Man rescued at sea a suspect in grandfather’s slaying; mom now missing

BOSTON — A 22-year-old man rescued from a life raft after a fishing trip that left his mother missing and presumed dead had been a suspect in the still-unsolved 2013 slaying of his rich grandfather, adding to the multitude of questions about what happened at sea.

Nathan Carman was picked up by a freighter Sunday 100 miles off the Massachusetts coast after what he said was a week adrift that began when his 31-foot aluminum fishing boat inexplicably sank during a mother-and-son outing.

Coast Guard officials interviewed Carman, and police searched his home in Vermont as part of an investigation into the ill-fated trip. He has not been charged with anything.

In an interview Wednesday, he said he had “absolutely nothing” to do with his grandfather’s killing and did everything he could to find his mother, 54-year-old Linda Carman, of Middletown, Conn., as their boat went down. He said he blew a whistle and called out frantically for her for hours.

“I was yelling, ‘Mom! Mom!’” Carman said, adding, “I loved my mother, and my mother loved me.”

According to court documents, Carman came under suspicion in the slaying three years ago of his maternal grandfather, 87-year-old John Chakalos, a wealthy real estate developer who was found shot to death in his Windsor, Conn., home.

A 2014 search warrant said Carman was the last person known to have seen Chakalos alive; that Carman had bought a rifle consistent with the one used in the crime; and that he discarded the computer hard drive and GPS unit he had used around the time of the shooting.

Carman was never charged. According to court papers, police submitted an arrest warrant to a prosecutor, but it was returned unsigned with a request for more information.

In his will, Chakalos left an estate worth more than $42 million to his four adult daughters, including Carman’s mother. Windsor police said that the case is still open and Carman remains a “person of interest.”

MICHAEL DWYER / AP Nathan Carman arrives at the U.S. Coast Guard station in Boston on Tuesday. After his boat sank, Carman spent a week in a life raft before being rescued by a freighter. His mother remains missing at sea.