Carman Courtroom Surprise
Lawyer: Nathan Was Not Last To Speak With Grandfather
PROVIDENCE — A federal court hearing that began Tuesday as a process to determine whether Nathan Carman would be compelled to testify about his purchase of a rifle turned into a mini trial on the unsolved slaying of his grandfather, John Chakalos.
National Liability and Fire In- surance Co. is trying to get Carman to testify about the gun it has said in court papers that it suspects Carman used in the slaying. Carman has not been charged.
The issue of Chakalos’ 2013 slaying is connected to the insurance company’s refusal to pay Carman $85,000 for his boat, which sank two years ago. Carman was rescued after being adrift for days. His mother, Linda Carman, was lost at sea and is presumed dead.
On Tuesday, Judge Patricia Sullivan eventually granted insurance company attorney David Farrell’s request to reopen Carman’s deposition in the case so he could ask him questions about his purchase of a Sig Sauer rifle in New Hampshire weeks before his grandfather’s
slaying in December 2013.
But during a heated argument in front of Sullivan over that issue, Carman’s lawyer, David Anderson, revealed that there is evidence that he says could exonerate Carman as a suspect in his grandfather’s death, including that Chakalos communicated with someone other that Carman on the night of his death. Carman, police have said, was the last person to see Chakalos alive. Chakalos was shot to death in his Windsor home.
“There is evidence that [Chakalos] had a long phone conversation with a woman exchanging information with her about money,” Anderson said in court. “There is also is a witness who claims the murder took place around 2 a.m. and there is video that shows Nathan was at his apartment until 2:40 a.m.”
Farrell started to rebut Anderson, but Sullivan stopped them both and said they weren’t going to try the murder case Tuesday.
She said she will grant Farrell’s request to specifically ask Carman about the purchase of the Sig Sauer. She said Carman can plead the Fifth Amendment and not answer those questions if he chooses.
Sullivan also said she would allow Anderson to depose three witnesses who could buttress Carman’s claim he had nothing to do with his grandfather’s death.
After the hearing, Anderson refused to comment further and wouldn’t provide more details about the woman or whether she will be one of the people he tries to depose.
The hearing was held two years to the day that Linda and Nathan Carman disappeared while fishing off Block Island. Carman’s boat, the Chicken Pox, sank. Nathan Carman climbed aboard an emergency raft and was rescued eight days later.
Farrell argued he needed to ask Carman more questions about the Sig Sauer because his previous answers were deceiving.
“Here we are, two years after Linda Carman disappeared at sea on another instrument of death, and we still don’t have any answers.” Farrell said. “I myself question whether the gun still exists.” Farrell said he believed Carman disposed of the weapon the day after Chakalos’ death.
“I need to ask him, ‘where is that gun now? Where did it go? What did he use it for?’ ” Farrell said. “If the gun is missing and the boat is missing and the GPS from his truck at the time of the murder is missing and navigational tools from the boat are missing then it seems he has a really interesting habit of losing things.”
Nathan Carman has told Coast Guard officials the boat quickly started taking on water and that he grabbed some provisions and swam to the emergency raft as the boat sank. He said he called for his mother but didn’t see her.
Shortly after his rescue, Nathan Carmanput in an insurance claim to get $85,000 for the loss of the Chicken Pox. The insurance company instead denied the claim and filed a lawsuit against Carman alleging that repairs he made to the boat before they left Rams Point Marina in Rhode Island caused it to sink.
Linda Carman’s three surviving sisters filed a “slayer” petition in New Hampshire probate court seeking to have a judge bar Nathan Carman from getting his mother’s share of John Chakalos’ nursing home empire.
In the petition, the sisters allege that Nathan Carman killed his grandfather in December 2013 and then killed is mother so that he could inherit her share of the Chakalos estate, estimated to be worth more than $7 million.
Carman, who is representing himself in the New Hampshire case, has yet to be deposed in that case. He has refused to turn over financial records or to answer questions about the Sig Sauer.