By MIKE DONOGHUE, Vermont News First
BURLINGTON, VT. — Nathan Carman of Vernon, who has been facing federal charges of murdering his mother on the high seas and multiple swindles, is dead.
He has been held at the Cheshire County Jail in Keene, N.H.
“The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is investigating the death of Nathan Carman along with the Keene Police Department. An autopsy has been performed, and the death is not considered suspicious,” said Mike Garrity, spokesman for New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella.
Chief Federal Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford granted a motion this morning from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Vermont to dismiss all charges against Carman after prosecutors learned today that the defendant was dead.
The one paragraph filing said the office had been notified by the U.S. Marshals Service that Carman was deceased. The request by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nate Burris and Paul J. Van de Graaf did not elaborate.
Vermont News First learned that Carman, 29, reportedly had taken his own life. An investigation is underway.
A spokesperson for U.S. Attorney Nikolas “Kolo” Kerest in Vermont said the office would have nothing to add to the motion that asked the presiding judge to dismiss the indictment. Fabienne Boisvert-Defazio referred questions to the U.S. Marshals Service in Burlington, which said it would be issuing a statement this afternoon.
Carman was charged with killing Linda Carman, his mother, on Sept. 17 and 18, 2016 “willfully, deliberately, maliciously, and with premeditation.” The homicide happened “within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States,” the indictment said.
Defense Attorney Martin J. Minnella of Middlebury, Conn. said he was only told Carman was dead and was given no details. He said he is waiting for more answers.
“We are heartbroken,” he told Vermont News First.
Crawford had set the trial for Oct. 10 to 27 in Rutland. A pre-trial hearing on a pending motion was planned for July 12.
Minnella said he had rented housing in Rutland for a month. He said Caman and the defense team were looking forward to the trial to try to clear his name. They had lined up nationally recognized experts to attack the government’s case.
Carman also had been facing three counts of mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud, and one count of fraud for falsely claiming the sinking of his boat the “Chicken Pox.”
The indictment also maintains Nathan Carman killed his grandfather, John Chakalos, as he slept at his home in Windsor, Conn. on Dec. 20, 2013 as part of a scheme to obtain money and property from his estate. Chakalos was shot twice.
Nobody has been charged with the Chakalos homicide.
Nathan Carman bought a Sig Sauer rifle at Shooter’s Outpost in Hookset, N.H. on Nov. 11, 2013 and it was used as part of an inheritance scam that covered nearly a decade, prosecutors and the indictment spell out.
After Chakalos’ death, Carman received $550,000 as a beneficiary from two bank accounts that his grandfather had set up – payable upon his death.
Carman moved to Vernon in 2014 from an apartment in Bloomfield, Conn. He was unemployed much of the time. Carman became low on funds by the fall of 2016, according to prosecutors.
That is when authorities said a death plan was developed to take his mother fishing near Block Island, R.I. and manipulated the boat, the Chicken Pox, so he could get it to sink. Carman was found adrift in an inflatable raft 8 days later. The body of his mother was never recovered.
Carman was arrested May 10, 2022 at his Windham County home and arraigned the next day in U. S. District Court in Rutland. He pleaded not guilty to the 8-count federal indictment.
Crawford later ordered Carman detained pending trial.
The murder charge carried a possible life sentence in prison. Each fraud charge carried up to 10 years.
Mike Donoghue is a freelance writer in Vermont. He was a longtime staff writer at the Burlington Free Press and adjunct professor in the St. Michael’s College Journalism Department.