Law Enforcement Agencies Meet Over Linda Carman Case

Law enforcement officials from nearly half a dozen states met in New Haven to discuss the investigations into the Middletown woman Linda Carman, who disappeared during a fishing trip with her son, and the murder of her wealthy father in 2013. 

There is a joint investigation into the facts and circumstances surrounding the disappearance of 54-year-old Linda Carman last month, according to police.

On Monday, police from two Connecticut communities joined forces with state’s attorneys from Hartford and Middlesex counties, New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts, along with Rhode Island Police, the Coast Guard, ATF and the FBI and met at the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Haven.

They are working to figure out who will investigate what. 

Coast Guard officials don’t believe Linda Carman,who spent 14 months in the Connecticut Air National Guard, survived when her son’s boat, the ‘Chicken Pox’, sank at sea last month.

In 1985, Linda Carman was an Airman First Class and was honorably discharged, a spokesman said. 

She disappeared with her 22-year-old son, but Nathan survived and was found after eight days, floating on a raft. He told Coast Guard officials he lost sight of his mom.

The Windham County Sheriff’s Department in Vermont served a search warrant on Nathan’s Vernon, Vermont, home last week at the request of investigators in South Kingstown, Rhode Island. They believed they would find evidence to support a charge of quote “operating so as to endanger resulting in death,” citing witness accounts from the marina in Point Judith, Rhode Island that questioned whether Nathan Carman took proper boat maintenance before he and his mother set out to sea.

The shooting death of Nathan Carman’s maternal grandfather, real estate mogul John Chakalos of Windsor, in 2013 remains unsolved.

The 87-year-old Chakalos led a modest life in Windsor at an Overlook Drive home, but also maintained a five-bedroom mansion in West Chesterfield, New Hampshire once known for its holiday lights display.

A source close to that investigation told the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters Nathan Carman is a person of interest in his grandfather’s murder. 

The former attorney of Nathan Carman’s mother’s said Linda was also a suspect in her dad’s murder.

Attorney Gerry Klein said the pair got in a fight over his money five years ago at Mount Sinai in Hartford.

“Her insistence that she take the polygraph -- 'Thank you Attorney Klein for your advice but I think I better just do it 'cause I want them to know that I had nothing to do with the death of my father.’ And “She indicated that she could never do anything to harm her father,” Klein told NBC Connecticut on Friday.

Nathan Carman denies wrongdoing in either case and his father Clarke Carman defends him as well.

Boston-based attorney, Dan Small of Holland and Knight, represents Linda Carman’s three sisters and issued a statement to the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters

“The family is deeply thankful for the rescue team who put their lives on the line at sea in the extensive effort to find our sister Linda and her son. As we continue our search for answers, the family has faith that our state and federal investigators are bringing maximum resources to bear, so that the family can have some degree of closure and an opportunity to heal," the statement says, in part.

The daughter NBC Connecticut spoke with by phone is also executor of John Chakalos' estate, which records state is worth an estimated $43 million, is not including an undisclosed trust in his name.

Contact Us