Private service held for Linda Carman, woman lost at sea in boat sinking

HARTFORD, Conn. -- A man whose mother is presumed dead after their boat sank in the Atlantic Ocean held a private service for her in Connecticut and said he still hopes she will be found.

Nathan Carman organized a service for his mother, Linda Carman, of Middletown, Connecticut. It was attended by about a dozen people at a Hartford church Wednesday morning.

Her three sisters, who previously questioned the timing of the memorial with her disappearance still under investigation, did not attend.

Officials with the Archdiocese of Hartford told CBS affiliate WFSB-TV over the weekend that the Mass was not a funeral or a memorial service because the investigation into Linda Carman’s disappearance has not been closed and there is no death certificate.

Carman, who lives in Vernon, Vermont, left a Rhode Island marina with his mother on a fishing trip Sept. 17. He was found in a life raft eight days later about 100 nautical miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

Carman told authorities he doesn’t know what happened to his mother.