Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / NOLAN WELLS BRUISES, SNAPCHAT BOMB, DRY LUNGS. ON ISLAND AT 5PM

Transcript

NOLAN WELLS BRUISES, SNAPCHAT BOMB, DRY LUNGS. ON ISLAND AT 5PM · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Tonight, Nolan Wells' body covered in bruises. Call me crazy,
0:08
Speaker 1: but how does a body being covered in bruises jive
0:12
Speaker 1: with accidental drowning? It doesn't. And tonight, a Snapchat bomb.
0:20
Speaker 1: Nolan Wells' lungs are dry. And tonight, witnesses place Nolan
0:27
Speaker 1: Wells on Horn Island at 5 p.m., ruling out a
0:35
Speaker 1: lot of suspects, if true. Good evening. I'm Nancy Grace.
0:39
Speaker 1: This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for
0:42
Speaker 1: being with us. Nolan Wells' death ruled a drowning.
0:53
Speaker 2: Because they have stated that he had no cocaine in
0:57
Speaker 2: his system.
0:58
Speaker 3: And they want the full release of this report.
1:00
Speaker 4: Make it public, they say.
1:01
Speaker 3: We want to know the full autopsy, the details. We
1:04
Speaker 3: want to hear everything, not just the highlights.
1:07
Speaker 1: The four... Acquaintances on the boat are cleared. I'm here
1:13
Speaker 1: on Horn Island with the United Kingdom Navy. I kept
1:17
Speaker 1: questioning when I saw the photo of no one's body,
1:20
Speaker 1: why it was situated where it was, almost as if
1:26
Speaker 1: it's put there.
1:28
Speaker 5: But now that I'm here, I understand something a little
1:33
Speaker 5: bit better.
1:34
Speaker 1: You can say better than that.
1:35
Speaker 6: Yeah, so if you look down there, you might not
1:37
Speaker 6: see it on the camera, but there's ridge lines.
1:39
Speaker 5: That's where the tide was up just a few hours ago.
1:41
Speaker 2: The tide's very erratic.
1:42
Speaker 5: It comes up and goes out for a short period
1:44
Speaker 5: of time.
1:44
Speaker 6: You can actually see, like, little lines of pine needles.
1:47
Speaker 6: That's the water pushed those pine needles up and then
1:50
Speaker 6: going back down. And here you have wet sand where
1:53
Speaker 6: the water was just not too long ago. So what
1:55
Speaker 6: happened was the water brought the body up. and pushed
1:58
Speaker 6: it until it couldn't move anymore because it was hitting sand.
2:01
Speaker 7: And then as the tide started retreating, then he was
2:03
Speaker 7: just laying on.
2:04
Speaker 6: Wet sand, and the water line was right behind him
2:07
Speaker 6: or north of him.
2:08
Speaker 1: Amidst all, I learned at Horn Island bombshell regarding Nolan Wells' phone.
2:18
Speaker 1: We hear two different sides of the story. The state
2:20
Speaker 1: is saying nothing was deleted, that he kept getting Snapchats
2:25
Speaker 1: on a group chat after his death, while the other side,
2:30
Speaker 1: Nolan Wills is saying, oh yes, things were deleted.
2:34
Speaker 8: You can see here in the early morning, that's before
2:38
Speaker 8: 8.24 a.m., he went to McDonald's. There is messages you
2:43
Speaker 8: will see pop up here on the right-hand side. These
2:45
Speaker 8: are the Snapchat communications that was happening between Nolan and
2:49
Speaker 8: his friends and people that were part of these various
2:52
Speaker 8: groups that he was part of. Through 8.37 a.m., They
2:56
Speaker 8: traveled to another location. I'm not going to tell you
2:59
Speaker 8: whose house or who that is, but they did travel
3:02
Speaker 8: to another location, and you can see that in a
3:04
Speaker 8: vehicle based on the speed and direction traveled. Still traveling here.
3:13
Speaker 8: Last Snapchat messages asking about a jewel pod and can
3:18
Speaker 8: I get one. These are young men. They were having conversations.
3:21
Speaker 8: There were some women in this chat group as well.
3:24
Speaker 1: You're hearing an expert, a digital forensics expert, Andrew Garrett,
3:29
Speaker 1: who was hired by the Wells' family to figure out
3:32
Speaker 1: if items were deleted. Now, according to prosecutors, nothing was deleted.
3:41
Speaker 1: And according to prosecutors, and there's been a battle of
3:45
Speaker 1: legal letters going back and forth. I read every single one.
3:50
Speaker 1: According to prosecutors... The Wells family and all the fleet
3:54
Speaker 1: of attorneys were invited to send all sorts of evidence
3:59
Speaker 1: to the grand jury. So I appreciate what Garrett is
4:03
Speaker 1: saying there. That's my friends at WKMG. But I need
4:07
Speaker 1: to hear about evidence of items missing. actually deleted. This
4:13
Speaker 1: whole thing is exploding. I learned in the past days
4:19
Speaker 1: while investigating in Ocean Springs that a apparently explosive device
4:27
Speaker 1: or something that was meant to look like an explosive
4:30
Speaker 1: device was sent to two homes of the acquaintances that
4:36
Speaker 1: were on the Triton The Friends of Nolan. Bomb devices?
4:44
Speaker 1: Bomb threats? What is happening? Okay, I hardly know where
4:50
Speaker 1: to start. But let's first start with Joseph Scott Morgan
4:55
Speaker 1: joining us tonight. Professor of Forensics, Jacksonville State University. He
4:59
Speaker 1: is the author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon.
5:02
Speaker 1: He is a star of a hit YouTube series, Body
5:05
Speaker 1: Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. But for my purposes, he
5:07
Speaker 1: is a death investigator with over 10,000 death scene investigations
5:13
Speaker 1: under his belt. I've got so many questions, but let
5:18
Speaker 1: me just start with no water in the stomach or
5:23
Speaker 1: the lungs. Because I would think if somebody's drowning, they
5:26
Speaker 1: will gulp water down. How can there not be water
5:31
Speaker 1: in the stomach or the lungs? And I've never seen
5:35
Speaker 1: a drowning death where there is bruising to the back
5:39
Speaker 1: of the head, the back of the shoulders, and the
5:41
Speaker 1: back of the victim.
5:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's uncommon, Nancy. And here's the other thing, if
5:49
Speaker 2: you like that one. His lungs were at their normal,
5:53
Speaker 2: what we would consider in autopsy pathologies. His lungs were
5:58
Speaker 2: at the normal weights. They were well within the parameters.
6:01
Speaker 2: We had that release from Crump's team of that partial
6:06
Speaker 2: state autopsy, and you can see the organ weights there.
6:09
Speaker 2: And one of the things I always go to is
6:11
Speaker 2: going to be, you know, what the lungs look like
6:14
Speaker 2: and also what their weights are, because that's kind of,
6:17
Speaker 2: it's one of the contributing factors to make this diagnosis
6:21
Speaker 2: of drowning. The other thing that's really absent here that
6:24
Speaker 2: I'm very curious about, Nancy, is is one of the
6:27
Speaker 2: things we look for in drowning is in the middle ear, okay?
6:31
Speaker 2: And what you get with middle ear presentation in the
6:37
Speaker 2: aftermath of a drowning, you get little focal areas of
6:40
Speaker 2: hemorrhage in there. And I don't see that in this report.
6:44
Speaker 2: I don't understand where it is. I think the report
6:47
Speaker 2: is probably incomplete, at least what Crump's team has released
6:51
Speaker 2: at this point in time. And that's going to be
6:53
Speaker 2: essential to make this diagnosis of, of drowning and what
6:57
Speaker 2: they're saying, at least, and I think referring back to,
7:00
Speaker 2: and please correct me if I'm wrong, I know you will,
7:02
Speaker 2: but it's the grand jury, you know, they come up
7:06
Speaker 2: with this, this idea or the prosecutor, they come up
7:09
Speaker 2: with the idea that this is a diagnosis of exclusion essentially.
7:14
Speaker 2: And they're just simply landing on, landing on drowning here,
7:19
Speaker 2: even though that they don't have this physical presentation that
7:21
Speaker 2: we certainly.
7:22
Speaker 1: Would like to see.
7:24
Speaker 2: I don't understand.
7:24
Speaker 1: If you could just dummy down for me, Joe Scott,
7:28
Speaker 1: how can you drown and your lungs be normal and
7:32
Speaker 1: your stomach not have water in it? How does that happen?
7:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not something that you would commonly see because
7:39
Speaker 2: you are generally going to take on water in your lungs.
7:43
Speaker 2: You will gulp down water. That does happen, and particularly
7:46
Speaker 2: in this environment because this is saltwater. And there are
7:49
Speaker 2: other tests that we can run relative to the presence
7:52
Speaker 2: of saltwater. I'm thinking, you know, one of the things
7:54
Speaker 2: that we go down the road are these things called
7:56
Speaker 2: diatom testing. And I'm really wondering if they went down
7:59
Speaker 2: that road with this as well. But you have to
8:01
Speaker 2: have something to recover in order to do the diatom testing.
8:05
Speaker 2: So if they're saying it's not there, then it's not there.
8:08
Speaker 2: And then we have these presentations of these contusions. Now,
8:12
Speaker 2: the state made... made note of these presentations in the
8:18
Speaker 2: back of the head. And as a matter of fact,
8:19
Speaker 2: the state autopsy rendering, you know, when we put that
8:23
Speaker 2: sketch up, their sketch looks different than what the independent
8:27
Speaker 2: autopsy looks like. If you can see that in the
8:29
Speaker 2: bottom there, it's fully involved and it kind of goes
8:32
Speaker 2: in the horizontal plane. Well, when you look at the
8:36
Speaker 2: state's rendering from this, it looks like two separate individual
8:41
Speaker 2: marks in the same plane. But they're not communicating. They're
8:45
Speaker 2: not touching one another. The way the independent ought to
8:49
Speaker 2: be discriminated. Yeah, go ahead.
8:52
Speaker 1: You got me drinking from the fire hydrant, Joe Scott.
8:53
Speaker 1: It's just too much at once because, you know, each,
8:57
Speaker 1: practically each sentence you just said would be a line
8:59
Speaker 1: of questioning for me if you were on the witness stand.
9:02
Speaker 1: Bottom line, lungs dry, stomach dry. and there were bruises
9:10
Speaker 1: on the back of his head, the occipital, which amount
9:12
Speaker 1: to two different contusions, two. That's the independent, and they're
9:16
Speaker 1: about two inches long each, and on the back of
9:22
Speaker 1: his body, there's bruising to the left shoulder, and there's
9:25
Speaker 1: bruising to the back, and there's bruising to the buttocks. Well,
9:29
Speaker 1: that was just, let me say, legal term, a hell
9:31
Speaker 1: of a drowning. Okay, that doesn't sound right to me.
9:34
Speaker 1: I'm going to be explaining, but I got a question
9:36
Speaker 1: based on what you said to Greg Morse. Morse, keep
9:41
Speaker 1: up with me, Morse. Greg Morse is joining us. He
9:43
Speaker 1: is a founder of the Morse Legal Firm, author of
9:47
Speaker 1: The Untested on Amazon. Morse, I don't understand, and I'm
9:53
Speaker 1: not saying the information is wrong, but I don't understand
9:56
Speaker 1: why Crump's team is releasing information in dribbles and bits.
10:02
Speaker 7: You know what?
10:03
Speaker 1: You say data was deleted? Show me. Show me it's deleted.
10:09
Speaker 1: What was deleted? What probative was deleted? In other words,
10:13
Speaker 1: that proves something to me. Also, regarding COD, if you've
10:17
Speaker 1: got more information, give it to me. Why is it
10:21
Speaker 1: dribbles and drabs?
10:23
Speaker 9: Well, that's the problem here. As I said last time
10:26
Speaker 9: on your show about this, usually when someone is a victim,
10:29
Speaker 9: they're cooperating openly or the family is cooperating openly with
10:34
Speaker 9: law enforcement and the prosecutor's office. This is not the
10:37
Speaker 9: case in this situation. And you even see when you
10:41
Speaker 9: look at their computer expert, he didn't have the right
10:44
Speaker 9: software for the updated operating system for Snapchat. So he
10:49
Speaker 9: had to manually go through each and every single Snapchat
10:52
Speaker 9: and do it a bit of a different way than
10:54
Speaker 9: someone with the right technological tools would do. So this
10:58
Speaker 9: only hurts the narrative of what Benjamin Crump is trying
11:02
Speaker 9: to advance for the Wells family. It only makes it
11:05
Speaker 9: worse for the Wells family to suffer over and over
11:08
Speaker 9: and over again. It's, you know, the grand jury seems
11:11
Speaker 9: to have gotten it right here with the information that
11:15
Speaker 9: was presented. And the victim's family, through their lawyer, Benjamin Crump,
11:19
Speaker 9: didn't help that process in any way, shape, or form.
11:22
Speaker 9: And his family is still, you know, seemingly playing games
11:27
Speaker 9: with the newspaper reports, with information, and then holding their
11:30
Speaker 9: own press conferences. at various events. That's just not how victims'
11:34
Speaker 9: families act. And their credibility gets weakened when they act
11:38
Speaker 9: this way.
11:39
Speaker 1: Well, this is something I learned on Horn Island. I
11:42
Speaker 1: want to tell you what I saw to Dave Mack
11:47
Speaker 1: joining us along with Susan Hendricks. You know what? I'm
11:53
Speaker 1: going to go to Brian Trasher on this. Trasher is
11:56
Speaker 1: with me, VP of the United Cajun Navy, who participated
12:00
Speaker 1: in the search for Nolan Wells, who took me out
12:02
Speaker 1: on their boats. We walked from end to end. Let's
12:06
Speaker 1: see the video of Horn Island. And I.
12:11
Speaker 1: You can see straight across. When we were being told
12:13
Speaker 1: it's going to be really hard for a murder or
12:17
Speaker 1: an assault to happen on Horn Island and nobody see it.
12:20
Speaker 1: That's generally true. There are some dunes, but very few.
12:26
Speaker 1: It would be very hard. to affect a murder or
12:32
Speaker 1: an assault without being seen by about literally 800 boats there.
12:38
Speaker 1: So whatever happened to Nolan, I don't believe happened on
12:42
Speaker 1: the island because it is so visible. Brian, I saw
12:50
Speaker 1: a video while there, and the video was of the Tritons.
12:59
Speaker 1: And everybody, a lot of people, not everybody, a lot
13:01
Speaker 1: of people were on the boat and it panned out
13:05
Speaker 1: video like this. And there's one video that has not
13:12
Speaker 1: been released. In the video, it's largely of a young girl,
13:19
Speaker 1: straight A student, and she looks like she's been drinking.
13:24
Speaker 1: She's got on all her clothes. She's fine. She just
13:27
Speaker 1: likes sticking her tongue out and acting silly. See, there's
13:29
Speaker 1: Nolan right there.
13:30
Speaker 2: Okay.
13:31
Speaker 1: This is some of the video I got down on
13:33
Speaker 1: Horn Island. In the video, of course, the video, the
13:38
Speaker 1: point of the video is videoing the girl. But what's
13:43
Speaker 1: in the background is one of the acquaintances, the friends
13:48
Speaker 1: of Nolan. And the guy is saying he's at the
13:52
Speaker 1: helm of And he is saying, I saw him and
13:55
Speaker 1: I heard him. He's saying, okay, everybody, we got to go.
13:57
Speaker 1: We got to go. Everybody that was on this boat,
14:00
Speaker 1: get back on the boat. We got to go. And
14:02
Speaker 1: the boat was loaded down with people. And I looked
14:06
Speaker 1: at the timestamp. It was a little after three. They
14:11
Speaker 1: were trying to leave and trying to get everybody back
14:15
Speaker 1: on the boat. No one was not on the boat.
14:20
Speaker 1: And the reason they're not releasing the video is It's
14:23
Speaker 1: because he don't want the girl to get all the
14:26
Speaker 1: hate mail and the death threats that they're getting. Let's
14:31
Speaker 1: see a picture of that device that was left at
14:35
Speaker 1: the homes of two of the families. Look at this.
14:42
Speaker 1: Along with a note that says somewhere, someone's conscience is
14:45
Speaker 1: like a burning bed. The flames are all around you.
14:49
Speaker 1: How are you going to sleep again? August 7th. 415
14:53
Speaker 1: by John Bon Jovi man up or never know a
14:57
Speaker 1: moment's peace. Again, no one's family deserves justice. Well, I
15:01
Speaker 1: couldn't agree with that more. No one's family does deserve justice,
15:08
Speaker 1: but sending bomb like devices to people's mothers is not
15:15
Speaker 1: the way to get justice. Um, To Greg Morse. Greg,
15:22
Speaker 1: take off your defense hat just one moment. Go back
15:24
Speaker 1: to the days when you were in the PD's office
15:28
Speaker 1: and you started investigating a case. And what you were
15:32
Speaker 1: investigating turned out to be the wrong avenue. And you went, okay,
15:37
Speaker 1: we're starting over at square one. That's where I am tonight.
15:43
Speaker 1: Because it seemed obvious to many people, not me, but
15:48
Speaker 1: to many people, It seemed to make sense. They bring
15:52
Speaker 1: him to the island. They leave. They live. He dies.
15:57
Speaker 1: But now two to three witnesses have emerged stating that
16:04
Speaker 1: they see Nolan on Horn Island between 5 and 6 p.m.
16:11
Speaker 1: walking in the water with a girl. If those three
16:18
Speaker 1: witnesses are not lying, they don't have a dog in
16:21
Speaker 1: the fight. They're not related to Nolan's camp or the
16:26
Speaker 1: acquaintance's camp. It's a man and a woman married, reportedly
16:32
Speaker 1: in a school system. They see him walking out in
16:36
Speaker 1: the water between 5 and 6 with the girl. If
16:41
Speaker 1: that's true, then the acquaintance's had nothing to do with
16:45
Speaker 1: his death. Now, I'm left with a body that's covered
16:50
Speaker 1: in bruises, dry lungs, dry stomach. And the COD is
16:57
Speaker 1: drowning and everybody's chasing down these guys. I mean, at
17:01
Speaker 1: some point, if you want justice for Nolan, get on
17:05
Speaker 1: board and start looking in the right places. Yes.
17:10
Speaker 9: Well, that's up to the family at this point. I mean,
17:12
Speaker 9: law enforcement already deemed this, through a grand jury, an
17:15
Speaker 9: accidental drowning. I mean, I'm barring something very powerful that's new.
17:20
Speaker 9: That's likely not going to change at this agency, and
17:22
Speaker 9: I'm not sure why it should. You know, this is, again,
17:26
Speaker 9: goes back to the family.
17:27
Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you why it should, because it doesn't
17:30
Speaker 1: make sense. Well, all right, well, again— then we're not
17:40
Speaker 1: even looking in the right direction. I mean, apparently the
17:44
Speaker 1: grand jury didn't even have all the evidence. So how
17:47
Speaker 1: can you close a case when you're just getting in
17:51
Speaker 1: the right direction? How can you do it? Because if
17:54
Speaker 1: those witnesses are telling the truth, then the acquaintances have
17:59
Speaker 1: nothing to do with Nolan's death.
18:04
Speaker 9: Well, investigations are wrong and turn up the wrong conclusion
18:08
Speaker 9: many times. I mean, we see that with the Innocence
18:11
Speaker 9: Project and all the convictions overturned. However, in this situation,
18:15
Speaker 9: you had tension between the victim's family and law enforcement
18:19
Speaker 9: who was going to help them. So what do you
18:21
Speaker 9: want law enforcement to do at this point? They presented
18:23
Speaker 9: everything they had. They took as much time as they could.
18:26
Speaker 9: And the jury found there's no, you know, an accidental drowning.
18:30
Speaker 9: These young men weren't responsible for anything. So as far
18:34
Speaker 9: as something new or what actually happened to him, that's
18:36
Speaker 9: for the family to investigate now.
18:39
Speaker 1: Well, again, did they actually say In the grand jury report,
18:45
Speaker 1: accidental drowning? Because I'm pretty sure at the end of
18:50
Speaker 1: the grand jury report, yeah, you know, Morris, you're supposed
18:53
Speaker 1: to read every page all the way to the end.
18:56
Speaker 1: They actually say there's no statute of limitations on homicide. Hint, hint.
19:04
Speaker 1: Did they rule it accidental drowning as the COD, Susan Hendricks?
19:11
Speaker 3: No, it was undetermined. Another way of saying, we don't know.
19:15
Speaker 3: We don't know how he died, but the caveat was, right,
19:19
Speaker 3: we could always come back to this. 43 witnesses, Nancy,
19:22
Speaker 3: you mentioned that those witnesses that you were speaking of
19:25
Speaker 3: should have been involved in that. Greg Morris said that
19:28
Speaker 3: they got it right, the grand jury. I don't think so.
19:31
Speaker 3: I don't think they got it right. They didn't interview
19:33
Speaker 3: the right witnesses. The family is still left with so
19:36
Speaker 3: many questions.
19:41
Speaker 1: Brian Trasher, United Cajun Navy, is with us tonight. We
19:46
Speaker 1: spent hours on Horn Island investigating landmines. Look. Here at
19:51
Speaker 1: the tip of Horn Island, if you look carefully, you
19:55
Speaker 1: see the gradual darkening of the water, and it gets
19:59
Speaker 1: deeper and deeper and deeper. This is one of the
20:02
Speaker 1: most severe areas of the drop-off, and coincidentally where approximately
20:07
Speaker 1: no one was. Now, when you go on out.
20:10
Speaker 10: You've got the Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of America, tides
20:16
Speaker 10: competing with other tides, creating the rip current or the
20:21
Speaker 10: undertow we've heard so much about.
20:24
Speaker 1: I am right now just off of the shore of
20:28
Speaker 1: Horn Island in 35 feet of water. I can't be,
20:34
Speaker 1: oh gosh, 20 yards off the shore. Now, if you
20:39
Speaker 1: go down, and this is where Nolan, we believe, disappeared.
20:44
Speaker 5: When you go down to the other end, it's shallow.
20:48
Speaker 1: But that's not where the incident occurred. Here is where
20:53
Speaker 1: he went missing. It is so deep. This close to
20:57
Speaker 1: the shore, this is where Nolan went missing, and there's
21:02
Speaker 1: where he went missing. This is very deep. I'm not
21:06
Speaker 1: far away from shore at all, and I'm at 35
21:09
Speaker 1: feet of water. To Brian Trasher, I want to thank you, Brian,
21:14
Speaker 1: and all the other members of the United Cajun Navy
21:16
Speaker 1: that took me to Horn Island for an exhaustive investigation.
21:20
Speaker 1: We were on the water and on the island for
21:23
Speaker 1: hours and hours and hours. Trasher and I walked the
21:27
Speaker 1: entire island together. It's not long, and you can see
21:31
Speaker 1: clearly from one side to the next, But could you
21:34
Speaker 1: explain the various tides that compete on the tip of
21:41
Speaker 1: the island? And again, at some juncture or control room,
21:45
Speaker 1: please show that aerial because on one end of the island,
21:49
Speaker 1: you don't have these competing tides. Now, according to witnesses
21:53
Speaker 1: that we uncovered, Nolan was walking from about the center
22:00
Speaker 1: of the island, overhead of the island. Please, there you go.
22:03
Speaker 1: See down there on the tip? Walking from the center
22:07
Speaker 1: toward the tip. At that time, walking with a girl
22:11
Speaker 1: between 5 and 6 p.m. He was in the water.
22:14
Speaker 1: The tide was out and it was starting to come
22:17
Speaker 1: back in. If you go to the tip, Brian, that
22:23
Speaker 1: is where the tides compete and you get an undertow. Again,
22:29
Speaker 1: I'm not going with drowning, accidental drowning. because that doesn't
22:33
Speaker 1: explain the bruises. But if something occurred, for instance, on
22:38
Speaker 1: a boat after five or six o'clock, and he ended
22:44
Speaker 1: up in the water on that end of the island, Brian,
22:48
Speaker 1: with that undertow, he couldn't have fought it with alcohol
22:52
Speaker 1: in his body. Hit it, Brian.
22:55
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, you're right. Presumably, even though he was
22:57
Speaker 7: a very fit and athletic young man, it's hard to
23:00
Speaker 7: swim against those occurrence when you're not impaired with alcohol
23:05
Speaker 7: or anything else. But, you know, the bruises we know,
23:09
Speaker 7: at least according to the doctors that examined the body,
23:11
Speaker 7: happened while he was still alive. There's still a big
23:14
Speaker 7: question of, even though he was cited by eyewitnesses after
23:17
Speaker 7: his friends had left the island, we still don't know
23:20
Speaker 7: what happened to him, how he got into the water,
23:22
Speaker 7: and why he didn't come back out. And, you know,
23:24
Speaker 7: of course, his family still needs to know that.
23:27
Speaker 1: Tell me about the tides that compete on the tip
23:30
Speaker 1: of the island. Well, The other end of the island
23:33
Speaker 1: is relatively calm. If he had fallen over off a
23:39
Speaker 1: boat after the bruising, again, I'm not going with accidental
23:46
Speaker 1: drowning based on the bruising. I've never seen a drowning
23:51
Speaker 1: where you're bruised. Your whole back of your body is bruised. No.
23:55
Speaker 8: Okay.
23:56
Speaker 5: Okay.
23:58
Speaker 1: Let me be clear on that. If that had happened
24:00
Speaker 1: on the other end of the island, he may have
24:03
Speaker 1: been able to fight it, fight the water. But on
24:07
Speaker 1: the tip end, explain where the tides compete.
24:12
Speaker 5: Yes.
24:12
Speaker 7: So you will have, you know, whether it's, you know,
24:15
Speaker 7: wind current advancing or retreating tide, you'll have multiple different currents.
24:20
Speaker 7: And on that tip of Horn Island, the western tip,
24:23
Speaker 7: it's facing another island called Ship Island. And south of
24:27
Speaker 7: that is you go all the way down to Louisiana
24:30
Speaker 7: barrier islands called Chandelier. And that is an area that
24:33
Speaker 7: the locals call the washing machine because it's very, it's choppy.
24:36
Speaker 7: There's a lot of dangerous currents and competing currents, as
24:39
Speaker 7: you said. And it can create, you know, rip currents, whirlpools,
24:44
Speaker 7: a lot of different dangerous scenarios in the water. And
24:47
Speaker 7: if he got into the water in that area, it
24:49
Speaker 7: would have been very hard for.
24:50
Speaker 2: Him to swim out.
24:52
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. I was getting conflicting reports. There's the tip.
24:56
Speaker 1: Notice how it immediately gets dark, starts getting deep right
25:00
Speaker 1: off the end of the island. Okay. I could not
25:04
Speaker 1: reconcile reports, Brian, United Cajun Navy, that it was a
25:09
Speaker 1: washing machine. It's called a washing machine. But yet I
25:13
Speaker 1: had on a tide and current expert telling me that
25:16
Speaker 1: the water was smooth with no current. How is that?
25:20
Speaker 1: It's different on the two tips of the island, which
25:24
Speaker 1: is hard for me to understand. until I went there
25:28
Speaker 1: and saw it. Is that correct, Brian?
25:33
Speaker 7: It is, and the day that you and I were
25:35
Speaker 7: there was significantly a calmer day. You could still see
25:40
Speaker 7: competing currents and rips, but on the 4th of July,
25:43
Speaker 7: there was actually a hazardous warning issued by the NOAA
25:47
Speaker 7: dangerous currents on Horn Island. And it was a lot
25:50
Speaker 7: windier and a lot more current happened in that day.
25:52
Speaker 7: You saw it on a very calm day, which was also,
25:55
Speaker 7: I'm sure you agree with me, that it could be
25:57
Speaker 7: potentially dangerous for a swimmer. So imagine on a hazardous day,
26:01
Speaker 7: a day that has a hazardous warning put out, what.
26:03
Speaker 2: It could have been like.
26:05
Speaker 1: And all that is true, Brian, and I'm still not
26:07
Speaker 1: getting an answer on the bruising And it will be
26:11
Speaker 1: a cold day in H-E-double-L that I accept. It's an
26:14
Speaker 1: accidental drowning when he's covered in bruises. Okay. And, you know,
26:18
Speaker 1: Joe Scott, I've been thinking about something. Those two contusions
26:22
Speaker 1: to the back of the head. Have you ever seen? Well,
26:25
Speaker 1: of course you have. Where you dock a boat and
26:28
Speaker 1: you wrap the rope around that little horned device.
26:32
Speaker 2: The cleat. The little horned. The cleat.
26:36
Speaker 8: Yeah.
26:38
Speaker 1: Thank you. I knew you were going to know the
26:40
Speaker 1: answer to that. Now, this is speculation, but the two
26:45
Speaker 1: contusions on the back of his head, to me, they
26:49
Speaker 1: seem as if they're so similar, they came from a
26:54
Speaker 1: similar device. Like, you and I can look at a
26:57
Speaker 1: body and tell a lot of times if, say, for instance,
27:00
Speaker 1: a cylindrical object was used, or I've had a case
27:05
Speaker 1: where a golf club was used, and it physically match
27:08
Speaker 1: the indentation on the body. It's amazing. There, you've got
27:13
Speaker 1: something that's about that far apart that's identical. Two inches.
27:18
Speaker 1: Just like that. That tells me something. That tells me
27:23
Speaker 1: some sort of device came in contact with his head.
27:28
Speaker 1: See where I'm going with this? If he were beaten
27:30
Speaker 1: or harmed on a boat and then put in the water,
27:37
Speaker 1: I mean, am I making any sense? You can say
27:40
Speaker 1: it better than me, Joe Scott Morgan.
27:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, these refer to what you're talking about are pattern contusions.
27:46
Speaker 2: We also have pattern abrasions that many times, if you
27:49
Speaker 2: think about an abrasion where you have a skinned knee, right,
27:51
Speaker 2: or skinned elbow, you can also have an underlying pattern
27:55
Speaker 2: contusion that actually marries up with that same pattern. And
27:59
Speaker 2: that's what you're talking about. So I think for me
28:02
Speaker 2: and What I would like to see is if, you know,
28:05
Speaker 2: if you're going with cleat here, if you're thinking about
28:08
Speaker 2: the cleat on the side of the boat, I'd want
28:10
Speaker 2: to see if it's actually protected by a side rail.
28:13
Speaker 2: Because sometimes you'll have a rail that is superior to
28:18
Speaker 2: a cleat and kind of the configuration. And here's what
28:22
Speaker 2: you're trying to measure out. Is it within the realm
28:25
Speaker 2: of scientific possibility that he could have fallen or been struck?
28:32
Speaker 2: and make contact with that, you know, does, does the
28:35
Speaker 2: physical space in there.
28:36
Speaker 1: How many times did he have to fall, Joe Scott?
28:39
Speaker 1: He had to fall on his head, on his shoulder,
28:41
Speaker 1: on his back, on his rear end.
28:43
Speaker 11: Yeah.
28:45
Speaker 2: So you would fall a single impact with this bilateral.
28:49
Speaker 2: So it would be one.
28:50
Speaker 1: Okay.
28:51
Speaker 2: If it is a pattern, if you have this horn
28:54
Speaker 2: and it's, I think that's a good, a good description,
28:56
Speaker 2: a horn like structure. Here's something that is very curious
29:00
Speaker 2: to me, though, Nancy. Those other contusions that we've mentioned
29:03
Speaker 2: on the shoulder and on the buttock, you know, according
29:08
Speaker 2: to Dr. Mitchell, not Joe Scott Morgan, these were not
29:11
Speaker 2: noted by the state medical examiner. He noted those in
29:16
Speaker 2: the second autopsy, and I find that really interesting. They
29:19
Speaker 2: were also not dissected at that point. Now, Dr. Mitchell
29:23
Speaker 2: did go in and do a separate, what's called a
29:26
Speaker 2: posterior dissection of the neck, where he's going into the
29:30
Speaker 2: depth of the tissue to see how extensive it is.
29:33
Speaker 2: And there is no underlying fracture. As a matter of fact,
29:36
Speaker 2: I think that they said that it doesn't transfer into
29:40
Speaker 2: the brain. But here's one thing that will really send
29:42
Speaker 2: a chill up your spine if you want to understand
29:45
Speaker 2: the condition of Nolan's body. The doctor for the state
29:50
Speaker 2: actually states that Nolan's brain was liquefied and or in
29:55
Speaker 2: a liquefied state. And that's because of advanced decomposition. it's
30:00
Speaker 2: fascinating to me that his body did, in fact, change
30:04
Speaker 2: this much in a very short period of time. And
30:07
Speaker 2: that can be, I think, probably related to the heat
30:11
Speaker 2: that they were experiencing out there. Because as we know,
30:13
Speaker 2: in all physical science experiments, heat speeds everything up. So
30:19
Speaker 2: when you get this intensive heat out there, that's what
30:23
Speaker 2: his body would have been subjected to.
30:26
Speaker 1: And very quickly, dummy down for me, okay? There were
30:30
Speaker 1: no white cells around the bruises, which means they occurred
30:36
Speaker 1: very shortly before death.
30:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was in an acute state. So the reason,
30:41
Speaker 2: and that's an important point that you bring up, if
30:44
Speaker 2: you've got white cell presentation microscopically, That means that there
30:48
Speaker 2: is reparative work going on at a cellular level. They
30:51
Speaker 2: don't see that. So what does that mean? Well, in
30:54
Speaker 2: forensic pathology.
30:54
Speaker 1: Did I not say dummy down?
30:57
Speaker 2: Well, it is, you know, because we can all understand
30:59
Speaker 2: when bruises change color, right? And so that means that
31:03
Speaker 2: the bruise is receding, right? It goes from yellow to
31:05
Speaker 2: green and, you know, those sorts of things. That wasn't there.
31:08
Speaker 2: So that means that this is in the immediate, that
31:11
Speaker 2: it is, as we say in medicine, it is in
31:14
Speaker 2: the acute phase, okay?
31:16
Speaker 10: Okay.
31:16
Speaker 2: So this is soon, soon, according to the death. So
31:22
Speaker 2: this would be preceding the death because we know that
31:24
Speaker 2: the dead do not hemorrhage. They do not bruise. You
31:27
Speaker 2: do not have contusions. So this would have happened just
31:30
Speaker 2: prior to death, Nancy.
31:32
Speaker 6: It's approximately 50 feet or so out that way is
31:35
Speaker 6: where Jax's boat was.
31:38
Speaker 5: And there was a bunch of boats just tied.
31:39
Speaker 2: Up in a circle.
31:41
Speaker 5: And they were so close together that you could walk
31:43
Speaker 5: from boat to boat to boat. It was that packed
31:45
Speaker 5: on July 4th. So the tide was still out.
31:48
Speaker 6: Yeah, on July 4th on that day, yeah, the tide
31:51
Speaker 6: was out. And it was probably about, out where the
31:53
Speaker 6: boat was, it was probably, you know, five, six people.
31:55
Speaker 5: And we kept hearing so much about the pine debris.
31:58
Speaker 1: Yeah.
31:58
Speaker 5: Which you can see a clear line.
32:01
Speaker 2: Yeah.
32:02
Speaker 6: And look, and let me show you, look, right over here.
32:04
Speaker 5: Right now, talking about where his body was found, how
32:06
Speaker 5: it was washed up. You see this little bunch right here?
32:07
Speaker 5: This is from when the tide was even higher than
32:09
Speaker 5: it's been lately. As you can see where it lapped up,
32:11
Speaker 5: you see those little wet sand spots? Came up this
32:13
Speaker 5: high this morning. Quick pine needle ball up here.
32:15
Speaker 1: You know, I was looking at how difficult it would
32:21
Speaker 1: be for him to have been harmed on the island.
32:24
Speaker 5: You can see straight to the other side.
32:26
Speaker 6: Right.
32:26
Speaker 5: Without anyone seeing anything. See, there's the ocean over there
32:29
Speaker 5: as well. Yeah, there are no apex predators here or
32:31
Speaker 5: anything like that. Just a lot of fighting lines.
32:41
Speaker 1: In the midst of trying to decode all the information
32:46
Speaker 1: we are getting tonight, now claims that items, specifically Snapchats,
32:53
Speaker 1: were deleted from Nolan's phone.
32:58
Speaker 8: There were things that were deleted from the phone. I
33:01
Speaker 8: can't Talk to intent. Unfortunately, that's not my field of expertise,
33:04
Speaker 8: the psychology, but I could tell you from a digital standpoint,
33:07
Speaker 8: things were deleted on the phone from the time he
33:10
Speaker 8: last had the phone up until the time that his
33:12
Speaker 8: parents got the phone.
33:14
Speaker 10: And was it Snapchat things?
33:16
Speaker 8: They were Snapchat, correct. We can say that in order
33:19
Speaker 8: for that to be done, somebody had to take a
33:21
Speaker 8: user action to delete data.
33:22
Speaker 1: From our friends at WKMG, straight out to digital forensics expert,
33:28
Speaker 1: Robert Freed. EVP of Forensics and Chief Investigative Officer, author
33:35
Speaker 1: of five books, including Forensics Data Collections 2.0. You can
33:42
Speaker 1: find him at forensicsbyfreed.com, F-R-I-E-D. Robert, please dumb me down
33:52
Speaker 1: for us. We're not all digital forensics experts. I understand
33:58
Speaker 1: that no one phone continued to get snapchats and his
34:03
Speaker 1: it's been shown over and over and stated by his
34:07
Speaker 1: family that he didn't use traditional texting very much he
34:10
Speaker 1: used insta and snap that's very normal that even while
34:17
Speaker 1: he wasn't using his phone he would still be getting
34:20
Speaker 1: the group snaps he would still be getting them Now, tonight,
34:26
Speaker 1: I'm hearing that snaps can be deleted by someone that
34:29
Speaker 1: does not have direct access to his phone. In other words,
34:33
Speaker 1: it can be deleted by someone that's not holding his phone.
34:36
Speaker 1: How does that work? Sure.
34:39
Speaker 11: Well, Nancy, when you are part of a Snapchat group,
34:44
Speaker 11: you don't even need permission to enter that group. You
34:51
Speaker 11: can just add somebody. So if Nolan was part of
34:54
Speaker 11: a group or several groups with his friends that day,
34:58
Speaker 11: those messages that he would be receiving are just going
35:02
Speaker 11: to his phone as part of being a recipient. If
35:06
Speaker 11: anybody in that chat wanted to delete any messages or
35:11
Speaker 11: things like that, that's something that can be done. In addition,
35:16
Speaker 11: you have the ability to set up disappearing messages. Snapchat
35:21
Speaker 11: allows you to disappear after 24 hours. after seven days
35:25
Speaker 11: or never. So as a participant in a group, you
35:30
Speaker 11: have a lot of opportunity to decide what messages you read,
35:37
Speaker 11: what you can delete, and ultimately what can disappear over time.
35:42
Speaker 1: Okay, I kind of understand what you're saying, Robert. Robert
35:46
Speaker 1: Frey is a digital forensics expert. Robert, my children will say, oh, hey,
35:51
Speaker 1: I just got a snap from fill in the blank.
35:53
Speaker 1: And I'm like, let me see. It's gone. And I
35:57
Speaker 1: didn't understand that at first, that a snap is immediately gone.
36:03
Speaker 1: I understand it now because the settings disappear immediately. But
36:08
Speaker 1: are you telling me, and you'll have to explain it
36:10
Speaker 1: one more time, how somebody else I think I'm understanding
36:14
Speaker 1: within the group chat can delete snaps that have been
36:18
Speaker 1: sent to somebody, the whole group's phone? Someone else in
36:22
Speaker 1: that group chat could delete chats from Nolan's phone without
36:26
Speaker 1: holding the phone in their hand?
36:29
Speaker 11: Yeah, within a group chat, you have the ability to
36:34
Speaker 11: delete messages and then everybody else within that chat can
36:39
Speaker 11: essentially delete. see, for example, even if I was in
36:43
Speaker 11: a chat with you, Nancy, if I took a picture,
36:47
Speaker 11: a screenshot of that group chat, that would show up
36:51
Speaker 11: on the chat itself. So as you're part of a
36:54
Speaker 11: participant in a group chat, you have a lot of
36:57
Speaker 11: visibility into different things that are happening in that chat.
37:02
Speaker 1: Okay. Greg Morse joining me. I give him a hard time,
37:06
Speaker 1: but Let me tell you, he's a veteran trial lawyer
37:08
Speaker 1: who's won a lot of cases, and you cannot argue
37:11
Speaker 1: with the results. Greg, this is something I don't like.
37:17
Speaker 1: Number one, let me be clear. I don't believe there
37:20
Speaker 1: was an accidental drowning because of the bruises. I don't
37:24
Speaker 1: believe it. I reject that. But I've got a problem
37:30
Speaker 1: with Crump's camp stating items were deleted, but not showing
37:37
Speaker 1: us the evidence. And if what Freed is saying, and
37:41
Speaker 1: he did not just fall off the turnip truck, he's
37:44
Speaker 1: been doing this for years, five books on digital forensics.
37:50
Speaker 1: If items can be deleted off Nolan's phone by anybody
37:53
Speaker 1: in that Snapchat group, or they disappear immediately, that totally
37:57
Speaker 1: defeats the claim that items were deleted. So just give
38:03
Speaker 1: me the evidence. If you've got evidence, Put it up
38:07
Speaker 1: or shut up. That's how I feel about it.
38:11
Speaker 2: Well, that's it.
38:11
Speaker 7: You're right.
38:12
Speaker 9: And again, you know, victims in non-homicide cases and victims'
38:17
Speaker 9: families in homicide cases, you have to be an open book. Generally,
38:21
Speaker 9: you are with the law enforcement agencies investigating on behalf
38:26
Speaker 9: of your loved one. Saying there's deleted messages, but ha-ha,
38:29
Speaker 9: we're not going to tell you when, why, how, or
38:31
Speaker 9: what they are.
38:32
Speaker 2: Is absurd.
38:33
Speaker 9: It's just trying to keep something, it seems to me,
38:36
Speaker 9: in the media that maybe isn't appropriate for the media anymore.
38:42
Speaker 9: But I don't know why you wouldn't give that information
38:45
Speaker 9: to the prosecutors before the grand jury proceedings or My
38:48
Speaker 9: understanding is the prosecutor invited Mr. Crump and the Wells
38:53
Speaker 9: family to present any information they wanted to at this
38:56
Speaker 9: grand jury proceeding, why that wasn't done. Their experts claim
39:00
Speaker 9: that it took too long and 30 hours. Well, that's
39:03
Speaker 9: really not acceptable. I've been doing law enforcement, you know,
39:07
Speaker 9: criminal defense work and connected to the criminal justice system
39:10
Speaker 9: for more than a quarter century. And that's just not
39:12
Speaker 9: an answer that's given in these cases.
39:15
Speaker 5: It's not.
39:17
Speaker 9: They're playing whether.
39:18
Speaker 2: Intentionally or not.
39:20
Speaker 1: Don't play hide the ball. Show it to me. Because frankly,
39:24
Speaker 1: in his mom's defense, I would not accept extradition. drowning
39:31
Speaker 1: if my son was covered in bruises. No. Dry lungs,
39:35
Speaker 1: dry stomach, N-O. But if you've got something to prove,
39:40
Speaker 1: those items were deleted by someone holding the phone, put
39:43
Speaker 1: up or shut up. I can't be any more clear.
39:47
Speaker 1: And I want to address one more thing. Dave Mack.
39:51
Speaker 1: Listen to this.
39:52
Speaker 5: I have just.
39:53
Speaker 1: Learned of a witness that places no one with a
39:58
Speaker 1: young one.
39:59
Speaker 5: I think it's going to be... The tide was out,
40:03
Speaker 5: so many yards out it could be observed, and we
40:07
Speaker 5: could wave.
40:09
Speaker 1: Walking from about that.
40:12
Speaker 5: Buoy area, about 30 yards out, all the way down toward...
40:19
Speaker 5: where his body was found.
40:20
Speaker 1: That's not where he went missing, but toward where his
40:23
Speaker 1: body was found.
40:24
Speaker 5: Now, the important.
40:26
Speaker 1: Piece of this is that that occurred after the triton, homage,
40:33
Speaker 1: and the third motive, but left. Dave Mack joining us,
40:39
Speaker 1: Crime Stories investigative reporter. Dave, amazingly, one of the acquaintances
40:46
Speaker 1: went without a lawyer and testified, at length, in front
40:51
Speaker 1: of the grand jury, subjecting themselves to grand jurors' cross-examination.
40:58
Speaker 1: Not only that, Dave, they left him alone with me
41:05
Speaker 1: for hours. You know, I told you that I walked
41:07
Speaker 1: up and down the entire island with Trasher. I also
41:11
Speaker 1: did it with one of the acquaintances, and I grilled
41:14
Speaker 1: him like a backyard barbecue. And I listened to his story.
41:21
Speaker 1: And what I don't get, Dave, is why everyone is
41:26
Speaker 1: stuck on them. Because Dave Mack witnesses place Nolan alive
41:35
Speaker 1: between 5 and 6. The acquaintances left on the three boats,
41:40
Speaker 1: including the Triton, around 4 o'clock, 3.30, 4 o'clock. They
41:46
Speaker 1: were observed by an impartial witness. and reprimanded out in
41:52
Speaker 1: the water trying to pump out the boat. Dave, it's
41:58
Speaker 1: just more convenient to blame them, but that is not
42:04
Speaker 1: the way investigations work. If we want justice for Nolan,
42:11
Speaker 1: we've got to get off them and start looking at
42:14
Speaker 1: who was with this young woman. How did she get
42:19
Speaker 1: back to the mainland? What occurred after five to six o'clock?
42:24
Speaker 1: What happened to Nolan? He wasn't covered in bruises in
42:28
Speaker 1: any of the pictures that we saw. I was told
42:31
Speaker 1: maybe he was working out for football. No, he was
42:35
Speaker 1: not working out for football. School had not even started.
42:41
Speaker 1: How did those bruises get there? They're not in the
42:44
Speaker 1: photos that we see of him So Dave Mack sending
42:50
Speaker 1: people fake bomb devices, just threats to mothers, that's not
42:59
Speaker 1: getting justice. And I believe from what I know tonight
43:05
Speaker 1: that those acquaintances were long gone and no one was
43:10
Speaker 1: still alive and with a girl on Horn Island out
43:13
Speaker 1: walking in the water. At least two if not three
43:16
Speaker 1: credible witnesses. Dave Mack, we're never going to get justice
43:21
Speaker 1: for Nolan if we don't follow the evidence.
43:25
Speaker 4: Nancy, this whole situation with Nolan Wells' friends, they've been
43:30
Speaker 4: targeted since this began. They've been blamed with everything regarding
43:35
Speaker 4: when Nolan went missing before his body was even found.
43:38
Speaker 4: And these families have been terrorized. Now there is a give, send,
43:42
Speaker 4: go that has been set up because the families are
43:44
Speaker 4: financially crashed at this point. And there is a Gibson
43:48
Speaker 4: goes that says stand with Nolan Wells targeted friends. This
43:53
Speaker 4: is a way that we can help a family. These families, plural,
43:57
Speaker 4: who have been under the gun. They've had bomb threats
44:01
Speaker 4: against them. Their lives have been threatened. Their livelihoods have
44:04
Speaker 4: been threatened. And now as we come this far down
44:07
Speaker 4: the way, people are still attacking every day. So Gibson
44:11
Speaker 4: go stand with Nolan Wells targeted friends. That account is
44:15
Speaker 4: up and running. You can support it right now. Nancy,
44:18
Speaker 4: one thing I do want to be very clear about
44:20
Speaker 4: is that devices that were sent to two of the
44:23
Speaker 4: families turned out to be nothing but a harmless scare tactic.
44:27
Speaker 1: Dave Mack, you are talking about the suffering of the
44:31
Speaker 1: acquaintances on the boat. But that pales in comparison. Yes,
44:36
Speaker 1: I know that they have been wrongly suspected. But that
44:40
Speaker 1: pales in comparison. to what Nolan Wells' mother is suffering tonight.
44:46
Speaker 1: If you know or think you know anything regarding this case,
44:50
Speaker 1: please dial 228-769-3063. There is a $ 125, 000 reward for information.
45:01
Speaker 1: We remember American hero Deputy Sheriff Josie Fox, Millard County
45:06
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Utah, shot and killed in the line of duty
45:10
Speaker 1: just 38 days leaving behind husband Doug and little children
45:15
Speaker 1: Spencer and Hunter. American hero, Deputy Sheriff Josie Fox. Thank
45:22
Speaker 1: you to our guests, but especially to you for being
45:24
Speaker 1: with us tonight. Nancy Gray signing off for tonight, but
45:26
Speaker 1: I'll see you tomorrow night. And until then, good night, friend.