Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - NOLAN WELLS BOMBSHELL: I WAS THERE ON HORN ISLAND

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

The investigation into Nolan Wells' death continues. Today, a local resident and frequent visitor to Horn Island joins Nancy Grace and her panel today to explain what he saw that day. Joining Nancy Grace: Philip Dubé  - Former Court-Appointed Counsel, Los Angeles County Public Defenders: Criminal & Constitutional Law, Forensics & Mental Health Advocacy   Ben Dobrin   -  Emergency Response Diving Instructor and Instructor Trainer, Police Diver,  Emergency Services Diver  Jeff Gentry  -  Certified Bloodstain Pattern Analyst, Senior Crime Scene Analyst and Death investigator, Former Toxicology Lab Analyst, Author: "Forensic Science: Applications to Death and Crime Scene Investigations" ; TikTok: @jeffreygentryBPA, FB: Jeff Gentry Bloodstain Pattern Analyst , website: Evidenceoverassumption.com   Johnny Hewett - was at Horn Island that day on July 4th.  Dr. Jan Gorniak -  - Fmr. Medical Examiner, Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner, Board Certified Forensic Pathologist and founder of: World Peace Forensic Consulting, LLC EMAIL: [e-mail]   Brett Talley - Co-host, "The Prosecutors Podcast", www.prosecutorspodcast.com, former prosecutor, socials: @prosecutorpodFormer Prosecutor  Dave Mack - Investigative Reporter, 'Crime Stories' See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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A witness says, I was there on Horn Island. Good evening. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us. There's a big honkin mark, subcutaneous, deep reddening tissue on his occipital. If I hit somebody in the back of the head, it'd be right there. There was no indication that there was any kind of contusions on the hand, the arm, no kind of defensive event. Jeff, I'm looking right now at the photo of his body.

And it's about the beach is flat. And I would say it's about three to four feet from where there's nothing but sand, no water. It looks like it's just as the water is starting. like you could walk in it very easily and your ankles may not even get wet it's he's not out in the water at all he's on the beach and on wet sand that's the way to put it it's wet sand he's not out in the water jeff gentry what does that mean if anything that's really abnormal i would i would have a ton of questions in that case I would wonder if there's no waves, no strong current, why is that body up on a shore? How did it get there?

And just like when we're looking at blood evidence or other forms of evidence, if something is in a certain position within a scene, you have to question how it got there. I have investigated a lot of deaths, bodies in canals, rivers, lakes, large bodies of water, never really near the ocean to where you would expect somebody to have wash up to shore. But in these cases, even though there's strong current waves, large bodies of water, I've never really seen bodies up on a shore, especially up out of the water enough to where they could decompose significantly to where they can't be identified or can't be fingerprinted. So that would be a very big question that I would have in this case is with the absence of waves, with the absence of a strong current, how in the world did this 19-year-old man end up on shore out of the water? that our friend Jeff Gentry joining us out of Fresno at Evidenceover Assumption.com, death investigator with me an all-star panel.

Before we get to what happened on Horn Island on July the 4th, I must follow up on what Gentry said to Johnny Hewitt joining us, who was at Horn Island on the 4th. Johnny, thank you for being with us. You know all about the tides and the current. there at Horn Island, which begs the question, why was Nolan Wells's body in that position so far up on the beach? If he drowned, shouldn't he have been out in the water? It was my understanding whenever they found his body, it wasn't up real far on the beach.

And, you know, out here in the Gulf and on these barrier islands, the tides and the current, and the wave action can affect that. Depending on the time of day that they found his body, whether it was high tide or low tide, and with the currents pushing the body where they found it and the waves rolling it up to the shore, the tide could absolutely affect that as to how far up on the sand or on the beach that he was.

John Hewitt, there is a lot of discussion tonight about the location where Nolan Wells's body was found. He's not out in the water floating. He's on shore in wet sand. What do you make of that? Yes, ma'am. If you can see where the top edge of that wet sand was

in the photo when he was recovered, you can see where the tide is let out and where the wave action was still coming up to the top part of that wet sand. so they must have found him on a lower tide. Tell me about the tides and the current. I understand that they are generally mild. They're mild in that portion of the island,

but they come around that west tip of the island, and they're typically pretty strong there. So everything where they found him that comes around from the south to the northwest corner of the island kind of washes around that west tip, and it kind of ends up there. If you can see the dark areas in the sand on the beach, that's a lot of debris stuff, lines and sand and driftwood and, you know, shells

and all that stuff's kind of washing up there from where it washes around the corner of the island. So if the current caught him in the seas, and the tide was in the current was pushing him that way, there could be several feet difference in the tide from whenever the tide is in when the tide goes out. Let's see that video surveillance from an aerial viewpoint because where everyone is standing around,

they are standing around Nolan's body. You can't see the body. We're not showing that photo, but that is where the body is found. Okay. This is from our friends at Cajun Navy. They're approaching the scene there. See? It's up on.

the sand. I'm really surprised that he was on the shore. I've never personally investigated a drowning case where a person just ends up on the shore, especially if there's not a strong current or waves. Usually in bodies of water, the person will stay in pretty much the location where they go underwater if it's witnessed. They don't usually move around much after they have submerged or gone underwater. So to me, it's very concerning that he was on the shore or,

that his body surfaced that quickly. Joining us in addition to John Hewitt is Ben Dobran joining us out of Virginia Beach, emergency response diving instructor, police diver, emergency services diver. Ben, thank you for being with us. Ben, do you agree with Gentry that the body is typically found where it goes in the water? So drownings are interesting. If somebody truly drowns, they inhale. water the water fills up their lungs and then they sink and then looking at

pictures of this young man he was also very muscular muscles are heavier than water muscles are heavier than fat fat floats but muscle sinks so if he let's speculate here that he inhaled water and drowned he would sink and gents people that drowns stay where they drowned until that's exceptionally warm water down there it's the summertime it's the Gulf of Mexico Gulf of America, that waters between 85 and 90 degrees. In the summertime, we generally say bodies have about two to three days because the warm water, there is bacterial growth, and then those bacterial growth give off gases, and that allows the body now to float and rise to the surface. And so, yes, if he did

drown, he would sink where he did the initial drowning, but then he would rise to the surface and float. And at that point, the wind, the waves, the current. I'm from the mid-Atlantic. We have what's called a semi-diurnal tide. Our tide shifts every six hours. We have two high tides, two low tides a day. They have a diurnal tide there. It's a 12-hour tidal shift. And so if he came up and flowed to the surface, he would have 12 hours of being pushed. And by looking at those pictures of where the debris line was, you can see how high the water pushes up at high tide. And then it recedes for the next 12 hours. So he had that picture right there.

You know, you can see that debris line is even further up than where those people are standing. And so at the last high tide, that's how high up the water went. And then it receded for the next 12 hours. And when it recedes, if he was pushed up, that's where the body would deposit. And then the water would recede. And that's where they found him right there, where the water receded where it left the body. Brett Talley is joining us, co-star of the prosecutor's podcast. former federal prosecutor.

Brett, thank you for being with us tonight. Brett, of course. This will be quite the contentious subject if this should go to trial. We know a grand jury is being impaled to look at the evidence. It's a very tricky thing because you hear Gentry,

who's a death investigator and has dealt with drownings and you hear Hewitt and Dobrin and their takes are entirely different about why Nolan's body is where it is. You, the prosecutor and the defense attorney, have to be totally prepared for all of this tidal, current, riptide, weather, sunset, sunrise. When the tie comes in, when the tie goes out, it's very confusing, but I got a problem with where his body is found. Thanks for having me, Nancy, and I have a problem with it too, but I think that's where your grand jury comes in. A grand jury could be a very powerful investigative tool. And I'm learning everything I can know about those specific tides. And that day, I want to know where the ripped tides, what the currents were, when the high tide was, when the low tide was. And the other thing that I want to know, I'm sure you remember the Scott Peterson case when Lacey Peterson's body washed up on shore. They were able to trace using the information about the currents to where she would have gone into the water. I would like to know can they trace it back to figure out where he may have entered the water on that day. Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month.

Price guaranteed for two years on Internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. Brett Talley, I'll nip. Never forget it. Another thing they did in the Scott Peterson prosecution, there were scent dogs. There were sent dogs that could track, that did track, Lacey Peterson from her Modesto home,

there on Covina, all the way to the San Francisco Bay. They did that even though she was in, many people believe, the back of Scott Peterson's boat under a tarp. Had to be cadaver dogs. all the way of the bay. The delay in bringing scent dogs and cadaver dogs to this scene, that's a huge problem because this is out in the elements. What if, just go with me here, Brett Talley,

you're a former federal prosecutor, what if the dogs were brought, and we don't know about it, and a cadaver dog hit up, like in, let me see that aerial, up in the center of the island, where the currents do not go. What if a cadaver dog, hot dog, it's up and there, which would suggest that that is where he died. That that changes everything. If you have that kind of information, it changes everything.

And that's why you can't go into something like this, assuming it's an accident. You have to answer all these questions. No one that we know of saw him go into the water. There's no outwind his testimony. How he ended up in the water is a mystery. So you have to assume, at least when you begin your investigation, there's more information you don't know. And the other thing I would do, Nancy, this island has cell phone service. I would have a tower dump of every cell phone that connected from that island, and I would talk to every single one of those people. I would interview everyone who was on that island to see if anyone could tell me the last time that he was seen a lot. You think you can send that email to the prosecutor?

Tower dump? We've seen it done in so many cases. I mean, that is one of the reasons Brian Koeberger was nailed, because of it. of his cell phone, because of his GPS nav. I mean, you preaching to the choir right now. I'm seeing in the same verse as you, tower dump. That would show me every phone that was on in that area at that time, at that specific time. It doesn't have to be from 8 a.m. in the morning. It could be from 3 p.m. till 10 p.m. I mean, a lot of the boats were leaving. So I would have a very narrowed pool of cell phones. Right. I don't need to everybody that saw him there that day.

I need to see who saw him last. Who was there at the very end. Okay. Also joining me in addition to a former federal prosecutor and star of the prosecutor's podcast, Brett Talley, is Philip DuVay, veteran defense attorney joining us at the L.A. jurisdiction. DuBae, thank you for being with us. response to all of the tide information. Why was he, why was his body at that location? Yeah, for all we know, the young man could have been drunk and fell asleep. And if he fell asleep and the water is washing up, it may have just drowned him. Remember, there's no way to predict unless what. Hold on. Can we just try to deal with reality? For all we know, little green men from Mars could of beam down, right? That could have happened. Nobody, there's no, did I hear him? Did he actually

say maybe no one was asleep? Yeah. Okay, let's just rule that out. Okay, just come up with a different story. Spin it, do you guys, spin it? Remember, we saw this in Dominican Republic last year with a young med student from Pittsburgh. What was her name? I wrote it down. Suditsha Konamki. She was there partying from Pittsburgh, and they detained Joshua Rebae because they thought, because they had gone out into the water, they were seen on video together that something sinister had happened. But the truth be told, they both got pulled out to the water by strong rip currents. The girls' remains were never found, and they ruled it an accidental drowning. Why can't the same be true here? Why does something sinister always have to be afoot? Tragedies happened that nobody ever expected. Debe, put him up.

Debeye, that could be entirely true. And nobody said it's not. But let me redirect you to the question you are asked about proving cases based on tide and current. Did you not just hear Talley state he was concerned about the location of Nolan Wells' body? So what do you do with tides and currents? You've done it before. We've all done it in court. Explain it.

Well, what do you say? What do you do with tides and currents? First of all, there is no evidence that he was out in the water and washed ashore. There is no evidence that he actually took a nap and the water washed upon him and he drowned accidentally. Right now, there's just simply insufficient evidence. There is no evidence that anybody hit him, placed him on the sound, on the sand to let him die. So right now, everything is speculative,

and it's up in the air, and there's just no proof of a crime. Okay, thank you. Let me redirect the question to Brett Talley and get an answer on this. Brett, former federal prosecutor, star of the prosecutor's podcast. This is what would happen at trial.

If this ever goes to trial, the state would try to prove that there was not a drowning at sea and that he just washed up, that there was an intervening sea, OD cause of death. Or that he died on the mainland, if a cadaver dog so describes. The defense will be arguing, if this does ever go to trial, that this was an accidental

drowning and he washed ashore. How would you use tied and current information to prove or disprove the theories? Well, you get an expert who knows this area, who knows this very specific island, who's done test on this island, who can look back at scientific data from July 4th, who knows what the tides were, who knows what the rip currents were, who knows what the currents are. Based on where he was, it may be the case, and we don't know this, that's why we need the expert to look at the data. If the expert can say, look, based on the tides the way they were, based on the rip currents,

it is impossible for his body to have ended up in this spot. If the expert tells you that, the expert's solid, then that means he did not drown out in the water somewhere. That eliminates that possibility. Now we have to figure out what else happened. I mean, maybe he did fall asleep on the beach, but that seems unlikely, right? That's why you need this information. We're not speculating. We're asking for the science to back up what our theory is and to discover what actually happened at night.

To John Hewitt joining us at Horn Island on July 4. He spoke to the young men, acquaintances of Nolan Wells, on the Triton boat. John Hewitt, was the water clear or murky that day? Do you know? Yes, ma'am, it was extremely murky that day. Uncharacteristically murky. Normally it's pretty clear this time of year. but we had a lot of heavy rains before that and a lot of sediment that had washed down. So it was pretty muddy. What difference does that make?

It makes quite a bit of difference. For visibility, for one, you can't even see your feet when you're standing there in it. So typically it's like the photo that you see there. It's pretty clean this type of year. We just went this past weekend and the water's clear. you can see the sand on the bottom, but it was not that day. But what difference does that make, whether the water was murky or clear? Are you saying that, I mean, I'm just assuming arguendo,

you're saying if it had been murky, then no one would have seen Nolan Wells submerged in the water? Correct. I mean, yes, it doesn't make a difference with tides or currents or any of that. It just makes a difference in visibility and being able to see somebody in the water. to Dr. Jan Gorniak, you know her well for a medical examiner Clark County that is in Vegas pathologist, founder of World Peace Forensic Consulting. Dr. Gorniak, thank you for being with us. Wouldn't his body, if he had drowned, come up to the top, wouldn't people see his body

floating in the water? What, they all just left a body floating in the water? It wouldn't have floated up right away. So if there's nobody there to see it, float up, because he was decomposed. And hearing that the water was 80 degrees, he's going to decompose in the water. I'm not sure why people think that he decomposed outside of the water. But like your previous guest said, the diver, that before someone surfaces, they're going to sink. And then once they start to decompose and the gas is being produced by the bacteria, then they come to the surface. So they're not going to see it

right away. If someone was drowning and there's people around, you might see somebody struggling, right? But if there's nobody around, nobody's going to see that. And unfortunately, the body is not going to be seen until it starts to decompose and, you know, comes to the surface of the water. Ben Durbin, agree or disagree? I do agree. What she spoke to, you know, if somebody drowns, they're going to sink and they're going to stay in that spot. Even if there's some currents or tides, the water will wash over at that point. However, if they rise up in the water column, even a little bit, if they just start to, they're not going to pop to the surface like a Trident submarine, but they're going to rise up slowly. And if they rise up, they're going to shift a little bit.

And then when they get to the surface, now there could be the surface current, the wind, and the tide are going to be pushing whatever that is. And so if a drowning did occur, the body would be pushed in one direction based on all of those elements. And if this was what happened this time, it was pushed to the shore by the tide, the waves, and the wind. And so that explains how the body got there, especially that high up. The body would be pushed to the highest point of the high tide line. And then when the water receded, it would be left behind. Because we hear Gentry death investigator state that the body typically is found where it went into the water. And you can see from that aerial video,

that everyone is up on the shore around Nolan's body. That's where his body is found. So, question for the experts. Back to John Hewitt at Horn Island on the 4th. John Hewitt, why were you at Horn Island on the 4th? Well, we go every year for the 4th of July, and we were all out there with family and friends. Then we go out to celebrate the 4th of July.

Typically, we leave around 3.30 in the afternoon because my wife used to work nightship. Well, she was off that day, so we stayed. We left at 4.30. We started picking up anchor. One of the young men in the photo that continues to circulate, the young man in the far right asked us for a ride at 430 and said that his friends were leaving. Could we give him a ride? And when I looked up, I seen the boat pulling out. It was loaded with kids.

them pulling out and I told him that we were at capacity on my vessel and did he have another way in and if he didn't have a way in and we would give him a ride but if he had more friends out there then he needed to try to find another ride we didn't want to get stopped by DMR for being over our limit on our boat and get a get a ticket he said that he did have more friends out there that he would just catch another ride so that we saw some of the boys leaving and then we saw coming in the channel coming around Fort Point into Fort Bayou, I fussed at some of the boys that were in the water behind one of the boats. And later now, we didn't know at the time how relevant it was. But my wife, when all this started happening, my wife said, honey, you know,

that's the boys you fussed at in the channel. I thought they were swimming in the channel. And I fussed at them about getting out of the channel. And they hollered. We're putting our plug back in the boat. Hold on. Wait a minute. Put him up. So you saw the Nolan acquaintances on the Triton when you were leaving. Is that correct? We saw them leaving. Well, we take that back. Hold on.

There was multiple boats. We saw the blue boat leaving with all the kids on it. We saw the Triton in the channel when we came in around the corner. If I'm not mistaken, I think they may have left a little earlier. I'm not sure. I'm not sure of that timeline. We saw the blue boat leaving. We saw the white boat in the channel.

I fussed at the boys whenever we were coming into Fort Bayou Arena. Mr. Hewitt, let me understand. You're talking about two boats, a white boat and a blue boat. Yes. You recognized the blue boat. You knew the people on the blue boat. Was the white boat Detroiton? Yes.

Okay. You stated that a young man named Eric asked you for a ride. Was that on Horn Island? Yes, ma'am. Okay. You didn't take him because you were at capacity. Did he end up on the Triton? I don't know the answer to that question.

I don't know how he made it back. All right. What, if anything, did you observe when you were at Horn Island? Tell me everything that you saw. We only saw the blue boat leaving when we were leaving at 4.30. We were picking up anchor when that young man asked us for a ride. He was standing at the back of my boat. The blue boat pulled out in front of us.

So he said that was his friend leaving. That's what we saw at the island. When we were almost back to Fort Bayou, the Triton was stopped in the channel. and I fussed that three of the boys were in the water. I thought they were swimming in the water in the channel, and I fussed at them about getting out of the channel, and they hollered back to me. We're putting the plug back in the boat.

Okay, and explain to non-boatgoers what that means. So apparently they pulled the plug if they had water in the hole of the boat when they got the boat up and moving on plane, they must have pulled the plug and got the boat up and moving. and it'll pull water out of the whole of the boat. And you can leave it out until you start to slow down again, because then your boat will start taking on water again. So my guess is that that's where they slowed down

because they were close to home, and they jumped out to put the plug back at the boat to keep them taking on water again. Could you see what the boys were doing on the side of the boat? Do you know that's what they were doing, or is that what they told? you they were doing. That's what they told me they were doing.

I don't know if that's what they were doing, but, I mean, they would have no reason to tell me that if that's not what was happening. I have no reason to believe or disbelieve them. I'm just trying to determine can you corroborate what they were doing as your eyewitness. I mean, if you can't, that's fine. If you can't, good. They told you they were plugging the boat. Is that correct?

That's correct. but you don't know on your own what they were doing outside the boat. No, ma'am, because our encounter was brief. I was coming in the channel and passing their vessel. What was the scene on Horn Island? I noticed in one particular video that I would love to see, the boats are very close together. That concerns me because there could be a fight between those boats,

somebody could be held under the water between those boats, somebody could slip and fall and hit their head and go, underwater between those boats. And I don't know that anyone would ever notice. Yeah, it's that way, typically for the 4th of July, Memorial Day, Labor Day weekends, it's pretty packed like that because it's a pretty hot spot for the whole Gulf Coast boating community ends up out there. So there's a lot of boats.

And you're right. If something happened between a boat, most drownings are silent. nobody, no, the potential there for somebody to hear that and go unnoticed is extremely likely. It could have happened. Get Bell, Pure Fiber Internet with Crave Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.com for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything.

Crime stores with Nancy Grace. I'm glad you said that, Mr. Hewitt, to Ben Dobrin joining us, emergency response, a diver, and instructor. Ben, we know that the second medical examiner that did the autopsy did not have the lungs or the throat. Lungs, I understand, to determine if they were full of water and what kind of water. Throat, I do not understand why that was taken. That's a question for Dr. Gorman. But Ben, you just heard John Hewitt explained correctly that drowning is a silent death. If his lungs are full of water and he did in fact drown, which is an if, I want to figure out how he got in the water.

Okay. Was he hit? Was he struck? Was he held under? Did he slip and fall? Did he lose his footing? What really concerns me is that red mark on the back of his occipital. So I got to figure out what that is.

I got to figure out why his throat was taken out by the medical examiner. If it's a drowning, why do I need his throat? But explain to me, I mean, I'm a layperson, you're the expert. It's not just that their lungs are full of water. It's how they got in the water to start with. Absolutely. And right now this is all special. speculative. And so there's lots of variables to play. So he's a young man, very athletic by his

build. So he might assume that he's a good swimmer. I have no idea if he was a good swimmer or a bad swimmer. Until we get the toxicology report back also. We don't know if he had alcohol in a system. Yes, he was underage, but no, we were all young at one point, and it was July 4th weekend. I don't know if he had a couple of alcoholic beverages or not. So these are all things we have to find out. But he was in the water. We do know that at some point. So if he was trying to swim, once again, pure speculation, his friends were trying to leave. He said, I want to stay on the island a little bit more.

I'm having a good time. For me, what that says is, I'm a young man. There is somebody that I want to talk to. Generally, it might be a young lady that he wants to speak to or a group of young ladies. So pure speculation, his friends were going back to shore. He didn't want to go back. he thought it was time for him to talk to some other people, maybe another boat left or somebody wave to him out or he got overwhelmed. It is, people don't realize how quickly you get tired

swimming and how far distances are different. A hundred yards on dry land is nothing. You can walk 100 yards and not think about it. A hundred yards for swimming, a lot of people can't say, think 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, and like the other person said, drowning is quiet for the most part on movies, people always are going up and they're down and they're screaming and they're yelling. That doesn't happen. When people are fighting for their life and they're fighting for that breath,

they're going to lean their head back to try to get those, that mouth as high as possible. And once you do that and water rushes in and it's all over. But people over, their swimming abilities. Even if he was walking, that's not a pool. People who, you know, don't spend a lot of time in 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, I have found bodies, many bodies were in three feet of water and then six, seven, eight, 10 feet of water. I found many bodies in my career right at the bottom of a drop-off. It's an easy place for people, for us as divers, to find bodies.

But that's where we find a lot of them is people, they're walking along and they think it's going to 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. The fact that people don't drown, you know, is great. I love that we're having more swimming lessons every year. I love that people are being. Okay. Before we go off into swimming safety, Ben, you said something that really good. got my interest in that is that you find many people in the spot where they drowned. And that leads me to where Nolan's body was found up on the shore. Why is his body there? It's just on some wet sand. Now we're talking about current and tide all night long.

What? That's when it's a witness. It's when it's a witness drowning. And I have somebody say he or she went in right there. And then we go out in them right there. If it's two days later, that's a whole different ballgame. to John Hewitt, was the island locked down on the fifth and the sixth trying to find Nolan? We didn't go back out the next day, but I understand that whenever everybody started, we got up the next morning,

and we thought, we heard that there was a kid missing, and we said, oh, he'll wake up on somebody's couch, because I can tell you that we were really close to where all those boys were. We had to shut our music off on our boat. They had a big party going on over there. And we thought that he was just going to wake up on somebody's couch. He rode in with another boat. There's a lot of people out there that know a lot of people. Everybody, it's not uncommon to come and go on different vessels.

So those kids all get out there from Ocean Springs, Blugsy, Gulfport. They all know each other. They all ride back and forth with each other. So we thought maybe he was on somebody else's couch. We heard that he was talking to that girl, Katie. We're like, oh, well, they're going to find him. Somebody's going to talk to him. Johnny, that all these people know each other,

but no one thought that Nolan was being left behind. To Dr. Jan Gorniak joining us. We're now medical examiner formerly from Vegas. We know that Nolan was identified. by dental records. Fingerprints or facial identification was not possible. There was a closed casket, which tells me his face could not be reconstructed. I'm trying to find out why that is.

Well, it's known that he was decomposed. So if he is that badly decomposed and not visually identified, because once you start decreasing, your skin starts to slip, We don't know what was underneath the water. So we were talking to some, I heard someone talking about there's crabs, there's fish, there's turtles, that could be eating on the body and that could obscure facial features. We have to have somebody positively identified before we can release them to their family. And the easiest way and the cheapest way would be fingerprints, right?

But someone would have to have fingerprints on file. If he's decomposing and some, especially someone in water, think of it. about if you sit in the bathtub too long, right, your fingers get wrinkly. In this case, when someone's in the water too long and they're decomposing, you have what's called the gloving. So actually, the outer layer of your skin actually slips off. So you don't have any prints to print. The next way to identify somebody is through dental records. So they had a possibility that a tentative ID that that was Nolan, but to positively ID him, they had to get dental record from his dent and make that comparison.

So if they're identifying somebody through dental records, they were definitely not visibly identifiable. And I can only speculate that he wouldn't have been able to have an open casket. Dr. Gorniak, why was his throat taken during autopsy? That is a normal procedure of all autopsies. All autopsies are done the same way. It is a complete examination of a dead body. So when we do an autopsy, we are examining every organ in the body, including the neck organs.

So we have to look at the neck organs because, and I see you showing a picture, there's structures in the neck that can help us determine if someone was strangled. So you have that little U-shaped bone. It's called the hyoid bone, and it's a way up in your neck. So if someone is strangled, that bone can be broken. we need to look at that. The thyroid carliges stick out in the back. So you have your thyroid gland in the front. The thyroid carlogists stick out in the back. If those are broken, that too can be a sign of strangulation. An autopsy is done to determine the cause of death. So we have to

look at everything in order to rule things out. The interesting thing about the neck is the last The question is, Dr. Gorniak, was why was the throat removed and not just examined? His throat was missing along with his lungs when his body was sent for an independent autopsy. It's not missing. So what I said was in all autopsies, that whole structure comes out in every single autopsy that we do. Because we cannot assess the high-old bone or the thyroid cartilage if it's still in the body. Okay. So that comes out.

What people don't understand is when we do an autopsy, we have what we call a specimen jar. So every single organ that we look at, we have to save a section or a piece of that organ in the specimen jar because once we release the body, once the body is released to the funeral right, right? What we can't get it back. So what if we say, I'm like, oh my goodness, let me look at the heart, microscope. I can go back to that specimen jar and get a piece of heart out and make a slide out of that heart.

If you know or think you know anything regarding the death of Nolan Wells, please dial 228-7693063. We remember American Hero Officer Joey Vincent Greenville, PD, Kentucky, just 30 years old, shot in the line of duty after serving eight years leaving behind. his little girl, Brooklyn, American hero officer Joey Vincent. Thank you to our guest, but especially to you for being with us tonight. Nancy Gray signing off for tonight, but I'll see you tomorrow night. And until then, good night, friend.

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