A New England man has been charged with her murder on the high seas nearly six years after he was recovered from a life raft off the coast of Rhode Island after he and his mother allegedly went out on a fishing expedition in 2016.

Nathan Carman, now 28, of Vernon, Vermont, was previously suspected of shooting and murdering his grandpa John Chakalos, 87, while he slept alone in his Windsor, Connecticut, home in December 2013.

Carman killed his mother, Linda Carman, 54, in September 2016 as part of an alleged conspiracy to receive millions of dollars in inheritance money from his grandfather’s estate and associated family trusts, according to a new indictment unsealed in Burlington, Vermont.

On September 25, 2016, a Chinese ship picked up Carman in a life raft about 100 nautical miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, a Massachusetts island.

He stated he and his mother had left a Rhode Island port on their fishing boat, the Chicken Pox, approximately a week before when the 31-foot craft began to gain water around Block Canyon, off Montauk Point, New York, in the Atlantic Ocean. He reported that his mother unexpectedly vanished as he swam towards the life raft.

The Coast Guard returned Carman to their base in Boston, Massachusetts. His mother is thought deceased, despite the fact that her corpse has never been found. According to federal prosecutors, Carman purposefully drowned the boat, and witnesses stated that he conducted incorrect repairs before the journey, removing two stabilizing trim tabs from the stern, near the vessel’s waterline, creating holes that he attempted to fill with an epoxy stick.

In 2019, U.S. District Judge John McConnell dismissed Carman’s insurance claim on the sinking yacht for $85,000. Carman was arrested at his Vernon home on Tuesday and is scheduled to appear in front of Chief U.S. District Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford on Wednesday.

The eight-count indictment accuses him of his mother’s murder on the high seas, as well as related crimes to gain family and insurance monies, including defrauding the business that insured his fishing boat, according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Vermont. Despite the fact that the indictment claims he allegedly murdered his grandpa, Carman is not charged in that case.

Prosecutors said Carman risks life in jail if convicted of murder. Each of the fraud accusations carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in jail. The FBI, ATF, US Coast Guard, Connecticut State Police, Windsor (Connecticut) Police Department, and South Kingstown (Rhode Island) Police Department all participated in the multi-year investigation.

Chakalos, a real estate entrepreneur, left behind a nearly $29 million fortune to be shared among his four daughters. As his mother’s sole heir, Carman is entitled to around $7 million from the estate, according to The Associated Press. Carman was sued in New Hampshire probate court by Chakalos’ three surviving daughters, who sought to prevent him from collecting any money from the estate. In 2019, a court dismissed the complaint, stating that Chakalos was not a resident of New Hampshire. The probate case was reopened in Connecticut and is still ongoing.