didn’t believe it was serious enough to sink, which, honestly, seems like a pretty big misjudgment in hindsight.

A police officer in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, noticed he had fishing bait left in his truck. The documentary highlights this as odd, since he claimed to have gone on a fishing trip and would normally bring bait with him on the boat.

Nathan explained that when he saw water starting to flood the boat, he asked his mother to reel in the fishing lines. He said he did this to distract her while he worked on fixing the leak, and to keep her busy during the emergency.

Two weeks after being rescued, Nathan requested $85,000 from his insurance company to cover his lost boat. However, the company refused to pay, claiming the boat sank because of his own poor repairs. They then turned over all their investigation findings to federal authorities, taking the matter to the next level.

FBI agent Lisa Tutty points out that Nathan seemed surprisingly fit after being lost at sea for a week, easily climbing onto the rescue boat when he should have been exhausted. Mike Sarraille, a former Navy SEAL and expert analyzed in the documentary, suggests adrenaline likely played a role in Nathan’s strength.

As a film buff, one of the most fascinating theories the movie lays out about how Nathan killed his mother is that he didn’t just kill her, but cleverly moved her body to a place the Coast Guard wouldn’t think to look – specifically, along the Connecticut coastline. He apparently used all the little coves and hidden spots along the shore, hiding his boat. The idea is that after about a week, he made a quick escape out to sea, got into a life raft, and deliberately sank his boat just before a freighter, the Orient Lucky, happened to pass by. This way, he’d be spotted and rescued quickly. It’s chilling! And years later, when his lawyers asked him straight-up if his mother had disappeared, he just responded with a lawyerly, “Objection. Your question’s ambiguous.” It’s such a cold, calculated response, and really adds to the mystery.

As a follower of this case, I’ve learned that the ocean is a really tough place to investigate a crime. It’s so easy for evidence to just disappear or get ruined quickly, making things incredibly difficult for investigators.

As a true crime and film buff, I’ve always been struck by the enduring mystery surrounding Linda and her boat, the ‘Chicken Pox’. Even now, authorities still think they remain lost at sea – resting somewhere on the ocean floor. It’s a haunting thought, and a big part of why this case continues to fascinate me.

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2025-11-20 02:07