Trial begins over insurance for 'suspicious' boat sinking

A civil trial getting underway in Providence will determine whether insurance companies should cover Nathan Carman's $85,000 claim for his boat that sank off New England in 2016.

Insurers are refusing to pay the claim, saying Carman made suspicious alterations to the 31-foot vessel before leaving Rhode Island with his mother on a fishing trip.

Carman, who lives in Vermont, was found eight days later in a life raft near Martha's Vineyard.

Linda Carman is presumed dead.

Brian Woods, a Massachusetts man who sold the boat to Nathan Carman in 2015, testified on Tuesday he was concerned about Carman's apparent "lack of respect for the ocean."

Carman's lawyer, David Anderson, said in his opening statement that Woods took advantage of his client.

Carman has denied doing anything to make the boat unseaworthy.

Nathan Carman has also been named a "person of interest" in the 2013 shooting death of his 87-year-old grandfather in Connecticut.

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