The Carman Family Deaths

0:00Rebecca Lavoie:I'm Rebecca Lavoie and this is You Can't Make This Up.

0:15Rebecca Lavoie:You Can't Make This Up is the podcast where we uncover the true stories behind your favorite Netflix documentaries and films. On today's episode, we take a closer look at the Netflix documentary film The Carmen Family Deaths. You better never go out on that boat again with that kid, because if you do, he's going to be the only one coming back. Something's going to happen to you out there, and that's going to be the end of you. And she said to me, she goes, you're not the only one that said that to me. Today, we're talking to executive producers Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing. In 2016, when rescuers plucked Nathan Carman from a life raft, the 22-year-old said his fishing boat sank in the Atlantic and his mother Linda drowned.

0:55Rebecca Lavoie:But the lone survivor didn't show signs of having been adrift at sea for eight days. And authorities learned he had been questioned in the murder of his rich grandfather years earlier. Investigators couldn't tell if his cold affect and peculiar behavior was a byproduct of his autism or the hallmarks of a calculating killer. The Netflix documentary film The Carmen Family Deaths looks into the strange events surrounding Nathan Carmen and whether he murdered his mother and grandfather for a multi-million dollar inheritance. It explores whether police misinterpreted the typical behavior of an autistic person as incriminating and whether the tragedy on the high seas was an accident or a crime.

1:35Rebecca Lavoie:Did you have an argument with your mother on the boat? No. Did you have a fight with your mother on the boat? No. Did you kill your mother on the boat? No. Did you sink the boat intentionally after you killed your mother? Objection compound question.

1:59Rebecca Lavoie:And I'm joined now by executive producers Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing. Welcome to You Can't Make This Up. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Happy to be here. You guys have produced some of my favorite documentaries, including Jesus Camp, for which you were nominated for an Oscar. What was it about this story that made you think it was worth a deep dive? Rachel, you want to take that one? Sure. Well, we read the piece that was in Wired magazine, and they became partners with us on this project. And it just had everything. It had a lot of intrigue. It had family dynamics, which are always fascinating. It had the science with the tides and the currents and the ocean instruments.

2:40And it had, you know, basically a mystery that hadn't been solved. Nathan Carman, there was just piles and piles of circumstantial evidence, but nothing definitive. And also this concept of the ocean having a lot of secrets and only the ocean knows and what happened out there. And I, you know, I thought about it over and over. What did happen out there? We will never know. And there's something about the fact that there's no surveillance. There's no way to actually know what happened in this day and age when you know everything, when you can figure everything out. It was just really appealing.

3:15Rebecca Lavoie:Heidi, in the film, we see Nathan's defense team preparing for trial. At what point in the story did you start shooting? So this the article came out in 2021 and we started it, I think, around 2022. We were just in early production when Nathan committed suicide in 2023. So we were we were underway in 2023 and he was preparing for trial, basically, when we jumped in. and we had gotten access to the lawyers. And we really thought that the film would contain the outcome of the trial and we would see this man either go to jail or be set free. And so we were sort of, you know, looking at transcripts and preparing for what was coming next.

3:55And instead, unfortunately for everybody, there was no trial because he took his own life. And so at that point, you know, as storytellers, first of all, we're talking to members of the family as well. So it was all happening in real time. The shock of the family and our pivoting the story since there was not going to be a trial to follow. We had to really sort of dig deeper with some of the investigators of the case and really try to come to terms ourself deciding if he did it or not. And of course, it's open ended. The film is because there's nothing definitive. But it really changed the trajectory of how deep we were able to go in the investigation when we knew that there was not going to be a trial in the third act.

4:35Rebecca Lavoie:Rachel, talk a little bit about Linda and Nathan Carman. Who were they? They were a mother and son that I think had an incredibly complicated relationship. He was someone that struggled socially since he was a young man. And she was a extremely concerned mom. He was diagnosed with autism when he was quite small. And she then dedicated her life to working with other autistic kids. And I think that he became sort of the animating thing in her life. She really kind of lived for him. She would see something in Nathan and then search and read about it, read about it, read about it, find a specialist constantly.

5:20He ended up slowly alienating her over, you know, as he turned into an adult. But he was very connected with her because he didn't have a lot of other people in his life. So they just had what we are always interested in, which is a highly complex interpersonal family dynamic. And she cared very much about him. He cared very much about her. But it was very, very stormy. And, you know, she would always stick up for him. You know, we'll never get to sort of the bottom of what was happening there. But the fact that he was the last person to see her kind of, I think, will haunt me forever. You know, to have that such a strong bond that we saw throughout their entire life, for better or for worse.

6:06You know, I don't know if the bond was always a positive one, but they were very they were bonded together. And the fact that he was the last one there, I think, just is just very haunting.

6:16Rebecca Lavoie:The film opens in 2016 and the initial search for the boat, the chicken pox. What was the response from the Coast Guard and the media when that boat was was missing? Well, it was very interesting because obviously that part of the country, you know, sees a lot of drama that happens at sea. And the Coast Guard is extremely equipped and, you know, well-resourced. And so the fact that they searched for so many days and saw no sign, head nor tail, of this boat, it kind of baffled everybody. Like they hadn't gone that far out. We had negative results on day one. Today, the Coast Guard expanded that search.

6:56Day two. in hopes of finding a mother and her son. Day three. There is still no sign of Linda and Nathan Carmen or they're both the chicken pox.

7:04Rebecca Lavoie:Day four. Day five. So they've expanded their search to an 11 ,000-mile area off Montauk. I think that started to really frustrate the Coast Guard. And of course, it's interesting, this is not in the film, but like all the local fishermen, everyone has an opinion about how to search, where to search, what the currents would have said. He would have been found 150 nautical miles east or west. Yes. So a lot of people were weighing in. I think there's a lot of pressure on the Coast Guard to find something. And the fact that they gave up the search with nothing, with no evidence, I think that really rattled the community because that's so, so unusual.

7:38They wouldn't find any evidence at all. And so when the Orient Lucky, the big cargo ship from China, came through and spotted him, the rumor mill was crazy in the area because it's like, oh, really? Our own Coast Guard? Also, private fishermen were out looking for him. The fact that there was nothing and that then this Chinese ship passing through spotted Nathan in a life raft. From the very beginning, it intrigued the entire region because it just didn't add up. It was very, very strange that that's how he would have been found.

8:05Rebecca Lavoie:I was really surprised at what the boat actually looked like. It was much smaller than I'd always imagined in my mind. What did Nathan say happened out there on this small boat? He said that they decided to take sort of what was a typical fishing expedition. They would usually go a few miles out and go fishing right off of Block Island. And at the last minute, they went out there and they decided to go and get much bigger fish. and they were going to go dozens and dozens and dozens of miles out into the ocean, which as someone that's afraid of the ocean, this is always like right from the beginning.

8:43It just chilled me to think about that they would just sort of spontaneously decide to go to the middle of the ocean on the shelf of the ocean floor is where they went out. And he said that they decided that they were going to go fishing there instead. And then he said that out of the blue, that water started coming into the boat and that within a few minutes, it was completely submerged and he couldn't find his mom. And he called out for her and he couldn't. She disappeared. And he had an inflatable raft, you know, a safety raft, which he then inflated. And it had stuff on it that is kind of unusual that he would have a week's worth of food.

9:26And he said he was extremely prepared and he got on the raft. And his story is that he then floated at sea for seven days in the open ocean. But of course, that is part of the mysterious. What was he doing that week?

9:42Rebecca Lavoie:Yeah. So when did authorities become suspicious of Nathan's story? How soon after he was picked up and what predicated that? Yeah. Well, as you see in the film, like when they found him, everybody was so happy. It was all this news coverage, local, national, this poor guy. His mother died in front of him. He couldn't save her. And then he was miraculously recovered and saved by this passing ship. It was just like it was people were celebrating, you know, at first. I think, you know, if I remember correctly, was actually some of the marine biologists in Woods Hole and some of the scientists were kind of the first people to be like, oh, that's weird because our equipment and our instruments and our buoys say that he should have been found 150 nautical miles in the other direction and where he was floating.

10:26Rebecca Lavoie:Drift analysis, it's a refined science. Wind, current, sea temperature, all of those factor in. And all of those are monitored multiple times a day at various points throughout the ocean. That sort of started first. And then, you know, these investigators who had investigated the murder of Nathan's grandfather seven years prior were like, huh, that's the guy, the last guy that saw his grandfather before his grandfather was brutally murdered and shot in the head in his own home. Huh. So that's really sort of, it was like from many, many sectors of like, is this the same guy? They go to his house.

11:09They start finding some strange notes in his book. and they never had recovered the gun from the shooting of his grandpa. And it just was just like, huh, that's a weird coincidence that tragedy keeps striking this young man. And so it sort of it wasn't that long after, I would say, within weeks, they were already sort of investigating him and wondering if he was involved.

11:32Rebecca Lavoie:This is where, of course, Nathan's autism really becomes part of the story. I'm wondering, Rachel, we go back a little bit. Can you just tell me what life was like for Nathan growing up on the spectrum and in this family? It seems to us that he was supported, but it was difficult for everybody. Linda had three sisters and a very controlling father, patriarch of the family. And Nathan was the first grandson that was born to this family. So right away, the sort of macho grandpas just really doted on Nathan. He was the first boy. And I think he really struggled. I think he was bullied a lot. He was a total loner.

12:17He just had a lot of social issues. It did hurt Linda when Nathan didn't have friends and that he was different. Psychiatrists helped to an extent, but lots of times there was interference from the family. They found out that he was able to bond with animals, that that was a way that he could express his emotions. So his mom got him a horse. And I think they saw that, you know, how kind of profound his autism was, because he was a different person with this animal that he had really bonded with. So I think he had a tough childhood. It was an affluent family, so they could support him in a lot of ways.

12:58But I think he felt very alienated and lonely and he wasn't able to communicate or bond with his peers.

13:06Rebecca Lavoie:Police and the public make an awful lot about what's called demeanor evidence. It's basically drawing a conclusion because the person isn't acting the way you think they should act after a loved one dies or during an interview. Either you're too emotional or you're not emotional enough. How did his autism affect how his interviews were interpreted by investigators? I mean, honestly, this is one of the most fascinating things, I think, in the film. and one of the more interesting things for us as a creative team and editorial team to grapple with, like you want to present people in their most fair light.

13:39You know, we're not supposed to take sides, nor do we have a side. And so, I mean, you could just see how it was being interpreted. Sort of a flat affect, very emotionless, slightly argumentative, a stickler for detail, trying to represent himself at times when he was being deposed and interviewed and interrogated and using legalese language, you know, like, you know, objection, compound question. You know, it's just like he was digging himself deeper just by really being himself.

14:09Rebecca Lavoie:Him being a suspect. Most of that is due to their lack of ability to discern his demeanor as autistic. And I think really one of the most gripping moments of the film is actually when the lawyers who are representing Nathan bring in an autistic man who is an expert in autism. And he explains, he tries to explain to the attorneys that autistic people can be extremely prepared. That's why he had all the things in the boat. They think through everything. They play the tape for every eventuality. So he didn't find it unusual that Nathan would be so prepared for a disaster and have like a water desalinator on board and all the food he needed.

14:53And he thought that that added up to an autistic personality in his view and that this flat affect, there's two autism experts that appear in the film and they're like, he should have never been interrogated. He should, he should have had assistance. He shouldn't have agreed to it. Like this is the kind of person with the kind of affect that it's immediate for, for those who don't understand neurodivergent people to say, oh, how bizarre that he's not more emotional and he must not care. He must have done it. So, you know, he came off very badly to investigators. He was like a deer in the headlights, to be honest.

15:27And so I think that gives a lot of people who watch the film pause. They wonder, wow, was this guy accused only because of his, quote unquote, strange demeanor, which comes from his autism?

15:44Rebecca Lavoie:Rachel, can you talk about the police search of Nathan's house in Vermont and what they found there? They actually searched his house when they had gone missing. They were out at sea still. They didn't know where either Linda or Nathan was. They had never come back from their fishing trip. And they decided to go search his house in order to see if they could figure out any clues of where they might have been. And they found really weird notes that he had written to himself about talking to a lawyer and how, you know, he doesn't, he didn't trust lawyers and He also had written about, like, how much money he could inherit.

16:23And he had thought about a lot of these things that seem that are major red flags that are very suspicious.

16:29Rebecca Lavoie:This one's titled, Why I'm Reluctant to Cooperate with the Police. Emotionally, I'm not sure that I can bear another interview. And he goes on to say, philosophically, the idea of proving one's innocence repels me. The next is, generally, the police are a corrupt and often criminal organization. But when you go back to what Heidi was saying about sort of the science about neurodivergency and his particular kind of autism, it does make some sort of sense that he would be writing this stuff down, that he made lists of things. You know, it was a way that he communicated, although in some lights it is very suspicious and weird.

17:08On the other hand, this is the way this person communicated. And that was never really discussed. The fact that he had a disability was not brought into the conversation ever, into the very end, until the last defense attorneys were like, we can't ignore this. This is this is absolutely relevant. And it was part of the case that they were building.

17:30Rebecca Lavoie:You know, there's this point at the film where you pull back and have a look at the family in a sort of a bigger frame, the Carmen family. The dominant presence in the family seems to have been John Chocolos. Heidi, can you talk about him? Like, what was he like? What was his place in this family? Wow. I mean, John Chocolose loomed very large in the Carmen family. Very old school. The patriarch. The boss man. Don't cross him. Friends from all kinds of places. Some say some dubious places. He's like a throwback, John Chocolose. And he had all these daughters, and they worshipped him, they adored him, they loved him.

18:11And he, you know, gave them affection and money, but at a price. And the price was full control over their lives.

18:18Rebecca Lavoie:So she ended up having to work for her father, which was not a good situation between those two. That's how he operated. He liked to control lives, especially his daughters, all four of them. he liked to control everything Linda apparently was the only sister of the four that bucked that controlling hand of her father and she moved away and she was in the National Guard and she was an adventurer and got married and did her own thing but even Linda ended up back in the shadow of her father when he promised to buy her you know this franchise and the other thing and so he was a person that was very very tricky complicated and hard to get away from And as soon as Nathan was born, Nathan became the favorite.

19:06Again, it's very Greek. It's very old school. It's very like, oh, the boy in the family, you know, I'm going to raise him in my image and he's going to work for me. And, you know, he's going to throw the football with him. And it's very sort of old school. And that created a lot of tension between Lyndon or Father John because he had wanted to be involved in how Nathan was raised. He also wanted to ignore some of the emotional problems that they were seeing with Nathan and his lack of friends and his neurodivergency, which was emerging as a child. And John didn't want to talk about that, look at that and said there's nothing wrong with the kid.

19:41And that really was a source of great tension between Linda and her father, John. So I would say that he's the patriarch with a capital P.

19:50Rebecca Lavoie:I'm curious, you know, we hear from relatives that mental illness does run in the family. and if a person even has a verified dual diagnosis of autism and mental illness, that can be a really hard combination to treat. The mental illness part and the legacy of mental illness in this family was fascinating to us. There's a few parts to it. John Chocolos had a twin sister, so it would have been Carmen's great aunt that had a sort of a profound mental illness. It was back in the day when they didn't have names for it or treatments for it. And she was probably schizophrenic and was put into a mental institution.

20:30And there was electric shock therapy that happened. And I think it was really traumatizing to everyone in the family. So there was a legacy of mental illness in the family, which is what one of the sisters told us. It seems like, of course, we can never know because he's gone and because this was never really fully developed for this guy. But at the same time, his autism was sort of, he was struggling with his autism, he was starting to display signs of paranoia. And, you know, in his late teens, which I think is kind of a typical time for schizophrenia to emerge in young men, I think that the combination between, you know, a very profound mental illness in this young man and his autism and how they become conflated and how it's confusing to understand what came first, I think was a, you know, a terrible tragedy that happened to him because he really didn't get the focus on his mental health or his autism.