A US man charged with killing his mother at sea during a 2016 fishing trip off the coast of New England has died awaiting trial, authorities said.
Nathan Carman, 29, of Vernon, Vermont, was scheduled to face trial in October in what prosecutors said was a scheme to inherit millions of dollars.
He had pleaded not guilty last year to fraud and first-degree murder in the death of his mother, Linda Carman, of Middletown, Connecticut.
The cause of Carman’s death was not immediately clear.
One of his lawyers, Martin Minnella, said he was told about the death on Thursday by the US Marshals Service.
‘We had spoken to him yesterday. He was in good spirits,’ Mr Minnella said.
‘We were meeting with some experts today over Zoom at 12 o’çlock. We were prepared to start picking a jury on October 10 and we were confident we were going to win. It’s just a tragedy, a tragedy.’
The US Marshal informed prosecutors that Carman had died ‘on or about’ Thursday, said Vermont US attorney’s office spokesperson Fabienne Boisvert-DeFazio in a statement.
Carman was in US Marshals custody ‘as is the case for all pre-trial defendants who are detained’.
In September 2016, Carman arranged a fishing trip with his mother, during which prosecutors say he planned to kill her and report that his boat sank and his mother disappeared in the accident.
He was found floating in an inflatable raft eight days after leaving a Rhode Island marina with his mother, who was never found.
Prosecutors allege he altered the boat to make it more likely to sink. Carman denied that allegation.
In his initial statement after being rescued, Carman told members of the US Coast Guard that he tried to save his mother from the sinking boat, but failed.
However, witnesses later testified that they saw the son deliberately sabotaging the vessel by making holes in it.
‘Nathan Carman planned to kill his mother on the trip,’ read his indictment.
The eight-count indictment also says Carman shot and killed his wealthy grandfather John Chakalos at the man’s Connecticut home in 2013, as part of a scheme to obtain money and property from his grandfather’s estate.
Carman has not been charged in that case and has denied any involvement in his grandfather’s death.
US District Judge Geoffrey Crawford earlier pointed to the ‘acrimonious dispute’ with his aunts over the fortune that he stands to inherit, as well as his purchase of AR-15-type weapons as ‘evidence that this is a volatile situation.’
In 2022, Carman’s own relatives had begged the court to keep him behind bars pending trial.
‘We strongly support the actions of the US Attorney’s Office to have Nathan remain in custody as we firmly believe, knowing Nathan better than anyone, that he is both a danger to this family and a flight risk,’ Carman’s aunts, Elaine Chakalos and Charlene Gallagher, wrote in a letter to the court, according to the Boston Globe.
