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Hey guys and welcome back to my channel. This is one of the strangest true crime cases out there. I've been wanting to talk about it for a really long time and I'm finally doing it today. Today we are going to be talking about Linda Carmen and Nathan Carmen.
So this is Nathan Carmen, and he grew up in Middletown, Connecticut. He's a very private guy, and he doesn't actually have his birthday out there that I could find, but he's either 25 or 26. He actually was an only child. His mom divorced his father when he was pretty young, and his father was not heavily involved in his life.
Nathan's mother Linda worked as a nurse who worked with people on the autism spectrum and her son Nathan actually was on the autism spectrum himself. The terminology when it comes to autism is changing all the time. He was originally diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome but that is now recognized just as
being part of the autism spectrum. So he would be what some would call high functioning. So growing up Nathan didn't ever have many friends. Unfortunately, autism is a social disorder and a lot of them have trouble communicating with people and making friendships. So he was really close with his mother Linda, but sometimes they did have some turmoil in their relationship. They had, you know, simple fighting that all parent-child relationships have,
But for the most part they got along really well and Nathan said that his mom was pretty much his best friend One thing that they loved to do together was fish Nathan really loved to fish and even though Linda didn't like fish She enjoyed catching them especially because it meant she could spend quality time with her son Nathan They often spent time together fishing It was really how they would connect with each other and that was really their favorite thing to do together
So in September of 2016, they decided that they wanted to go deep sea fishing. To be specific, it was September 17th, 2016, and they actually left right before midnight. That sounds really scary to me, going out on the ocean in the middle of the night. But hey, that's how you get the best fish. Nathan had a 31-foot aluminum boat that he had recently bought a couple months prior. And the boat was actually named the Chicken Paw.
So it was a Saturday night, they packed up their boat, like I said they left a little bit before midnight and they let some friends know that they were going out fishing and they wouldn't be returning until Sunday. Normally on these fishing trips they would head out to Block Island which is about 20 miles from shore. However on this night they decided they wanted to go deep sea tuna fishing and this was something that they had never
were done before. Nathan didn't have any experience. So it's kind of scary to be doing this in the middle of the night, but they went further out into an area called block Canyon. This is so far out that it takes all night to get there. So the next day rolled around and back on shore, there was no sign of Linda and Nathan.
Some friends actually alerted the Coast Guard that they had not come back yet. So the Coast Guard went out looking for them. They searched an area that covered 62 nautical miles off of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New York. They ended up searching for six days, but could not find a trace of Linda or Nathan. So eventually they ended up calling off the search. But then on September 25th, eight days after they initially left,
Nathan was finally found. Someone on a Chinese freighter boat noticed someone out on the water on a raft in the middle of the ocean. Just like in the movie Castaway, Nathan was on this raft. It kind of had this tent over the top to protect him.
and he happened to be spotted by this giant Chinese freighter boat. And he was super lucky that they saw him because they were able to pull him in, save him and bring him onto the boat. He was just floating basically on a blow up raft in the middle of the ocean for eight days. The boat's captain said that he looked tired when he came on board.
He rested for a while, clinging onto the ladder. Our crew helped him to get on board the ship. Now, Carmen says he spent eight days on a life raft after his boat sank. His mother, who was also on the boat, is still missing. Liam Martin joins us now with these new pictures. Liam? Lisa, we obtained photos and video from the crew of the freighter, the Orient Lucky. You can see here that he jumped from the life raft to swim over to the freighter. That's him in the water. He says he had spent a week in that raft and that the freighter happened to spot him
Here we see the crew hoisting him up onto the ship, eventually wrapping him in a blanket and then getting him food before bringing him to shore to eventually be questioned by the Coast Guard. And now the question remains, what happened to Nathan Carman's mother?
Nathan was able to survive off of these fresh water packs that he had in his emergency survival kit. And he also had this thing that would turn ocean water into water that was safe to drink. So he was hydrated at least. He also had a few protein bars and he was able to make it through that eight days. The first person to, I guess, interview Nathan
Nathan was the Coast Guard and they talked to him just on the boat. Nathan explained that when he and his mom left, the ocean was really calm and he didn't think it was going to be a problem to get to Block Canyon. He said when they first got to Block Canyon, they got there just as the sun was rising. It was perfect time to start catching fish and they were about to have a great day. And then around midday, he started hearing a strange noise coming from the engine compartment. The engine sounded different. He opened it up and he realized that it was spinning water.
and that water was filling the engine compartment. However, he said that at this point, he thought he would still be able to remedy the situation and didn't realize that the boat was going to sink. He thought he would be able to fix the problem and they would be headed back to shore soon. He started trying to work on it, but after not being able to fix the problem, he says he grabbed the emergency raft just in case. He opened it up.
was like one of those automatically inflating ones. He said the boat started just filling with water like crazy and it was all a blur. He throws the raft in, jumps in the water, swims over to it and gets in. And according to him, his mom just basically disappeared. He said he tried to call her name, hoping that she would swim over to the raft as well, but the boat was gone and so was his mom. And he said it happened so fast that he could barely figure out what happened.
I assumed that if she had been on the surface and conscious that she would have been calling out to me and I would have been able to find her. But I didn't know why that hadn't happened. He started using his whistle that he had, his emergency whistle, trying to do the alert sounds for his mom and got no response. He said he was really confused because right before the boat started sinking, which he said happened very quickly, his mom was helping him try to remedy the situation.
Mom and I, two people, myself and my mom, were fishing at Block Canyon. And there was a funny noise in the engine compartment. I looked and saw a lot of water.
When I saw the life raft, I did not see my mom. So I got to the life raft after I got my bearings and I was whistling and calling and looking around and I didn't see her. Have you found her? No, we haven't been able to find her yet. So obviously officials were pretty confused by this story. So Nathan was brought to Boston for further questioning.
Now, when he arrived, people thought his behavior was odd because he was pretty emotionless for someone who had just been through this extremely traumatic situation and had lost their mother. Now, like I mentioned, Nathan is on the autism spectrum, and so a lot of people just were confused by his approach to interviews, talking about his mom, explaining what happened.
He comes across as very cold and calculated, but that is just the way that he speaks. It can be hard to understand that if you've never spent time around someone with autism, but if you have, you know exactly what I'm talking about. People that are on the spectrum often have awkward social behavior. They are known for having very calculated measured speech patterns, and sometimes their speech doesn't include a lot of emotion that most people
you would have in a certain situation. So people were a bit confused by his statements and his tone and not sure how to take it. So later that night, Nathan was taken back to his house in Vermont and that is where he made his first public statement. - I would just like to thank the public for their prayers and for their concern for both my mother and myself. I've been through a huge amount and my request is just to be allowed to mourn naturally. - So obviously if you didn't know that Nathan
Had autism or if you've never had experience with someone with autism you might think that that interview clip was really awesome
People immediately started thinking that Nathan was very suspicious in this situation. So investigators started looking into their whole family and Nathan's background, and they realized that their family had quite a bit of money. Investigators soon realized that Nathan would be inheriting seven to eight million dollars worth of his mom's estate. And so there's motive right there.
Investigators start thinking, you know, maybe this is more than it seems to be. And I'm sure a lot of you are thinking, there's no way he did this. I mean, I don't know. There's some weird things to go over here.
So professional boating captains were brought in to investigate the possibility of foul play. One of them mentioned that it was kind of weird for only two people to be going out fishing for tuna. This was also Nathan's first time deep sea fishing for tuna. Experts thought this was strange because tuna are so heavy that oftentimes you need three, four, sometimes even five people, especially if they are two amateurs who've never done it before.
There's usually a crew of four and it's usually all experienced guys to be smart about things. And they also said that the type of boat they had was just way too small to be going out deep sea fishing. They said you would need a much bigger heavy duty type of boat to go out that far.
And it was also discovered that the boat had a radio system that could have called for help. They thought it was really weird that Nathan never alerted anyone that the boat was sinking. It was confirmed that the system was working at the time and Nathan just never called for help.
Nathan claims that he didn't use the radio because he didn't think they were sinking. He says that he thought he would be able to fix the situation and before he knew it, the boat was sinking. He said he didn't even have time to use the radio. I didn't know that we were sinking. I knew that we had a problem, but I didn't know that we were sinking until we sank.
Specifically when he was asked why he didn't put out his beacon to the Coast Guard to alert them that something was happening, he said he has a very strong aversion to pressing a button that is going to result in a helicopter coming out.
Nathan also had told them that he was aware that, you know, it might be hard to go deep sea fishing for tuna and that his mom was nervous about doing it, but he ended up convincing her to go anyway. Thank you. We also have some breaking news tonight on this search at sea. Just minutes ago, the U.S. Coast Guard released audio recordings of its conversations with Nathan Carman from Sunday before he was rescued at sea.
Hello, this is Nathan Carmen. Nathan, this is United States Coast Guard Boston. Hello? Nathan, this is United States Coast Guard Boston. Yes, I hear you. Yes, sir. I need to understand what happened. Over. What happened? Over. Mom and I, two people, myself and my mom, were fishing at Block Canyon.
And there was a funny noise in the engine compartment. I looked and saw a lot of water. I was bringing, so I had my mom bring in the reel. I brought the safety stuff forward, and I was bringing one of the safety bags forward. The boat just dropped out from under my feet. When I saw the life raft, I did not see my mom. Have you found her?
No, we haven't been able to find her yet. So I got to the life raft after I got my bearings and I was whistling and calling and looking around and I didn't see her.
Understood, okay. So we're fishing around Block Canyon. Right, and when did that happen? Do you remember what day? I don't know the exact coordinates. When did that happen? Do you remember what day? Yes, it was a week ago today around midday. Okay, so last Sunday.
Now, it's really weird in this situation and seems to be a major red flag is that Nathan has no family support in this situation. His mom has three sisters who he was somewhat close with before this all happened, and they won't even talk to him. It would be great to have people embracing you and saying, we're glad you're home. We're glad you're alive.
and also helping me deal with my mom's death. I want to have family. I want them to be my family. It makes me feel like I have no family. - They are convinced that something happened and they are more concerned with getting answers than they are making sure their relationship with Nathan is good. I mean, when you hear that no one in his family is backing him up, it definitely makes you wonder about the family dynamic. Maybe there's more to this story that we don't understand.
So let's go over Nathan's past a little bit. So this particular time that Nathan went missing was not actually the first time that he has gone missing. When Nathan was a teenager, he had a horse named Cruz who he really, really loved and connected with. And when Nathan was 17, Cruz passed away. This caused Nathan to become very upset and he actually ran away from home.
home and his family was so freaked out that they actually put together a search team. Officers have all been briefed to keep a lookout for Nathan Carmen. Running away from home was something that I felt that I had to do with the time. And he was actually spotted on a camera getting onto a bus.
He eventually was found in a small town in Virginia, which was about 600 miles away from his home in Connecticut. When he returned home, he had to go in for a mental health exam at the hospital. This clearly doesn't have anything to do with the disappearance of his mother, but it definitely made police raise an eyebrow. So as police continued to look into Nathan,
They realized that his grandfather had actually been murdered back in December of 2013. And it was a super sketchy situation. Nathan was really, really close to his grandfather growing up. His grandfather, John, was a very wealthy and successful man. And Nathan really looked up to him. He spent a ton of time with him and really enjoyed spending time with him. He loved his grandpa.
And John ended up being found shot to death in his home in Connecticut. John Shackalas was murdered in his Connecticut home in 2013, one month after his wife died from cancer. His killer was never found. Police ruled it as a homicide, and they actually originally thought possibly Linda could have done it. Apparently, shortly before he died, he and Linda had a big fight, and Linda got physical.
However, there was no concrete evidence to tie her to his death. And she also took a polygraph and passed. So investigators kind of moved past her and started looking at Nathan as a possibility because he was the last one to be with John that night.
that night. The night that John died, Nathan and John went to dinner together. This was something that they did quite often. Nathan liked spending time with his grandfather. However, after dinner, they were not able to confirm where Nathan was for the rest of the night. And since he was the last person to see him alive, they started thinking that maybe he had something to do with his death. And not only that, police realized that the morning of John's death, Nathan actually took his computer hard drive and his car GPS and discarded both
of them. And in addition to all of this, Nathan had recently purchased a rifle that was the same type that was used to kill his grandfather. And
And police were never able to locate the murder weapon or Nathan's gun. Nathan claims that he lost that gun a while back. In 2017, the FBI was actually brought in to do a search of the family home, as well as another property that the family owned as well. They were hoping to find the missing pieces of the story, hopefully locate that gun, but they were never able to find it.
Now there was never enough evidence for them to convict Nathan of John's murder, but police say that he's still a suspect and it's still an active investigation. As the investigation continued, police actually obtained a search warrant for Nathan's house. However, as far as we know, they didn't find anything that would help them solve this case. Now this is probably the weirdest bit about all of this. Police got several reports from people who think that
that they may have saw Nathan attempting to make repairs or alterations on the boat before they left. A lot of people think that it's possible that Nathan made a mistake when trying to make repairs on his boat and that was the reason that it sank.
There was one specific man who ran into Nathan hours before Nathan actually left the dock and he told police that he saw Nathan drill two holes into the boat. The man said that he asked Nathan what he was doing and Nathan actually told him he was removing some stabilization pieces off of the back of the boat but the man thought it was weird because there was no reason to drill holes in the boat
and that's what he claims he saw him doing. You don't have to drill a hole to take the trim tabs off. Whatever he was doing was wrong. Nathan actually admitted that he did drill these holes, but he said that he patched up these holes with marine putty before he and his mom left
So then a bunch of experts looked at the raft that Nathan was in for eight days. That is quite a long time to be on a tiny little raft in the middle of the big ocean. And experts that looked at it said that there is pretty much no way that Nathan could have survived out there on that dinky ass raft. They said that there were at least 13 foot waves out there and that there was no way that Nathan's raft wouldn't
have like flipped over or something. They said that he could have even broken bones from the impact of the water being tossed around. They said that Nathan was in exceptionally good shape for someone who had been out on one of these rafts on the deep sea for eight days straight. And they were never able to prove whether or not Nathan was really on the raft, but it's like, where else would he have been?
clearly went out on the boat that specific night and he didn't show up for eight days. So Nathan did end up holding a memorial for his mother and sadly not that many people attended. A lot of her family members, including all her sisters, didn't show up and his family members have stated that they don't want to attend a memorial until they have all the answers for what actually happened.
I'm very grateful to the friends and family who attended in memory of my mom. Nathan, you've been through so much. How have you been these last several weeks? It's been very difficult. How was the service? Can you tell us a little bit about it, Nathan? The whole family was invited. I'm glad that many of my mom's friends chose to attend.
and I think the service was a good time for us to come together and support one another. How many would you say were there? Several. Are you sad your hands didn't show up? I wish very much that my whole family could have come together. I wish desperately that my mom was rescued. I hope that she will be found and
As difficult as this is, I'm glad that family and friends had a chance and that friends came together to remember my mom, to support each other in this very difficult time. Now I'm going to drive off. I need to close my door.
Now it looked like everything was going to end there for Nathan. Didn't seem like they had enough evidence to convict him of anything, enough proof. I mean, I certainly don't think there's enough proof that he intentionally did that. And I'd just like to point out how weird it would be to make that decision if you wanted to murder someone.
There's so many other ways that he could have done it other than you know risking his own life for eight days on a raft Sinking his brand new boat that he loves risking his own life I mean there seems like there could have been other ways to do it You could have pushed her off or killed her on the boat and thrown her off like what's the point of sinking the boat and then risking your life for all that time and it's not like Nathan knew that a giant boat would come through and save him, you know the timing of that
had to have been perfect. And that's why I just don't know what to think. I think this whole situation is really weird. Why was he tampering with the boat? The whole story of how it happened is really weird to me. I just don't get how it went from, you know, water's leaking into the boat to the boat is sinking and mom's gone.
Immediately the whole situation is so weird and I find it extremely hard to judge Nathan's behavior or the whole situation because of his autism I definitely view him differently. I have someone in my life with autism and I
look at Nathan differently because of that, but at the same time I know that people with autism are capable of committing murder. It is possible. So it leaves me so confused and I truly can say that I don't know in this situation. I don't know if Nathan's guilty or innocent. I don't even know which way I really lean. I really want to know what you guys think for sure, but this case got even crazier in 2017. Obviously Nathan made an insurance claim for his boat. That was a nice boat that sank.
But the insurance company actually came back and ruled that the boat sank because of Nathan's own actions. So they refused to pay for it. The claim was $85,000 and Nathan was very angry about this. So he took them to court.
And the judge actually ruled in favor of the insurance company that it was Nathan's fault that the boat sank. In court, they even had the man who sold him the boat and Nathan's lawyers tried to blame him and said that the boat was old and faulty. And he said that the boat was in great condition. It was an excellent boat.
The survey proved excellent. He used it for many months before he had this problem. He altered the boat. I mean, ultimately, he sank the boat. A federal judge has determined Nathan Carman's boat sank either directly or indirectly because of his faulty repairs. The boat's insurance company refused to pay the $85,000 claim because their attorney said Nathan removed two bulkheads and trim tabs before the voyage, leaving holes in the boat above the waterline that were improperly repaired.
The judge saying in his ruling repairs and alterations Mr. Carman made to this boat were faulty causing the boat to become unseaworthy and directly or indirectly causing the loss. Nathan claimed that this isn't about money, this is about getting the truth out there that he does not want to be known as someone who purposely sunk this boat. This isn't about money. It's an $85,000 claim.
It's a contingency fee. I get a fraction of that if I win. I've put lots of time, effort, and frankly, a lot of misery. And you know, the court ruling isn't saying that Nathan murdered his mom because he'd be in jail. They sided with the insurance company that the
boat sank due to his actions. Whether or not they were intentional is still up in the air and there won't be a trial for that. Just recently in December of 2019, Nathan requested a new trial and a reconsideration for the previous ruling. Now his argument is that the insurance company didn't disclose that he wouldn't be entitled to any of the money from the boat if he had altered it.
it and so that he should still be entitled to that money. And when it comes to his family right now, they are still on terrible terms. In fact, his aunts are actually trying to block him from receiving millions of dollars from his mother's estate. His aunts believe that he was responsible for Linda's death and John's death, and they don't want him getting any of their money and says that if they are able to, they will donate his portion to charity.
Nathan Carmen appeared in court yesterday representing himself after firing his attorneys. Carmen's aunts believe he murdered his grandfather and his mother to receive the inheritance. I'll say that some of the petitioners had awfully substantial moments.
and I had very, very little. - I have no idea who killed my grandfather. I know that I did not. I had nothing to do with my mother's death and I also want the public to know that I don't hate my aunts. - It's estimated that their entire estate is worth $42 million and Nathan believes he's entitled to at least 7 million of that. So I just find that really interesting that his whole family clearly believes he murdered his grandfather and mother.
that really gets me like the people who know the situation best are the family members right and if they think that then what does that tell us i mean it certainly doesn't show us either way that he's guilty or innocent and like i said i still can't make up my mind the whole situation with nathan is weird the whole thing with his grandfather is really weird i think if i didn't know about everything with his grandfather i probably would think there's no way this was an accident and everything but that just really makes you look twice at the situation
Like I said, it would be really really hard to plan something like this and it seems like a strange way to murder someone to put yourself at so much risk, but I don't know.
That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then stay safe out there.