December 9, 2025 • 46 mins
Emily and Shane are discussing Nathan Carman, the boy that was accused of fatally shooting his grandfather in 2013 before murdering his mother three years later.
Was his grandfather’s $42 million fortune his incentive to commit the first murder? Did he abandon his mother in the middle of the ocean because she knew his secret? When Nathan committed suicide in his jail cell, did that prove his guilt?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi guys, Welcome to a new episode of Legally Brunette.
I will be your host today Emily Simpson and Shane Shane.
All right, first of all, we are going to go
into the bulk of this podcast is going to be
about the Carmen Family murders, which is a new documentary
on Netflix. But before we go into that, and we
discussed that, let's do a little update on the Gilgo
(00:22):
Beach murders. And if you haven't listened to that podcast,
we did that a little while back, and so if
you want to, if you haven't heard it, go back
and listen to our Oh my god, it's a serial.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Killer ret Well they all are.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
They're not all style killer.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
They're all killers. What was his mo or what was
his way of No?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
It was Long Island. Remember, and they found all the bodies.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Oh yeah, yeah, they started to go backwards and find it.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Right when we did the podcast, we had to go
back into the nineties all these bodies that they had
found and then remember they use they used the DNA. Anyway,
there is an update on this case because there were
several bodies that were found. So in nineteen ninety seven,
some of Tanya Jackson's dismembered body was found in Long Island.
At that time, investigators were unable to identify her remains
(01:07):
and referred to her only as you'll remember this peaches, yeah,
because she she had that identifying tattoo of peaches on
her chest. In twenty eleven, investigators discovered new skeletal fragments
along with the body of Jackson's two year old daughter,
Tatiana Marie Dykes, while combing a beachfront strip near Gilgo Beach.
(01:28):
And if you remember, they found the child near where
her body was found, and it ended up being her child,
I guess based on DNA or whatever. But then they
attribute it to the Gilgo Beach serial killer because all
these bodies are all found in the same vicinity, right.
Investigators only confirmed Jackson's identity earlier this year. She was
(01:50):
a veteran of the Gulf War, originally from Alabama, and
was twenty six years old when she died. Officials identified
her and her daughter through advanced DNA and genealogy research,
which it's so interesting that we are getting all this new,
this new DNA genealogy information, because.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
As DNA was coming out, was it was helping some crimes,
and then I had like an added level of DNA testing, right,
And this is what I need someone to do.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Whoever out there listening, if you're involved in the John
Beney case, I need someone to go back into John
Bennet's case, take the DNA, and I need them to
do the advance.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Was the DNA from in that case? Was that blood
or no?
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I think I don't know. I should have looked it
up before I start talking about it, but I'm not sure.
But I do know that there's some unidentified DNA found
in John Benay's and I feel like we now are
at the point in time where that we should do
that whole genealogy thing like they did that we just
talked about in the Golden State serial Killer. Maybe I
don't know. So at the time, officials said the toddler's
(02:55):
father was cooperating with the investigation and was not considered
a subject at that time. However, on Wednesday, December third,
so this just happened. Andrew Diykes, who is now sixty six,
was arrested near Tampa on a warrant from Nassau County.
He's the father of the two year old. According to
two people familiar with the investigation who requested anonymity because
they were not authorized to discuss the details of the
(03:17):
sealed indictment. Dikes, this is the father, appeared before a
judge last Thursday on murder charges. He is expected to
be extradited to New York in the coming days. Tanya
and Tatiana's murders became associated with the Gilgo Beach murders
through Rex Huerman, who never officially was He was never
officially charged with their deaths. There is no apparent link
(03:37):
between Dikes and Huerman. So now there's some information that
is linking the dad through DNA to this woman, Tanya
Jackson and his daughter. So that is an update on
the Gilgo Beach murders. We did talk about Peaches previously
in our previous podcasts and it was kind of associated
with him in some way, but now we know that
(04:00):
that allegedly it is. Now we know that, we think
we think we know that allegedly, well, he's innocent until
proven guilty. That the father was now the person of
interest in that.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
So we will take you to follow that unless proven
guilty instead of because until it is kind of like
you will be proven guilty. We will get you one
way or another.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Right, I always thought that. So you want to change it,
would you like to make a formal.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Tell me to start a movement?
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yes, all right, Let's move on to the Carmen family murders.
This was a documentary on Netflix. I actually I watched
it a couple of times. It was interesting. I sometimes
I have to watch the more than one time.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, because last night you came to me and said,
what did I say, Well, without giving so we'd stay
in going in order. But the one of the suspects,
you were very adamant to leave him alone. Yes, and
now you're like, oh no, what should maybe did do it?
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah? All right. So the Carmen family murders case centers
on Nathan Carmen, who was suspected of killing two of
his family members, his grandfather this is back in twenty thirteen,
whose named John Chocolos, and his mother, Linda Carmen in
twenty sixteen. It is important to note that Nathan this
is Linda's son. Nathan, so he's the grandson of John Chocolos,
(05:30):
was diagnosed with autism at the age of four years old.
His father and lawyer maintain his innocence arguing that investigators
and the media were biased against him because of his autism.
In December of twenty thirteen, eighty seven year old John
Chocalos was found shot to death in his bed. Nathan
and his grandfather were very close, with Nathan often referring
(05:53):
to him as his best friend. John paid for his
grandson's personal expenses, funding his credit cards, truck, of apartment,
and a white Irish sport horse named Cruise. Despite investigator's suspicions,
Nathan was not formally charged with Chocolo's death. Three years later,
Nathan took his mother Linda, on a fishing trip off
(06:13):
of Rhode Island. Though they had a very strenuous relationship,
they would often go fishing to help maintain a bond.
I actually, I don't know if I read this or
if it was in the documentary, but there I think
it was Linda's best friend that was talking about how
Linda the mother didn't really like fishing at all, but
she was trying to do things with her son to
have some kind of oh after the grandfather's at what time, well,
(06:37):
they I don't know the time period. They went fishing often, Yeah,
but I'm saying I don't think the mother enjoyed fishing.
It's not like that was her thing.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
No. I even learn after the grandfather's passing that she
also still went fishing. Yes, yes, that's what I was
getting it.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Even though they had a strenuous relationship, they would often
go fishing to help maintain a bond. Nathan's boat was
called the Chicken Pox and it mysteriously sank during this
trip and Nathan was found alone in a life raft
seven days later. Linda was never found. In twenty twenty two,
Nathan was federally indicted for murder on the high seas
and fraud connected to inheritance schemes. However, before the case
(07:14):
could go to trial, he died by suicide in his
jail cell in June of twenty twenty three, ending the
criminal proceedings. Authorities maintained he was responsible for both deaths,
though no conviction was ever reached. We're going to go
into and start discussing this in more details. So let's
start out with the murder of John Chocolos, who is
the grandfather of Nathan. He also he was a very
(07:37):
wealthy man. I believe they estimated his whole estate to
be around I think it was forty two million.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Oh that much? That was five to six million, No,
forty two million. Oh, so he was clearly wealthy.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
He was very wealthy. He and they said he was
a real estate developer, but it was more he built
a retirement and.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
What it's real estate, Yeah, but I mean.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
More specifically, it was like retirement type of homes and
he I guess they spanned across right, and I think
he had multiple.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Did he own them or was he just in the construction.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
I believe he constructed. I believe he had a construction business,
and then I believe he owned them. So he amassed
a large amount of wealth. So on December twentieth of
twenty thirteen, this is around eight thirty pm, and we're
going back to twenty thirteen because we're going to start
with the grandfather's death, Nathan Carmen drops off John at
his home after the two had dinner together. Nathan is
the last person to see his grandfather alive on this evening.
(08:28):
John Chocalos neighbor claims that he hears gunshots at two am.
Surveillance video confirms Nathan was home at his apartment at
that time. Nathan left his house around three am, to
meet his mom for one of their fishing trips, but
on the way he claimed he got lost and he
wasn't heard from until four h one am. So we're
(08:50):
just breaking down some of the facts of this.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, so we can.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Analyze it right.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
First death.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Then on the morning of December twenty first, twenty thirteen,
one of chacalos daughters, Elaine, discovered him dead in his bed,
shot to death by a semi automatic rifle. He suffered
three gunshot wounds to the head and Torso there was
a very obvious stage burglary where I guess the glass
door had been punched from the inside. That is the
biggest mistake people can make. Look, if you're going to
(09:17):
stage a crime scene, you have to if you're going
to break the glass, you have to come on, now,
think of this through. You have to break the glass,
walk outside the glass from the outside and crawl inside.
I go through the window, go through all the deaths
and actually take things. That's the other thing that I
(09:37):
don't understand. I've seen this a lot, and when we
analyze these cases where they say immediately they know the
burglary was staged because they never actually jewelry was untouched
they never actually took anything. I like, how was that?
How did that slip your mind when you were staging
the burglary that you didn't actually take the jewelry and
the cast.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
I'm glad though, that if you're going to commit murder
against me, I well, you will not be convicted.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
No. Well, I don't know, but I mean I feel
like I know a little bit more than the average murderers.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So well, then let this podcast serve as evidence in
the event that there's almost i'd charges pressed against you.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
So from December twenty second to the twenty fourth, this
is in twenty thirteen, right after the grandfather's death, Nathan
is interviewed and gives inconsistent accounts. For example, Nathan said
that he never owned a gun, but investigators were later
able to determine that he had purchased a three Zho
eight caliber sig Sour. I don't know anything about guns,
(10:31):
so am I even saying that right a sig Sour
rifle only one month prior to Chacalo's death. It was
the same caliber rifle that was used to murder his grandfather.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Is Nathan at this time of this death.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Nathan is nineteen at this time it was the same
caliber rifle that was used to murder as grandfather. When
pressed by police for the rifles whereabouts, Nathan said that
he lost it. When asked why he hadn't mentioned it
in his initial interview, Nathan told the cops he forgot
and he forgot about the gun. There's also a bit
I was about the gun had never been found before.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
You told me that. What his answer was, I would
have thought, like maybe he was scared and he didn't
want to say he had a gun. Like if if
I had, first of all, I wouldn't I would tell
the truth. But oh I would get a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Actually, but yeah, that's okay.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
And it wouldn't be you. Sorry. No, if they asked
me if so, if I'm scared and I didn't kill
my grandfather, I like, I know I didn't do it. Yeah,
And then they asked me if I had a gun,
I think, oh, crap, I did just buy a gun.
That looks bad. I would want to hide it. Now.
I would know that they could trace it, they could
find out it's all on record. But if he's not
(11:36):
as sophisticated, and if he does have some kind of
mental you know, kind of setback or maybe he doesn't
think it through where he's not you know, well, I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Here's the question.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
I would be understanable they would hide. But you're saying
he's said he forgot he had it. That's more believable
to say I didn't want to tell because I don't
want to get in trouble versus I forgot I bought
a gun last month. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
But okay, here's the thing. Let's talk about this just
for a minute. Because when I first started to watch this,
I was very upset because when they interview the investigators
after they questioned Nathan, Nathan is autistic. There's no question.
And when we're talking about autism, you're talking right, and
you have to remember that that people that are autistic,
they repeat things. They also don't show a lot of emotion.
(12:17):
Everything said very pragmatic, very.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Well, and more so in certain situations like if they're
nervous or something.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Or so, when they were questioning him in the beginning,
and then they were interviewing the cop, you know, and
the police detective and some of these people that interviewed him,
and they were talking about how they didn't like his
demeanor and they didn't like his answers That bothered me
because I felt like there was no.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
They weren't considering the factor of him having autism and disorder.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Right and not showing emotion and not having inflection in
his voice and not and not breaking down and crying
or being upset or And we've talked about.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
That before, where everyone's like, oh, it's supposed to they're
supposed to act this way. I don't know about that.
I mean, yeah, sometimes it's deaf, like a little suspicious,
or it's noteworthy, but that's not enough to be like,
therefore he must be guilty, he should be crying more.
That's it's just a hunch. Well then it makes it
rubbed me the wrong way. I don't know if I
(13:13):
you know, something's odd there.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Well, there's more, I mean there is, I know there
is more.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
I know.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
So my initial thought was I felt really sorry for Nathan,
and I felt like he was getting a bad rap
because of his autism. And I felt like they were
very biased towards him because he was not reacting in
the way that they felt like a normal person. Shit,
and we're talking about someone that But I don't like.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
The who normal standard. I mean, what if you wished
me dead, and you did want me dead, right, because
there's the moments where that was software silence. There's moments
where you wish I'm dead, and if I died in
that moment, maybe you wouldn't be crying as much. Right, Okay,
let's let's be realistic. But if a spouse wants the
other spouse gone, like they they they're miserable, they hate him,
(13:52):
their abusers, whatever, and then they like it worked in
their favor where they were murdered in a burglary, are
saying they're not going.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
To be as emotional, right, so you're saying that shouldn't
be used.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
They're gonna be like the bastard deserved it. Yeah, and
then now they're a suspect. I don't know, that's just.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Those are shame thoughts. But also I was thinking, there
isn't any I don't think there's any kind of protocol
when when when investigating someone autistic, like I felt like
there should have been like an autism specialist that was
with him in the room that like helped interpret or something.
I felt I just felt like it was biased because
(14:30):
of his autism. And then however, there but then I
did change my mind towards the end, because because there's
a there's a lot, there's there's more. So anyway, Nathan
allegedly also.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Nonetheless they should have considered that that should somehow be taken.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Into consideration rank you. Nathan also allegedly destroyed his trucks,
GPS and computer hard drives shortly before the murder had
taken place, preventing investigators from tracking his movements and plans. So,
I mean, that doesn't look good, No, when you're destroying
your GPS on the night that your grandfather is murdered.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Because how did he destroy it? I don't know, I
don't need it, or like.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
I don't know you were asking the wrong person.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
I don't even know I'm asking the right person. You're
hosting a podcast, I know, but I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
But I'm saying as far as technical things, I don't
even know how to use the GPS, and Michael is
let alone destroy it.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Let that be the truth. Because she's called me and
asked for direction.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
That is very true.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
I think one time you got mad at me because yes,
you couldn't. Like you were lost.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
I'm always lost. That's another thing I wanted to say.
The investigators also said they thought it was very suspicious
that when Nathan was going to meet his mother that
same evening. So the grandfather dies and then Nathan goes
that it's like three o'clock in the morning. He goes
to meet his mom and there's an hour that he's
unaccounted for. And when they say we got lost, claimed
(15:49):
he got lost. Look, I don't think that that's that suspicious.
I get lost all the time.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Very relatable lost for now, especially since you despite all
the technological dances, it.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Makes sense he destroyed his GPS, so of course he
got lost. He can't use this navigation. Also, can I
ask you, because I don't I'm not a fisherman, but
when you go fishing, like on a fishing trip, is
it normal to leave at three in the morning? Is
that like a normal hour.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
I to go fishing. I think it can be done.
It's like saying surfing, like, right, you see TV and
everyone's surfing in the daytime in the afternoon in the
sun by A lot of people go at five in
the morning.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
So I think, so maybe a fishing trip like leaving
at three in the morning.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Is I don't know, okay, but I guess you could
look at their history. Does he always go at three
in the morning.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Yeah, So when Nathan was brought in for questioning, he
started freaking out, saying he was upset that his grandfather's
head this is a quote, had been blown off. This
is another piece of evidence that was very damning against Nathan.
I don't think there was any information released as to
how John Chocolos was murdered. He just knew that he
was dead, or the general public and the family I
(16:54):
think just knew that he was dead. So when Nathan
made reference to his grandfather's head being blown off, that
was clearly damning for him. Right, this was before investigators
had disclosed the state of John's body. Nathan backtracked on
his statement, saying he assumed his grandfather died by a
suicide or murder. I do remember that in the interview
because they asked him how he knew that, and he
(17:15):
said that he was dead. So he assumed that he'd
either killed himself or had been murdered. So a week
before his grandfather's murder, Nathan wrote a letter. This is
another piece of evidence that's not great, but I kind
of understand it, but it's not great. A week before
his grandfather's murder, Nathan had written a letter to the
estate attorney asking extremely specific questions about his inheritance. For example,
(17:40):
like what would happen if his grandfather and mother died,
would the money go to someone else? In what order
would he receive the money? Now, like, you can look
at this both ways, Okay, First of all, if he's
planning a murder and he's asking specific questions of the
estate attorney as to how the money passes down, and
he's saying, okay, so in.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Order, yeah, while I got you on the phone, in order.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
For me to inherit a large amount I have to
get rid of. But so first we have to get
rid of the grandfather, right, so the money flows down,
and then next I have to get my mother out
of the way so that it doesn't go to her,
it goes to me, right.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
And he would be the only remaining recipient.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Right because she has no other children and she's not married.
So yes, so it would go to Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
But maybe you're going to get there. But I remember
coming across the fact that people were saying he didn't
have any financial motive, nothing to gain financially, because his
grandfather had treated him like first class, and he had
everything he ever needed and wanted.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
That was an argument with his defense.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
He had no additional monetary value.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Right. People were saying that, you know, didn't think that
he was. His defense attorneys his dad. His dad was
very much on his saying that's the position.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
They were saying that the grandfather took care of everything
for Nathan. He had credit cards, he had money at
a horse, he had a house, he had a truck,
he had everything he wanted. I believe he was the
only grandson, and so John Chocolos was very very good
to him.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah, because I remember there there was lots of home
videos like he he it wasn't just your typical like
someone passed away. So it's like, oh they were really close.
They were wonderful. There's you know all these they say,
all the positive attributes of them. This was like you
saw all the videos. He genuinely was like by his
side and and raising him and oh he was fighting
for him and you know having him develop and and everything.
(19:27):
It was. It was it was kind of nice. It
was like, wow, he really was a father figure. He was.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
But I think the only I think what was detrimental though,
was I don't think he ever wanted to recognize that,
because not only was Nathan Autista autism, but but beyond
the autism, he also had mental problems where there's socially well,
socially he was not great. He didn't have friends, but
I mean no, there were times where he locked himself
(19:53):
in the RV outside his mom's house. He wouldn't speak
to anyone in his family, and then he wouldn't leave
the RV and he was like urinating in bottles because
he was and leave the RV. I mean, I mean
he went into very like manic depressed depression.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
And then his mother in your example, he didn't harm anyone, no,
but then.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
His mother would try to take care of him, and
I think she had him committed. And then John Chocalist,
the grandfather would come and like.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Its almost like good cught bad cup.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
We would like bring him pizza and like sneak stuff
in and like break him out, and you know, so
it was like I feel like the mother was trying
to get him the help he needed, and the grandfather
wasn't recognizing that he needed.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
She was more of a disciplinary and he was probably just.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
More of the disciplinary and more of just what she was.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Trying to have him sent to a facility. Probably did
to help.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yeah, but I'm saying as a mother, I recognize that.
I feel like it's the same conversation we had and
what it had to do with Luke, where I was like,
there's these issues and we need to take care of him,
and you're like, everything's.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Fine, right, let's get some pizza.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Right. My other point on the letter was you can
look at this both ways. You could look at it
like the letter to the estate attorney was trying to
get specific information because he was going to commit a murder,
so he wanted to know where the where the money
was flowing. Or because I do have some experience in
this area of kids with autism, he could have just
had these questions and wanted to know those they're very bright.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Maybe people pose that question to him, Oh wow, what's
going to happen to your grandfather's a state? Huh, Well,
your mom's dead and your grandfather the mother's not dead yet.
Oh okay, well whatever. Yeah, but people might pose that
question to him, or his mom might have questioned.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
I'm just saying I think so.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Then he then went to the like think this is
running through his mind. Yes, and he's addressing.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Question highly intelligent, highly intuitive, and so maybe these questions
had nothing to do with a murder, but only because
of the intelligence.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
And wanting to understand it was just a matter of fact, right.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Also, investigators have maintained that this was all part of
an effort to gain access to his grandfather's fortune, which
was estimated to be around forty two million at the
time of his death. Nathan, who was nineteen at the time,
did gain an immediate access to four hundred and fifty
thousand dollars after the grandfather's death. I believe that was
a joint banking account that had his grandfather's name and him,
(22:09):
and then once the grandfather was dead, then he had
access to the full amount. Also, people speculated that maybe
Nathan committed the murder, but the motive wasn't money driven,
but it was morally driven. Because morally driven, Yes, because
John had a mistress. So Nathan and his public defenders
(22:30):
wrote about Chacalos's twenty five year old mistress and a
twenty twenty two motion for pre trial release. The motion
stated that there were plenty of other suspects, with a
footnote identifying the mistress as one of these suspects. She
allegedly had a previous arrest on her record. Per CBS News,
John gave his girlfriend several large cash gifts, and the
weekend before his death, they took a trip to a
(22:51):
Connecticut casino where he gave her thirty five It cracks
me up that they keep talking about how he gave
her thirty five hundred dollars. I've read that in so
many articles, and I'm like, this guy's worth four twenty
two million dollars. He gave her thirty five hundred dollars,
and like, this is like large cash gifts. I don't
know that didn't.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
I don't know. She wasn't She must not have been
like very a very high end escort. Thirty five hundred
dollars for a weekend in Connecticut. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Maybe she's simple living.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Yeah, she's a simple She's a simple girl. The documents
also stated that the woman knew John kept money in
the house, often in the form of stacks of one
hundred dollars bills. So obviously this is the defense's they're saying,
there's other suspects out there. You should be looking at
other people besides Nathan. He has this missage that's young,
that knows Mary keeps his money.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
So and also maybe the mistress has some shady friends.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Well, she's been arrested before, so I don't know what
it was. I don't know. According to his obituary, John
had been married to Rita Baranowski for fifty nine years
before she died of cancer on November twenty first of
twenty thirteen. And if you remember, he was murdered in
December of twenty thirteen. So in twenty fourteen, I mean,
the case goes cold publicly and Nathan remains a person
(24:03):
of interest, but no charges are filed.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I know that they did, because there's no evidence of it.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Well there's the GPA. It's all circumstantials, that's right. So
I do know that they tried to get an arrest
warrant and the prosecutor, the DA or whatever would not
sign because there's nothing, because it wouldn't sign off on it.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
So because is it? Because then it would go to
double jeopardy if you have charges brought and then they're dropped,
not drop but then then if you can't proceed, right, well,
if you proceed.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
And you're saying you found guilty, then you can't.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
No, you found guilty, I mean not guilty.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
It's sound not guilty, then you can't.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
But I passed the bar first time.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah, shut up, I just said it wrong, that's all.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
No. Anyway, Yeah, that's why they don't want to do it.
They don't like we want to. We want to save
it for when we have something to bite into and
to prosecute. Otherwise we're going to screw this up and
then he's going to walk free. Well.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Look, either here's the thing, this is the way I
look at it. Either someone is taking advantage of Nathan
being autistic and they're they're using him as a scapegoat. Yeah,
I don't know. Maybe, I mean maybe someone.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah, what if it's the mistress friend who's.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
No I feel like it. No, I feel like it's
someone in the family. I mean this family, says state family.
There's four daughters and they're all going to inherit this estate.
I'm saying everyone's pointing their finger at Nathan, at the
autistic kid. I'm saying, there are lots of people that
are gonna benefit from John Chocolos's death. So either Nathan
is a mastermind or Nathan I also feel like maybe Nathan.
(25:34):
It's like, let's blame everything on, you know, the kid
that can't really defend himself very well. So the case
goes cold with the grandfather, they can't arrest Nathan.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
The money goes to the mom.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yes, now we get to twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
That's a lot of free money.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Forty two million.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah, it's a lot of not enough to kill four though,
what would.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Be your standard, Chaine fifty million? Is that where you're at?
Is that your threshold?
Speaker 2 (26:08):
That's close? All right?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
So now we get to twenty sixteen, and this is
the death of Linda Carmen at Sea and this is
Nathan's mother. So on September seventeenth of twenty sixteen, around
eleven PM, Nathan and Linda depart from Rampoint Marina in
South Kingston, Rhode Island. They're going on a fishing excursion
on his boat, the Chicken Box. They were supposed to
(26:31):
arrive back by nine am the next day, and Linda
told her friends to call her if she had not
gotten back to them by noon that day. Now that's
September seventeenth. Now on September eighteenth, this is the following
day three of Linda's friends attempted to contact her, and
when they received no response, they reported the boat missing.
Now we go September eighteenth through the twenty fourth, so
(26:54):
we've got like six seven days here. The coast Guard
conducted a six day search and found no trace of Linda, Nathan,
or the boat. On September twenty fifth of twenty sixteen,
this is after seven days, Nathan is found alive and
a life raft one hundred nautical miles off the coast
of Martha's Vineyard by the crew of this it's like
(27:16):
a ship. It's a Chinese ship called the Orient Lucky.
It's a freight ship. And Linda and the boat were gone.
So lots to talk about with this because there's a
lot of people that feel.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Like it's sunken. Yes, not to be found, not to
be found, Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
So Nathan appeared extremely healthy for someone who had been
drifting in a life raft for a week. He didn't
look like he'd missed a meal, he was not dehydrated,
he had no sunburn. That's the one that gets me.
He had no sunburn, and he was able to use
his muscles and his fingertips with no issues. So they
made a video of him, so the orient Lucky sees
(27:54):
him floating out on a life raft. He says that
he was well prepared and that he had me inside
the life raft and he had a water he had
one of those things that turned salt water to regular
water filter some filter. Yeah, so it's very well prepared
with this life raft.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Good for him. Okay, shot him but right, so it's
like cooking there.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
He's got like a converter. Yeah, he's planning on spending a.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yeah, selfies.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
So also there is a video that that I watched
the show. It in the documentary of him being rescued,
and there's an expert that testifies that if you had
been floating in a raft, but could the life raft
sinks before they can find it and investigate it. So
they think that maybe he used a knife and put
holes in it so that it vanished before they could
(28:49):
pull it in and look at it and try to
determine how long it had actually been in the water
and see all the things. So they have no evidence.
So this life raft is in a video and and
it's gone and nobody has it so so seriously though,
so he's floating out there for seven days but then
it just it sinks.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Like I don't ask the orient Lucky what they did
with it.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Well, they didn't do it, well, they didn't. They just
called for the coastguard. So he's out floating in the water,
and then the coast guard comes.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Oare and the coast guard secure it.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
They threw like one of those rings out to him,
and he climbs out of the life Yeah, and he
climbs out of his life raft and swims to it,
grabs onto it, and then pulls himself onto the coast guard.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
And I don't want to say what the coastguard's responsibilities are,
but you would think they would also get the raft.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
That's what I'm saying. But they couldn't because apparently it's.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
So in that time period was already sinking.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yes, so that's what I'm saying, very smart, Yes, in
the time period.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
It's no dummy. Right.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
So I'm saying, either this guy is a diabolical genius
or like he's just getting screwed. I don't know so far.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
The way you've described, he's been floating for seven days
at least that was what he claims. That could have
been one day, who knows, seven days, but then what
was his well, seven days or one day, what was
his plan? Did he know the orient? Luck, he's like
like expressway, which way they go? And he's like, I'm
going to run into them and then they're going to
call the coast guard.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yeah. The prosecution actually claims that like he would have known,
you know, that he drove the boat out to a
specific spot that he knew the Orient was going to pass.
And then his defense attorney is like, you know, you
might as well say he killed JFK because that's ridiculous,
like no one can figure all those things out, but
they claimed that he did that. He sunk the boat,
(30:38):
murdered his mom.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
You know, yeah, how would that be? As like, if
you're the client, you're like, my defense is attorney say,
I'm not smart enough to figure that out?
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Well I would, yeah, but that's I mean, for you
to figure out like where to take the.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Boat to it is a lot. If it looks like
my attorney says, that just played dumb.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah, all right. So the point is they were they
were saying an expert was saying that there's no way
he could have floated in this raft for seven days
and hit and his fingers would have worked. He was
saying he wouldn't be able to walk from the video.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Of about his mom's missing.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Well, let's get into this. So, twelve hours after their
trip began, Nathan claims that the boat had a malfunctioning
belt in its engine area and began capsizing, and the
ensuing struggle, he didn't place the distress call and lost
track of Linda. See that's the other thing. Apparently, and
I don't know. I'm not a boat person, but apparently
there's established that. Yes, there's I didn't grow up on boats.
There's two ways, right, there's two ways.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
There's like Shannon, I know I should ask, grew up
on boat.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Always grew up on boats. Yes, I guess as soon
as the boat, as soon as he noticed that there's
water and the boat is sinking, there's a way to
make an immediate distress call.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Yeah. Usually there's like a well my limited knowledge is
like a device you can pull and it sends a
distress call right for everyone, Right, it's like an SOS signal.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Right, he didn't do that.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Cash on everyone's radio weight radios.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, so he did not do that, and he also
didn't call, you know, the coast.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Guard say the boat. Was it weather or no.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
He claims that he claims that he noticed that there
was something wrong with the engine and that he looks
into it and then all of a sudden, he saw
water rising. Oh, and he said, is like he I just.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Started from his point, he just started sinking, right.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
But people say that doesn't happen. I don't know. But
then they ask, you know, like where's your mother at
this time? And he claims that he didn't want his
mom to get distressed by the boat sinking, so he
told her to pull the fishing line smothered her. So
he said, he told her to pull the fishing lines
in and then he basically makes it just like the
boat just sunk, Welle, immediately.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
I imagine its snowballs, like it's slowly. I've seen the
Titanic a few times and it's slow and all a sudden.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
That's the way he made it sound. So he says
he told ABC News reporters quote, I got on board
the life raft and was looking around and I was
calling out to my mom. I did not see or
hear my mom, and I was blowing the whistle with
three loud, short bursts, which is a distress signal. I
assumed that as she had been on the surface and conscious,
that she would have been calling out to me and
I would have been able to find her. But I
didn't know why that hadn't happened. So this is another
(33:14):
thing that I think is a little suspicious, is that
this boat is not a huge boat. It's not a yacht.
It's a thirty foot fishing boat. So you're going to
tell me that it starts to sink and you can't
tell where your mother is on this boat anywhere. You
don't see her or hear her or anything. That that
part doesn't make any sense to me at all. It
doesn't seem logical. But I don't I mean, I've never
(33:37):
sunk on a boat before either, so I don't know.
Maybe it's loud, maybe it's chaotic. Maybe she could disappear
under the water really quickly. I don't know. I just
feel like someone would have.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Been Maybe he just but as we have some experience,
because we've been doing researchly, maybe he wasn't processing it
so well, like it's sinking, but the urgency wasn't felt
as you were, Like you would feel the urgency more
than me. You'd be panicky, like when when there's turbulence
(34:06):
on a plane, you're peeing your pants almost. I hate turbulence, right, Yeah,
other people don't see the urgency. Maybe he with his
emotional and mental state, doesn't since the urgency the same,
and then it's too late.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Yeah. Also, and this is a very interesting point.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Can you say that was a good point.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
I mean that was a very good point. When Nathan
was found, pictures showed him on a perfectly inflated life raft,
but as soon as he jumped off, the raft quickly
deflated and got swallowed up by the ocean. We talked
about that Nathan was found with a knife in his pocket,
leading people to believe that he destroyed that evidence on purpose.
And again the reason right because then I think if
they would have had the life raft as evidence, they
(34:47):
probably could have.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Been answered some questions.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Whether it had actually.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Bloods all over here, what's going.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
On, yeah, DNA, the mom's DNA DNA, whether it had
been floating in the ocean for seven days, Whether he
had murdered his mom through or overboard and then just
jumped in the life rout.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
So do you have any evidence on him, like did
they do his fingernails and all that stuff or.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
No, but this is it. This is what was damning
against him. Prior to the fishing trip, a witness saw
Nathan drilling holes into his boat and removing the trim tabs.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
So I didn't know, what, how didn't you miss all
this stuff the first time you watched it.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
I didn't miss it. I only got through a very
small amount in the beginning where I felt badly for
him and I felt like he was being unfairly judged.
And then I watched it the whole way and I
was like, tang, maybe he did do it. He seems
to be.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
So the first time you watched it all the way through, yeah,
you concluded with maybe he did it.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Yes, I'm saying when I watched the first thirty minutes,
I felt like he was being unfairly judged because of
the because of his autism. But then when I watched
the whole thing, I thought, dang, this is a lot
of evidence against him. Or there's someone out there that's
so smart. That's that's I don't know. Managed to well.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
The end of the story is what's kind of heartbreaking
for me.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Keep going, Okay, So witnesses saw him on the dock
before they went on the fishing trip. I guess there's
these things called trim tabs. Again, I don't know what
that is, but he removed them from the boat. And
then when he removed them from the boat, there were
like four holes and he filled the holes in with putty.
But people were saying he didn't fill them in correctly,
and that led to, you know, the boat not being
(36:28):
seaworthy and probably sinking. So the question is did he
do it on purpose because he wanted the boat to sink,
or was he trying to do something to his boat
and he just didn't know how to do it.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
You know, what I'm thinking is forty two million dollars
and they just have a little crappy boat.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah, I know, Well I don't.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Know if I had forty two million dollars, what kind
of boat would you make me get?
Speaker 1 (36:48):
You Well, that's because i'm your wife and I sleep
with you, so I would get a much better boat.
But Nathan's a grandchild, so he gets the chicken pox.
So there's a drift analysis, which I didn't know if
this was junk science or not, because you know, in
prior cases there's been things that have been determined to
be junk science, which is like bitemarks. Did you know
that if you watch the Innocence Files.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Is junk science.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
It's like bitemark evidence is now considered junk science. So
I was wondering if drift analysis is also considered Why
I think.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
It's junk science because a lot of like, there's no standards.
I think there's no standards that have been placey of
these dentists who just kind of like you have people
that can have opinions, but there's no standards that they're
following to be qualified, like, you know, so it's sloppy.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
So an oceanographer who analyzed Nathan's alleged drift from the
from the location of his claim sinking to where his
boat was actually found said that the path did not
make sense given the wind and the ocean currents. So
I guess with drift analysis, what they do is they
go back and they look at the currents, the winds
of science.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
You know why, I think that's junk science because they
do that all the time to try to look for
things and they never find them. Yeah, that's true, Well,
then what good did that do?
Speaker 1 (38:01):
So Nathan's defense team claimed drift analysis is junk science.
But is that true. In forensic context, such as locating
missing persons or wreckage at sea, drift analysis more properly
called drift modeling or search and rescue modeling is considered
a legitimate and valuable scientific tool. However, I mean, I
do know the Titanic sunk in like nineteen twelve, but
it took them until nineteen eighty.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Ry deep and the technology to be able to go
down there. Yeah, but it doesn't matter. What about when
they're like, oh, this person's missing and they were last
seen here, and then they try to follow the currents
and this and that, then they can't find it. It is,
which it is tough to do. I mean, remember castaway
they did never found them.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
That's not a true story. No, but that's a work
that's Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
But it's very a very believable story.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
A drift analysis also uses established principles of oceanography, meteorology,
and physics, like when currents and tides to estimate probable
locations or origins. I think that there is some again
very well, there are variables that you could use to
determine maybe where it could have ended up. But at
the end of the day, I don't know if it's
(39:07):
an exact science. So so two weeks after Nathan was rescued, Okay,
this is where Nathan went wrong. Two weeks after his rescue,
he files an eighty five thousand dollars insurance claim for
his lost boat, but the company denied the claim, alleging
it sank directly or indirectly due to his faulty repairs.
And what happened is this is why they ended up
charging him with murder. Is because the insurance company did
(39:29):
their due diligence and did a bunch of investigating onto
the ship. They they you know, they interviewed witnesses. They
didn't want to pay.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
The sloppy repairs. Yes, okay, so.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
I'm saying if he would have not filed the eighty
five thousand dollars, I don't think.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
He would have been he went wrong there, but there's
no way someone would think, well, wait a minute, what
the insurance can he does an investigation and then the
cops get a hold of that. I mean, no one would.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Have thought that.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
You're saying that I've been to his demise.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yes, I'm saying if he just would have let the
boat go because he's going to inherit seven million or
whatever his mom's interest is.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
It's his mom's interest. Wasn't forty two million?
Speaker 1 (40:08):
She's got four sisters. Oh yeah, yeah, she's not going
to inherit all of it. Okay, Yeah, I think it's
seven okay, plus taxes, So I think it ends up
in seven. Don't they take a ton of taxes out
of your inheritance inheritance tax, Yes, so I think it's
seven million. But I'm saying if he would have just
waited for the seven million, that was probably going to ree.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
He went for the ball.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
He wanted the eighty five thousand for the boat. They
do all their investigating.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Well, you know, all right, Note to Emily if I
die in a if I drive off a cliff, yeah,
don't file insurance claim for my car.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Not if I'm involved in you driving off the cliff.
That's what I'm saying, all right. So in July seventeenth
of twenty seventeen, this is after his mother has died
at sea, the Chacalo's sisters petitioned in New Hampshire Probate
Court to declare their nephew, Nathan Carmen, their father's murderer.
Nathan repeatedly denies the involvement. So in this now we
(41:05):
go all the way to twenty twenty two, a federal
grand jury indicts Nathan for murder on the High Seas.
If he's convicted of murder on the High Seas, Carmen
would face a mandatory life imprisonment. And also he's indicted
for fraud and inheritance related offenses. The fraud charges each
carry a potential penalty of up to thirty years of imprisonment.
(41:25):
So he ends up being indicted for the murder of
his mother on the sea. I believe based upon the
investigating that the insurance company did, because I don't think
that they the I'm sure they had suspicions, but I
don't think they were going to arrest him or the
police were going to arrest him for their mother's was there.
(41:45):
But then when the insurance company really dug into it
and was interviewing witnesses and you know, the repairs that
he did and not reaching, not doing the distress signal,
and then they did all the analysis on the drift
and they had all the experts and everything, I think
that's when that's when the police were arrested or interesting
they had, Yeah, they had an indictment for him for
(42:06):
murdering his mother. Also, the sisters filed for a slayer
statue and I looked it up. A slayer statute is
when you cannot benefit, which makes sense.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Yeah, you can't be a financial beneficiary, right if you're.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
The murder if you're the murderer exactly. And I was wondering,
is it called a slayer statue because you actually slay.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Someone or it was named after the band or that.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
But there are twenty three states that have slayer statutes
in place, so the state fifty has right, I know,
there's only twenty three.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Plus DC California one of them.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
I don't know if California is one of them, so
but you need to look that up.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
We're moving quickly.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
But if not, then you have to use common law,
you know, a precedent to determine that you can't. You
can't enrichly, you know, be unjustly enriched by someone's you know,
murder that you caused. So all right. In twenty of
twenty three, this is June fifteenth of twenty twenty three,
Nathan Carmen has found unresponsive in his cell at the
Cheshire County Jail in New Hampshire, where he was being
(43:07):
held pre trial. Prior to his trial, Nathan is pronounced
dead by suicide. This occurs before the trial, meaning that
no criminal conviction was ever entered, and the federal prosecution
ends immediately. Civil claims remain, but cannot proceed against him criminally,
So John Chocolos and Linda Carmon's deaths remain officially unsolved,
(43:27):
but investigators and prosecutors assert Nathan was responsible for both
and his aunts. You know, his whole family abandoned him.
There wasn't a single family member that didn't think that
Nathan was responsible for not only his grandfather's death, but
also his mom's death, which also made me I don't
That's where I also felt as if, I don't know,
(43:49):
maybe someone else was involved in it. That also, there
were four sisters, so there were three other sisters that
were going.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
To He.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Hung himself with shoelaces, which I don't understand how you
do that either, But that's what I read that complicated.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
What do you mean?
Speaker 1 (44:03):
I don't I don't feel I don't.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Know maybecause I mean the strength of it or something.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Well, I'm just looking, I'm thinking about myself and I'm
thinking How could a shoe string hold me up?
Speaker 2 (44:16):
But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
But that's that's that's the claim.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
That's the claim that it was shoes strings, and that
he hung himself in his jail.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Don't they usually have sandals and inmates have what sandals?
Speaker 1 (44:27):
What does sandals have to Oh? Hello, sandals? I thought
you meant some like them. They use the showers. I
didn't know what you were talking about. Yeah, okay, so
they don't have shoe strings. I don't know where he
got the shoe strings. I don't know. I mean, they
have all kinds of illegal contraband in prison.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
Shoelaces are illegal contraband.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yeah, I guess I don't know. Anyway, what do you think?
Do you think that him killing himself shows his guilt
or do you think he was just a disturbed.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Good If he's guilty, he killed himself. Now his mom
and grandfather dead and he's dead. If he's not guilty,
that's pretty troubling to know that. Emotionally, it put him
in a state where he felt trapped and unheard and
you know, and didn't want to.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
Misjudged and his family abandoned.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
Yeah, that was probably quite overwhelming.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
Yeah all right, Well, if you guys have the opportunity
to watch, it's called.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
And on that note, yeah, well that's how we ended.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
That's how it ended. He's he committed suicide. So this
is a case. So we'll never know now that now.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
That he's all parties are gone.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Yeah, so we'll never know exactly what happened. But I
don't know. If you get the opportunity to watch it,
I would love to hear your thoughts. You can always
DM me on Instagram and let me know what you think,
and also you can always send recommendations of cases that
you would like Shane and I to discuss. So thank
you so much for listening. And also just a reminder
that we are on our own feed legally Brunette, so
(45:53):
if you are not listening to us there, please make
sure you do that and leave a review. And we
appreciate you so much. Thank you, Thank you people,
Hi guys, Welcome to a new episode of Legally Brunette.
I will be your host today Emily Simpson and Shane Shane.
All right, first of all, we are going to go
into the bulk of this podcast is going to be
about the Carmen Family murders, which is a new documentary
on Netflix. But before we go into that, and we
discussed that, let's do a little update on the Gilgo
(00:22):
Beach murders. And if you haven't listened to that podcast,
we did that a little while back, and so if
you want to, if you haven't heard it, go back
and listen to our Oh my god, it's a serial.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Killer ret Well they all are.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
They're not all style killer.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
They're all killers. What was his mo or what was
his way of No?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
It was Long Island. Remember, and they found all the bodies.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Oh yeah, yeah, they started to go backwards and find it.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Right when we did the podcast, we had to go
back into the nineties all these bodies that they had
found and then remember they use they used the DNA. Anyway,
there is an update on this case because there were
several bodies that were found. So in nineteen ninety seven,
some of Tanya Jackson's dismembered body was found in Long Island.
At that time, investigators were unable to identify her remains
(01:07):
and referred to her only as you'll remember this peaches, yeah,
because she she had that identifying tattoo of peaches on
her chest. In twenty eleven, investigators discovered new skeletal fragments
along with the body of Jackson's two year old daughter,
Tatiana Marie Dykes, while combing a beachfront strip near Gilgo Beach.
(01:28):
And if you remember, they found the child near where
her body was found, and it ended up being her child,
I guess based on DNA or whatever. But then they
attribute it to the Gilgo Beach serial killer because all
these bodies are all found in the same vicinity, right.
Investigators only confirmed Jackson's identity earlier this year. She was
(01:50):
a veteran of the Gulf War, originally from Alabama, and
was twenty six years old when she died. Officials identified
her and her daughter through advanced DNA and genealogy research,
which it's so interesting that we are getting all this new,
this new DNA genealogy information, because.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
As DNA was coming out, was it was helping some crimes,
and then I had like an added level of DNA testing, right,
And this is what I need someone to do.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Whoever out there listening, if you're involved in the John
Beney case, I need someone to go back into John
Bennet's case, take the DNA, and I need them to
do the advance.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Was the DNA from in that case? Was that blood
or no?
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I think I don't know. I should have looked it
up before I start talking about it, but I'm not sure.
But I do know that there's some unidentified DNA found
in John Benay's and I feel like we now are
at the point in time where that we should do
that whole genealogy thing like they did that we just
talked about in the Golden State serial Killer. Maybe I
don't know. So at the time, officials said the toddler's
(02:55):
father was cooperating with the investigation and was not considered
a subject at that time. However, on Wednesday, December third,
so this just happened. Andrew Diykes, who is now sixty six,
was arrested near Tampa on a warrant from Nassau County.
He's the father of the two year old. According to
two people familiar with the investigation who requested anonymity because
they were not authorized to discuss the details of the
(03:17):
sealed indictment. Dikes, this is the father, appeared before a
judge last Thursday on murder charges. He is expected to
be extradited to New York in the coming days. Tanya
and Tatiana's murders became associated with the Gilgo Beach murders
through Rex Huerman, who never officially was He was never
officially charged with their deaths. There is no apparent link
(03:37):
between Dikes and Huerman. So now there's some information that
is linking the dad through DNA to this woman, Tanya
Jackson and his daughter. So that is an update on
the Gilgo Beach murders. We did talk about Peaches previously
in our previous podcasts and it was kind of associated
with him in some way, but now we know that
(04:00):
that allegedly it is. Now we know that, we think
we think we know that allegedly, well, he's innocent until
proven guilty. That the father was now the person of
interest in that.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
So we will take you to follow that unless proven
guilty instead of because until it is kind of like
you will be proven guilty. We will get you one
way or another.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Right, I always thought that. So you want to change it,
would you like to make a formal.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Tell me to start a movement?
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yes, all right, Let's move on to the Carmen family murders.
This was a documentary on Netflix. I actually I watched
it a couple of times. It was interesting. I sometimes
I have to watch the more than one time.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, because last night you came to me and said,
what did I say, Well, without giving so we'd stay
in going in order. But the one of the suspects,
you were very adamant to leave him alone. Yes, and
now you're like, oh no, what should maybe did do it?
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah? All right. So the Carmen family murders case centers
on Nathan Carmen, who was suspected of killing two of
his family members, his grandfather this is back in twenty thirteen,
whose named John Chocolos, and his mother, Linda Carmen in
twenty sixteen. It is important to note that Nathan this
is Linda's son. Nathan, so he's the grandson of John Chocolos,
(05:30):
was diagnosed with autism at the age of four years old.
His father and lawyer maintain his innocence arguing that investigators
and the media were biased against him because of his autism.
In December of twenty thirteen, eighty seven year old John
Chocalos was found shot to death in his bed. Nathan
and his grandfather were very close, with Nathan often referring
(05:53):
to him as his best friend. John paid for his
grandson's personal expenses, funding his credit cards, truck, of apartment,
and a white Irish sport horse named Cruise. Despite investigator's suspicions,
Nathan was not formally charged with Chocolo's death. Three years later,
Nathan took his mother Linda, on a fishing trip off
(06:13):
of Rhode Island. Though they had a very strenuous relationship,
they would often go fishing to help maintain a bond.
I actually, I don't know if I read this or
if it was in the documentary, but there I think
it was Linda's best friend that was talking about how
Linda the mother didn't really like fishing at all, but
she was trying to do things with her son to
have some kind of oh after the grandfather's at what time, well,
(06:37):
they I don't know the time period. They went fishing often, Yeah,
but I'm saying I don't think the mother enjoyed fishing.
It's not like that was her thing.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
No. I even learn after the grandfather's passing that she
also still went fishing. Yes, yes, that's what I was
getting it.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Even though they had a strenuous relationship, they would often
go fishing to help maintain a bond. Nathan's boat was
called the Chicken Pox and it mysteriously sank during this
trip and Nathan was found alone in a life raft
seven days later. Linda was never found. In twenty twenty two,
Nathan was federally indicted for murder on the high seas
and fraud connected to inheritance schemes. However, before the case
(07:14):
could go to trial, he died by suicide in his
jail cell in June of twenty twenty three, ending the
criminal proceedings. Authorities maintained he was responsible for both deaths,
though no conviction was ever reached. We're going to go
into and start discussing this in more details. So let's
start out with the murder of John Chocolos, who is
the grandfather of Nathan. He also he was a very
(07:37):
wealthy man. I believe they estimated his whole estate to
be around I think it was forty two million.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Oh that much? That was five to six million, No,
forty two million. Oh, so he was clearly wealthy.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
He was very wealthy. He and they said he was
a real estate developer, but it was more he built
a retirement and.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
What it's real estate, Yeah, but I mean.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
More specifically, it was like retirement type of homes and
he I guess they spanned across right, and I think
he had multiple.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Did he own them or was he just in the construction.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
I believe he constructed. I believe he had a construction business,
and then I believe he owned them. So he amassed
a large amount of wealth. So on December twentieth of
twenty thirteen, this is around eight thirty pm, and we're
going back to twenty thirteen because we're going to start
with the grandfather's death, Nathan Carmen drops off John at
his home after the two had dinner together. Nathan is
the last person to see his grandfather alive on this evening.
(08:28):
John Chocalos neighbor claims that he hears gunshots at two am.
Surveillance video confirms Nathan was home at his apartment at
that time. Nathan left his house around three am, to
meet his mom for one of their fishing trips, but
on the way he claimed he got lost and he
wasn't heard from until four h one am. So we're
(08:50):
just breaking down some of the facts of this.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, so we can.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Analyze it right.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
First death.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Then on the morning of December twenty first, twenty thirteen,
one of chacalos daughters, Elaine, discovered him dead in his bed,
shot to death by a semi automatic rifle. He suffered
three gunshot wounds to the head and Torso there was
a very obvious stage burglary where I guess the glass
door had been punched from the inside. That is the
biggest mistake people can make. Look, if you're going to
(09:17):
stage a crime scene, you have to if you're going
to break the glass, you have to come on, now,
think of this through. You have to break the glass,
walk outside the glass from the outside and crawl inside.
I go through the window, go through all the deaths
and actually take things. That's the other thing that I
(09:37):
don't understand. I've seen this a lot, and when we
analyze these cases where they say immediately they know the
burglary was staged because they never actually jewelry was untouched
they never actually took anything. I like, how was that?
How did that slip your mind when you were staging
the burglary that you didn't actually take the jewelry and
the cast.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
I'm glad though, that if you're going to commit murder
against me, I well, you will not be convicted.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
No. Well, I don't know, but I mean I feel
like I know a little bit more than the average murderers.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So well, then let this podcast serve as evidence in
the event that there's almost i'd charges pressed against you.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
So from December twenty second to the twenty fourth, this
is in twenty thirteen, right after the grandfather's death, Nathan
is interviewed and gives inconsistent accounts. For example, Nathan said
that he never owned a gun, but investigators were later
able to determine that he had purchased a three Zho
eight caliber sig Sour. I don't know anything about guns,
(10:31):
so am I even saying that right a sig Sour
rifle only one month prior to Chacalo's death. It was
the same caliber rifle that was used to murder his grandfather.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Is Nathan at this time of this death.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Nathan is nineteen at this time it was the same
caliber rifle that was used to murder as grandfather. When
pressed by police for the rifles whereabouts, Nathan said that
he lost it. When asked why he hadn't mentioned it
in his initial interview, Nathan told the cops he forgot
and he forgot about the gun. There's also a bit
I was about the gun had never been found before.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
You told me that. What his answer was, I would
have thought, like maybe he was scared and he didn't
want to say he had a gun. Like if if
I had, first of all, I wouldn't I would tell
the truth. But oh I would get a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Actually, but yeah, that's okay.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
And it wouldn't be you. Sorry. No, if they asked
me if so, if I'm scared and I didn't kill
my grandfather, I like, I know I didn't do it. Yeah,
And then they asked me if I had a gun,
I think, oh, crap, I did just buy a gun.
That looks bad. I would want to hide it. Now.
I would know that they could trace it, they could
find out it's all on record. But if he's not
(11:36):
as sophisticated, and if he does have some kind of
mental you know, kind of setback or maybe he doesn't
think it through where he's not you know, well, I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Here's the question.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
I would be understanable they would hide. But you're saying
he's said he forgot he had it. That's more believable
to say I didn't want to tell because I don't
want to get in trouble versus I forgot I bought
a gun last month. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
But okay, here's the thing. Let's talk about this just
for a minute. Because when I first started to watch this,
I was very upset because when they interview the investigators
after they questioned Nathan, Nathan is autistic. There's no question.
And when we're talking about autism, you're talking right, and
you have to remember that that people that are autistic,
they repeat things. They also don't show a lot of emotion.
(12:17):
Everything said very pragmatic, very.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Well, and more so in certain situations like if they're
nervous or something.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Or so, when they were questioning him in the beginning,
and then they were interviewing the cop, you know, and
the police detective and some of these people that interviewed him,
and they were talking about how they didn't like his
demeanor and they didn't like his answers That bothered me
because I felt like there was no.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
They weren't considering the factor of him having autism and disorder.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Right and not showing emotion and not having inflection in
his voice and not and not breaking down and crying
or being upset or And we've talked about.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
That before, where everyone's like, oh, it's supposed to they're
supposed to act this way. I don't know about that.
I mean, yeah, sometimes it's deaf, like a little suspicious,
or it's noteworthy, but that's not enough to be like,
therefore he must be guilty, he should be crying more.
That's it's just a hunch. Well then it makes it
rubbed me the wrong way. I don't know if I
(13:13):
you know, something's odd there.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Well, there's more, I mean there is, I know there
is more.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
I know.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
So my initial thought was I felt really sorry for Nathan,
and I felt like he was getting a bad rap
because of his autism. And I felt like they were
very biased towards him because he was not reacting in
the way that they felt like a normal person. Shit,
and we're talking about someone that But I don't like.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
The who normal standard. I mean, what if you wished
me dead, and you did want me dead, right, because
there's the moments where that was software silence. There's moments
where you wish I'm dead, and if I died in
that moment, maybe you wouldn't be crying as much. Right, Okay,
let's let's be realistic. But if a spouse wants the
other spouse gone, like they they they're miserable, they hate him,
(13:52):
their abusers, whatever, and then they like it worked in
their favor where they were murdered in a burglary, are
saying they're not going.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
To be as emotional, right, so you're saying that shouldn't
be used.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
They're gonna be like the bastard deserved it. Yeah, and
then now they're a suspect. I don't know, that's just.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Those are shame thoughts. But also I was thinking, there
isn't any I don't think there's any kind of protocol
when when when investigating someone autistic, like I felt like
there should have been like an autism specialist that was
with him in the room that like helped interpret or something.
I felt I just felt like it was biased because
(14:30):
of his autism. And then however, there but then I
did change my mind towards the end, because because there's
a there's a lot, there's there's more. So anyway, Nathan
allegedly also.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Nonetheless they should have considered that that should somehow be taken.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Into consideration rank you. Nathan also allegedly destroyed his trucks,
GPS and computer hard drives shortly before the murder had
taken place, preventing investigators from tracking his movements and plans. So,
I mean, that doesn't look good, No, when you're destroying
your GPS on the night that your grandfather is murdered.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Because how did he destroy it? I don't know, I
don't need it, or like.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
I don't know you were asking the wrong person.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
I don't even know I'm asking the right person. You're
hosting a podcast, I know, but I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
But I'm saying as far as technical things, I don't
even know how to use the GPS, and Michael is
let alone destroy it.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Let that be the truth. Because she's called me and
asked for direction.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
That is very true.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
I think one time you got mad at me because yes,
you couldn't. Like you were lost.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
I'm always lost. That's another thing I wanted to say.
The investigators also said they thought it was very suspicious
that when Nathan was going to meet his mother that
same evening. So the grandfather dies and then Nathan goes
that it's like three o'clock in the morning. He goes
to meet his mom and there's an hour that he's
unaccounted for. And when they say we got lost, claimed
(15:49):
he got lost. Look, I don't think that that's that suspicious.
I get lost all the time.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Very relatable lost for now, especially since you despite all
the technological dances, it.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Makes sense he destroyed his GPS, so of course he
got lost. He can't use this navigation. Also, can I
ask you, because I don't I'm not a fisherman, but
when you go fishing, like on a fishing trip, is
it normal to leave at three in the morning? Is
that like a normal hour.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
I to go fishing. I think it can be done.
It's like saying surfing, like, right, you see TV and
everyone's surfing in the daytime in the afternoon in the
sun by A lot of people go at five in
the morning.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
So I think, so maybe a fishing trip like leaving
at three in the morning.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Is I don't know, okay, but I guess you could
look at their history. Does he always go at three
in the morning.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Yeah, So when Nathan was brought in for questioning, he
started freaking out, saying he was upset that his grandfather's
head this is a quote, had been blown off. This
is another piece of evidence that was very damning against Nathan.
I don't think there was any information released as to
how John Chocolos was murdered. He just knew that he
was dead, or the general public and the family I
(16:54):
think just knew that he was dead. So when Nathan
made reference to his grandfather's head being blown off, that
was clearly damning for him. Right, this was before investigators
had disclosed the state of John's body. Nathan backtracked on
his statement, saying he assumed his grandfather died by a
suicide or murder. I do remember that in the interview
because they asked him how he knew that, and he
(17:15):
said that he was dead. So he assumed that he'd
either killed himself or had been murdered. So a week
before his grandfather's murder, Nathan wrote a letter. This is
another piece of evidence that's not great, but I kind
of understand it, but it's not great. A week before
his grandfather's murder, Nathan had written a letter to the
estate attorney asking extremely specific questions about his inheritance. For example,
(17:40):
like what would happen if his grandfather and mother died,
would the money go to someone else? In what order
would he receive the money? Now, like, you can look
at this both ways, Okay, First of all, if he's
planning a murder and he's asking specific questions of the
estate attorney as to how the money passes down, and
he's saying, okay, so in.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Order, yeah, while I got you on the phone, in order.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
For me to inherit a large amount I have to
get rid of. But so first we have to get
rid of the grandfather, right, so the money flows down,
and then next I have to get my mother out
of the way so that it doesn't go to her,
it goes to me, right.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
And he would be the only remaining recipient.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Right because she has no other children and she's not married.
So yes, so it would go to Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
But maybe you're going to get there. But I remember
coming across the fact that people were saying he didn't
have any financial motive, nothing to gain financially, because his
grandfather had treated him like first class, and he had
everything he ever needed and wanted.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
That was an argument with his defense.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
He had no additional monetary value.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Right. People were saying that, you know, didn't think that
he was. His defense attorneys his dad. His dad was
very much on his saying that's the position.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
They were saying that the grandfather took care of everything
for Nathan. He had credit cards, he had money at
a horse, he had a house, he had a truck,
he had everything he wanted. I believe he was the
only grandson, and so John Chocolos was very very good
to him.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah, because I remember there there was lots of home
videos like he he it wasn't just your typical like
someone passed away. So it's like, oh they were really close.
They were wonderful. There's you know all these they say,
all the positive attributes of them. This was like you
saw all the videos. He genuinely was like by his
side and and raising him and oh he was fighting
for him and you know having him develop and and everything.
(19:27):
It was. It was it was kind of nice. It
was like, wow, he really was a father figure. He was.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
But I think the only I think what was detrimental though,
was I don't think he ever wanted to recognize that,
because not only was Nathan Autista autism, but but beyond
the autism, he also had mental problems where there's socially well,
socially he was not great. He didn't have friends, but
I mean no, there were times where he locked himself
(19:53):
in the RV outside his mom's house. He wouldn't speak
to anyone in his family, and then he wouldn't leave
the RV and he was like urinating in bottles because
he was and leave the RV. I mean, I mean
he went into very like manic depressed depression.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
And then his mother in your example, he didn't harm anyone, no,
but then.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
His mother would try to take care of him, and
I think she had him committed. And then John Chocalist,
the grandfather would come and like.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Its almost like good cught bad cup.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
We would like bring him pizza and like sneak stuff
in and like break him out, and you know, so
it was like I feel like the mother was trying
to get him the help he needed, and the grandfather
wasn't recognizing that he needed.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
She was more of a disciplinary and he was probably just.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
More of the disciplinary and more of just what she was.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Trying to have him sent to a facility. Probably did
to help.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yeah, but I'm saying as a mother, I recognize that.
I feel like it's the same conversation we had and
what it had to do with Luke, where I was like,
there's these issues and we need to take care of him,
and you're like, everything's.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Fine, right, let's get some pizza.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Right. My other point on the letter was you can
look at this both ways. You could look at it
like the letter to the estate attorney was trying to
get specific information because he was going to commit a murder,
so he wanted to know where the where the money
was flowing. Or because I do have some experience in
this area of kids with autism, he could have just
had these questions and wanted to know those they're very bright.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Maybe people pose that question to him, Oh wow, what's
going to happen to your grandfather's a state? Huh, Well,
your mom's dead and your grandfather the mother's not dead yet.
Oh okay, well whatever. Yeah, but people might pose that
question to him, or his mom might have questioned.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
I'm just saying I think so.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Then he then went to the like think this is
running through his mind. Yes, and he's addressing.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Question highly intelligent, highly intuitive, and so maybe these questions
had nothing to do with a murder, but only because
of the intelligence.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
And wanting to understand it was just a matter of fact, right.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Also, investigators have maintained that this was all part of
an effort to gain access to his grandfather's fortune, which
was estimated to be around forty two million at the
time of his death. Nathan, who was nineteen at the time,
did gain an immediate access to four hundred and fifty
thousand dollars after the grandfather's death. I believe that was
a joint banking account that had his grandfather's name and him,
(22:09):
and then once the grandfather was dead, then he had
access to the full amount. Also, people speculated that maybe
Nathan committed the murder, but the motive wasn't money driven,
but it was morally driven. Because morally driven, Yes, because
John had a mistress. So Nathan and his public defenders
(22:30):
wrote about Chacalos's twenty five year old mistress and a
twenty twenty two motion for pre trial release. The motion
stated that there were plenty of other suspects, with a
footnote identifying the mistress as one of these suspects. She
allegedly had a previous arrest on her record. Per CBS News,
John gave his girlfriend several large cash gifts, and the
weekend before his death, they took a trip to a
(22:51):
Connecticut casino where he gave her thirty five It cracks
me up that they keep talking about how he gave
her thirty five hundred dollars. I've read that in so
many articles, and I'm like, this guy's worth four twenty
two million dollars. He gave her thirty five hundred dollars,
and like, this is like large cash gifts. I don't
know that didn't.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
I don't know. She wasn't She must not have been
like very a very high end escort. Thirty five hundred
dollars for a weekend in Connecticut. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Maybe she's simple living.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Yeah, she's a simple She's a simple girl. The documents
also stated that the woman knew John kept money in
the house, often in the form of stacks of one
hundred dollars bills. So obviously this is the defense's they're saying,
there's other suspects out there. You should be looking at
other people besides Nathan. He has this missage that's young,
that knows Mary keeps his money.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
So and also maybe the mistress has some shady friends.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Well, she's been arrested before, so I don't know what
it was. I don't know. According to his obituary, John
had been married to Rita Baranowski for fifty nine years
before she died of cancer on November twenty first of
twenty thirteen. And if you remember, he was murdered in
December of twenty thirteen. So in twenty fourteen, I mean,
the case goes cold publicly and Nathan remains a person
(24:03):
of interest, but no charges are filed.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I know that they did, because there's no evidence of it.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Well there's the GPA. It's all circumstantials, that's right. So
I do know that they tried to get an arrest
warrant and the prosecutor, the DA or whatever would not
sign because there's nothing, because it wouldn't sign off on it.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
So because is it? Because then it would go to
double jeopardy if you have charges brought and then they're dropped,
not drop but then then if you can't proceed, right, well,
if you proceed.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
And you're saying you found guilty, then you can't.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
No, you found guilty, I mean not guilty.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
It's sound not guilty, then you can't.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
But I passed the bar first time.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah, shut up, I just said it wrong, that's all.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
No. Anyway, Yeah, that's why they don't want to do it.
They don't like we want to. We want to save
it for when we have something to bite into and
to prosecute. Otherwise we're going to screw this up and
then he's going to walk free. Well.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Look, either here's the thing, this is the way I
look at it. Either someone is taking advantage of Nathan
being autistic and they're they're using him as a scapegoat. Yeah,
I don't know. Maybe, I mean maybe someone.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah, what if it's the mistress friend who's.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
No I feel like it. No, I feel like it's
someone in the family. I mean this family, says state family.
There's four daughters and they're all going to inherit this estate.
I'm saying everyone's pointing their finger at Nathan, at the
autistic kid. I'm saying, there are lots of people that
are gonna benefit from John Chocolos's death. So either Nathan
is a mastermind or Nathan I also feel like maybe Nathan.
(25:34):
It's like, let's blame everything on, you know, the kid
that can't really defend himself very well. So the case
goes cold with the grandfather, they can't arrest Nathan.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
The money goes to the mom.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yes, now we get to twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
That's a lot of free money.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Forty two million.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah, it's a lot of not enough to kill four though,
what would.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Be your standard, Chaine fifty million? Is that where you're at?
Is that your threshold?
Speaker 2 (26:08):
That's close? All right?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
So now we get to twenty sixteen, and this is
the death of Linda Carmen at Sea and this is
Nathan's mother. So on September seventeenth of twenty sixteen, around
eleven PM, Nathan and Linda depart from Rampoint Marina in
South Kingston, Rhode Island. They're going on a fishing excursion
on his boat, the Chicken Box. They were supposed to
(26:31):
arrive back by nine am the next day, and Linda
told her friends to call her if she had not
gotten back to them by noon that day. Now that's
September seventeenth. Now on September eighteenth, this is the following
day three of Linda's friends attempted to contact her, and
when they received no response, they reported the boat missing.
Now we go September eighteenth through the twenty fourth, so
(26:54):
we've got like six seven days here. The coast Guard
conducted a six day search and found no trace of Linda, Nathan,
or the boat. On September twenty fifth of twenty sixteen,
this is after seven days, Nathan is found alive and
a life raft one hundred nautical miles off the coast
of Martha's Vineyard by the crew of this it's like
(27:16):
a ship. It's a Chinese ship called the Orient Lucky.
It's a freight ship. And Linda and the boat were gone.
So lots to talk about with this because there's a
lot of people that feel.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Like it's sunken. Yes, not to be found, not to
be found, Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
So Nathan appeared extremely healthy for someone who had been
drifting in a life raft for a week. He didn't
look like he'd missed a meal, he was not dehydrated,
he had no sunburn. That's the one that gets me.
He had no sunburn, and he was able to use
his muscles and his fingertips with no issues. So they
made a video of him, so the orient Lucky sees
(27:54):
him floating out on a life raft. He says that
he was well prepared and that he had me inside
the life raft and he had a water he had
one of those things that turned salt water to regular
water filter some filter. Yeah, so it's very well prepared
with this life raft.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Good for him. Okay, shot him but right, so it's
like cooking there.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
He's got like a converter. Yeah, he's planning on spending a.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yeah, selfies.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
So also there is a video that that I watched
the show. It in the documentary of him being rescued,
and there's an expert that testifies that if you had
been floating in a raft, but could the life raft
sinks before they can find it and investigate it. So
they think that maybe he used a knife and put
holes in it so that it vanished before they could
(28:49):
pull it in and look at it and try to
determine how long it had actually been in the water
and see all the things. So they have no evidence.
So this life raft is in a video and and
it's gone and nobody has it so so seriously though,
so he's floating out there for seven days but then
it just it sinks.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Like I don't ask the orient Lucky what they did
with it.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Well, they didn't do it, well, they didn't. They just
called for the coastguard. So he's out floating in the water,
and then the coast guard comes.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Oare and the coast guard secure it.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
They threw like one of those rings out to him,
and he climbs out of the life Yeah, and he
climbs out of his life raft and swims to it,
grabs onto it, and then pulls himself onto the coast guard.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
And I don't want to say what the coastguard's responsibilities are,
but you would think they would also get the raft.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
That's what I'm saying. But they couldn't because apparently it's.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
So in that time period was already sinking.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yes, so that's what I'm saying, very smart, Yes, in
the time period.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
It's no dummy. Right.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
So I'm saying, either this guy is a diabolical genius
or like he's just getting screwed. I don't know so far.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
The way you've described, he's been floating for seven days
at least that was what he claims. That could have
been one day, who knows, seven days, but then what
was his well, seven days or one day, what was
his plan? Did he know the orient? Luck, he's like
like expressway, which way they go? And he's like, I'm
going to run into them and then they're going to
call the coast guard.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yeah. The prosecution actually claims that like he would have known,
you know, that he drove the boat out to a
specific spot that he knew the Orient was going to pass.
And then his defense attorney is like, you know, you
might as well say he killed JFK because that's ridiculous,
like no one can figure all those things out, but
they claimed that he did that. He sunk the boat,
(30:38):
murdered his mom.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
You know, yeah, how would that be? As like, if
you're the client, you're like, my defense is attorney say,
I'm not smart enough to figure that out?
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Well I would, yeah, but that's I mean, for you
to figure out like where to take the.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Boat to it is a lot. If it looks like
my attorney says, that just played dumb.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah, all right. So the point is they were they
were saying an expert was saying that there's no way
he could have floated in this raft for seven days
and hit and his fingers would have worked. He was
saying he wouldn't be able to walk from the video.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Of about his mom's missing.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Well, let's get into this. So, twelve hours after their
trip began, Nathan claims that the boat had a malfunctioning
belt in its engine area and began capsizing, and the
ensuing struggle, he didn't place the distress call and lost
track of Linda. See that's the other thing. Apparently, and
I don't know. I'm not a boat person, but apparently
there's established that. Yes, there's I didn't grow up on boats.
There's two ways, right, there's two ways.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
There's like Shannon, I know I should ask, grew up
on boat.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Always grew up on boats. Yes, I guess as soon
as the boat, as soon as he noticed that there's
water and the boat is sinking, there's a way to
make an immediate distress call.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Yeah. Usually there's like a well my limited knowledge is
like a device you can pull and it sends a
distress call right for everyone, Right, it's like an SOS signal.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Right, he didn't do that.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Cash on everyone's radio weight radios.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, so he did not do that, and he also
didn't call, you know, the coast.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Guard say the boat. Was it weather or no.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
He claims that he claims that he noticed that there
was something wrong with the engine and that he looks
into it and then all of a sudden, he saw
water rising. Oh, and he said, is like he I just.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Started from his point, he just started sinking, right.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
But people say that doesn't happen. I don't know. But
then they ask, you know, like where's your mother at
this time? And he claims that he didn't want his
mom to get distressed by the boat sinking, so he
told her to pull the fishing line smothered her. So
he said, he told her to pull the fishing lines
in and then he basically makes it just like the
boat just sunk, Welle, immediately.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
I imagine its snowballs, like it's slowly. I've seen the
Titanic a few times and it's slow and all a sudden.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
That's the way he made it sound. So he says
he told ABC News reporters quote, I got on board
the life raft and was looking around and I was
calling out to my mom. I did not see or
hear my mom, and I was blowing the whistle with
three loud, short bursts, which is a distress signal. I
assumed that as she had been on the surface and conscious,
that she would have been calling out to me and
I would have been able to find her. But I
didn't know why that hadn't happened. So this is another
(33:14):
thing that I think is a little suspicious, is that
this boat is not a huge boat. It's not a yacht.
It's a thirty foot fishing boat. So you're going to
tell me that it starts to sink and you can't
tell where your mother is on this boat anywhere. You
don't see her or hear her or anything. That that
part doesn't make any sense to me at all. It
doesn't seem logical. But I don't I mean, I've never
(33:37):
sunk on a boat before either, so I don't know.
Maybe it's loud, maybe it's chaotic. Maybe she could disappear
under the water really quickly. I don't know. I just
feel like someone would have.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Been Maybe he just but as we have some experience,
because we've been doing researchly, maybe he wasn't processing it
so well, like it's sinking, but the urgency wasn't felt
as you were, Like you would feel the urgency more
than me. You'd be panicky, like when when there's turbulence
(34:06):
on a plane, you're peeing your pants almost. I hate turbulence, right, Yeah,
other people don't see the urgency. Maybe he with his
emotional and mental state, doesn't since the urgency the same,
and then it's too late.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Yeah. Also, and this is a very interesting point.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Can you say that was a good point.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
I mean that was a very good point. When Nathan
was found, pictures showed him on a perfectly inflated life raft,
but as soon as he jumped off, the raft quickly
deflated and got swallowed up by the ocean. We talked
about that Nathan was found with a knife in his pocket,
leading people to believe that he destroyed that evidence on purpose.
And again the reason right because then I think if
they would have had the life raft as evidence, they
(34:47):
probably could have.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Been answered some questions.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Whether it had actually.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Bloods all over here, what's going.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
On, yeah, DNA, the mom's DNA DNA, whether it had
been floating in the ocean for seven days, Whether he
had murdered his mom through or overboard and then just
jumped in the life rout.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
So do you have any evidence on him, like did
they do his fingernails and all that stuff or.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
No, but this is it. This is what was damning
against him. Prior to the fishing trip, a witness saw
Nathan drilling holes into his boat and removing the trim tabs.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
So I didn't know, what, how didn't you miss all
this stuff the first time you watched it.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
I didn't miss it. I only got through a very
small amount in the beginning where I felt badly for
him and I felt like he was being unfairly judged.
And then I watched it the whole way and I
was like, tang, maybe he did do it. He seems
to be.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
So the first time you watched it all the way through, yeah,
you concluded with maybe he did it.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Yes, I'm saying when I watched the first thirty minutes,
I felt like he was being unfairly judged because of
the because of his autism. But then when I watched
the whole thing, I thought, dang, this is a lot
of evidence against him. Or there's someone out there that's
so smart. That's that's I don't know. Managed to well.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
The end of the story is what's kind of heartbreaking
for me.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Keep going, Okay, So witnesses saw him on the dock
before they went on the fishing trip. I guess there's
these things called trim tabs. Again, I don't know what
that is, but he removed them from the boat. And
then when he removed them from the boat, there were
like four holes and he filled the holes in with putty.
But people were saying he didn't fill them in correctly,
and that led to, you know, the boat not being
(36:28):
seaworthy and probably sinking. So the question is did he
do it on purpose because he wanted the boat to sink,
or was he trying to do something to his boat
and he just didn't know how to do it.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
You know, what I'm thinking is forty two million dollars
and they just have a little crappy boat.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah, I know, Well I don't.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Know if I had forty two million dollars, what kind
of boat would you make me get?
Speaker 1 (36:48):
You Well, that's because i'm your wife and I sleep
with you, so I would get a much better boat.
But Nathan's a grandchild, so he gets the chicken pox.
So there's a drift analysis, which I didn't know if
this was junk science or not, because you know, in
prior cases there's been things that have been determined to
be junk science, which is like bitemarks. Did you know
that if you watch the Innocence Files.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Is junk science.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
It's like bitemark evidence is now considered junk science. So
I was wondering if drift analysis is also considered Why
I think.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
It's junk science because a lot of like, there's no standards.
I think there's no standards that have been placey of
these dentists who just kind of like you have people
that can have opinions, but there's no standards that they're
following to be qualified, like, you know, so it's sloppy.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
So an oceanographer who analyzed Nathan's alleged drift from the
from the location of his claim sinking to where his
boat was actually found said that the path did not
make sense given the wind and the ocean currents. So
I guess with drift analysis, what they do is they
go back and they look at the currents, the winds
of science.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
You know why, I think that's junk science because they
do that all the time to try to look for
things and they never find them. Yeah, that's true, Well,
then what good did that do?
Speaker 1 (38:01):
So Nathan's defense team claimed drift analysis is junk science.
But is that true. In forensic context, such as locating
missing persons or wreckage at sea, drift analysis more properly
called drift modeling or search and rescue modeling is considered
a legitimate and valuable scientific tool. However, I mean, I
do know the Titanic sunk in like nineteen twelve, but
it took them until nineteen eighty.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Ry deep and the technology to be able to go
down there. Yeah, but it doesn't matter. What about when
they're like, oh, this person's missing and they were last
seen here, and then they try to follow the currents
and this and that, then they can't find it. It is,
which it is tough to do. I mean, remember castaway
they did never found them.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
That's not a true story. No, but that's a work
that's Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
But it's very a very believable story.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
A drift analysis also uses established principles of oceanography, meteorology,
and physics, like when currents and tides to estimate probable
locations or origins. I think that there is some again
very well, there are variables that you could use to
determine maybe where it could have ended up. But at
the end of the day, I don't know if it's
(39:07):
an exact science. So so two weeks after Nathan was rescued, Okay,
this is where Nathan went wrong. Two weeks after his rescue,
he files an eighty five thousand dollars insurance claim for
his lost boat, but the company denied the claim, alleging
it sank directly or indirectly due to his faulty repairs.
And what happened is this is why they ended up
charging him with murder. Is because the insurance company did
(39:29):
their due diligence and did a bunch of investigating onto
the ship. They they you know, they interviewed witnesses. They
didn't want to pay.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
The sloppy repairs. Yes, okay, so.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
I'm saying if he would have not filed the eighty
five thousand dollars, I don't think.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
He would have been he went wrong there, but there's
no way someone would think, well, wait a minute, what
the insurance can he does an investigation and then the
cops get a hold of that. I mean, no one would.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Have thought that.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
You're saying that I've been to his demise.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yes, I'm saying if he just would have let the
boat go because he's going to inherit seven million or
whatever his mom's interest is.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
It's his mom's interest. Wasn't forty two million?
Speaker 1 (40:08):
She's got four sisters. Oh yeah, yeah, she's not going
to inherit all of it. Okay, Yeah, I think it's
seven okay, plus taxes, So I think it ends up
in seven. Don't they take a ton of taxes out
of your inheritance inheritance tax, Yes, so I think it's
seven million. But I'm saying if he would have just
waited for the seven million, that was probably going to ree.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
He went for the ball.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
He wanted the eighty five thousand for the boat. They
do all their investigating.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Well, you know, all right, Note to Emily if I
die in a if I drive off a cliff, yeah,
don't file insurance claim for my car.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Not if I'm involved in you driving off the cliff.
That's what I'm saying, all right. So in July seventeenth
of twenty seventeen, this is after his mother has died
at sea, the Chacalo's sisters petitioned in New Hampshire Probate
Court to declare their nephew, Nathan Carmen, their father's murderer.
Nathan repeatedly denies the involvement. So in this now we
(41:05):
go all the way to twenty twenty two, a federal
grand jury indicts Nathan for murder on the High Seas.
If he's convicted of murder on the High Seas, Carmen
would face a mandatory life imprisonment. And also he's indicted
for fraud and inheritance related offenses. The fraud charges each
carry a potential penalty of up to thirty years of imprisonment.
(41:25):
So he ends up being indicted for the murder of
his mother on the sea. I believe based upon the
investigating that the insurance company did, because I don't think
that they the I'm sure they had suspicions, but I
don't think they were going to arrest him or the
police were going to arrest him for their mother's was there.
(41:45):
But then when the insurance company really dug into it
and was interviewing witnesses and you know, the repairs that
he did and not reaching, not doing the distress signal,
and then they did all the analysis on the drift
and they had all the experts and everything, I think
that's when that's when the police were arrested or interesting
they had, Yeah, they had an indictment for him for
(42:06):
murdering his mother. Also, the sisters filed for a slayer
statue and I looked it up. A slayer statute is
when you cannot benefit, which makes sense.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Yeah, you can't be a financial beneficiary, right if you're.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
The murder if you're the murderer exactly. And I was wondering,
is it called a slayer statue because you actually slay.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Someone or it was named after the band or that.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
But there are twenty three states that have slayer statutes
in place, so the state fifty has right, I know,
there's only twenty three.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Plus DC California one of them.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
I don't know if California is one of them, so
but you need to look that up.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
We're moving quickly.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
But if not, then you have to use common law,
you know, a precedent to determine that you can't. You
can't enrichly, you know, be unjustly enriched by someone's you know,
murder that you caused. So all right. In twenty of
twenty three, this is June fifteenth of twenty twenty three,
Nathan Carmen has found unresponsive in his cell at the
Cheshire County Jail in New Hampshire, where he was being
(43:07):
held pre trial. Prior to his trial, Nathan is pronounced
dead by suicide. This occurs before the trial, meaning that
no criminal conviction was ever entered, and the federal prosecution
ends immediately. Civil claims remain, but cannot proceed against him criminally,
So John Chocolos and Linda Carmon's deaths remain officially unsolved,
(43:27):
but investigators and prosecutors assert Nathan was responsible for both
and his aunts. You know, his whole family abandoned him.
There wasn't a single family member that didn't think that
Nathan was responsible for not only his grandfather's death, but
also his mom's death, which also made me I don't
That's where I also felt as if, I don't know,
(43:49):
maybe someone else was involved in it. That also, there
were four sisters, so there were three other sisters that
were going.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
To He.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Hung himself with shoelaces, which I don't understand how you
do that either, But that's what I read that complicated.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
What do you mean?
Speaker 1 (44:03):
I don't I don't feel I don't.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Know maybecause I mean the strength of it or something.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Well, I'm just looking, I'm thinking about myself and I'm
thinking How could a shoe string hold me up?
Speaker 2 (44:16):
But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
But that's that's that's the claim.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
That's the claim that it was shoes strings, and that
he hung himself in his jail.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Don't they usually have sandals and inmates have what sandals?
Speaker 1 (44:27):
What does sandals have to Oh? Hello, sandals? I thought
you meant some like them. They use the showers. I
didn't know what you were talking about. Yeah, okay, so
they don't have shoe strings. I don't know where he
got the shoe strings. I don't know. I mean, they
have all kinds of illegal contraband in prison.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
Shoelaces are illegal contraband.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yeah, I guess I don't know. Anyway, what do you think?
Do you think that him killing himself shows his guilt
or do you think he was just a disturbed.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Good If he's guilty, he killed himself. Now his mom
and grandfather dead and he's dead. If he's not guilty,
that's pretty troubling to know that. Emotionally, it put him
in a state where he felt trapped and unheard and
you know, and didn't want to.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
Misjudged and his family abandoned.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
Yeah, that was probably quite overwhelming.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
Yeah all right, Well, if you guys have the opportunity
to watch, it's called.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
And on that note, yeah, well that's how we ended.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
That's how it ended. He's he committed suicide. So this
is a case. So we'll never know now that now.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
That he's all parties are gone.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Yeah, so we'll never know exactly what happened. But I
don't know. If you get the opportunity to watch it,
I would love to hear your thoughts. You can always
DM me on Instagram and let me know what you think,
and also you can always send recommendations of cases that
you would like Shane and I to discuss. So thank
you so much for listening. And also just a reminder
that we are on our own feed legally Brunette, so
(45:53):
if you are not listening to us there, please make
sure you do that and leave a review. And we
appreciate you so much. Thank you, Thank you people,
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