The Deaths of John Chakalos & Linda Carman Part 2 (Connecticut) 38:08

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Nathan Carman was 23 years old when his boat, the Chickenpox, sank during a fishing trip with his mom off the coast of Rhode Island. Nathan was rescued a week later, a miraculous recovery by a freight ship that just happened to be in the right place at the right time. But his mother, Linda Carman, was never found.

Every detail of the sinking boat, the extensive week-long search, and the incredible rescue of Nathan after that search was called off made for a massive story in local and national media.

But it only got more compelling when it was learned that Nathan was the grandson, and Linda, the daughter, of wealthy real estate developer John Choklis, whose 2013 shooting death remained unsolved when the tragedy occurred at sea. And then a stunning fact was made public: Nathan Carman was a suspect in the murder of his own grandfather.

This is part two of three of a deep dive into the stories of John Shockless and Linda Carmen. If you haven't already, go back one episode and start there for the essential background on these cases. Who is Nathan Carmen? Could he be responsible for the death of his grandfather? Did Nathan intentionally sink his boat with his mother aboard? And why?

My name is Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of John Shockless and Linda Carmen, Part 2, On Dark Down East. Nathan Carmen was living in Vermont when his boat sank, but he grew up and went to high school in Middletown, Connecticut. His parents filed for divorce in 1998, and his father eventually moved across the country to California. So, Nathan was largely in his mother's care for his teenage years.

Nathan had social challenges in school which were attributed to Asperger's syndrome, a diagnosis that is no longer separated from autism spectrum disorder. According to the Mayo Clinic, the diagnosis was generally thought to be on the mild end of the autism spectrum disorder.

It is characterized by problems with social interaction and communication, among other behaviors, which was the case for Nathan, according to his family and those who knew him in high school. I will only be discussing specific incidents of Nathan's history to the extent they were mentioned in official investigative documents.

In a search and seizure warrant filed in July of 2014, it's stated that investigators learned Nathan had "several episodes" where he got violent when his coping mechanisms were challenged. That affidavit also says that police learned during interviews with family members that he held another child hostage with a knife when he was a child himself.

In more general terms, Nathan's father told Boston Globe reporters that Nathan despised his diagnosis and the way it set him apart. "The main thing is the label: autism. That drives him crazy. He's so functional." His father also said that Nathan was isolated from many of his peers and didn't have any close friends. Nathan's best connection was with his horse, Cruz.

But in 2011, when Nathan was 17 years old, Cruz passed away, leaving Nathan in crisis. One night in August of 2011, he told his father he planned to get up in the morning and ride his bike to Westbrook, Connecticut to do some fishing. Nathan never returned home from that supposed fishing trip. His parents reported him missing, and the search for Nathan began.

Several days later, Nathan turned up in Virginia when a suspicious person was reported lingering outside a vacant store. According to the Hartford Courant, Nathan told the deputy who picked him up that he was looking for a safe place to sleep before he rode to Florida on a moped that he'd purchased after taking a bus to Virginia.

Nathan initially gave the deputy a false date of birth and home state, but Nathan was carrying his social security card at the time, which provided the deputy with accurate information. When the deputy put Nathan's name into the National Crime Information Center database and CIC, he popped up as a missing person. His parents drove to Virginia to pick him up soon after.

Reports say that Nathan also had nearly $4,000 in cash and two pictures of himself with his horse, Cruz, on him at the time. Nathan's father, Earl Clark Carman, told the Boston Globe in 2016 that Linda was a doting mother who took great care of their son and sought the services he needed, even when Nathan didn't appreciate the help.

In an online forum for people seeking answers to questions about mental health, a woman presumed to be Linda Carmen posted seeking advice for her son. In April 2011, the post noted her son had, quote, paranoid delusions and religious idiocy, end quote, and that Nathan refused his medication.

She also wrote that Nathan was admitted to a rehabilitation hospital for psychiatric treatment, but things got complicated. In addition to his mother, Nathan's grandfather, John Choklis, appeared to be quite involved in Nathan's life. Linda and John sometimes disagreed on the methods of treatment for Nathan. When Nathan was hospitalized for psychiatric care, their disagreements reached a boiling point.

Linda said in her post on that forum in April of 2011 that her son would let his grandparents visit him in the hospital for hours on end, but he wouldn't see her. Linda wrote in the post, quote, His grandfather has insisted for 17 years that my son belongs to him, and all his problems are a result of me, his mother, end quote.

According to reporting by Shelley Murphy and Evan Allen for the Boston Globe, Linda and her father, John Shockless, got into a physical altercation at the hospital where Nathan was receiving treatment. Linda was arrested, but the charges were later dropped. When Nathan was 18 years old, he packed up and moved out of his mother Linda's house. He told her that his grandfather gave him money and he'd rented an apartment a few blocks away.

About a year after Nathan's grandfather was shot and killed, Nathan moved further away to Vermont, but Linda maintained a relationship with her son through their shared love of fishing. The pair traveled far and wide, chasing both salt and freshwater fish across Canada and the United States. But even when fishing wasn't the main focus, it appeared Linda and Nate still liked to take trips together.

They planned to tour the Galapagos Islands in December of 2016. That would have been two months after Nathan's boat sank.

After Nathan was rescued and his father picked him up in Boston to bring him home to Vernon, Vermont on September 27th, 2016, Nathan gave a statement to waiting reporters. Quote, I would just like to thank the public for their prayers and concern for both my mother and myself. I would like to thank the crew of the ship that rescued me, both for rescuing me and for treating me well. I feel healthy. Emotionally, I've been through a huge amount. I'm

My request is that I just be left alone to mourn naturally." But being left alone was not going to be Nathan Carman's reality. He'd be the center of police and media attention for the next several years, while concurrent investigations into the murder of John Shockless and the presumed death of Linda Carman propelled forward.

With the public revelation that Linda and Nathan Carman were the daughter and grandson of the late John Shockless, came renewed attention on John's still unsolved murder. A 2014 search and seizure warrant made public in the days following Nathan's rescue identified Nathan Carman as a prime suspect in his grandfather's murder. Now there are a lot of moving parts and intricate details of this story,

The best way to clearly walk you through each major piece of the puzzle is to first focus on the investigation into the sinking of Nathan's boat, the chickenpox, and the disappearance of his mother at sea. Then in the third and final part of this story on Dark Down East, I'll examine the evidence police had on Nathan for the murder of John Shockless, leading up to a major development in the case as of May 2022.

So, right now, let's take a look at why investigators believed the apparent boating accident could have actually been intentional. From the very start, Nathan publicly denied the speculation that he was responsible for his mother's disappearance and presumed death.

He told the Hartford Courant, quote, "All I'm going to say right now to you is that a terrible tragedy happened. I'm lucky to be alive. I lost my mother." End quote. Part of what bolstered the speculation, though, was the fact that police obtained a warrant as part of Linda Carmen's missing persons investigation to search Nathan's four-story home in Vermont.

According to the affidavit, law enforcement believed they'd find evidence that revealed information about where Nathan was planning to fish and that would support a charge of operating so as to endanger, resulting in death. South Kingstown, Rhode Island police carried out the three-hour search at Nathan Carman's home on September 26, 2016.

Investigators removed a modem, a GPS device SIM card, and a letter written by Nathan, though there were no further details about the letter included in the search warrant. Nathan's computer, which police specifically wanted to recover during the search, was not found.

As the investigation continued in the months after the sinking of the chickenpox, Nathan filed an insurance claim with National Liability and Fire Insurance Company and Boat Owners Association of the United States. He was seeking an $85,000 payout for the loss of his vessel. The insurance company, though, was not keen on making that payout.

Attorney David Farrell for the insurance company wrote in court filings that potential criminal wrongdoing could bar Nathan Carman's insurance claim. The insurance company was prepared to bring the deaths of Nathan's family members into their own case against Nathan.

As written in the court filing by Attorney Farrell, quote, his actions and inactions regarding his mother's death are within the scope of discovery as relevant to the sinking, as is his grandfather's unsolved homicide, end quote. Nathan was required to give a deposition under oath as part of the insurance claim proceedings.

His testimony revealed alterations and repairs he made to his boat just the day before it sank, and raised several concerns about his actions aboard the vessel when it started to go under. The December 16, 2016 deposition was attended by attorneys David Farrell and Liam O'Connell on behalf of BoatUS, as well as attorney Hubert Santos, who represented Nathan Carman.

After covering background information on Nathan and his experience with engines and boats specifically, attorney David Farrell launched into a line of questioning regarding repairs and maintenance performed on the chickenpox. Nathan told Mr. Farrell that he performed a number of alterations and repairs on the boat himself.

According to the transcript of the deposition, Nathan said he installed GPS chart plotters and related accessories such as a radar and an antenna. He also installed a VHF radio and swapped out a regular radio a couple times to get one that he was happy with, he said. Because the boat came with no seats, Nathan also added two inside the wheelhouse.

But the alterations that the insurance company was most concerned with included repairs to the boat's bilge pumps and removal of the trim tabs.

Just a note, this does have a tendency to get technical, so I will define certain marine terminology as we go. A bilge pump functions to drain water from the hull of the boat, the bottom. Most of the time, this water comes from spray over the sides of the boat or rainwater collecting inside, or from onboard built-in coolers and fish boxes.

A bilge pump can also serve to drain water flooding into the boat from a catastrophic hole in the hull. However, they're rarely big or powerful enough to stop the flooding altogether. They may slow the flooding and sinking enough to allow for repairs or safe escape, but it's not likely they'll prevent a boat from going down without other interventions.

So Nathan replaced one of the bilge pumps on his boat the day before it sank. Nathan explained that the original bilge pump on the port side of the boat was not sucking water. The pump turned on, but water was not being pumped out. Nathan surmised that the part called an impeller was bad, so he removed the pump and installed a new one in its place.

When asked if he tested the new pump before heading out on the fishing trip with his mother, Nathan said that he did, though it doesn't sound like it was an intentional test, just that there was water in the bilge and when the new pump was installed, the water was pumped out, which led him to believe the new pump worked. Nathan went on to answer questions about the boat's trim tabs, which were probably the most important issue raised by the insurance company.

Trim tabs are metal plates on the bottom of the boat that help keep the boat level in different sea conditions. If a boat rolls hard to one side, the trim tabs adjust accordingly to keep the boat on a mostly even plane.

According to the internet and numerous blogs and forums and sites I surveyed, trim tabs are either necessary or not necessary at all. It seems to be a matter of opinion rather than a hard and fast requirement or non-negotiable safety measure. Nathan himself felt that they were not needed on his boat. He said, "...the reason that I decided to take the trim tabs off was because I never found an occasion where they did any good."

Nathan admitted to not discussing this opinion of the trim tabs on his boat with anyone. He did not discuss their removal with his boat insurance provider either.

So, despite there being no requirement to maintain the trim tabs on a boat like Nathan's, the removal of the tabs became a point of concern considering what ultimately happened to the vessel after their removal.

When Nathan removed these from the boat, they left behind four holes the size of a half dollar and nine additional screw holes in the transom of the boat that he attempted to repair and fill using marine putty and a fiberglass repair kit. But the fiberglass repair kit didn't work, Nathan explained. The epoxy in the kit kept running out of the holes and didn't set up fast enough.

Instead, he relied solely on the tube of a putty-like material known as 3M Marine Adhesive Sealant 5200.

The product, according to the manufacturer listing, quote, is a one-component, high-strength, moisture-occurring, gap-filling polyurethane for permanent bonding of wood, gel coat, and fiberglass. It cures to form a firm, rubbery, waterproof seal on joints and boat hardware, above and below the waterline, end quote.

Nathan said in his deposition that this product had an absolute hard set time of 24 hours, meaning it was hard and cured within 24 hours. However, I'm seeing that the product achieves handling strength in 48 hours. Whether the product specs have changed since 2016 or this discrepancy is explained in some other way, I'm not sure.

Regardless, Nathan removed the trim tabs from his boat and repaired the holes left behind in the hull of the chickenpox with the 5200 sealant, then set off on the fishing trip with his mother, all within 24 hours. Nathan's account of the sinking of his boat stayed more or less the same from his very first telling of the story to the Coast Guard when he was rescued from his life raft.

During the deposition for the insurance claim suit, Nathan provided a few more details as to what he claimed happened on board in the moments before, during, and after the boat went under. When he first realized his vessel was taking on water, Nathan said he acted quickly to prepare safety supplies and assess where the issue was coming from.

But after checking where and why water was pouring into the engine compartment, Nathan felt there was no stopping the inevitable.

his focus returned to the safety gear, as well as his fishing rods. The last thing Nathan said to his mother was to reel in their fishing lines. When asked why he was concerned with the rods at that moment, Nathan said that he just knew fishing wasn't a priority and wanted the lines pulled in. "The last time I saw my mom was when I made the decision to go forward and start moving the safety gear from the wheelhouse to the bow of the vessel.

Nathan did not put on a life jacket or offer one to his mother, despite his preparation of the other safety gear. Nathan carried supplies forward, saying he made two complete and one partial trip with the items before the boat sank. Quote, And as the boat sank, it sank very... The boat just dropped down. End quote.

For reference, the bow refers to the front point of the boat, whereas the stern is the rear of the boat. The interviewer raised issue with this statement that the bow of the boat sank first, saying to Nathan, "You seem like a smart guy. How do you explain that?"

Nathan explained that he'd thought about it since the sinking and he believed the bow sank first because the keel is deeper forward than aft. Now, for what it's worth, it is possible for a boat to sink either bow or stern first, depending on cargo, weight distribution, where and how the water is flooding onto the vessel, and other factors. It had been just about two months since the incident by the time he sat down for this examination under oath.

During his testimony, Nathan reflected on why he believed he wasn't able to locate his mother after the boat sank. Quote, "I know she was a strong swimmer. The seas were not rough.

I don't know if I would have been able to see her head some distance away from me, especially not being high above the water because there was that swell, but I think it was most likely because she was a strong swimmer that she was not conscious on the surface after the boat sank. Because if she was, she would have been able to swim. She would have been able to see the life raft, and she would have been able to hear me, and she would have responded to me calling out to her.

End quote.

The intended purpose of the multiple hearings and Nathan's examination under oath was for the insurance company to fact-find and determine if Nathan was eligible to receive the insurance payout as a result of his claim for the chickenpox. However, the deposition entered into the record several interesting details that no doubt informed the investigation into Linda Carman's presumed death aboard her son's boat.

Maybe it's a throwaway detail, or maybe it's enormously important, but either way it's something I can't get out of my brain. When Nathan was picked up by the freighter Orient Lucky after his week on a life raft at sea, he was wearing different clothes than what he wore on the fishing trip with his mother. He said during his deposition for the insurance company that he had a change of clothes in the safety gear he was able to bring with him off the sinking boat.

He changed into those clothes once aboard the life raft. It's reasonable to assume that Nathan's original clothes got wet and to avoid hypothermia out on the ocean, he changed once he got on the life raft. But is it typical for someone to pack a change of clothes with the safety gear for a fishing trip? If the boat sank so fast, how was he able to gather his clothing, not to mention the food and water he had, but not able to keep an eye on his mother?

And maybe my biggest question here, where are his original clothes? I don't know if they exist, but if they do, they could be critical pieces of evidence in Linda Carmen's case. Another interesting piece of information came up in this deposition, though I'm not sure where it will fit into the ongoing case, if at all. Mr. Farrell asked Nathan Carmen about an incident with the boat's prior owner.

Nathan bought the boat from a man named Brian out of Massachusetts, and according to his recollection, Brian purchased the boat in very poor condition and performed a refit or rebuild on the boat to get it into the condition it was when Nathan bought it.

Brian did not use the boat recreationally. He only rebuilt it with the intention of selling it. Brian owned a marine fabricating company, so he was reasonably qualified to perform the work on the boat. Nathan claimed that after he purchased the boat from Brian, they had a dispute over additional money owed for work Brian did on the boat.

Nathan was unclear about when the work was done or what kind of work was done to the boat. However, as their financial dispute continued, Brian started to demand that Nathan return the dock lines left on the boat, that is, the ropes that are used to tie the boat off to a dock or slip. Nathan said that Brian never mentioned the ropes before.

Several months after Nathan purchased the boat, the dock lines, along with a shore power cable Nathan had purchased and two aluminum plates, were cut and stolen from the boat while it was at the Point Judith Marina. According to Nathan, it was early season and the marina wasn't fully staffed, which allowed someone to gain access to his boat.

Nathan suspected that the boat's former owner, Brian, was to blame and he filed a police report. Sure enough, Brian later called the police station and admitted to the theft, though it appears no charges were filed or further action taken in that criminal complaint. Nathan did not get the items back. So this incident means two things to me, my untrained, definitely not a detective eye.

One, it's possible that someone could gain access to Nathan's boat who wasn't Nathan. And two, Nathan had an open and ongoing dispute with someone over the boat at the time it sank. I'll leave it there with the caveat that the former owner of Nathan's boat is in no way implicated in the cause of its sinking. It's just something that makes you think, right?

According to reporting from the beginning of the search for Linda and Nathan, their intended destination for that trip was just south of Block Island, about 25 nautical miles from the marina in Rhode Island. That's also what Linda put as their destination in her float plan, that document, with all the important details about their fishing excursion. But as I shared in part one of this story, Nathan was rescued a considerable distance away from Block Island.

In his deposition, Nathan testified that his planned destination was actually the canyons. From the transcript, quote, My mom and I had intended to go striped bass fishing. We had inshore fishing rods aboard the boat with eels and so forth.

My mom had also expressed concern in the past about me going out on the boat. She's a mother, that's the basis of her concern. And I had given her, I had agreed with her, not that I would never go out on the boat alone, but that any time I was planning to go out, I would offer her an opportunity to join me. And that was the compromise that we had struck.

So on the way out, I told her that I was planning on going out to the canyons in the coming days and that if she wanted to go with me, that she could."

The Canyons, or the Northeast Canyons, is a go-to fishing site off New England for prized yellowfin or bigeye tuna, according to On the Water magazine. The canyons cover an enormous area of the Atlantic Ocean, nearly 5,000 square miles, and the closest boundary is about 130 miles from Cape Cod and at least that distance, if not further, from Rhode Island.

According to the Hartford Current's reporting on this case, Nathan Carman has never publicly revealed any estimate or exact location of where his boat sank, just that it was in the canyons, again, a 5,000 square mile area. This change of destination was particularly concerning for investigators because, according to interviews with Linda Carman's friends and family, she would not be comfortable with a trip that far offshore.

Then there's this. The insurance company hired an expert from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute on Cape Cod to testify that given the tides, currents, and wind patterns for the week that Nathan's boat sank, it would have been highly unlikely, if not impossible, for him to end up near Martha's Vineyard if the chickenpox really did go down in or near the canyons.

The tide and current was flowing east to west. Nathan ended up in the opposite direction. Heavy winds could be to blame, but records show the winds were between 6 and 16 knots an hour, aka not heavy winds. As of now, the boat has never been recovered, nor has the body of Linda Carman.

The insurance claim suit was still ongoing in 2019, over two and a half years after Nathan Carman's boat sank. There were delays and motions and petitions, all while a concurrent investigation carried on into the death of John Choklis, and additional suits were filed against Nathan by his family members. But those details are still to come.

The insurance suit, though, finally reached conclusion in November of 2019.

During the preceding hearings and the federal civil trial, the insurance company had a number of witnesses to bolster their case against Nathan, including a surveyor who testified that Nathan's alterations to the boat, especially removing the trim tabs and repairing the holes with putty, made it unseaworthy, and that it was, quote, going to be in peril sometime, end quote.

Finally, on November 4th, 2019, a judge issued his ruling in the insurance claim case. According to reporting by Dave Altomare for the Hartford Courant, Judge John J. McConnell said in his decision, quote, The court finds that the policy does not cover Mr. Carman's loss because the facts show that Mr. Carman made improper and faulty repairs to his boat that contributed to its sinking.

The evidence shows that Mr. Carman's transom hole repairs were incomplete, improper, and faulty because he filled the holes with epoxy and did not use fiberglass as an exterior seal. The removal of the trim tabs and the faulty repairs rendered the boat unseaworthy and in poor condition.

End quote.

Although the insurance company alleged at points during the almost three-year-long case that Nathan's alterations were perhaps made to intentionally sink the boat, the court decision did not weigh on intentionality, just causation. Nathan Carman's actions caused the boat to sink, and therefore he was not entitled to his $85,000 insurance claim payout.

The civil case was over. Nathan spoke to reporters outside the courthouse saying, quote, I've put lots of time and energy and frankly a lot of misery into this. I almost feel like I have a responsibility to mom to make sure the truth comes out. The insurance company made claims against me that are so tremendous, I don't feel like I can walk away from them, end quote.

Among those tremendous claims were speculation of Nathan Carman's involvement in his grandfather's murder. Now, testimony regarding the murder of John Shockless was not ultimately part of the civil trial, as the judge ruled that the insurance company could only present that information if he ruled against their initial claim. Since the case ended in the insurance company's favor, the topic was no longer relevant.

However, before the civil proceedings went to trial, an attorney for the insurance company filed paperwork with the court that revealed the contents of those claims against Nathan Carman, way beyond the accusation that he intentionally sunk his boat.

The insurance company claimed that Nathan also used the September fishing trip to dispose of the gun that he allegedly used to kill his grandfather. The claim cannot be verified at this time. I mean, how do you prove someone threw a gun off a boat into the ocean unless that person admits to it himself? But I can tell you this, Nathan Carman did own a firearm.

According to a 2014 search and seizure warrant, he purchased a Sig Sauer 716 Patrol .308 caliber rifle from a gun store in New Hampshire sometime before his grandfather was shot dead. That rifle is consistent with the same caliber weapon used in the killing of John Shockless.

Out of all the questions you have right now, I'm willing to guess that the biggest lingering question is just one word: Why? Why would Nathan Carman want to kill his grandfather and sink his boat with his mother aboard? Multiple sources have reported that Nathan and his grandfather were close.

And although his relationship with his mother was reportedly strained, Nathan's father said she was his only true friend. What motive could Nathan Carman have to end the life of the people closest to him? According to a will filed in the Probate Division of New Hampshire's Eighth Circuit Court, the estate of John Choklis was worth more than $42 million.

It was left to his four daughters when he was killed. With Linda Carmen's disappearance and presumed death, Nathan Carmen could inherit his mother's portion of the estate, more than $7 million. So was it all about the money? In the third and final part of this story on Dark Downies, you'll hear the details of the investigation into John Shockless' murder that centered on Nathan Carmen, the motive, the opportunity,

The evidence, and finally, an arrest. There's more to cover. Subscribe or follow right now so you're the first to hear the final installment of this three-part miniseries on Dark Down East. Thank you for listening. If you or anyone you know has a personal connection to this case, please contact me at hello at darkdowneast.com.

Sources cited in this episode, along with additional sources referenced, are linked at darkdowneast.com so you can do some digging of your own. If you know of an active missing persons case in Maine or New England, send me an email with the subject line missing at hello at darkdowneast.com. I'll share that information on an upcoming episode of Dark Down East and at darkdowneast.com slash missing.

You can also reach out to me on Instagram, at darkdowneast. Thank you again for supporting this show and allowing me to do what I do. I'm honored to use this platform for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones, and for those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons and homicide cases. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East.