Premiere: Netflix’s New True Crime Doc Dives Into a Mother’s Mysterious Disappearance

The victim’s sister called it “one big Greek tragedy”—and she meant it.

In September 2016, Nathan Carman took off in a fishing boat with his mother near Block Island. A few days later, a freighter spotted Nathan on a life raft off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. He was rescued. His mother, Linda, was never found.

Such begins the story of The Carman Family Deaths, Netflix’s latest true crime documentary, based on a 2021 WIRED feature by Evan Lubofsky. Carman was, according to his father, the “first-born grandson of a Greek dynasty,” and when questions began to emerge following his rescue, suspicions arose that what happened at sea wasn’t what he claimed.

Carman’s grandfather, Linda’s father, had been shot and killed several years before and there was a lot of money at stake. For the weeks following Carman’s rescue, the story made headlines as investigators tried to piece together what happened. Some thought Carman’s version of events didn’t add up, but his defenders pointed to the fact that he had autism spectrum disorder and could often be misunderstood.

In 2022, nearly a year after WIRED published its story about the Carman family, Nathan Carman was charged with killing his mother in an alleged attempt to inherit his family’s vast estate.

Directed by Yon Motskin, who made the UFO sighting documentary Encounters, The Carman Family Deaths is produced by Jesus Camp directors Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing and WIRED Studios. The film lands on Netflix on November 19. Watch the first trailer for the documentary below.