Lawyer: Ballistics Report Raises Question About Whether Nathan Carman’s Missing Gun Is Murder Weapon

Oct. 08--In a recent court filing, an attorney for Nathan Carman wrote that a state police ballistic report raises questions about whether the bullet that killed Carman's grandfather, John Chakalos, in 2013 could have come from a missing gun that belongs to Carman.

Attorney David Anderson filed the two-page ballistics report recently as an exhibit in federal court in Rhode Island in an attempt to convince a judge not to reopen Carman's deposition in that case. The company that insured Carman's boat, which sank while he was on a fishing trip with his mother in 2016, want Carman to answer questions about his purchase of a Sig Sauer rifle weeks before Chakalos' shooting death in December of 2013.

Carman was identified as a suspect in the Chakalos shooting by Windsor police but never charged. His mother, Linda Carman, was lost at sea and presumed dead. Nathan Carman was rescued after floating in a raft for days.

Anderson argued in court recently that "there is evidence that the state police laboratory report doesn't indicate that the murder weapon was a .308 firearm or that the gun everyone keeps wanting to ask questions about could have even been the murder weapon."

Attorneys for both the insurance company that has refused to pay Carman for his lost boat and for his three aunts, who allege he killed Chakalos and Linda Carman, have been pursuing the whereabouts of the rifle Nathan Carman purchased at a New Hampshire gun store weeks before the Chakalos slaying.

Attorneys for his aunts have said the gun matches the caliber of bullet that was used in the Chakalos homicide. Chakalos was shot multiple times in the back of the head in his home in Windsor. State police recovered pieces of several bullets and sent six samples to the forensic laboratory for testing.

State police forensic experts concluded in a January 2014 report that at least two of the bullet fragments came from a ".30 caliber class boattail jacketed bullet" and at least one bullet was a hollow point bullet. The report doesn't specify what types of guns could have been used.

It concludes "if any .30 caliber class firearms are developed in this case they should be submitted to the laboratory" for further examination. A Sig Sauer rifle fires either .308 caliber bullets or a 7.62 mm cartridge.

Anderson in his recent court filing concluded "nowhere within the CT State Police Forensic Lab Report is there any mention whatsoever of a .308 caliber bullets or firearms (and/or 7.62mm bullets or firearms)."

Boston attorney Dan Small, who is representing Nathan Carman's three aunts, issued a statement criticizing Anderson's interpretation of the ballistics report.

"Any firearms expert will say that the bullets found at the murder scene could have been fired from the same semi-automatic assault weapon that Nathan bought one month before John Chakalos' murder," Small said. "Our expert will testify conclusively at trial that the bullets used to kill Nathan's grandfather could have come from Nathan's missing assault rifle. Nathan's continued refusal to produce that gun for testing is damning evidence against him."

Small also said that Anderson and Nathan Carman may have violated a court order in New Hampshire by making the ballistics report public. The Windsor police report of the murder investigation has been filed in the New Hampshire case under seal.

Nathan Carman has plead the 5th amendment when questioned in depositions about what happened to the Sig Sauer.

Windsor police submitted a warrant application for his arrest but it was returned because of a lack of evidence.

Police have said Nathan Carman was the last known person to see his grandfather alive, discarded the GPS system from his vehicle and the hard drive from his computer the morning after the slaying and refused to take a polygraph test.

In September of 2016 Carman went tuna fishing with his mother Linda Carman out of a marina in Rhode Island. The boat sank in one of the deepest areas of the Atlantic Ocean off of Long Island and Linda Carman has never been found and is presumed dead.

Nathan Carman was rescued eight days later on a life raft about 600 miles from Martha's Vineyard. The insurance company has refused to pay his $80,000 policy on the Chicken Pox instead arguing in Rhode Island federal court that the boat sank because of Nathan Carman's own doing.

Carman has acknowledged removing the trim tabs from the boat and filling the holes with an epoxy. The insurance company is claiming the changes he made to the vessel made it sink.

Carman's aunts -- Valerie Santilli, Elaine Chakalos and Charlene Gallagher -- have filed a so-called slayer petition alleging that Carman killed his grandfather and also is responsible for the death of his mother.

The aunts want New Hampshire Probate Judge David King to rule that Nathan Carman isn't eligible to receive any of the millions of dollars, possibly as much as $7 million, that he stands to inherit from his grandfather's estate as Linda Carman's only heir.

King has set a trial date for Jan. 21 in that case.

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