Judge won’t allow testimony about the murder of Nathan Carman’s grandfather at upcoming federal trial

Aug. 9--A Rhode Island federal judge Thursday ruled that evidence regarding the murder of John Chakalos will not be allowed into testimony next week when the trial over Nathan Carman's insurance claim for his lost boat goes to trial.

The trial is scheduled to start Tuesday and lawyers for the insurance companies have been gathering evidence and were prepared to try and show that Carman murdered Chakalos -- his grandfather -- in December 2013 as part of a scheme to inherit $7 million from the estate. The second part of that alleged scheme was the sinking of his boat in September 2016 with his mother Linda Carman on board. She has never been found.

But in a teleconference call Thursday, U. S. District Judge John J. McConnell narrowed the scope of the trial and ruled that no testimony about the Windsor murder will be admitted.

National Liability & Fire Insurance Co. and the Boat Owners Association of the United States sued Nathan Carman in federal court after refusing to pay his $85,000 claim after his boat, the Chicken Pox, sank. Nathan Carman, floating in a raft, was rescued by a passing freighter eight days later.

David Farrell, the lawyer who is representing the insurance companies, had planned to call the lead detective from the Windsor Police Department to testify about the investigation into the Dec. 20, 2013, murder of Chakalos as well as a ballistics expert and an employee of the New Hampshire gun shop where Carman bought a Sig Sauer rifle.

Farrell could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Chakalos was found in his Windsor home shot in the back of the head. Police tried to get an arrest warrant charging Carman with the murder, but a judge refused to sign it and the case has remained open. Police have said that Carman is still a person of interest.

The bullets used in the murder are similar to what a Sig Sauer rifle would fire. Carman paid more than $2,000 for the rifle a month before the murder and has said that he has since lost it.

Farrell planned to call not only the clerk who sold Carman the rifle in 2013, but also a ballistics expert to testify about whether the gun could have been the murder weapon.

Linda Carman was lost at sea in September 2016 while tuna fishing with her son off the coast of Long Island in an area known as Block Canyon. Carman told authorities that the boat started taking on water and sank quickly and that he managed to jump onto a life raft -- but that he didn't see what happened to his mother.

Carman didn't activate the emergency beacon on his boat, despite having opportunity to do so. He was rescued eight days later by a freighter that saw his raft floating about 600 miles off Martha's Vineyard.

Carman has admitted to making changes to the boat the day before the ill-fated voyage, including removing the boat's "trim tabs," which are critical for navigation. After the sinking, the insurance company denied his claim, arguing that the changes made the boat unseaworthy and it sank because of Carman's actions.

Farrell is prepared to call experts who will testify that Carman's story is false.

Among them is Alex Aucoin, captain of the 82-foot Prudence, an offshore lobster vessel, who said that his crew was fishing in a spot on the same day and within a few miles of where Carman reported going down and did not see any sign of a sinking boat, a raft or anyone in distress. The Prudence sails out of the same marina that Carman used and Aucoin is familiar with Carman's boat.

According to court documents submitted by the insurance companies, the Prudence's automatic identification system places the vessel in the area known as Block Canyon "on the very day Carman claims to have sunk there and ... confirms Prudence was within a few miles of where Carman says he was trolling. Aucoin did not see the boat or a life raft that day in Block Canyon."

Court documents also show that a Woods Hole oceanographer emeritus, Richard Limeburner, will testify that ocean current and wind data and information from weather buoys and other sources contradict Carman's account of an eight-day drift and that based on tide information he wouldn't have drifted toward Martha's Vineyard if the boat sank where he said it did.

The federal case involving Carman has gotten less publicity than the "slayer petition" case that his three aunts filed against Carman in New Hampshire which appeared headed to trial earlier this summer.

Under what is known as a "slayer petition" the three aunts wanted New Hampshire Probate Court Judge David King to rule that Nathan Carman wasn't eligible to receive as much as $7 million that he stands to inherit from his grandfather's estate as Linda Carman's only heir.

The aunts -- Valerie Santilli, Elaine Chakalos and Charlene Gallagher -- accused Carman of killing his grandfather in 2013 and that he also was responsible for the death of his mother, in order to get the money.

But King dismissed the petition just days before the trial was to start, ruling that John Chakalos was not a legal resident of New Hampshire and therefore the aunts had no standing to bring the petition. The aunts have appealed that ruling to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, where it is still pending.

Dave Altimari can be reached at [email protected].

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