NOLAN WELLS: ZERO HORN ISLAND DROWNINGS IN 6 YEARS, WHY NOW?

0:00This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. Bumshell tonight in the Nolan Wells Death investigation. Zero horn island drownings and six straight years. Why now? Am I supposed to believe that Nolan Wells is the only one that accidentally drowned off horn island in going on seven years? Is that statistically probable? Good evening. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us. He's not out in the water floating. He's on shore. I've never really seen bodies up on a shore with the absence of waves, with the absence of a strong current.

1:00How in the world did this 19 year old man end up on shore? He fell asleep and the water is washing up. And we have just drowned him. Can we just try to deal with reality? For all we know, little green men from Mars could have been down. Right? That could have happened. Nobody, there's no. Did I hear him? Did he actually say maybe Nolan was asleep? Yeah. OK, let's just rule that out. And tonight, the theory that he, quote, swam away has been bandied about as a potential reason that he drowned, swam away from a party. Let's see the video of all of those boats all anchored together. There was a party going on. And I am supposed to believe that A, he fell asleep. He fell asleep and died. Or he swam away from this party. He's the only one that decided to swim away from the party.

2:02None of this is making sense. On top of that, we are learning that there have been no drownings at Horn Island and going on seven years. Statistically, this is highly improbable. Joining me in all star panel to make sense of what we are learning tonight, Dave Matt, with Uscrime Stories Investigative Reporter, going on seven years. No accidental drownings, no drownings of Horn Island. And I'm supposed to believe that, boop, suddenly, Nolan Wells accidentally drowns. By what? Falling asleep, like Dubase said, or he swam away from the party? Well, Nancy, the people go there to gather in an area to socialize. So A, swimming away makes no sense. Every picture, every video we see, people are gathered together. There's nobody swimming away. This is like a picnic. Everybody's hanging out together and socializing. But the other part that you said about no recorded drownings

3:05in the last six years, Nancy, that is the official record from Jackson County, Coroner. Nobody has drowned on Horn Island. And even before then, I mean, you got to go back seven years to find one, Nancy. So yeah, people don't drown on Horn Island. The locals are respectful of the area and the current. But again, Nancy, you don't have a lot of playing around in the water here. You have a lot of standing around socializing. So it doesn't make any sense. Guys, you're seeing part of Horn Island. I'm asking for the video of the boats that are anchored together because I want to verify what Dave Mack just said. I want to make sure what he said is correct. OK. Most of the people or the partiers are about at chest level of water. And that includes women who would typically be shorter than Nolan Wells. This is from Officer Tatum's show.

4:06Look at this. You're right, Dave Mack. I don't see anybody swimming away. I don't see anybody, quote, falling asleep in the water. To Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor Forensics, Jacksonville State University, he is the star of a YouTube hit body bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. But for our purposes, he is a death investigator with over 10,000 death investigations under his belt. Joseph Scott, thank you for being with us tonight. Isn't it true, Joseph Scott, that when you, medical examers, coroners are determining COD, you also look at extrinsic evidence. For instance, this is a great example. I prosecuted a murder that came from an arson. The autopsy revealed that the victim, Patricia, also had a blow to the head, a massive blow to the head. Then she laid there in the burning home and had smoke inhalation. She died in the hospital a couple of days later from smoke inhalation.

5:07OK. Arson. Was it an arson or was it an accident? After visiting 43, I believe it was, laundry's, dry cleaners, I found where her husband had taken all of his suits and all of his nice clothes and all of his fancy shoes out of the home when I went to the scene. So where is this suit? Where is this clothes? He had taken all to the dry cleaner, the suits, and the shirts, and the ties, everything, two days before the fire. Then I thought, hmm, and I started listening to the secret recordings he was trying to make of his wife and her boyfriend. And I heard where he called the weather service and asked, was it going to be raining on the day of the arson? And they went, no, sunny. Then I heard where he called the insurance company before the arson said, do you cover replacement furniture

6:10in case there's a fire in my home? You know, you put all that together plus more. That's extrinsic evidence proving he committed arson. Isn't it true you look at extrinsic evidence when you determine a COD? Of course, you look at the totality of all of the circumstances and the physical evidence that you have there when you're attempting to assess what brought about the death. And to also we have to think about the statements of anybody that observed any kind of behavior relative to some leading up to an individual's death or an individual being found at. Most people, they suddenly forget that many deaths occur in private. So every bit of information that you can glean from a scene or from those individuals that last all that subject is very important. It's not just looking at the body and trying to assess trauma and these sorts of things, but behaviors,

7:11ingestion of anything, whether it's food or drink, and also any kind of physical malities an individual may have had. All of that plays into our assessment needs. Just got, can I see him please? Air go. I'm even sorry I said that because I only lawyer say things like that. Therefore, wouldn't the medical examiner take into account the extrinsic evidence that there have been no drownings on Horn Island going on seven years? Yeah, if the corner had made the medical examiner aware of that, I think that that would be significant. And these are two separate people now. We have an elected corner in this county that has jurisdiction. The body would have been sent to the state medical examiner to do the assessment. So yeah, hopefully that data was passed along. And certainly, Department of Wildlife and Fisheries that has governance over this area, that's like game wardens and those sorts of people that patrol this kind of area, they would certainly

8:13be aware because one of the things that you're thinking about, you're not necessarily thinking about the dead. One of the things you're thinking about here is safety issues involving the living. Because you want to be able to say, this is a dangerous area shouldn't go to. The Coast Guard would be aware of this as well, particularly these findings relative to accidents and fatalities and all this stuff. And I find it very, very interesting being very familiar with this area that they have not had any drownings over a six-year period, Nancy. Seemingly, that's falling asleep and must have been drunk theory is gaining traction. He was in the water. We do know that at some point. So if he was trying to swim, once again, pure speculation, he got overwhelmed. It is, people don't realize how quickly you get tired swimming and how far distances are different. 100 yards on dry land is nothing. You can walk 100 yards and not think about it. 100 yards for swimming, a lot of people can't stay

9:16think they know how to swim, but 100 yards, if you're in a 25 yard pool, that's there and back, there and back. And a lot of people who think they know how to swim, if you tell them to go swim 100 yards, can't do it. And so if he was trying to swim even a short distance and got overwhelmed and got tired, people overestimate their swimming abilities. Even if he was walking, that's not a pool. People who, you know, don't spend a lot of time and open water, don't realize, there's drop-offs, there's holes. And so if you're expecting to take a step on a solid ground and you take a step onto a drop-off, people, they're walking along and they think it's gonna be solid ground and they take a step and they go down and they gasp and while they gasp, they're underwater, they breathe in that one breath. And that's all she wrote. And so there's a lot of speculation here, but drowning is not a hard thing to do. No one, not a single witness places known wells, asleep, asleep on a boat, asleep in the water, asleep on the sand, or trying to swim away from the party.

10:17That makes about as much sense as letting his cell phone leave on a boat. CRIME STORIES WITH MASSY GREATS Maybe to put to rest some of these theories, joining us tonight is a renowned oceanographer, Steven Demarco. He is joining us from Texas Professor of Oceanography, Texas A&M. He is the director of the Geochemical Environmental Research Group at Texas A&M. He is a physical oceanographer who has been making measurements in the ocean for 33 years, many of them in the Gulf. Steven Demarco, thank you for being with us tonight. I'm a veteran trial lawyer. I'd rather be trying a murder case and almost anything else,

11:19but when it comes to tides and currents, I need an expert. I'd like to hear what you think about claims that there's a rip tide around Horn Island. I don't see how that could be possible with so many people partying there, many of them having been drinking and more. If there's a rip tide, how come no drownings in going on seven years, Professor? Yeah, I'm looking at the video that you were just playing it looks like there was not much wind going on. It looks like it's a calm day, it's a summer day and the northern Gulf. And there tends to be not a lot of, you know, dangerous currents, although they can, I mean, nothing is impossible. There can be times when currents could occur, especially around a barrier island that barrier ranger subject to a lot of change. That's why they're barrier islands, they move. But it's slow, really slow,

12:21geological timescales we're talking about, not like weather, which is just in the order of one or two days. So it looks like... Okay, you've already lost me. You haven't even been talking for two minutes and I'm completely lost. I'm sure you can imagine how much experts would hide under the table when they saw my beat up Toyota pulling up in the parking lot. Okay. You just said something about weather, how the weather, are you saying how the weather plays into it? Yeah, weather is short-term variability. When I look at things, it's like things that happen on the order of one or two days is weather. And barrier islands grow over hundreds of years. And so it's, for me, the changes in the barrier island wouldn't be very relevant here. It's things like, is there any wind? The northern Gulf of Mexico is very famous for very small tides. So tides aren't a big thing. Summertime, other than a hurricane,

13:23there's not really much waves going on either. And waves can cause problems for swimmers. They can cause problems with rip tides. Riptides are areas where you have concentrated water flowing on shore and then there's a backflow. And people that can caught in them could tire quickly. But there's usually a signature of them. You could see that there's waves on either side. And you can see that where the rip is going out, conditions around that area are not really conducive for strong currents where strong waves tides are small in the northern Gulf. So there's a lot of different processes happening, but there's a lot of really strong processes going on at this particular time. You're saying that the weather affects it. I assume water temperature affects it. The weather that day, 91 degrees, calm wind,

14:23is July the 4th. I mean, you can see in the video that there's not waves. The water temp, I don't know what this would have to do with it, but I thought you would like it. Water temp is 86 to 90 degrees and the water around horn islands. So 91 degrees, wind, calm, water, 86 to 90 degrees. What does that mean? It means there's not a lot of variability. It means there's not a lot of visibility either. There's a lot of sediments in the ocean at that time. So you're not able to really see on this particular day. I would imagine there's just a lot of sediment in the water. You're right next to the largest river in the hemisphere with the Mississippi, brings a lot of fluid and a lot of sediment down the river. So to me, I guess I'm asking regarding rip tides. Yeah, rip tides. With the weather, the water temp,

15:23would any of that have anything to do with a rip tide? You can get rip tides when you have convergence. Usually it happens when there's windy conditions. It doesn't seem like there's a lot of wind going on on this particular day. It doesn't mean that there are, I don't have data scientists. So I look at the data, doesn't seem to be a lot of wind going on. So rip tides, maybe not so prevalent, so probable at this particular time. You know, the reason I'm asking Professor Demarco is because at the very beginning, I mean, my business is so different from yours. Mine is looking at the facts and what if anything is probative? What does anything prove or not? And almost immediately, well, actually not almost immediately, immediately. It was stated that this was a drowning and accidental drowning because of a rip tide.

16:23And as a little girl, we visited relatives and we stayed at their place on the Gulf and we could go out in the water, which was very rare. And I remember how mild it was. So when it all started that no one had to have had an accidental drowning death because of a rip tide, I found the whole rip tide concept very difficult to believe. Now what you're telling me is feeding into that. Professor, if you look strictly at oceanography, is it possible for a person who drowned in the water at Horn Island to end up at the beach a full two days later? Possible, definitely possible. And if they're in the water and the water's moving, usually because the water's not leaving, all of a sudden there's not a lot of water that's not against the island anymore.

17:24So water's constantly moving against the island. It's possible. Is it probable for him to be out floating in the water for two days? I mean, we know where he was. We just showed the video where the boats were anchored close to shore. So where was he for two days? At the surface, the wind is directly driving that water and under the surface, it takes a little bit more force to move that object. And sometimes the water that subsurface can be moving in opposite direction than what's going at the surface. But this is really shallow water. So it tends to be that it all moves like a big slab. So all the water throughout the water, throughout the water column, we would call it the water column, would move as one big slab. But typically surface currents are larger than subsurface currents. So it would move slower. What does the shape of horn island itself

18:30and the surrounding channels? What does that have to do with accelerating or redirecting water? Yeah, just looking at the bithymetry there, so the changes in the depth around that, there's lots of subsurface undulations. So it's shallow and deep, and shallow and deep, and that can cause also confluence of currents, so convergences that can speed up or slow down the water as it passes through. That's a complicated area. There's lots of different things going on there. Local fishermen will tell you, surely. I always rely on local people for sure, when I'm even when I'm doing my research in that area itself, I've done work over the years there. You talk to the local people to see what's going on. I look for where the shrimpers are when I'm trying to organize a cruise

19:30and trying to figure out research crews, trying to figure out what are the different processes if we're looking at the biology and the chemistry or the physics of the ocean. I talked to the locals to see what's going on there, and just looking at that picture and the imagery that you're showing here, there's a lot of variability that are going on, and all of that can cause a lot of different processes to push water around. I'd like to see the aerial view of where all the debris driftwood kelp was as opposed to where the body is found. The body of Nellow Wells is found somewhere entirely different than where the waves have left ocean debris. That doesn't make sense to me, Professor. Yeah, so looking at that, it could be accumulation over a long periods of time,

20:31but as we were talking about weather earlier, also the very short period of time could very much dictate where debris ends up onto the beach. There's a lot of beach cromers that walk beaches and they find all kinds of things at different times. If I'm walking along a beach and I see a dune there and there's lots of sawdust, some seaweed or something like that there, and it's been accumulating over a long period of time. There's a lot of rot and seaweed that's sitting there. I know that happened like quickly or not quickly, it can happen over a long period. If I just saw the sudden sea of a bag of trash in one location, I'd probably will come to this conclusion if it looks like it came from offshore that it floated in recently. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. I'm also curious why we are now

21:34and we, what out to you Dave Matt, Crime stories investigative reporter, and we still don't have a phone analysis. That's what originally raised red flags with Nolan's mother that he had not sent. Any text, no photos, no snaps, no anything. And then his phone left without him. I keep hearing screams to get the phone analyzed but yet this far in, it still hasn't happened. Wouldn't that be something a grand jury would like to hear about? You think nine and a half weeks since Nolan Wells died on Horn Island Nancy and the phone, we don't know who has the phone Nancy. We know that it's been a source of discussion, of debate, of argument about who has the phone

22:34and where is it. Nolan's family has the phone and there's been negotiations about how it's going to be analyzed and whether or not they will all do it together meaning the experts from the FBI and experts from Nolan Wells family and getting together to analyze this. It seems like this is a piece of evidence that we have to have and it should be broken down as a piece of evidence so that the grand jury could enlighten themselves with the information found on this phone. We only know that Nolan took it to the island. We only know that Nolan left it on the boat or it was placed on the boat. We just know that it came back without him and now we still don't know anything about that phone. To Greg Morris joining us, veteran trial lawyer founder of Morse Legal in Palm Beach, former West Palm Beach public defenders of us and author of The Untested Morse.

23:35It's not that hard to agree to review a piece of evidence with the prosecution and the defense and the experts together. In fact, I preferred for the defense to come during the examination so later at trial they couldn't claim the evidence was tampered with. How hard can it be? Pick a day, show up, end of story. Well, it's not difficult for the family and the prosecution but the defense has to make calculated decisions on this stuff. There's nobody that's been arrested, there's nobody that's been even named a suspect. So as the defense, I would not be communicating with the prosecution, I wouldn't be agreeing to anything. And when you talk about this phone and evidence, I've dealt with this countless times, especially in my federal practice. There's ways to review the credibility of any download the government does, it's called indexing,

24:35it mirrors the phone. So a defense lawyer, as most of us are, when we're litigating cases and representing someone, we're reactionary anyway. There are times that you're in agreement and you're working not with the prosecution but being involved in an investigation before an arrest occurs, but that's mostly when you're trying to convince the prosecution not to charge your client or if you're involved in white collar representation, like I am, those cases tend to go on for years before someone is indicted. And you may be communicating with the government, but here, you have a phone. It's been nine and a half weeks. So it's really, there's no real rhyme or reason if it hasn't been investigated. Maybe the police already have done that, they just haven't talked about it. You know, that happens sometimes, it doesn't seem like it in this case, based on the family of Nolan Wells and what they've talked about with the phone. And they're lawyers, but that could be the case. But however, I'm not sure why the defense would be involved in anything here. There's no reason to be.

25:35So really, for the defense, there's nothing for them to do at all. You know, other than, you know, in the beginning, they, the, the, the, friends of Nolan Wells seem to be trying to provide information, to law enforcement, to show, hey, they weren't even on the island when this thing happened. But short of that, why would you even engage with the prosecution? As a defense lawyer, all you could do is create information against your client. Okay, Greg, the, the facts are that the victims' mother, family have the phone and they, for their own reasons, do not want to hand the phone over to the state without being there when it is examined. And what I don't get is it's been nine weeks now and still there hasn't been an examination date of the phone, which I believe could be very, very probative. In other words, what is or is not on there or may have been deleted is very probative. What is on there and what may not be on there

26:37could actually tell us something about what happened. So it's not that hard to have a mutual inspection of the evidence I've done many times with the defense. In fact, I encourage it. But the process of inspecting the phone is also not difficult for a digital forensics expert to do. Also not difficult. My question to you is, isn't this the type of evidence a grand jury would be interested in hearing? Well, they would be if it's relevant. You mean, you don't know what's on the phone. You're speculating as to there's something nefarious on the phone that would be a link in the chain of Oh, either way. An indictment. If nothing is missing, if the phone were used during that time and there was no problem, wouldn't that be ex-sculptory for anyone under suspicion and if the facts were otherwise, it wouldn't be so good for them. Well, you know yourself, the prosecutor's not going to present ex-sculptory evidence in a grand jury proceeding. That's not what they do. Grand jury proceedings are one way,

27:39unless they're for investigative, non-criminal purposes, which is rare. So no, this is something that listen, I've represented victims' families before. I've represented victims of crimes rarely and you simply give law enforcement the phone. As much as I would love to hear about all the people that Greg Morse has represented in all of your courtroom wins, to me, this is very important evidence, critical evidence, because the mom and the family first raised the issue regarding the phone. I'm hearing something. Oh, it's Morse, please stop it. The family thinks it's critical. Don't you think law enforcement, if you wouldn't throw out the grand jury fine, wouldn't law enforcement want to know what was or was not on the phone? What's the hold up? Why are you evading my question? If they were investigating a crime and yeah, I think they would, but I don't know why the family hasn't given it to them. The family controls that. So this notion that, oh, they're going to doctor the phone or do something improper, just doesn't make any sense.

28:42Any download is indexed. Anyone can see what was changed if something was in a download. That with them so many times in my career. So that's a non-issue. That's a, there's another reason potentially, and it's not because people are concerned or the family that the phone's going to be manipulated. That makes no sense at all. The cell service isn't great at the island, but once you, I mean, you can use your phone, but stuff might not descend, and like, I mean, it's not, it's not great. You know, you got maybe one board, it won't work that well. But once you get a little off island, you have cell coverage, and even on island, like I called my mom when we were on the island, you know, it was fun. Like, we had, we had, you know, enough cell coverage to make a phone call or shoot a text over, but you're not, you don't have enough cell coverage like send a picture, for example. So, Joe Scott Morgan joining us, death investigator, again, back to extrinsic evidence. Oh, that is from the officer Tatum Show. That was Warren Hudson speaking. Joe Scott, I understand why Nolan's mother

29:43is still upset about this phone, okay? From what we understand, the family still has it, because a date for the investigators, law enforcement to inspect, it still has not happened. If I were investigating this case, I wanna see that phone. You just heard one of the acquaintances state, he called his mother, he took pictures, he could text, from a horn island. No wonder the mother is upset that there's this huge big blank reportedly on his phone. There's nothing, there's no snaps, there's no WhatsApp, there's no text, there's no videos, no pictures, nothing. Everything is gone. And she says he was glued to his phone. So, isn't that something that the medical examiner, a coroner or death investigator like yourself would take into account as to what happened to him? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

30:43This is why, because we now have a digital world that we live in, where we can track movement, we can track activity, and all of these sorts of things, things that for years and years, we long to have, but with the digital world that we live in, we can marry that up, Nancy, along with the physical findings that we have, say at autopsy exam at the scene, or maybe the information that comes into us about behavioral stuff relative to alcohol consumption, drug consumption, any kind of health issues, all of that. So, it all marries together. And again, I don't understand why feet are being drug here. I don't understand why this is not gone to a grand jury yet, which they said that was gonna happen. And here's the problem. The optics on this are horrible, because the longer this thing kind of drags out, the thing festers. It continues to fester. And it's better if we can go ahead, investigatively, and put this to bed with facts, Nancy.

31:44Well, speaking of festering, let me see, Joe Scott, please. I understand that toxicology reports take several days, but it's at the nine-week mark. Don't take this long. Toxicology does not take that long. Now, we've heard through sources, there was a lot of speculation, oh no, and well, he's cocaine. We've heard reports that no cocaine is found in his body. So that's a load of BS. Probably the same type of people that said he fell asleep, or he tried to swim away from the party, or it's an accidental, I mean, all of this speculation, we've been told from a source, still waiting on the medical examiner's report, that there was no cocaine in the Nellinwell's system. That aside, Joe Scott, eight weeks, nine weeks, are you kidding me? Of course the tox is back. So what if he had beer? That doesn't really change anything. No, it doesn't. That's the reality of youth, right?

32:45And so, but yeah, it doesn't take this long. And we kind of joke about this, in all of these cases we talk about, well, you know, it's pending. Well, yeah, because it's this kind of, but this should not be pending this long. It does not take this long, even in an estate of decomposition, which, you know, the second autopsy alluded to, you're going to have results back. And where are they gonna get these from? Just so that we can educate our audience out there, you're gonna get it from vitrious humor, that comes from the eye, we're gonna get it from urine, we're gonna get it from blood, you can do a blood draw directly from the heart, the aorta, you can do peripheral blood out of the femoral artery. And then we have tissue samples that we can actually study as well. So, all of this stuff, it sounds overwhelming, but given the amount of time that they have had with these samples, we should have results by now, this is gonna be a full spectrum analysis,

33:47what we call a standard panel. They're gonna be looking for everything, everything from aspirin to meth will be listed on this. All right, and Italy, they say it's there or it's not. You know what, Joe Scott? I got so many questions such as, I saw the body. I saw photos that we have not publicized of the body. He did not look bloated. I don't understand why he didn't look bloated. I also don't understand the mom was afraid, concerned that night, did nobody, did law enforcement not go to the island for two days? If so, why? And if they did go, where was he? How did he just appear in that location two days later? Where was his body for two days? Just so many questions and tonight for all of us.

34:49Why is there radio silence? Why are we hearing nothing from law enforcement? Nothing from the DA, nothing from the grand jury, nothing from nobody. Do they think we're gonna just forget about the Nolan Wells case because that is not going to happen? And all this business about an accidental drowning, oh, the first one in nearly seven years, that defies probability that he swam away from the party, not likely that he fell asleep in the water and just died? If you know or think you know anything regarding this case, please dial 228-769-3063. There is a $125,000 reward for information leading to the truth of what happened to Nolan Wells. Thank you to all of our guests for being with us tonight,

35:52but especially to you, for being with us in our search, for the truth and what happened to this young man, Nolan Wells. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an I Heart podcast, Guaranteed Human.