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

The victim’s sister called it “a great Greek tragedy” – and she meant it.

In September 2016, Nathan Carman took off on 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 saved. His mother, Linda, has never been found.

So begins the story of The deaths of the Carman familyNetflix’s latest true crime documentary, based on a 2021 WIRED feature film by Evan Lubofsky. Carman was, according to his father, the “eldest grandson of a Greek dynasty”, and when questions began to emerge after his rescue, suspicions arose that what had happened at sea was not what he claimed.

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

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

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