Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - NOLAN WELLS FAMILY HITS SOCIAL MEDIA GIANTS, SUBPOENAS NOLAN'S ACCOUNTS

Episode Date: July 30, 2026

Christine Wonsley's legal team has issued subpoenas to several major social media and technology companies. It's  in an effort to get records of her son's accounts as the investigation into her 18-year-old son's death continues.   The court documents show information is being sought from  Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, TikTok and  Life360. The petition, asks for messages, photos and videos sent and received through Wells' accounts. They also want any GPS data location and timestamps. Nolan Wells's body was found on Horn Island two days after he went missing.  The companies have 21 days to comply.    Joining Nancy Grace today:  John Mobley  - Trial attorney, John Mobley Law Firm  Titania Jordan  - Chief Parent Officer, Bark Parental Controls, Author: "Parenting In A Tech World", www.Bark.us, Instagram/Twitter: @TitaniaJordan  Dr. Jim Jones  - Cyber security and digital forensics expert, digital forensics program director and associate professor, George Mason University Joseph Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet", YouTube Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan", @JoScottForensic  Brandon Tatum - Former Police Officer  Tucson Police Dept., Host of "The Officer Tatum Show" on Youtube, @TheOfficerTatum  X: TheOfficerTatum  Insta: theofficertatum  Dave Mack - Investigative Reporter, 'Crime Stories' See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Bombshell tonight. In the last 24 hours, Nolan Wells' family hits social media giants, subpoenaing Nolan's accounts. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.

I want to thank you for being with us. He was. stuff face down on the beach right at the water's edge. If he was sent face down, that also doesn't make sense to me. He's face down, wouldn't flood pool just by nature of gravity this way. So right now, we've got a lot of questions, but as the second doctor says, this is all still pending investigation. If this were your child, wouldn't you want to know what happened?

The mom asked for Nolan's phone. Was there a struggle over it, or did you guys hand it over? just handing it over. I mean, we didn't think anything of it. Like, you know, she asked for no one's phone. We knew they were close friends with, you know, the Wells family. And she just, we just, my buddy went out to his truck and handed the phone over. No complications, no issue, you know, nothing.

But, I mean, I told Mr. Christine that we had his phone and he had left it in our possession on the boat. When did you, when did you talk to her about that? When I was on, no, I didn't talk to her once, like, it was like 1230. I mean, I might have texted her a couple times and, like, you know, talked briefly about a couple things. But I never, you know, I never, I told her on the phone before I called the Coast Guard that we had Nolan's phone. Before I called Ms. Christine, well, we, none of us had a reason to go through Nolan's phone. I mean, there's multiple phones on the boat. Why would it be, and the boat was having issues.

Why would our concern be getting on Nolan's phone or something? I mean, I don't even know Nolan's password. None of my friends do. We had no reason ever to get on Nolan's. Nolan's phone and look at anything. I didn't even touch Nolan's phone. None of us touched Nolan's phone until somebody took it off the boat and put it in watch truck and then no one touched it until we handed it back, you know, to the mom that was

at my buddy's house. That is from the officer Tatum show. He has interviewed several of the young men that were on the boat when Nolan Wells was taken to Horn Island. They say he was not on the boat on the. return trip, although audio seems to suggest otherwise. Listen to the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources call. Detail assistant, Vicki speaking.

How can I help you? Hey, we're at the West Tip of Porn and our village pump stocked working. We're going, we're sinking. Can you all please come? We have a membership. All right, of course. How far is the water coming up, sir? Can you give me a description?

Ancles. Hello? Hey. Yes, how far is the water coming up, sir? It's coming up. We're just thinking, I don't know, like we're going down there. All right, well, let's get you going. Membership number or full number listed on that count, sir.

I don't know if that number. It's either try that. All right. I know we have a membership like guaranteed. I don't have the tag on here. All right. Unless you have a membership number or anything, it's okay. I'll get you over to the captain. What's the best phone number to reach you at?

Reach me at two. Particular phrases in that call, if it's to be believed, no one don't die. Sure, he's dead. Is he dead? No one. Oh, M.G. Wake the F up. It goes on.

I thought he was on the check his chest. That, if it's to be believed, suggested Nolan was on that boat. Tatum says the witnesses are clear. He was not on the boat. Tonight, we learn in the last 24 hours the Nolan Wells family hits social media giants with subpoenas for all information related to Nolan's phone. First, straight out to Dave Mac Crime Stories investigative reporter. Then we will be joined by Brandon Tatum. Dave Mack, what's happening? Right now, Nancy, the family of Nolan Wells has announced that they are going after they have subpoenaed documents for Nolan Wells' phone. They've gone to the media giants like, you know, TikTok, Instagram, the meta companies,

everybody that Nolan Wells used to push out videos of what he was doing in pictures. And they're trying to, they believe that some material was deleted from Nolan's phone. And this is what they're trying to prove with these subpoenas to get all of the information, as well as, by the way, the location tracking app, Life 360. So you get Snapchat, WhatsApp, TikTok, meta platforms, and Life 360. All of this, the court documents already filed. Dancy. Nolan Wells's family slapped subpoenas on multiple social media giants seeking his account,

information, and data. This, and to the investigation of the teen college football players, mysterious death, they were issued in the last 24 hours, including Snapchat, WhatsApp, TikTok, meta, platforms, Life 360. And these are according to court. documents demanding the company's turnover all materials info related to Nolan's accounts. This includes current and prior usernames, passwords, email addresses, phone numbers, even displaying names, displayed names. They want IP addresses associated with every account,

all communications, chats, posts, stories, and info. His cell phone has become a key, a critical issue in the probe into Nolan's death? What happened to Nolan? Now, his mother, Christine, says when her son's phone was brought to the family, they had concerns because there were no pictures or videos on either of his Snapchat accounts. Triggering their fear items may have been deleted. that's what's happening. There's been a lot of controversy.

We're photos, we're text deleted, or snaps deleted. We've been trying to figure it out. But we're seeing through a mirror darkly. We don't know. But according to experts, a trail will be left if anything has been deleted,

even if you delete it from the deleted file. Now, joining us, special guest, Brandon Tatum, you know him well. He's a former police officer with Tucson PD. That's what impresses me. What impresses a lot of other people is he is the star of the officer Tatum. Officer Tatum, thank you for being with us tonight. Question to you.

You interviewed, as we played at the get-go, several of Nolan's friends. Did they show you photos, videos, snaps of that day. on Horn Island. Well, Nancy, thank you so much for having me on. I interviewed, I spoke to four of the boys that are originally accused of being involved in Nolan Wells' death. And they did show me a lot of evidence. I want people to be very clear with this. I spend my career putting people in jail. My career is based on getting justice for people who have been done wrong. I've never been a defense attorney. So me going out and doing this was to find out what happened to Nolan Well, And in talking to these young men, the burden of proof is they're going to have to prove to me.

I'm not going to listen to what they say out of their mouth. They're going to show me. And in many cases, they showed me videos of Nolan on the island. They showed me videos of the boat when they were getting towed out, which is consistent with, you know, kind of similar to what the phone call was. I mean, they showed me pictures of them with Nolan. They showed me phone records of them calling Nolan's mom and all of the above. So they seemed very consistent. They seemed very genuine.

And they also proved to me some of the things that they had told me in the interview that I had with them that I have uploaded on my YouTube channel. Officer Tatum, are you telling me that they had reception on Horn Island? Because many people are saying, well, the reason that there's nothing on Nolan's phone of that day, Like there's no pictures, there's no snaps, there's no text, there's no anything. Not because it was deleted, but because he didn't have reception. But you're telling me the other boys did have snaps, photos, videos, and reception? No, Nancy, let me clarify this for you. It wasn't that they uploaded this online.

They showed me videos and things that they took from the boat during the outing on 4th July. I was personally out at Horn Island. I rode out there on a boat, and I didn't have great reception there. And I left my phone in the boat when I got into the water, and we were actually going out to do interviews. Objection. Objection. You've been court long enough to know you're going to get objections.

You said you didn't have great reception, but you did have reception. Did you not? No, there was receptionary. It just wasn't great, and it wasn't great enough for people. in my opinion to upload. You can make a phone call potentially, but you wasn't going to upload data to a social media account. Now, could people take the steps to do it if they're dedicated enough?

Yes, but it doesn't appear that that would have been a frequent thing, given the fact that you probably had one or two bars out there. And I heard evidence of that. Not only did I see evidence of it when I went out there myself personally with my cell phone, When I listen to the CETO call, you could tell that the call dropped out several times. It seemed like they were having trouble at times hearing each other. So it is consistent. And anybody that travel out there that have gone to the 4th July celebration, they know that the reception is not very great.

So the videos that they showed me and call logs were things that were not associated to social media that they never posted on social media. It was pictures and videos that they took on their phone. Okay. Let me refine my question. I take it from your last answer that the answer is yes, you had reception on Horn Island. Yes, I did have reception on Horn Island. We just played that C-to-C-C-T-O-C-C-L. It's two words, S-E-A-T-O-W, and it's kind of insurance that people have that are boat goers. And if you have a problem, C-T-T will come and tow you back to the mainland. they said they had a problem. They said they were taking on water.

One of your takes is that all the chatter that we're hearing, wake up, no one, wake up, no one, are you dead? No one. Wake the F up, no one. Could be referring to the battery, the bills on the boat, that it's all unclear. Regarding the boat being disabled, Apparently, it was not.

Listen. So first, at 9.56 a.m. The boat leaves the original dock. It arrives at Horn Island at 1114. So at around 4 o'clock, there is a call to the Coast Guard about the boat. NBC News got a hold of it. We're sinking. Can you all please come?

And is everybody on board and good health otherwise? Yeah. Yeah, everybody's off the way. Everybody's on board. So does that mean Nolan is on there? Who was on that boat? At 431, the boat leaves Horn Island and it is towed approximately three miles and then the tow ends. So after three miles, they go back to the original dock.

Okay? They arrive at 5.44 p.m. So it looks like this is where Horn Island. is and this is where the original dock is that I am referring to. I looked it up and El Camino Real Road is in Gulf Hills, Mississippi, which is right above Ocean Springs. So I'm wondering if this is the house where they got the phone. Now the boat travels to Fort Bayou. At 606, the boat returns to the original dock. Then from the original dock, the boat goes back to Fort Bayou and then they go to the boat launch and it is put onto the trailer and moved by the

vehicle. Did they drop people off at the original dock, travel to Fort Bayou, pick somebody up, and go back to that original dock? And then from there, why was there an hour and 13 minute time gap. This boat was sinking hours before, and then they're just having it docked for an hour and 13 minutes. You would think they'd want to get that boat out of the water asap. That from the real TikTok detective. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Hello. My gosh. Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish, right inside the free

IHare Radio app. Gets the blood going up. Catch every laugh and eye roll. on shows like the Tom Green Farmcast and park the bus. Now with full video. We're building a ramp for Tony Hawk. It's the same hosts and the same chemistry

with all the hilarious moments you've been missing right on your screen. Cheers. Open the free IHRRadio app. Search video podcasts and tap watch. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. The boat wasn't sinking. They told Cito it was sinking.

What's the truth? Was it sinking? they repaired it? Did they have a leak and they repaired it and kept on SOP? Brandon Tatum joining us, former cop, now star of the officer Tatum. Did the young men explain those travels we just identified? Yeah, 100% they did that. I wish that people on the internet would have had an opportunity and they can go look at the interview that I did with Warren, but they had an opportunity to actually talk to these young men to get this in perspective because some people have no idea how boats function and how they work. They explained to me, they took

me on a boat and showed me exactly where they went, where they docked, where did they, you know, stop it. How did they get the bills pumped and the water out of the boat and all of the above? So they were sinking. They were taking on water. The water came up high enough that the batteries weren't working. They had to get a tow to kind of tow them out. You can see the young lady saying about three miles out. It's a complicated boat's jargon, but they ended up getting the boat out. They ended up getting it to the point where they could run the boat, run the water out of the boat through a hole in the boat that they ended up plugging. They explained all this. Anybody that does boating know exactly what they're talking about if you

hear them explain it on the interview. So they have an explanation for all of these things. And not only that, Nancy, they showed me video of them on the boat and Nolan was not on the boat. Nolan was not on the boat log. And there are people who saw Nolan on the island closer to around 6 p.m., which is far after they left, far after this phone call was made. I saw text messages from the young lady that Nolan was with, the young lady named Pady. I saw her text messages. In her text messages, she said that she heard the boys yelling for Nolan to get on the boat. He did not.

She said in her text message that she did not see Nolan get on the boat he came on, which was, which was Wyd's boat, which is the boat that was sinking and they ended up leaving on. So it wasn't just a statement that they made on a podcast. They were actually showing me evidence to the contrary of what the mainstream YouTubers and some media outlets are putting it out to the people at large. And so I wish that people would go watch the interview or at least take some time to listen to these boys' statement. And I'll say this, Nancy, too. I wish that the family would have taken the time or at least Benjamin Crump would have taken the time to reach out to the lawyers or reach

out to these young boys to get their statements. So they're not wasting their time sending everybody on a rabbit trail when they could have just talked to these boys. And they could have, but they refused. Because I saw a message from Warren where he called Nolan's mom twice. I've seen messages from Nolan's stepmother, Ashley, where she sent Nolan mom a text saying, please reach out to me. Whenever you're ready, I would like to talk.

Other parents I saw messages from who reached out to Nolan's mom saying, we need to talk. Can we talk? I'm available if you need to talk to us. I do not understand at this point why Benjamin Crump would go out and put misinformation out online when he had the availability to talk to these kids and clear these things up like I did before he presented this to the public. We also reached out to Benjamin Crump four times. And on the fifth time, they come back and tell us that the family,

family is not doing interviews. We didn't ask to talk to the family. We asked to talk to the attorney, Benjamin Crump. Why? So we can come together as a community and solve what happened to Nolan Wells, not create in Stoke division, which is what I've seen from Benjamin Crum. That is exactly what we're trying to do. And I hear everything you're saying. And you know, I think like a prosecutor, my main goal is to find the truth of what happened to Nolan Wells. thing I cannot get away from is the medical examiner. I'm trying to get to tonight's news, which I'm going to get to, but, oh, you were seeing video from WLOX. Speaking of sinking is at an alleged issue with the boat builds. Well, Randy and Bunny on TikTok have their

interpretation of that. Watch this. C-to assistant, Vicki speaking. How can you? Can I help you? Hey, we're at the west tip of porn and our village pump stocked working. We're going, we're sinking. Can you all please come? We have a membership. All right, of course.

How far is the water coming up, sir? Can you give me a description, ankles? Hello? Hey. Yes, how far is the water coming up, sir? It's coming up. We're just sinking. I don't know.

Like, we're going down now. That from Randy and Bunny on TikTok. Joe Scott Morgan very quickly before I can get into why the family believes they need subpoenas to social media giants to get the truth about what happened to Nolan's phone. Anybody can say anything after the fact. Those boys may be innocent. They can look like choir boys, angels now. But I still don't know what happened. on that boat and I still

see conflicts. Can they be reconciled? I hope so. But until they are, we're on it. This is what I can't get away from, control room. Please show Joseph Scott Morgan the autopsy

diagram of the victim's occipital bone. Okay. I don't care what anybody says. I do not care if an archangel lands on this anchor desk. If he lies to me,

I'm using handcuffs for his wrist and a rope for his wings. You hear me? Look at that again. Put it back up. He has deep reddening subcutaneously on the back of his head. Nowhere else.

It's not on his neck. The back of his neck anyway. Don't see it on the back. Don't see it anywhere else on the body. So I really don't want to hear a lame explanation that it's levidity of the blood sinking to the back of the body. Number one, the body was on its face. But that said, they kept the neck and the lungs, the lungs to see if he drowned, neck. Why would they keep his neck?

I can't get away from this, Joe Sky, Morgan, and I don't care how angelic the friends appear. And they may be angels. I don't know that yet. You can't get away from this, Morgan. No, you can't, and we can't get away from it until the investigation is concluded on the part of the state medical examiner's office and the authorities. And in Mississippi, and I can promise you this, you know, it was a day as long, they're not going to release this information because it's an ongoing investigation. I know everybody wants it. Now, what we do have is a second view.

We've got a second set of eyes on this from a highly accomplished forensic pathologist, I might add, former chief medical examiner for D.C., and he, went over Nolan's body very, very thoroughly. And he, he in his statements, relative to this area, states that he cannot make heads or tails of it at this point in time because it's compromised, this area I'm referring to in the occipital area of the head, because it has been compromised through decomposition. Now, he did a multi-layered dissection. And what that means is layer by layer, the skin, subcue fat, down through the muscle, which had not previously been done in this manner, according to him. I don't even know if it's annotated in the state medical examiner's report, because it hasn't been released yet. They're still waiting. It's pending multiple things.

How many times have we heard this over the years? They're doing their own histological studies, which means the tissue samples, and also the big part to this, Nancy, is going to be the toxicology. And we know that that takes some time. And it's not just going to be about alcohol. It's going to be everything in the spectrum. Back to Officer Tatum, star of the Officer Tatum on YouTube. Have the friends taken polygraphs? Well, from my understanding, all but I believe one took a polygraph.

And from what was told to me that they all passed. And all of the ones that took a polygraph took one without a lawyer, And so, and they cooperated with law enforcement. So from my understanding, everybody took a polygraph test, but one. Why do you say that's from what you understand? Did they tell you they took a poly and pass? They told, yes, ma'am, they told me that they did it. I wasn't there.

So that's what I'm saying from my understanding, they told me that all of boys except for one, which is Warren, I believe, took a polygraph test. All of them did not have lawyers and did it and cooperated with police. Warren also cooperated police. I just believe he didn't take a lot of tech the test. but Warren is the young man that I interviewed. So according to what they told me, they all took a lot of tech tests and passed.

And it's an equivalent of a lot of tech tests. It's not a traditional lot of tech tests, but it's the same theology of trying to get to if a person is lying. I don't know the name of it. It's an equivalent of a lot of tech test. It's a different methodology. Yeah, I don't believe it was a polygraph test. I believe they took other stressors in order to analyze

if the people were telling the truth. So then the answer to did they take a polygraph would be, No. Well, yeah, I think it could be semantics because they took a test to analyze whether or not they were being truthful in their statements. And that certified test, they passed it. It just wasn't considered a traditional polygraph. I think it's a more advanced way of doing it. Oh, on, Brandon Tatum.

Hold on. In a nutshell, a nutshell, a nutshell, there is a difference between a polygraph. which measures all sorts of body signals, your sweat, your breathing, your heart, your blood pressure, all sorts of things, and an audio, an audio verification test. Big difference. Yeah, yeah. So the audio is you're looking for stressors in the voice, and these people are highly trained to do this. And I'm, you know, look, you know, you know how the courts feel about these tests.

Are they admissible or not? But I think that going to Brandon's point, the fact that, if they have taken these, at least those named allegedly have taken these according to him, I think that that's significant now, whether or not that this is going to be usable, a usable investigative tool is hard, hard to measure. I didn't ask if he's going to be used in court. That's a whole other animal. We'll burn that bridge when we get there.

Okay, there may never even be a court case. First, I got to find out what happened to Nolan. Okay, so let's not put the cart before the horse. You've got eye detections tests. I don't put any stock in that as to whether somebody's lying. You've got nonverbal communication experts claiming they can tell. You've got brainwave analysis. You've got all sorts of things.

I want a poem. I'm not saying they did anything or they didn't do anything. Go strap up. Take me a polly. Officer Tatum, star of the Officer Tatum on YouTube. I've been told, but I can't verify. that the boat in question has been searched by sent dogs and cadaver dogs. Is that true?

I'm not familiar if that's true. Let me just clarify the test that they took was a voice stress analysis test instead of what we call a traditional polygraph test. But I'm not familiar with the cadaver dog searching the boat. I wasn't informed that that was the case. But I was told by the boys that they did not wash the boat off or do any of those things that they were accused of doing, you know, after this incident.

Right. And I say based on all the things that I've heard, it appears that they've been very truthful with me. And law enforcement. They've already communicated with law enforcement very early on. Okay. Officer Tatum, coming from you, I do give that credence because you or a Tucson PD.

I've had people sit down look me right in the face and lie, and they are so convincing. So I don't know who's telling the truth. I don't know what happened, and that's why I really resent people suggesting the investigation be shut down. We're not doing that until we know what happened. Officer Tatum interviewed multiple of the young men on that boat. Now, let me address what's happened in the last hours. The family is not buying what they are saying that nothing was deleted.

They're not saying they're lying. They're not saying they're telling the truth. They have hit social media giants with subpoenas once and for all to get everything there is to get about Nolan Wells Digital. Okay, straight out to Dr. Jim Jones joining us out of Virginia. Jones, Dr. Jones, cybersecurity, digital forensics expert, digital forensics program director, associate professor, Mason University. Can't argue with that. Okay.

Dr. Jones, what will the evidence reveal? Let's just start on Nolan Wells' cell phone. Let's start with Snap. Snapchat. Sure.

So on his cell phone, any image is taken for whatever app are going to be stored locally, at least temporarily. So Snap is one of those apps that deletes the picture. afterwards. The key here is that when digital files are deleted, the data does not immediately go away. So the data is left intact at least for fractions of a second,

sometimes hours, days, weeks. So what they'll find, assuming that they have access to the unencrypted data on the phone, is they will find bits and pieces of old text messages, videos, pictures taken, and that might reveal something that they can timestamp, to the event in question, yet the picture is not still in the active files. That would suggest a deluge. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Hello.

My gosh. Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish, right inside the free IHR Radio app. Gets the blood going up? Catch every laugh and eye roll on shows like the Tom Green Farmcast and park the bus. Now with full video. We're building a ramp for Tony Hawk. It's the same hosts and the same chemistry. with all the hilarious moments you've been missing right on your screen.

Cheers. Open the free IHRRadio app. Search video podcasts and tap watch. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Dr. Jones, I'm just a trial lawyer. I need you to explain carefully what you just said. Let me ask you some pointed questions. Snap is different.

Very different. Hold on, doctor. Let me go to to Tanya Jordan, Chief Parental Officer at Bark Parental Controls, author of Parenting in a Tech World, Snap is a whole another can of worms. The other night example, my son and I, John David, we both love Kung Fu. We're watching the ultimate Ip man, and I fell asleep. It's 2 o'clock in the morning. I woke up and I looked at him.

he's furiously on his phone and of course that raises a red flag why is your son on the phone at 2 a.m. I said son what are you doing and he said I'm responding to a snap I'm like let me see who's snapping you at 2 o'clock in the morning it's some freaky dude in his underwear on the other side of the world he went gross number one and he said they disappear okay snap what is it snap is an app that was developed to send disappearing nudes many, many years ago. So it's wild. And today now flock to that app and parents allow it. Myself included, I regret letting my son have that app. So now fast forward to today, children think that this media disappears because that's the user interface presented to them. But the media

does not disappear. Children sitting on either side of them can take a picture with their phone and that data lives on SNAP servers because as we know law enforcement has at a heck of a time subpoenaing them and and getting access to it. Okay. That's gibberish. So does a snap disappear? A SNAP appears to disappear to a user. So if I send a SNAP and let's say Nancy, you send me a snap. When I open it up, it disappears from my view. But that media, that photo, that video that you sent me, it is still alive in Snap's ownership. Okay.

So what that means to me as a trial lawyer is I can subpoena it and I can see it. Yes. Okay. That made perfect sense. Now I get it. So my son is telling the truth that it disappeared. Yes. To him.

To him. but not to snap. Okay. All right. What about WhatsApp? That doesn't disappear. Correct. What's app does not disappear, but WhatsApp is also purported to be encrypted.

So meta moved in a very big disappointment to anybody who cares about child safety to make WhatsApp end-to-end encrypted. So good luck to law enforcement. trying to get anything that happened on that app. To Dr. Jim Jones, digital forensics expert, associate professor of George Mason University, program director, on and on. Dr. Jones, I, like Nolan's mother, find it very unusual that Nolan, for a period of hours, there's nothing. He is a prolific snapper, Insta, you name it. There's nothing there. I got a problem, number one, of him separating himself from the phone. but no teen does that.

Nobody does that. But if he's out in the water, he may leave it on the boat so it doesn't get damaged. But I find it hard to believe that he left the boat leave with it and his keys and that he wasn't taking pictures and on the boat, on the way out there. Where's all that? That's human behavior, which is not your forte. But Dr. Jones explained to me what these subpoenas mean. Dr. Jones, from what we are learning in the last 24 hours,

Nolan's family demands all IP addresses associated with his accounts, all communications, chats, posts, stories. You can explain later to Tonya what is a story and all other information. The phone is critical because there's nothing on it for the critical hours. subpoenas issued in the last hours to Snapchat, WhatsApp, TikTok, meta, all meta platforms, and all location tracking platforms, including Life 360. Okay, doctor, what does it mean? So what they're trying to do is find everything that was pushed up to the servers.

And as Tatiana pointed out, some of this content is encrypted as it goes through the servers. so they won't be able to see the content on the server, but they'll have a record that an image or a video or a message came through. So what I would be looking at is I would compare what the providers, the servers show to what's on the phone. And if I find a discrepancy, that would suggest that something has been deleted from the phone. Anybody that had access to the phone could easily delete something on the phone, much harder to delete what's being held on the servers from the phone.

I assume his phone had a password. There are certain things that you need the password to do, such as delete activity. But if you don't have a password and you pick up your phone, if you're touching the screen, that leaves a trace. If you're trying to power it off, that leaves a trace. So we should be able to see people without a password trying to actively interact with that phone as well as someone that has it.

So we would do a forensic acquisition, and that's really important here. Someone just looking in the phone, you can get a glimpse, but you can't see what's deleted, and hiding below the surface. We need a forensic acquisition to do that. We can tell if it was just soft deleted, so like sitting in a trash can or a hard delete.

So if you empty your trash on your phone and then you go and throw it into a dumpster and the trash is taken away, there is a log that tracks everything. Also with timestamps on when that activity occurred. Digital expert Heather Barnhart, okay, is a subpoena, Dr. Jones, Dr. Jim Jones is a subpoena the equivalent of an acquisition, a forensics digital acquisition.

Yeah, good question. No, very different. So the subpoena is going to the providers, the companies that provide these services, and it says, hey, what is on your servers? The physical acquisition is going to get a copy of the raw data stored on the phone. And to Heather's point, what you see through the interface is only a small fraction of what's actually stored on the device. It's a very busy place and things are being replaced and removed all the time. The physical acquisition will take a snapshot in time of anything that's left. In particular, the fragments. She also made a very good point about the logs.

Phones, modern smartphones keep very detailed logs. It's not the picture, but it will tell you that someone deleted a picture. and you may even have a timestamp or other metadata that would help you know something about that content, even if you can't see the content anymore. So Dr. Jim Jones, if I delete something, let's just pretend it's a text. We delete a text. Then you go to the deleted file and delete it from the deleted file. We can't see it.

But there is a record of that and it is very likely revivable. Yes to the record, for sure. There is a record of that action happening. Revival. Well, revivalability depends on how long it's been since it was deleted and what else the phone has been doing. So it's a very unpredictable process. Think of it as something that decays over time. Sometimes that decay is very rapid. Sometimes it's slow. And we know there's a difference in retrieval time on an iPhone versus an Android. It's a very delicate process. John Mobley, veteran trial lawyer South Carolina. what is it no one's mother wants from social media giants? Everything. That's what they want. And I've been saying this from the beginning. These are the types of things that should have been doing from the beginning. Not press conferences, not grandstanding, not to all show or no go, but getting the actual data from the phone so they can get real answers to put all the information

regarding what happened in context. They will know if anything was posted, anything was deleted, if it was communicating with someone. This is the real work that needs to be done. This is how we all get answers. Back to you, Dr. Jim Jones. Will these records reveal whether Nolan Wells had reception on Horn Island or on the way there? They could, based on time stamps of things that got pushed to the server, that would say he did have service. the absence of those records doesn't say that he didn't have service.

However, the soap phone provider through the tower records could show that because every time a cell phone talks to a tower, a record is created. Excellent. The ping. The ping trail. Okay. Back to Officer Tatum, the Officer Tatum on YouTube. Did the young men you interviewed, I believe it was four of them, state that

no one did not have reception or did they explain why there are no pictures, text, instance, nothing on his phone? Did they have an explanation for that? Yes, ma'am. They didn't mention anything about whether Nolan has service or not, but they articulated the reason why Nolan may not have, you know, certain pictures on his phone. And they had mentioned because Nolan spent the night at their house the night before

because it's traditional for the last few years that they actually went to Horn Island. together. But they were saying that they had taken pictures at the house. Some of the pictures that you've seen flowed around online were pictures that they took on the boat. But they didn't take those pictures when they got out, you know, out there to Horn Island because they were having fun. And I would argue that they were drinking. And I couldn't imagine that they want to get underage drinking on camera. So what they had articulated to me that it wasn't abnormal for people not to snap and not to do a lot of pictures and things like that, because they were focused on being off of the main room.

They showed you pictures and videos. Yeah, but it's not uploaded. No, no, no. It's not a lot of pictures and they weren't uploaded. So when you're talking about Snapchat, you're talking about a platform where people are uploading images and pictures to produce to the world. What they showed me were things that they had recorded on their phone, and it wasn't a lot of different things because most of what they did was drinking and having fun in the water.

And so, but what they had articulated to me as well is that it's, It's not abnormal for people not to snap. It's not abnormal for you not to have your phone. And Nolan wasn't the only person that left his phone on the boat. They also mentioned to me, and you can see it in the interview that they did, was that they had no reason to touch Nolan's phone. They weren't thinking about Nolan's phone when they thought the boat was sinking. And when they got to the house, it was no incident when it comes to Nolan getting the phone back to the friend and parent.

you're going far afield from my question let me redirect you back to their phones no one has nothing on his phone they have pictures and videos on their phones you told me that they exist whether they posted them or not so they were taking pictures in videos don't you see why the mom no one's mom is concerned there's nothing on her son's phone Well, Nancy, it's very, it's unclear exactly what the mother is articulating because in one point, she's concerned that there's not a lot of snapchats or social media posting. She did not articulate or the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the phone was white. And there's no images or anything. She was concerned about his social media frequency, which I believe after talking to the boys, it was consistent with, with, with what. they said and it was consistent with, you know, basic deductive reasoning that maybe he didn't

post a lot on that day. So what remains a focus for me, and if I was investigating this case, I would want to know. Not talking about posting. Not talking about whether he posted, officer. No, what I'm saying is that. There's no pictures. There's no anything. That's what the mom is saying, but we haven't had an opportunity to either see or hear exactly what she's trying to articulate. Some of the things that she said in the media is that she's talking about posting. I don't believe she said that there was no nothing at all on his phone, no pictures, no nothing. But I wasn't able to verify that. So if I was able to see Nolan's phone and the mother was able to show me exactly what she's articulating,

I'll be able to have a better perspective in comparison to what Warren and the other boys were telling me. So at this point, I only have one side of it, and then I have a fractured perception from what the media or what the mother is saying in the media. So when the police officers look at his phone and they do a forensic extraction, if they're allowed to do that, they will see plainly if Nolan was on his phone, if he had taken pictures, and if they were deleted. Now, I'll implement this. As we begin to try to guess and figure out what was happening on that day, it doesn't seem to be reasonable. to suggest that the boys were in his phone deleting things. Now, after hanging out with the boys and getting to know them well, they're very intelligent young men, very savvy, and they were raised well.

I would project, if I were to make an assumption, that if they were trying to cover up something that happened to Nolan, I would perceive that they would throw the phone in the water or something where it never would be recovered. Or if they had access to get into the phone, they wouldn't just delete. They would just completely rewrite the phone. or, you know, do a hard reset.

Or they wouldn't give the phone back to Mama or the family anyway. So with those factors put in place and what I've talked to them about, it seems as if their story seems consistent to me that they did not get in the phone. They did not know his password. They had no reason to believe that there was a necessity to get in the phone. And they gave it over to the family. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying I'm not taking anybody's word for anything until I investigated it and corroborated.

and corroborate it. Again, maybe they're completely innocent. Maybe they're not. I don't know. Or maybe someone else had something to do with Nolan's death. I don't know, but I will find out.

And you said, I don't know what she said exactly. Well, here is what Nolan's mother said. When we opened it up, there was nothing. There were no saved pictures. There were no snaps from that. day and we did open it before the 24 hour expiration. So we found that very concerning only because anyone who's ever been around Nolan will tell you at social gatherings, he's taking videos, he's taking pictures, he's even come up to me

when I'm getting ready to go to bed, hey Ma, come on take a picture of me. You know, like he's just, that's, that was Nolan. So that's why we feel that things may have been deleted was because the fact that there was nothing in either one of his accounts. Okay, to Tanya Jordan, Bark, parental control officer and author, do you understand what she just said? I do. Explain it. Absolutely. When a child dies every second, every hour, every day matters. families and investigators need timely access to lawfully requested evidence so they can find answers

and hold the right people accountable. And Snapchat claims to respond to most legal requests in two to three weeks, but critics say some investigations have taken months, which delays justice. Meta to grab, right? There aren't many kids on Facebook these days. There's no public average for subpoena response times, but it's, it varies. It varies. And investigators have criticized delays in some really high-profile child safety and teen death cases. WhatsApp, we talked about that earlier. Even with a warrant, meta generally cannot read or produce message content because it doesn't have it.

That's what we were talking about with the challenges with encryption. It's not a response time thing. It's the encryption. So I don't know if I answered your question, but I just felt it was really important to be very clear about what we need for justice. and what social media companies are not providing in a timely manner. You're very clear. I want Tatum to be right. I want this to be easily explainable when we know all the facts.

But we will not stop until we know the facts. If you know or think you know anything regarding Nolan's case, please dial 228-7693063. If only I could put a keg of dynamite under the social media giant's rear end and get those answers now, I would. There is a $125,000 reward for information leading to the truth of what happened to Nolan. We remember American Hero Trooper Micah May, Nevada Department Public Safety, killed in the line of duty, leaving behind a grieving wife, Joanna, and two children, Melody, and Raylan, American Hero Trooper Micah May. Thank you to our guests for being with us tonight, but especially to you for joining us in our search for the truth. about Nolan Wells. Nancy Gray signing off for it tonight, but I'll see you tomorrow night.

And until then, good night, friend. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.