MIDDLETOWN — The Middletown mother presumed dead after an ordeal at sea attacked her father in 2011, her attorney said. Linda Carman, 54, was a suspect in her wealthy father's murder case, according to her former lawyer Gerald Klein, who said he represented her.
Klein said he also represented Carman for a charge for assaulting her father. She was charged with assaulting a senior citizen, according to Klein, but the charges were dismissed.
Linda took a lie detector test, even though her lawyer advised her not to. “She decided she was going to take it. And she told me that, she thanked me for my advice and said I'm going in there to take it,” Klein said. She told her lawyer she passed the test. “Once a criminal case has been dismissed no one's ever going to get a police report,” Klein said. “You can answer no if you're asked under oath if you've ever been arrested. They wouldn’t know about the charges against her.”
The last time he spoke to her was seven months ago.
Thursday night, police executed a search warrant at Linda Carman's home. Officers from South Kingstown, Rhode Island, accompanied by local police, were seen removing bags, envelopes and boxes from the 54-year-old woman's house.
South Kingstown police have previously said they are investigating "the facts and circumstances" surrounding Carman's disappearance.
Carman and her 22-year-old son, Nathan, left a South Kingstown marina on Sept. 18. Nathan Carman was found alone in a life raft on Sunday, Sept. 25 about 100 miles from the coast. The twenty-two-year-old was picked up by a passing freighter after what he said was a week adrift that began when his aluminum fishing boat sank during a mother-and-son fishing trip.
He told the Coast Guard their 31-foot boat sank and he doesn't know what happened to his mother. She is presumed dead. Police also have searched Nathan Carman's Vernon, Vermont, home. He said suspicions about his account of the sinking of his boat are compounding his grief over the apparent drowning of his mother.
Documents reveal Nathan Carman was also the suspect in the unsolved murder of his grandfather, but was never charged.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
