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Nathan Carman was rescued off the coast of Cape Cod, after seemingly having been adrift for seven days, on September 25th, 2016. His story, a harrowing tale of survival and tragedy, made headlines around the world. But soon afterwards, the details of his fishing trip with his mother began to raise questions. The unexplained cause of the boat’s sinking made him a suspect not only in the death of his mother, but in the deaths of others, too.
Nathan Carman was 22 years old when he went on a fishing trip with his mother on September 17th, 2016. Longtime family boaters, his mother Linda, 54, told friends they were heading to Block Island, roughly 12 miles off the southern coast of mainland Rhode Island. Linda didn’t love love fishing, but she did love spending time with Nathan and found the trips a chance to calm their often tense relationship.
Mother and son arrived at Ram Point Marina in South Kingstown, Rhode Island in the early hours of Sept 17th and hopped aboard their 32-foot aluminum fishing boat Chickenpox. Driving separate vehicles, Nathan arrived after his mother, lugging a cooler of bait in the bed of his pickup, which he strangely forgot to bring onboard before heading out. The pair left the marina shortly after 3 a.m.
Linda was never seen again. Nathan was rescued by a Chinese freighter seven days later on September 25th, adrift in a life raft 100 miles (160 km) from their last known location.
In subsequent interviews with police, Nathan claimed their destination was in fact ‘the Canyons,’ referring to Block Canyon, a significantly farther, and more dangerous, underwater canyon and prime fishing grounds 70 nautical miles from their supposed original destination of Block Island.
As the investigation heated up, Nathan’s story began to crumble. The mother-son fishing trip would eventually become the catalyst for a larger investigation into the Carman family as a whole, including the murder of Nathan’s grandfather John Chakalos in 2013, and whether Nathan’s behavior surrounding both events was evidence of an innocent albeit troubled young man with autism, or whether a darker character lay beneath driven by greed, bitterness, and a sense of entitlement that led to the deaths of three people, not just one.
A new Netflix documentary,The Carman Family Deaths, released on November 19th, takes the requisite deep dive into the persona of Nathan Carman and explores what happened to Linda, how their boat sank, and if Nathan was really adrift in the Atlantic Ocean.
A Fishing Trip Gone South
After Linda and Nathan left the marina in the pre-dawn hours of Sept 17th, Linda was expected to check in later that same day. When she failed to radio in as scheduled, the Coast Guard launched a massive search and rescue operation spanning more than 62,000 square miles (160,000 sq km). No debris, no boat, and no trace of Linda was ever found.
Seven days later, the freighter Orient Lucky spotted a life raft 100 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. Inside was Nathan. According to the ship’s captain Zhao Hengdong, the weather that day was nasty, with rolling seas and high winds.
As the Orient Lucky pulled alongside, Nathan was able to dive into the frigid Atlantic waters and swim to a life ring thrown by the ship’s crew. After they brought him against the boat, he had the strength to climb up the rescue ladder unaided. After seven days at sea, he was in shockingly good health, showing no signs of hypothermia or dehydration.
Nathan told his rescuers their boat began taking on water suddenly and went down within minutes. He claimed it happened the first day of their trip. He said he didn’t have time to make a distress call.
“I know I wasn’t responsible for the boat sinking,” he told Linzie Janis from ABC News in 2016, three days after being rescued. “I know that I wasn’t responsible for anything that resulted from the boat sinking. I know I wasn’t responsible for my mom’s death. But at the same time I feel like I was responsible for my mom and I being out there and in the situation. If I hadn’t asked my mom to go fishing with me that weekend, she would still be alive with me today.”
Investigators raised concerns. It was soon revealed that Nathan had made modifications to the boat in the weeks before the trip, removing the trim tabs from Chickenpox and performing work to the forward bulkhead. Nathan’s failure to make a distress call, despite having a working VHF radio on board, was also a focal point.
Questions only deepened when Nathan filed an $85,000 insurance claim for the loss of the boat. The insurer denied it, citing discrepancies and what it called “material misrepresentations.” Though no criminal charges were filed at the time, the investigative posture toward Nathan shifted from search-and-rescue subject to potential suspect.
The Past Revisited
In the months after Chickenpox went down, Nathan’s strange behavior uprooted another unresolved death in the family. On December 20th, 2013, Linda’s father, 87-year-old real estate developer John Chakalos, was found murdered in bed at his home in Windsor, Connecticut. He’d been shot in the head at extremely close range with a high-powered rifle. There were no signs of forced entry. Nothing was stolen. Theories about a mob hit gained some momentum, but the particulars didn’t match mob tactics. The use of a rifle, effective but unnecessary for a midnight assassination, was particularly unusual. A single shot had been fired from inside the room. Based on the scene, Chakalos was asleep and never heard his murderer coming. Police records indicated Nathan had dinner with Chakalos the night before. There was no evidence anyone had seen or heard from Chakalos from the time he reportedly had dinner with Nathan to the time he was discovered the following morning. Investigators later learned Nathan had purchased a rifle matching the type used in the killing weeks earlier, but when pressed on the matter he claimed the firearm had gone missing. Chakalos was a prominent, even feared, man in the local community, not to mention a self-made millionaire with an estate worth an estimated $42 million. There was motive, but no evidence.
As investigators pored over the details of the Chickenpox sinking and the death of Nathan’s grandfather, they noted Nathan had damaged or replaced his computer’s hard drive and removed the GPS unit from his car shortly after his grandfather’s death. A draft arrest warrant had been prepared at one point, but prosecutors concluded the evidence fell short of a charge.
Family members pointed to a strained relationship between Nathan and his relatives following his grandfather’s death. Civil lawsuits filed by his aunts accused Nathan of seeking access to portions of the family estate he was not entitled to. Nathan denied wrongdoing. The animosity in the family was public and palpable.
The Federal Case and Nathan Carman’s Death
In May 2022, nearly six years after the sinking of Chickenpox, federal prosecutors indicted Nathan on charges for the murder of his mother Linda, mail fraud, and wire fraud. The indictment alleged that Nathan had intentionally sunk Chickenpox and killed his mother in order to obtain an inheritance estimated at tens of millions of dollars tied to the Chakalos family assets. Prosecutors also alleged he had previously murdered his grandfather for the same reason.
Nathan pleaded not guilty. His attorney argued that the government’s case was circumstantial and that Nathan’s autism contributed to his oft-misunderstood behavior. His father, Clark Carman, publicly defended him and said he believed the sinking was accidental.
Nathan was awaiting trial at the Cheshire County Jail in New Hampshire when, on June 15, 2023, he was found unresponsive in his cell. Authorities ruled there was no evidence of foul play. A note found in the cell contained case-related details but, according to his attorney, was “not a suicide note.”
With Nathan’s death, the federal charges were dismissed. In probate court, Linda was declared legally dead.
An Investigation Without Closure
The case remains as a complex murder-mystery with a maritime bent, not to mention the media sensation re-ignited by the Netflix documentary. Authorities have never delacred Linda Carman’s disappearance nor the murder of John Chakalos as solved, and Nathan never claimed responsibility for their deaths prior to his own. Linda’s body and the Chickenpox have never been recovered. They likely never will.
In the documentary, the divide between the Chakalos and Carman families is apparent. Some are convinced Nathan was responsible for both deaths. Others believe he has been consistently mischaracterized due to his strange personality and unusual way of showing emotion.
The truth about how Chickenpox sank, and whether Nathan was truly adrift for seven days as he claimed, is also unanswered. Nathan’s location between Sept 18th, when he claims the boat sank, and September 25th when he was rescued, can’t be verified. Adrenaline may have explained the burst of strength during his rescue, or perhaps he hadn’t been adrift that long.
What is certain is that two deaths — and Nathan’s own — are an ocean-bound mystery. The case will remain unsolved unless the Atlantic deep gives up her secrets, and that isn’t likely to happen.
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DemirHindiSG 02 Ocak 2026-18:40