Nathan Carman Defends Himself In Court As Aunts Try To Block Inheritance
CONCORD, N.H. (CBS/AP) — A Vermont man accused by his aunts of killing his millionaire grandfather and possibly his mother in an attempt to collect inheritance money was in a New Hampshire court Tuesday.
Nathan Carman came to Concord for a hearing in response to a lawsuit filed by his three aunts, but he offered few clues behind the deaths or his possible role in them. He represented himself after firing his attorneys earlier this year.
Lawyers for the family were hoping to compel Carman to provide information about firearms and financial documents. Carmen, who has invoked his 5th amendment rights, said he didn't have the documents, never had them or felt they were unrelated. The judge took the document request under advisement.
Carman has been called a suspect in the 2013 shooting death of his grandfather, real estate developer John Chakalos in Connecticut. No one has been arrested. The family's attorney said a police report out of Windsor, Connecticut where Chakalos lived, showed Carman bought a gun in New Hampshire that was the same type used in his grandfather's murder. Carman was also the last person seen with Chakalos.
Carman said Tuesday he believed his aunts would have had more motive to kill Chakalos than he did.
He also has been questioned about the day his boat sank off the coast of Rhode Island in 2016. Carman said his mother Linda fell overboard as the boat went down. She's presumed dead. Carman was rescued 100 nautical miles of Martha's Vineyard by a Chinese freighter after spending a week a sea in a life raft.
Carman has denied any involvement in either case. His grandfather had property in New Hampshire, which is why his aunts brought him to court in Concord.
"It's not the money," Carman said in court Tuesday. "It's not so much even my freedom, it's my reputation and seeing that I have a future." He ignored repeated questions from reporters after the hearing.
"We've never doubted that Nathan Carman is intelligent and crafty, that he planned these murders carefully and that's part of the challenge the government faces bringing a case against him. So the fact that he could invent some stories today is not surprising to us," the aunts' attorney, Dan Small, told reporters.
Carman is also facing a separate lawsuit in Rhode Island, where the company that insured his boat is refusing to pay on his policy, saying he tampered with the boat and that he caused it to sink.
(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)