Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / The Nolan Wells Investigation - Search for Truth and the Phone

Transcript

The Nolan Wells Investigation - Search for Truth and the Phone · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: You know, usually when we talk about like a medical diagnosis,
0:02
there's this ingrained expectation of precision. Right, yeah, it feels
0:06
like engineering almost. Yeah, Like you break your arm, the
0:09
x ray shows that jagged white line. The doctor just
0:12
points to the film and says, you know, there it is.
0:14
Speaker 2: That's the problem, exactly, It's visible. I mean, we crave
0:17
that categorization because it gives us a clear path forward, right,
0:20
broken or unbroken, sick or healthy.
0:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, But when you take that desire for a really clean,
0:27
binary answer and force it into the world of forensic
0:31
investigations or digital data and legal jurisdictions.
0:34
Speaker 3: Oh, it falls apart completely. Yeah, that X ray machine
0:38
completely shatters. We end up looking at a landscape that
0:41
is just the absolute definition of diagnostic muddy waters.
0:45
Speaker 2: It really is.
0:46
Speaker 1: And that is exactly where we find ourselves today, wading
0:49
into this incredibly complex, highly publicized investigation into the tragic
0:54
death of Nolan Wells. Right.
0:56
Speaker 2: And you know, it's a case that has captured just
0:58
an enormous amount of public a tame tension, and the
1:01
source material we are dissecting for our deep dive today
1:04
is a prime example of why.
1:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's wild.
1:06
Speaker 2: We are looking at a very dense, super high stakes
1:10
transcript from a true crime television segment. It was hosted
1:13
by Nancy Grace.
1:14
Speaker 1: Okay, so you know it's intense.
1:16
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely. You have a whole panel of legal experts,
1:20
medical investigators, and digital forensic specialists, and they're all fiercely
1:24
debating this very confusing timeline surrounding Nolan's disappearance.
1:29
Speaker 1: So, just to set the baseline for what we are
1:31
actually looking at here for you listening, Nolan Wells went
1:34
on a trip to Horn Island with a group of.
1:36
Speaker 2: Friends on a boat called the Triton.
1:38
Speaker 1: Right, the Triton and the friends eventually returned from that trip,
1:41
but Nolan did not. Yeah, his body was tragically discovered later.
1:45
And now in the wake of that horrific outcome, this massive,
1:50
multifaceted dispute has just erupted everywhere where. Everywhere, We're seeing
1:54
these bitter arguments over a missing cell phone, boats that
1:58
haven't been searched, and vastly different interpretations of what it
2:02
actually means to quote unquote cooperate with a police investigation.
2:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you really see this tension playing out live
2:09
in the transcript. I mean, you have lawyers representing the
2:13
young men who are on the boat, and then you
2:15
have commentators fiercely defending those young men, right. But then
2:19
on the other side, you have civil rights attorneys representing
2:22
Nolan's grieving.
2:23
Speaker 1: Family pulling in totally different directions.
2:25
Speaker 2: Exactly, they are pulling the narrative entirely opposite ways, basically
2:30
utilizing the media to build their respective cases in the
2:33
court of public opinion.
2:34
Speaker 1: Which means we need to set a very hard rule
2:37
for our conversation today. Definitely, the media landscape surrounding this
2:41
case is already totally saturated with vitriol, wild accusations in
2:46
Internet sleuths who have decided they know exactly what happened
2:50
based on like a thirty second video they saw.
2:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, the armchair detectives.
2:55
Speaker 1: Right, And we are not here to take sides. We
2:57
are not playing armchair detective, and we are absolutely not
3:00
casting blame on a grieving mother or the young men
3:03
who are on that vessel.
3:04
Speaker 2: No, not at all.
3:05
Speaker 1: Our sole mission today is to cut through that deafening noise.
3:09
We want to extract the fascinating legal, digital and forensic
3:14
realities that are operating beneath the surface of this tragedy.
3:18
Speaker 2: Because those underlying mechanisms, you know, the way data is stored,
3:22
the way warrants are executed, the actual microscopic science of
3:25
an autopsy. All of that operates entirely independent of public outrage.
3:30
Speaker 1: It doesn't care about Twitter trends.
3:32
Speaker 2: No, it doesn't. They follow strict rules, and understanding those
3:35
rules completely changes how you view the arguments happening on television.
3:39
Speaker 1: So let's test that starting with the very first major
3:42
battleground we see in this transcript, because it isn't about
3:45
the physical water, or the currents, or even the boat itself.
3:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it starts with the tech exactly.
3:50
Speaker 1: The first war being waged is entirely digital. It is
3:54
the battle over Nolan's cell phone.
3:56
Speaker 2: It is the absolute anchor point for the suspicion we
3:59
see in the material.
4:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, the conflict is laid out really starkly on one side.
4:03
The friends from the boat are represented by a lawyer
4:05
named Tyler Cox, and their actions are also being heavily
4:09
defended in the segment by a YouTube commentator named Brandon Tatum,
4:13
who brings a former law enforcement perspective.
4:17
Speaker 2: So his angle is very procedural, right, and.
4:20
Speaker 1: Their claim is straightforward. They state Nolan left his phone
4:24
on the boat period. They insist they did not have
4:27
his pass codes, they didn't touch or alter his data,
4:30
and they physically returned the device along with his keys,
4:34
directly to Nolan's mother, Christine.
4:36
Speaker 2: But the counter narrative comes from Nolan's family, who are
4:39
represented by Benjamin Crump. Okay, the family has voiced some
4:42
really deep suspicions that text messages or maybe snapchats might
4:46
have been deleted from that device while it was out
4:48
of Nolan's possession, you know, before it was handed over
4:51
to his mother.
4:51
Speaker 1: This prompts Brandon Tatum to throw a rather hairy accusation
4:54
back across the aisle. He actually claims the family is
4:57
the party stalling the investigation. Yeah, this big moment, because
5:01
they haven't handed the phone over to law enforcement for
5:04
a proper forensic extraction. He points out that the family's
5:08
lawyers keep saying they are quote prepared to cooperate, and
5:12
Tatum basically interprets that phrasing as legal double speak for
5:16
we are holding onto the evidence.
5:19
Speaker 2: Right, And this is exactly where Nancy Grace pushes back
5:22
incredibly hard. In the transcript.
5:24
Speaker 1: She doesn't hold back at all, not at all.
5:26
Speaker 2: She highlights this massive gap between public perception and legal reality.
5:31
She essentially points out that police do not operate on
5:34
an RSVP system.
5:35
Speaker 1: Oh I love that phrasing.
5:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, if law enforcement genuinely needs a piece of evidence,
5:40
they do not sit around waiting for a family to decide.
5:43
They are ready to, you know, cooperate, right.
5:46
Speaker 1: I found her pushback fascinating because she brings up the
5:48
concept of a subpoena duce's tikum. Yes, now, most of us,
5:52
if you consume any true crime, you know what a
5:55
standard subpoena is. You get handed a piece of paper,
5:57
you show up at a courthouse, you sit on a
5:59
wooden chair, and you answer questions under oath.
6:01
Speaker 2: The classic TV subpoena exactly.
6:04
Speaker 1: But this Latin phrase changes the game entirely, doesn't it.
6:08
Speaker 2: It really does. It changes it from a demand for
6:11
testimony to a demand for physical items. Okay, So a
6:15
subpoena duces tecum is a court order commanding a person
6:20
to produce documents, materials, or, in this specific instance, a
6:24
physical smartphone. Wow, and it is legally binding. You cannot
6:28
simply ignore it without risking contempt of court.
6:31
Speaker 1: But wait, if it's just a subpoena. Doesn't that still
6:34
leave room for the family's lawyers to like file motions
6:38
to quash it or delay it.
6:40
Speaker 2: Oh, for sure.
6:40
Speaker 1: It feels like a subpoena is just the opening volley
6:43
in a long legal tennis match. If the police really
6:45
thought a murder had occurred, they wouldn't use a subpoena,
6:48
would they.
6:49
Speaker 2: Well, you've hit the nail on the head right there.
6:50
Regarding the friction of the law here, a subpoena can
6:53
totally be fought in court.
6:55
Speaker 1: Right.
6:55
Speaker 2: But if law enforcement believes a crime has been committed,
6:58
if they have probable call, they bypass the subpoena process entirely.
7:03
Speaker 1: They just skip it.
7:04
Speaker 2: They skip it. They go straight to a magistrate, they
7:06
swear out an affidavit demonstrating that probable cause, and they
7:10
obtain a search warrant.
7:11
Speaker 1: And a search warrant is not a polite request to
7:14
show up at hearing next Tuesday.
7:16
Speaker 2: No, definitely not. A search warrant is officers showing up
7:19
at your door right now, legally empowered to seize the item,
7:23
regardless of who possesses it or how uncooperative they are being.
7:27
Speaker 1: So they just take it.
7:28
Speaker 2: They take it, so the fact that we are seeing
7:31
this prolonged public debate over who is holding the phone
7:35
suggests something critical about the state of the investigation. Whort's
7:38
that it implies that law enforcement, at least at the
7:42
time this segment aired, may not have had the requisite
7:45
probable cause to convince a judge to sign a warrant
7:49
for that seizure.
7:50
Speaker 1: Oh, that puts a completely different spin on Tatum's argument, then,
7:53
yes it does. He's kind of weaponizing the idea of
7:56
cooperation to make the family look suspicious while completely ignoring
8:00
the fact that if the police had solid evidence of
8:02
foul play, cooperation wouldn't even factor into the equation exactly.
8:06
Speaker 2: They would just take the phone. It's a masterful pr pivot, honestly,
8:10
But it ignores the constitutional mechanics of search and seizure.
8:14
Speaker 1: That is so interesting. But you know, even understanding the
8:17
legal mechanics doesn't really stop the public panic about the
8:21
data itself.
8:22
Speaker 2: Oh, people freak out about digital data.
8:24
Speaker 1: Throughout the whole transcript, there is this immense, palpable anxiety
8:29
about missing text messages and deleted snapchats. Yeah, and I
8:33
think this stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what deletion actually.
8:37
Speaker 2: Means oh absolutely.
8:38
Speaker 1: People think deleting a tax is like, I don't know,
8:40
throwing a sensitive document into an incinerator, like it's just ashes,
8:44
just gone right. But based on the experts in the segment,
8:48
isn't it much more like dropping a document into a
8:51
standard office shredder, completely forgetting that the IT department backed
8:55
up the entire server at three year am the night
8:57
before that.
8:58
Speaker 2: Analogy perfectly captures the re reality explained by Heather Barnhart
9:01
in the source material.
9:03
Speaker 1: Who is she?
9:03
Speaker 2: She's a digital forensic expert with Celebrate and the Sands Institute.
9:07
Speaker 1: Oh okay, so she knows her stuff.
9:09
Speaker 2: She really does, and her insights completely dismantle the nineteen
9:13
nineties concept of deleting a file. She draws a really
9:16
sharp distinction between cloud data and the physical file system
9:20
of the device, which is totally crucial for understanding this
9:23
battle over the physical phone.
9:25
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's talk about the cloud first. If I
9:27
take my smartphone right now and toss it into a lake,
9:29
the photos I took yesterday are still sitting on my.
9:31
Speaker 2: Tablet at home right exactly.
9:34
Speaker 1: So investigators don't need my physical phone to see a
9:36
huge portion of my life.
9:37
Speaker 2: They don't. Barnhart points out that if Nolan was sinking
9:40
his device to iCloud or you know, utilizing third party
9:44
applications that back up to remote servers, law enforcement can
9:48
execute a warrant on Apple or Google or Meta.
9:51
Speaker 1: Do they just go to the tech giants?
9:53
Speaker 2: Right? They can pull down a massive digital footprint without
9:56
ever touching the piece of glass and metal that was
9:58
left on the boat.
9:59
Speaker 1: Okay, If that that's true, then why is there such
10:01
an intense focus from both sides on the physical phone itself?
10:06
Why is Barnhardt so insistent that the physical device holds
10:09
the ultimate truth?
10:10
Speaker 2: Because the cloud is just a synchronized backup of the
10:12
user's intended files right right. The physical phone, though, contains
10:17
the hidden architecture of the user's behavior. Bernhardt explains this
10:22
concept of a full file system.
10:24
Speaker 1: Extraction that sounds intense.
10:26
Speaker 2: It is. This is where we get into the granular,
10:28
microscopic level of digital forensics. Inside the operating system of
10:33
a modern smartphone, there are these incredibly complex SQL databases.
10:38
Speaker 1: Okay, I hear SQL database and I instantly think of
10:41
like massive server farms in a warehouse, not something sitting
10:45
in my pocket.
10:46
Speaker 2: Right, But your phone is essentially a high powered computer
10:49
managing an endless stream of logs. When you press delete
10:52
on a text message, you are not actually wiping the
10:54
binary code of that message off the storage drive. Wait,
10:57
I'm not No, you are simply in directing the operating
11:00
system to remove the shortcut to that file, hiding it
11:04
from the user interface, wow, and marking that tiny sector
11:07
of the hard drive as available for overwrite.
11:09
Speaker 1: So it's like tearing the table of contents out of
11:11
a book. The chapter is still sitting there on page
11:14
one forty two. I just can't find it easily anymore
11:17
until I write a new chapter directly over it.
11:19
Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it. And until that
11:21
new data is written over it, the original data remains.
11:24
But it gets even deeper. Howso, Barnhardt notes that those
11:27
SEQL databases keep intricate, timestamped logs of every single action, everything, everything.
11:35
They record when an Apple was open, when the screen
11:37
was unlocked, and critically, they record the exact microsecond a
11:40
file was marked for deletion.
11:42
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. So if someone other than Nolan had
11:45
the phone and decided to scrub some text messages, the
11:48
forensic software doesn't just recover the message yep, it actually
11:52
shows the exact time the deletion command was executed exactly.
11:55
Speaker 2: It reveals what Barnhart calls the truth on deletion.
11:58
Speaker 1: Wow.
11:59
Speaker 2: So think about if the timeline shows Nolan was no
12:02
longer on the boat at four zero pm, but a
12:04
series of text messages were manually deleted from his phone
12:07
at four to one five pm.
12:10
Speaker 1: The digital footprint is a witness.
12:11
Speaker 2: An objective, unalterable witness to tampering. That is exactly why
12:17
the physical device is so highly coveted in these investigations.
12:21
The cloud shows you the photos, sure, but the full
12:23
filesystem extraction shows you the ghosts of the user's action.
12:27
Speaker 1: That is terrifyingly precise.
12:29
Speaker 2: It really is.
12:29
Speaker 1: But the transcript also spends a significant amount of time
12:32
discussing Snapchat.
12:34
Speaker 2: Right.
12:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Snapchat has built its entire billion dollar brand
12:39
on the premise of ephemeral.
12:40
Speaker 2: Messaging disappearing photos.
12:42
Speaker 1: Right. The whole selling point is that when the timer
12:44
runs out, the photo or the text vanishes forever. Surely
12:49
an app designed to defeat screenshots and logging is harder
12:52
to track.
12:53
Speaker 2: Well, you'd think so, But that is the marketing mythology
12:55
that Titania Jordan completely shatters in the segment.
12:58
Speaker 1: Who is Titania Jordan, Chief.
13:00
Speaker 2: Parent officer at Bark Parental Control, So she actively studies
13:03
the intersection of youth behavior and modern tech ecosystems okay,
13:07
and she points out a glaring loophole in the public's
13:10
understanding of this disappearing media.
13:12
Speaker 1: What's the loophole?
13:13
Speaker 2: Like?
13:13
Speaker 1: If I send a photo and it vanishes after ten seconds,
13:15
where does it go?
13:16
Speaker 2: The key is whether it has actually been opened. Jordan
13:19
explains that if a Snapchat is sent but the recipient
13:22
has not yet opened it, that file does not just
13:25
float out there in the ether. Where is it? It
13:27
sits fully intact and live on Snapchat's proprietary servers for
13:32
up to thirty days.
13:33
Speaker 1: The thirty days in internet time a month is a
13:36
glacial epoch.
13:38
Speaker 2: It is an absolute eternity, and unread text messages on
13:42
the platform operate under a similar retention policy. The idea
13:45
that a message is instantly incinerated the moment you hit
13:48
send is just technologically false.
13:50
Speaker 1: That blows my mind.
13:52
Speaker 2: Furthermore, she highlights a feature built right into Apple's operating
13:55
system that users constantly forget about when they panic, what
13:58
feature the deleted folder?
14:01
Speaker 1: Oh, right, the purgatory folder. I actually rely on that
14:04
because I constantly delete photos by accident.
14:06
Speaker 2: Most people do. When you delete a photo or a
14:08
video from your camera roll, the system doesn't immediately purge it.
14:11
It moves it to a hidden folder, where it just
14:14
sits for at least another thirty days before the OS
14:17
finally executes a permanent wipe.
14:19
Speaker 1: So Jordan's overarching point is that trying to outsmart a
14:22
modern smartphone is basically a fool's errand.
14:25
Speaker 2: Pretty much She even uses a really stark example in
14:28
the text. She tells parents that if they actually want
14:31
to dispose of old texts safely, throwing it in the
14:34
trash isn't nearly enough.
14:35
Speaker 1: What do you have to do?
14:36
Speaker 2: She says, they have to give it a water bath
14:38
to fry every component inside.
14:40
Speaker 1: Wow. So she's essentially saying that unless you physically destroy
14:44
the motherboard, an expert with Celebrate or similar software is
14:48
going to find the trail.
14:49
Speaker 2: That's the reality and the takeaway for anyone consuming true
14:53
crime media is that when commentators are screaming about deleted messages,
14:57
they are often operating on a really outdate like pre
15:01
smartphone understanding of technology.
15:03
Speaker 1: They still think we're using flop phones.
15:04
Speaker 2: Exactly in today's landscape. Leaving no digital footprint requires a
15:09
level of sophistication that is almost impossible to achieve in
15:12
a moment of panic. The phone is just a silent,
15:15
perfect witness.
15:16
Speaker 1: Okay, But the digital footprint is really only half the
15:19
battlefield in this transcript.
15:20
Speaker 2: Very true.
15:20
Speaker 1: The physical space is creating just as much chaos, specifically
15:24
regarding the boat itself, the Triton, And this is where
15:28
the public's understanding of the law seems to go completely
15:31
off the rails.
15:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, the boat serves as the second major proxy war
15:36
in the segment, and honestly, it's driven entirely by public
15:39
relations posturing.
15:40
Speaker 1: Right, So let's look at how Brandon Tatum frames the
15:42
narrative around the Triton. Okay, he comes onto the panel
15:46
and forcefully argues that the young men who were on
15:48
the boat have been incredibly cooperative, and his primary piece
15:53
of evidence for this is that they supposedly contacted the
15:55
family's lawyer, Benjamin Crump, and said, bring your cadaver dogs
16:00
down here and search our boat. And Tatum is absolutely
16:03
outraged because Crump apparently refused the offer. Tatum frames this
16:07
refusal as evidence that the family doesn't actually want the truth,
16:10
they just want a media circus.
16:12
Speaker 2: And you know, on the surface, to a layman watching television,
16:15
that sound like a devastating critique.
16:16
Speaker 1: Right. If you are a lawyer desperately searching for evidence
16:20
of what happened to a young man, why on earth
16:23
would you turn down a free pass to search the
16:25
very boat he vanished from.
16:27
Speaker 2: It sounds completely irrational. But why do we as the
16:30
public expect a private civil rights attorney to conduct a
16:34
physical search operation?
16:36
Speaker 1: Is this the CSI effect in action?
16:38
Speaker 2: I think so.
16:39
Speaker 1: Do we watch so many procedural dramas that we just
16:42
blur the lines between private grief, civil litigation, and actual
16:47
criminal jurisdiction, Like we expect the rogue lawyer to break
16:51
the rules, search the boat, find the clue, and confront
16:54
the villain in the courtroom.
16:55
Speaker 2: The CSI effect is undeniably at play here. Television conditions
16:59
us to view justice as this proactive, aggressive pursuit by
17:03
whoever cares the most. It completely ignores the constitutional framework
17:07
of the Fourth Amendment and the rigid rules of property law.
17:10
Speaker 1: Well, I love that Philip Dubay was on the panel.
17:12
He's a veteran defense attorney, and he provided a massive
17:15
reality check on this exact issue. He really did, because
17:18
if Benjamin Crump actually took them up on their offer
17:21
and walked onto the triton with a cadaver dog, what
17:25
is he legally doing?
17:26
Speaker 2: He is committing a crime exactly. Dubay makes it unequivocally
17:30
clear a private citizen, regardless of how famous they are
17:34
or who they represent, cannot simply authorize or execute a
17:39
scent dog search on someone else's private property.
17:42
Speaker 1: Wait, but if the friends explicitly invited him, like on
17:45
YouTube or something, isn't that consent?
17:47
Speaker 2: No, an informal offer made through the media or even
17:50
a verbal come on down is not a formal, legally
17:54
binding waiver of liability.
17:55
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, right, and.
17:57
Speaker 2: It's definitely not a documented consent to serve which executed
18:00
by an investigative body. Furthermore, think about the legal ramifications.
18:04
If Crump did find something. Oh boy, let's say he
18:06
brings a dog, the dog hits on a scent, and
18:08
Crump finds a piece of physical evidence.
18:10
Speaker 1: A defense attorney would have an absolute field day with that.
18:13
Speaker 2: They would shred it in court, they would argue that
18:16
the chain of custody was hopelessly compromised. They would argue
18:20
that a biased private party who isn't bound by police
18:23
procedure either planted or contaminated the evidence, so it would
18:27
just get thrown out almost certainly ruled and admissible.
18:31
Speaker 1: So Dubet is pointing out that only law enforcement has
18:33
this statutory authority to actually initiate these procedures. Yes, because
18:37
they are the only ones who can document the findings,
18:40
maintain the chain of custody, and ensure the evidence actually
18:44
survives a motion to suppress in a criminal trial exactly.
18:48
Speaker 2: This entire debate over the boat really highlights a massive
18:51
communication breakdown, but also a brilliant, if sort of cynical
18:57
pr maneuver. How so, well, the friends uses the offer
19:01
of the boat to appear super transparent and cooperative to
19:04
the public. Right, look, we offered exactly, and when the
19:07
family's lawyer rightfully declines to commit a trespassing violation and
19:11
ruin potential evidence, they spin that legal necessity into a
19:15
narrative of bad faith.
19:16
Speaker 1: It's a completely weaponized misunderstanding of the law, it really is.
19:20
But you know, it all cycles back to the same
19:22
foundational friction we discussed with the cell phone warrants. Yes,
19:26
if the police genuinely believed there was a body on
19:29
that boat or evidence of a murder, they wouldn't be
19:32
sitting around waiting for the friends to invite Benjamin crumpover.
19:35
Speaker 2: No, they wouldn't.
19:35
Speaker 1: They would secure a warrant, pull up with their own
19:37
canine units, and tear the boat apart entirely legally.
19:41
Speaker 2: Which brings us to the most crucial overarching question of
19:45
this entire investigation, the big one. Yeah, all of these
19:49
heated debates about digital extractions and subpoenas and cadaver dogs,
19:55
they hinge entirely on one specific determination was a Hi,
20:00
I'm actually committed.
20:01
Speaker 1: Right, you can investigate a murder if the state doesn't
20:04
legally recognize that a murder occurred.
20:06
Speaker 2: Precisely, the wheels of the criminal justice system do not
20:09
turn simply because a tragedy happened. They turn when there
20:12
is articulable suspicion of a criminal act.
20:15
Speaker 1: And this leads us directly into the medical puzzle.
20:17
Speaker 2: This is where it gets really scientific, because in the transcript,
20:21
Brandon Tatum floats a theory that sort of explains the
20:24
lack of aggressive police action.
20:27
Speaker 1: He suggests that law enforcement might just be viewing Nolan's
20:30
death strictly as an accidental drowning, right, and if they
20:34
view it as an accident, there is no underlying crime,
20:38
which means no warrants for phones, no kicking down doors,
20:42
and no tearing apart the triton.
20:44
Speaker 2: And I mean it is a logical deduction based on
20:47
the outward appearance of the police activity, but it reveals
20:50
really fundamental misunderstanding of forensic pathology.
20:54
Speaker 1: So to untangle this, this segment brings in Joe Scott Morgan. Yes,
20:58
and for anyone unfamiliar with him, this is a man
21:00
with over ten thousand death investigations under his belt. He's
21:03
seen everything as a professor of forensics. Yeah, when he speaks,
21:05
he kind of strips away all the emotion and brings
21:07
a very sobering scientific reality to the discussion.
21:11
Speaker 2: And the most vital distinction Morgan makes, and honestly, this
21:14
is a concept that anyone following true crime needs to
21:16
permanently lock into their brain, is the difference between the
21:19
mechanism of death and the manner of death.
21:21
Speaker 1: Let's really dig into that, because I think the media
21:23
and the public use those two words completely interchangeably, and
21:27
it causes just massive confusion.
21:29
Speaker 2: They are entirely different concepts. In forensic science, Okay, break
21:32
it down, the cause or mechanism of death is the
21:35
strict physiological derangement that results in the cessation of life.
21:39
It is just the biological reality of the body's failure.
21:42
Speaker 1: So in the case of a drowning, the mechanism is
21:45
that water fills the lungs, the alveola canotics change oxygen,
21:49
the brain is deprived of oxygen, and the heart stops right.
21:52
The mechanism is literally just assyxiation by submersion.
21:56
Speaker 2: Correct. That is simply what happened biologically. But the manner
21:59
of death is the context of how that mechanism.
22:02
Speaker 1: Came to be ah context.
22:04
Speaker 2: Forensic science generally recognizes five manners of death, natural, accidental suicide, homicide,
22:11
and undetermined.
22:12
Speaker 1: So determining that the mechanism is drowning does not automatically
22:15
mean the manner is an accident, not.
22:17
Speaker 2: At all, and Morgan provides some really vivid examples to
22:20
illustrate how complex this extrapolation can be.
22:23
Speaker 1: What does he say?
22:24
Speaker 2: He points out that a person could suffer a severe
22:26
incapacitating head injury, say perhaps from a blunt four strike. Okay,
22:32
they become unconscious and they fall over the side of
22:35
a boat into the water. Because their autonomic nervous system
22:38
is still functioning, they attempt to breathe, They inhale water,
22:42
and they die.
22:43
Speaker 1: Wow, And the autopsy would show the exact same mechanism.
22:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, drowning, But the manner of death in that scenario
22:49
is homicide because the blunt force strike initiated the chain
22:52
of events.
22:53
Speaker 1: Right.
22:53
Speaker 2: Morgan actually notes that water is frequently weaponized in homicides. Conversely,
22:58
he mentions cases where an individual might suffer a sudden
23:01
cardiac event or simply pass out face down in a
23:04
shallow mud puddle and drown.
23:06
Speaker 1: Just terrible luck.
23:07
Speaker 2: Right, The biological mechanism is identical. The legal reality is
23:12
the difference between a tragic accident and.
23:14
Speaker 1: A murder trial, which completely undercuts the assumption that he drowned.
23:18
Automatically means there's.
23:19
Speaker 2: No foul play exactly.
23:21
Speaker 1: But you know, to be fair to the narrative Tatum
23:23
is pushing, it doesn't automatically prove foul play either. It's
23:26
just a biological fact waiting for context.
23:28
Speaker 2: Context that is currently missing, which is why the autopsy
23:32
process is so frustratingly slow for the public. The source
23:36
material notes that the medical examiners currently have Nolan's cause
23:40
of death listed as undetermined.
23:42
Speaker 1: And nothing drives the internet crazier than the word undetermined.
23:46
Speaker 3: Hmm.
23:46
Speaker 2: People lose their mind.
23:47
Speaker 1: People immediately assume it means the medical examiner is incompetent
23:51
or worse, that there's some active cover up going on. Right,
23:54
So what is the science actually doing while the public
23:57
is screaming for answers?
23:58
Speaker 2: They're waiting for the mic chroscopic and chemical architecture of
24:02
the body to reveal its secrets. The transcript explicitly mentions
24:06
they are waiting on talks and histo reports.
24:08
Speaker 1: Let's break down why these tests take so long. I
24:11
know tox means toxicology, but I think the public assumes
24:14
a tox screen is like a breathalyzer test.
24:16
Speaker 2: Like instant results.
24:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, like you run through a machine and it spits
24:19
out a receipt five minutes later. Why does toxicology actually
24:23
take weeks?
24:23
Speaker 2: Because a post mortem toxicology screen is an incredibly complex
24:28
chemical analysis. They aren't just looking for alcohol.
24:31
Speaker 1: What are they looking for?
24:32
Speaker 2: They are utilizing gas chromatography and mass spectrometry to break
24:36
down blood, urine and tissue samples at a molecular level.
24:40
Oh wow, they are looking for thousands of potential foreign substances,
24:45
prescription medications, illicit narcotics, designer drugs, or even obscure poisons.
24:51
Speaker 1: That's a lot to test for it.
24:52
Speaker 2: And furthermore, they have to determine not just what was
24:55
in the system, but the concentration. They need to know
24:58
if the levels were high enough to impair judgment or
25:00
cause unconsciousness, or directly contribute to the physiological failure. Quantifying
25:05
those exact levels and having the results peer reviewed by
25:08
another toxicologist to ensure they hold up in court takes weeks.
25:12
It takes time to be right exactly.
25:14
Speaker 1: And what about histo? What is histology adding to this puzzle.
25:17
Speaker 2: Histology is the microscopical examination of the body's tissues. They
25:21
are slicing organs incredibly thin, mounting them on slides, and
25:25
looking at the cellular level.
25:27
Speaker 1: What are they to find?
25:28
Speaker 2: Well Morgan specifically mentions they are looking at inner ear fluid,
25:32
which can contain diatoms or other indicators of the specific
25:35
environment where the drowning occurred.
25:37
Speaker 1: Oh, like to see if you drowned in the ocean
25:39
versus a bathtub.
25:40
Speaker 2: Precisely. They are also examining the brain for swelling.
25:43
Speaker 1: What does brain swelling tell them?
25:45
Speaker 2: It can indicate how long the brain was deprived of
25:48
oxygen before a death, or it could show microscopic evidence
25:52
of a traumatic brain injury that wasn't visible, like as
25:54
a skull fracture. Wow, they are literally looking at the
25:58
cellular architecture to Reconstruckt Nolan's final moments.
26:01
Speaker 1: It's a really stark contrast between the demands of the
26:04
media and the demands of science. Very much so, we
26:08
want the one hour TV procedural where the quirky lab
26:11
tech holds up a test tube with a neon liquid
26:14
and says he was poisoned at precisely four point one point.
26:17
Speaker 2: Five PM, right the TV magic.
26:19
Speaker 1: But science is completely indifferent to our impatience. The medical
26:22
examiner has to sit with that undetermined label, absorbing all
26:26
the public criticism because they cannot legally or ethically leap
26:29
ahead of the microscopic data.
26:31
Speaker 2: Morgan stresses that forensic pathology requires ultimate objectivity. The medical
26:36
examiner must look at the science entirely separate from the
26:39
noisy rumors of the friends, or the family's lawyers or
26:42
the television commentators. The body is the only witness that
26:46
never lies. But it speaks a very slow, very complex language.
26:51
Speaker 1: And when science takes too long to translate that language,
26:55
human impatience inevitably looks for shortcuts.
26:58
Speaker 2: Always.
26:58
Speaker 1: We don't want to wait for gascro photography. We want
27:01
a machine with a red light for lie and a
27:03
green light for truth exactly, which brings us to one
27:06
of the most volatile parts of the Nancy Grace segment,
27:09
the massive disagreement over light detectors AH.
27:11
Speaker 2: The narrative surrounding these tests shifts so dramatically in real
27:15
time during the broadcast.
27:16
Speaker 1: It's fascinating to watch. Brandon Tatum comes on very confidently
27:20
and claims that the young man on the boat took
27:22
and passed polygraph tests.
27:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was very adamant.
27:26
Speaker 1: He emphasizes that they did this without lawyers present, framing
27:29
it is the ultimate proof of their cooperation in innocence.
27:32
Speaker 2: But then Nancy Grace begins to cross examine him on
27:35
that specific claim, and the foundation of his argument just
27:38
begins to crumble.
27:40
Speaker 1: She pushes him really hard, and he is forced to backtrack.
27:45
He admits that, okay, it wasn't actually a traditional polygraph,
27:48
it was something called a computer voice stress analysis, or CVSA,
27:52
and then, under further pressure, he admits that one of
27:56
the main friends, a young man named Warren, didn't actually
27:59
take the test at all.
28:00
Speaker 2: It is a textbook example of how misinformation metastasizes in
28:04
high profile cases. It really is, and nuanced partial reality
28:08
morphs into a blanket rumor of they passed Lie detector tests,
28:12
and that rumor becomes accepted public fact until someone forces
28:15
a strict definition of the terms on live television.
28:19
Speaker 1: So let's provide that strict definition. What is the actual
28:22
difference between these two controversial instruments. Why does it matter
28:25
if it was a traditional polygraph versus a CVSA.
28:28
Speaker 2: Because they operate on completely different physiological assumptions.
28:32
Speaker 1: Okay, how so a.
28:33
Speaker 2: Traditional polygraph, you know the classic machine you see in
28:36
movies with the wires strapped across the chest and the
28:38
blood pressure cuff on the arm that measures a constellation
28:41
of autonomic nervous system responses. It tracks your heart rate,
28:44
your blood pressure, your respiratory rate, and your galvanic skin response,
28:48
which is just a fancy term for how much you
28:51
are a sweating.
28:52
Speaker 1: The theory being that the psychological stress of telling a
28:55
lie triggers an involuntary fire flight physical reaction that the
29:00
machine actually records.
29:01
Speaker 2: Correct The machine establishes a baseline with simple questions and
29:05
then looks for physiological spikes when you are asked about
29:08
the crime.
29:09
Speaker 1: What about the computer voice stress analysis? How does that
29:12
bypass the chest straps and blood pressure cuffs.
29:14
Speaker 2: CVSA is much simpler in its physical application, which is
29:18
why some departments prefer it, But it is equally if
29:21
not more, controversial in its science. Why is that it
29:24
relies entirely on a microphone. The software analyzes the subject's
29:29
vocal responses, specifically looking for inaudible micro tremors in the voice.
29:33
Speaker 1: Micro tremors, Yeah.
29:35
Speaker 2: The theory here is that the psychological stress of deception
29:38
causes the muscles in the vocal track to tense up.
29:41
This tension supposedly alters the frequency of the voice in
29:44
microscopic ways that the human ear cannot detect, but the
29:47
computer algorithm can flag as deception.
29:49
Speaker 1: But Joe Scott Morgan, the forensics expert, steps in during
29:53
the segment and essentially dismisses the utility of both of
29:56
these machines. He points out that they have virtually no
29:59
standar in criminal court, and.
30:01
Speaker 2: He is absolutely correct regarding their legal admissibility. The expert
30:05
analysis of these machines ultimately boils down to how the
30:09
court views junk science versus peer reviewed science. Right, neither
30:13
the polygraph nor the CVSA is admissible as evidence in
30:17
a criminal trial unless both the prosecution and the defense
30:20
explicitly stipulate, meaning they agree in writing ahead of time
30:24
to allow the results to be shown to the jury.
30:27
Speaker 1: And I imagine no competent defense attorney is going to
30:30
let a machine with a notoriously high failure rate decide
30:33
their client's.
30:34
Speaker 2: Fate practically never. The source material briefly mentions the Fry
30:37
and Daubert standards.
30:38
Speaker 1: Okay, I've heard those.
30:39
Speaker 2: These are the critical legal gatekeepers that keep dubious science
30:43
out of the court room.
30:44
Speaker 1: I know those are complex legal doctrines. Can we break
30:46
down how they actually function? Why do these specific standards
30:50
block lie detectors?
30:52
Speaker 2: Historically, courts realize they needed a way to stop experts
30:56
from presenting untested theories as fact to easily suage jurase success.
31:01
The Fry's standard, which is older, simply states that scientific
31:04
evidence is only admissible if the methodology is generally accepted
31:08
by the relevant scientific community.
31:10
Speaker 1: But science evolves, so general acceptance seems a bit vague,
31:14
doesn't it.
31:15
Speaker 2: Which is exactly why the federal courts and many states
31:18
move to the stricter Daubert standard. Daubert requires the judge
31:22
to act as an active gatekeeper.
31:24
Speaker 1: So the judge has to really scrutinize it.
31:26
Speaker 2: Yes, the judge must ensure the science is testable, has
31:30
been subjected to peer review and publication, has a known
31:33
and acceptable error rate, and is governed by strict standards.
31:37
Speaker 1: And light detectors fail the dauberd test resoundingly.
31:40
Speaker 2: The broader scientific community has repeatedly demonstrated that polygraphs and
31:44
cvsays do not have a reliable known error rate wow.
31:48
Their methodology is considered too subjective, heavily dependent on the
31:51
skill of the interrogator rather than the machine itself. The
31:54
physiological responses they measure are not exclusive to deception.
31:58
Speaker 1: Right, because you could fail upon simply because you are
32:02
sitting in a police station terrified of being falsely accused
32:05
of your friend's death. Which spikes your heart rate and
32:07
makes you sweat exactly.
32:09
Speaker 2: Conversely, a true sociopath or someone who has managed to
32:13
convince themselves of their own lie, could easily pass a
32:17
polygraph because they don't care, right, because they feel no
32:19
physiological guilt or stress when deceiving the interrogator.
32:24
Speaker 1: Wait, this raises a massive question for me. Okay, if
32:26
the CVSA is essentially a coin flip, legally useless in court,
32:31
and scientifically flawed according to the Daubert standard, why on
32:35
earth do police departments still use them?
32:38
Speaker 2: It's a great question.
32:39
Speaker 1: Why did the police even allow the friends to take
32:41
this test? If the results can't be used at a trial,
32:44
are the police just handing them a free pr victory
32:46
on a silver platter?
32:48
Speaker 2: The answer reveals the real dual nature of police work.
32:51
These machines are not evidence gathering tools. They are interrogation tools. Oh,
32:56
they are psychological leverage.
32:58
Speaker 1: So it's about breaking the sust not measuring the truth.
33:02
Speaker 2: Absolutely, for law enforcement, the value of a polygraph or
33:06
a CVSA isn't the chart it prints out at the end.
33:09
The real value is the conversation that happens after the
33:12
chart is printed.
33:14
Speaker 1: How does that go?
33:15
Speaker 2: The interrogator walks back into the room, throws a piece
33:17
of paper on the table and says, the computer says,
33:21
you're lying about what time you left the boat. I
33:23
know you're lying. The machine knows you're lying. Do you
33:25
want to explain why or do you want me to
33:27
write this up my way?
33:28
Speaker 1: Ah? So it's a prop. It's a theatrical device designed
33:31
to elicit a legally admissible confection.
33:34
Speaker 2: It breaks down resistance and outside the interrogation room, in
33:37
the public sphere we see in this transcript, it functions
33:40
as a massive pr tool. I passed a light detector
33:43
exactly saying that sounds incredibly convincing to the average citizen
33:47
who doesn't understand the Daubert's standard or autonomic nervous system responses.
33:51
It creates a powerful narrative of innocence, even if the
33:54
test itself is scientifically murky.
33:57
Speaker 1: So look at where we are. We have a missing
33:59
phone with data that is theoretically recoverable from a SQL database,
34:03
but the physical device is caught in a legal standoff.
34:06
We have a boat that cannot be searched by private
34:09
citizens without committing a crime. We have a medical examiner
34:13
waiting months for microscopic cellular architecture to reveal the manner
34:18
of death. And we have competing sides waving scientifically dubious
34:22
stress tests at each other on national television. How does
34:26
the case mired in so much public misinformation, vitriol and
34:31
scientific delay actually find a path forward?
34:34
Speaker 2: The answer lies in the one place the public, the
34:37
media and the internet sleuths cannot access, which is secret proceedings.
34:43
This brings us to the final and perhaps most critical
34:45
revelation and the source material.
34:47
Speaker 1: Toward the end of the segment, investigative journalist Susan Hendrix
34:50
confirms a massive piece of information. She states that a
34:53
grand jury is currently investigating the Nolan Wells case.
34:56
Speaker 2: That single fact completely changes the dynamic of everything we
35:00
have discussed today.
35:01
Speaker 1: Let's really explore how a grand jury works, because the
35:03
terminology is so confusing. I think most people hear jury
35:06
and they picture the oj Simpson trial.
35:08
Speaker 2: Right the courtroom drama.
35:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, twelve people sitting in a courtroom box, listening to
35:12
lawyers yell at each other and deciding guilt or innocence.
35:15
Speaker 2: That is a trial jury or a petit jury. A
35:19
trial jury's sole job is to decide conviction or acquittal
35:22
after a public trial. A grand jury is an entirely
35:26
different beast. It operates completely behind closed doors in strict secrecy,
35:31
and as Nancy Grease explains in the text, it serves
35:34
a dual function in the justice system.
35:36
Speaker 1: Let's look at the first function, because I think it
35:38
solves the standoff over the phone.
35:40
Speaker 2: It does. The first function is an investigatory arm. A
35:44
grand jury possesses immense subpoena power. They don't have to wait, no,
35:48
they do not need to engage in a public fight
35:51
on YouTube to get a piece of evidence. The grand
35:53
jury can issue a subpoena for Nolan's physical phone, for
35:56
the friends phones, for the digital iCloud records from Apple,
35:59
and for the GPS navigation data from the Tritem.
36:02
Speaker 1: And people can't just ignore grandury subpoena right.
36:05
Speaker 2: If they do, they can be jailed for contempt. But
36:07
the investigatory power goes even further. They can compel witnesses
36:11
to come in and testify under oath, and crucially, in
36:15
a grand jury proceeding, the witness sits alone in the
36:18
room with the prosecutor and the grand jury.
36:21
Speaker 1: Without their defense attorney present.
36:23
Speaker 2: Without their lawyer in the room, the attorney usually has
36:26
to wait out in the hallway.
36:27
Speaker 1: Oh, that is intense.
36:28
Speaker 2: The witness can step out to consult them, but the
36:31
actual questioning happens directly between the prosecutor, the jurors, and
36:36
the witness. It is designed to aggressively and quietly gather
36:40
facts without the theatrical objections of a public trial.
36:44
Speaker 1: So what is the second function. Once they gather all
36:46
those facts.
36:47
Speaker 2: It acts as the charging arm. Once they have all
36:49
the evidence, the delayed toxicology reports, the celebrate digital extractions,
36:53
the sworn testimony, the grand jury reviews it.
36:56
Speaker 1: All and then they decide guilt.
36:58
Speaker 2: No, their jaw is not to decide if someone is
37:00
guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Their job is to decide
37:03
if there is enough probable cause to believe a crime
37:05
was committed and who committed it. If they find that
37:08
probable cause, they issue a true bill, an indictment, which
37:11
formally charges someone with a crime.
37:14
Speaker 1: This presents such a stark, heartbreaking contrast between the mechanisms
37:17
of public justice and private justice.
37:20
Speaker 2: It really does.
37:21
Speaker 1: You have the quiet, legally binding, methodical power of the
37:24
grand jury operating in total secrecy, and on the outside
37:28
you have this chaotic, damaging cord of public opinion.
37:31
Speaker 2: Which is just awful for the families.
37:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, Susan Hendrix explicitly points out the tragedy of this dynamic.
37:37
You have a grieving mother, Christine, who just wants to
37:41
know the scientific and legal truth of what happened to
37:43
her son, Yet she is forced to endure media circus,
37:47
defending herself against Internet rumors that she's hiding a cell phone,
37:51
all while waiting for this slow, secret grand jury process
37:54
to conclude.
37:55
Speaker 2: It is the devastating reality of modern high profile investigations.
38:00
System by design demands silence, patience, and meticulous scientific review.
38:05
Speaker 1: But the media doesn't work like that, not at all.
38:07
Speaker 2: The media ecosystem, fueled by twenty four hour news cycles
38:10
and social media algorithms, demands instant content, instant answers, and
38:14
clearly defined villains.
38:16
Speaker 1: Nancy Grease used a brilliant visual metaphor and source material
38:19
that I think perfectly encapsulates this tension.
38:22
Speaker 2: What was it?
38:23
Speaker 1: She talked about a prop she used to keep on
38:24
her council table during trials, a large glass jar filled
38:28
with water and silt. Okay, right now, the media, the commentators,
38:31
the true crime podcasters, the Internet sleuths. They're all picking
38:36
up that jar and shaking it.
38:38
Speaker 2: Furious, just stirring it all up.
38:39
Speaker 1: Right, They're agitating the water, making everything muddy and opaque.
38:43
No one can.
38:44
Speaker 2: See the truth through the suspended dirt, and the grand
38:47
Jury's job essentially is to put the jar down on
38:49
the table, to use the unyielding power of subpoenas, the
38:53
objective reality of forensic science, and the weight of sworn
38:57
testimony to let the silt slowly settle to the box,
39:00
just wait for the clarity. Only when the agitation stops
39:02
does the water become crystal clear. Only then do you
39:06
have actual, prosecutable truth rather than angry speculation.
39:10
Speaker 1: Which perfectly brings us to the core takeaway of our
39:12
deep dies today. What we've seen by meticulously unpacking this
39:16
single television transcript is the massive, fundamental divide between how
39:21
the public assumes justice works and the rigid, complex way
39:25
it actually functions in reality.
39:27
Speaker 2: Right, the public expects instant answers from an autopsy, believes
39:30
deleted text messages vanish like magic into the ether, and
39:34
thinks high profile lawyers can just storm private boots with
39:37
search dogs without consequence.
39:39
Speaker 1: The reality is painfully slow toxicology reports that take months
39:43
to sequence, permanent digital footprints hiding deep in of SQL
39:47
databases of our smartphones, and strict constitutional boundaries dictating exactly
39:51
who can search what and when exactly.
39:54
Speaker 2: The gears of justice grind exceedingly fine, but they grind
39:57
incredibly slowly.
39:59
Speaker 1: And that friction is what ma cases like this so
40:01
difficult for the public to endure. It's so vital for
40:04
us to understand. So to you, the listener, the next
40:07
time you see a high profile true crime case blowing
40:10
up your social media feed, the next time you see
40:13
commisators screaming about missing evidence or waving line detector results
40:17
around as undeniable proof.
40:21
Speaker 2: Take a step back, right, take a breath.
40:23
Speaker 1: You now understand the invisible, legal, medical, and digital gears
40:27
turning behind the scenes. You know that the loudest voice
40:30
in the room is rarely the one holding the actual
40:34
microscopic forensic data.
40:36
Speaker 2: And as we close this out, I want to leave
40:38
you with a final thought to ponder, building on everything
40:41
we've discussed today about the permanence of our digital lives. Heck,
40:44
what is it we've seen how digital data outlives, our
40:46
intentional attempts to delete it. We've learned how thirty day
40:49
server limits, hidden purgatory folders, and complex SEQL databases wait
40:54
patiently for forensic extraction.
40:56
Speaker 1: It's all just waiting there.
40:57
Speaker 2: And we've seen how quickly public opinion rushes into all
41:00
the gaps left by slow forensic science.
41:02
Speaker 1: It's a sobering realization, honestly.
41:04
Speaker 2: It really is, because we live in an era where
41:08
the device sitting in your pocket right now is recording
41:11
your physical locations, your heart rate, your private fears typed
41:13
into a search bar, and your fleeting thoughts sent in
41:16
a moment of anger.
41:17
Speaker 1: Wow.
41:18
Speaker 2: So the question becomes, when we watch these tragedies unfold,
41:22
are we more afraid of the truth being lost to
41:25
the muddy waters of a slow investigation, or are we
41:28
secretly more afraid of the reality that our own digital secrets,
41:32
the messy, unvarnished truth of who we are, are never
41:35
truly deleted.
41:37
Speaker 1: Chilling thought and a stark reminder that the X ray
41:40
machine we talked about at the very beginning, the one
41:41
we desperately want to give us clean binary answers, simply
41:45
doesn't exist. No, it doesn't, not in the complexities of
41:48
human behavior, and certainly not in the murky depths of
41:51
a digital and forensic investigation. Thank you for joining us
41:54
on this deep dive. Keep asking the hard questions, keep
41:56
looking past the sensational headlines, and keep challenging the narrator
42:00
as you encounter We'll see you next time.