Nathan Carman is a 23-year-old man who spent seven days lost at sea, but not everybody in the young man's family were exactly thrilled to see him back home safely. Specifically, his aunts, the three sisters of his late mother Linda Carman, who have, according to multiple media outlets, filed a petition to block him from inheriting a piece of the family's $44 million fortune. The suit has been filed on the grounds that they believe he killed both his grandfather (wealthy real estate developer John Chakalos, who was shot and killed by an unknown assailant in 2013) and his mother, who was with Nathan when they both were lost at sea last year.
The petition filed with the court by Carman's aunts is known legally as a "slayer action," which seeks to block inheritors from receiving money from their alleged victims, and asks that the court "declare that the murderer was Nathan Carman." In the suit, Linda Carman's three sisters – Valerie Santilli, Elaine Chakalos, and Charlene Gallagher – pledge to put Carman's share of his inheritance towards investigating Chakalos' murder and Linda Carman's disappearance at sea. Their attorney Dan Small told reporters that they "cannot stand idle while their father's killer, and perhaps their sister's killer also, profits from his actions," and that the suit "is not about money, it is about justice." The lawsuit accuses Carman of shooting his grandfather, and of abandoning his mother after their boat ran into trouble during a fishing voyage in September of last year.
The lawsuit does not specify how much Carman stands to inherit from his grandfather and mother, but Small has said that it can be counted in millions of dollars. Chakalos' murder happened at his home in Windsor, Connecticut, where authorities maintain Carman is still a "person of interest" in the open investigation.
