Law&Crime Sidebar - Nolan Wells Mystery: 'Lies' Swirl in Death Investigation

Episode Date: July 30, 2026

Weeks after Nolan Wells' body was found on Horn Island off the coast of Mississippi, his family appears to be getting things in order for a potential civil lawsuit. In the meantime, the 18-year-old's friends are immersed in their own potential legal battles. Attorneys representing Bart Edmitson, Jr. claims online sleuths are spreading defamatory statements and outright lies about their client on social media. Law&Crime's Jesse Weber breaks down all the latest developments alongside former Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg.HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson, Heather Berzak & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrimeTwitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It appears that the family of the deceased Mississippi team, Nolan Wells, is about to file a major lawsuit. And they responded last night to a narrative from one of Nolan's purported friends. And there is another one of Nolan's friends who also took legal action against what he claims is misinformation. There is a lot to get into, and we're going to talk about it right now. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. I think we just got. some major signs that Nolan Wells family is about to take legal action, a lawsuit.

And also they did an interview with my colleague Chris Cuomo last night, which puts a lot of this into perspective. We've got to talk about it too. And plus, there is reporting that a friend of Nolan's is taking legal action against what he claims is false information about him. So remember what we're talking about here, 18-year-old Nolan Wells, right? From Ocean Springs, Mississippi, was a college student football player. July 4th weekend. He went with a group of friends to Horn Island, this barrier island off the Mississippi Coast. It's remote, right? It's no commercial development there. You can only access it through a boat. And at some point, he disappeared. He was reported missing that night. A massive search was launched. And two days later on July 6,

his body was found in the island. But what happened to him remains a question that no one seems to be able to answer at least publicly right now. The results of the family's independent autopsy listed no one's cause in a manner of death is undetermined. We'll talk about it a little bit more. We're awaiting the results from the official state medical examiner as well, including toxicology reports. The family is conducting their own investigation led by civil rights attorney Ben Crump. And now we have more developments since we last talked about. And that's what I want to get into. Okay.

So I got a lot of questions. A lot of things we have to talk about. I want to bring on former Palm Beach state attorney, Dave Arrenberg, to get to the bottom of everything with me on set. Dave, always good to see you. And you got your substack, too, right? I do at Dave Arrenberg and YouTube, official Dave Aaronberg. or is it Dave Aaronburg official? Shouldn't you know this?

Shouldn't you know this? We'll probably put it in, so you'll be fine. How do you not know your own product? Anyway, I got to talk about what happened last night. So I'm getting prepared to do my News Nation show, and there were two big things that happened before, two big shows that happened. So my colleague on News Nation, my buddy Chris Cuomo,

interviewed Christine and Elmore Onsley. This is Nolan's parents. And they were alongside their attorney, Ben Crum. And the two things that really stood out to me in terms of the investigation were as follows. So Tristan Shepard, who we've talked about before, purportedly Nolan's friends, spoke on the Officer Tatum YouTube show. And he was previously been interviewed by other outlets. He denied having anything to do with Nolan's death. On the Officer Tatum show, he said that Nolan's mom got on TV, claimed she didn't know him,

and he said that couldn't be further from the truth that he and Nolan met in the ninth grade, that Nolan was his best friend, that their friend group is mixed race. So that kind of is going against the narrative, that race had something to do with what happened to Nolan. On Cuomo last night, Chris asked Elmore if he knows Tristan. Elmore said, no, I don't. Just because you park your vehicle in someone's yard doesn't mean that they have to know you. Now, Tatum, again, this YouTuber who's been following the saga, commenting on the developments, then he was on Katie Pavlach's show later on in the night.

And he said, quote, it's very confusing. I don't know why a young man would say that he's friends and literally be emotional when he talked about Nolan. I mean, he literally cried and teared up off camera. And I felt like it was very genuine. Now, Tatum said he doesn't know the families personally. He can't say for certain, you know, what's happening here or why there seems to be a conflict of narratives. But he did say, quote, I don't know if they're being genuine because you don't always know your children's friends. Dave, where do we stand on this?

Well, it's true that parents may not know their children's friends. There's been a dispute here amongst the family and the friends. You remember, there were reports that the family tried to get Nolan's belongings, keys from the friends, and then according to reports, the family, the parents, I think it was the father of the mother, I believe it was the father, complained that one of the friends was indifferent to giving him Nolan's hands. keys that were left behind. And then there's the issue of why did the friends have Nolan's phone? Well, that to me is easily answerable because you don't take your phone into the water with you. So from the beginning, there has been this type of tension between the family and the

friends. But if you look at this from the big picture, there's still no evidence that there's any foul play. My question, legal question, and then I'll talk about the phone in a second because there was a part of the interview where Ben Crum talked about the phone. If you are going to do interviews, if you're going to go put out a narrative, that could expose you to potential jeopardy whatever you say, legal jeopardy. The other way of looking at it is if you really didn't do anything and he really had nothing to hide and you wouldn't do these interviews. So I'm just curious, like the fact that they're doing the interviews, him, Warren Hudson, does that suggest to you maybe they had absolutely nothing to do with this? There's no connection here. They're telling

the complete truth. They seem credible to me because they're not doing this with a lawyer next to them. their statements are free flowing. They seem like they're speaking because they actually had a fondness for Nolan. They were very close friends. And they don't like the narrative being put out there, that they're this racist group who wanted to kill someone who they loved. Or indifferent to what happened by leaving him behind. Or indifferent.

Well, the reports were that the reason why Nolan didn't get into the bow was because the boat was taking on water. And also there was the girl who apparently Nolan was talking to. This happens. You're there with a group of friends. taking multiple votes, and if one boat is leaving and taking on water, you can easily say, well, I'll just go on another boat. Let's talk about the phone for a second.

So Ben Crump, again, he was on with Cuomo, talked about the phone. So there's a whole lot of talk out there about whether Nolan reportedly left his phone behind, why did he do it, whether any data was deleted from it. Now, Nolan's purported friend Warren Hudson told Brandon Tatum on this YouTube show, there was no reason for us to get on Nolan's phone. No one touched Nolan's phone. If none of us had touched Nolan's phone, then you know there's no reason for anything to be deleted. Ben Crump said to Cuomo last night, quote, his mother called his phone repeatedly with no answer.

That raises questions. That's all we want to get to is answers. If that's true, that's interesting, right? Because wouldn't the friends pick up the phone? Possibly. And I know Ben Crump, he's an honorable person. And I understand why the family and Ben Crump and Reverend Alsharpon are concerned about the lack of transparency. But the fact that no one picked up the phone is not in itself evident.

of foul play. That phone was apparently on the boat without Nolan, and it could have rang. It could have on silent mode, and people may have not have known that the phone was ringing. And also, we don't know the facts. Like the family had said that Nolan's videos and pictures were missing, and that is suspicious. But there's no proof of that. We don't know that for sure. So we talked about this yesterday. I'm going to bring it up again. Nolan's mother, Christine, has appeared to file these subpoenas for all these records from TikTok, Snapchat, WhatsApp, meta, Life 360. And they're part of this legal case. regarding the estate of Nolan Wells. She appears to be the administrator. And these subpoenas are seeking

account information, subscriber information, username, phone numbers, IP addresses, communications, photos. How important is all of that? What answers could they get from subpoenaing these records? And by the way, is there any legal argument? Is there any legal mechanism by which these companies would refuse to hand over this information? Some of those companies will say you have to give us a subpoena from a law enforcement agency to get it. But other companies may say, well, if it's any request for documents or requests for videos from a lawyer in a civil lawsuit, including a subpoena, that that could suffice. Do you have to file a lawsuit first? If you want to submit a subpoena, yeah, you're going to have to submit it. Or an anticipation of litigation. You can do a letter, what's called a preservation

letter. Right. And then it's up to the companies to preserve it. If they don't, they could be in trouble if there's a later lawsuit. They've been warned, and now they're destroying potential evidence. But there's more heft behind it if it's a criminal investigation than if it's a private lawyer involved. But even if you get this information, one way or another, it's not necessarily a smoking gun, but it would help determine whether there were videos that could be incriminating that were deleted. And that's why I'm not as concerned with this dispute over whether videos were deleted or not, whether Nolan's phone was wiped or not because that can be easily determined. All it takes is the metadata that's stored in the cloud.

It's not like we're in the 1970s anymore. So I am curious if we're getting closer to a potential lawsuit. I mentioned that, but then we have a new development. It was reported by People Magazine that a preservation notice, which you just mentioned, a notice to preserve evidence was sent by Nolan's family to the families of Nolan's friends and different investigative bodies or agencies. And one letter that was obtained says, quote, accordingly, you have an immediate legal duty to preserve all materials of all kinds within your possession, custody, or control

that may be relevant in any way to the claims or defamation. offenses. This duty includes not only you, but also your family members. And according to reporting from people in ABC News, one was even sent, for example, to Ashley Cole, who's a judge whose son was reportedly with Nolan Wells that day. It seems like they might be filing a lawsuit in what capacity against who and what would be the claims. It could be a wrongful death action. Remember, when you prosecute someone for a murder or homicide, you need to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. But if you are moving ahead with a lawsuit based on wrongful death or battery, you only to prove it with the preponderance of the evidence.

Is it more likely than not that it occurred? Lower standard, yeah. A lower standard, right? OJ Simpson was found not guilty because the standard, beyond a reasonable doubt, was so high, but he was found liable for the deaths of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman, lower standard. So what the family's doing here is what they've already

been doing with the independent autopsy. They don't necessarily trust what the government is doing, and so they're saying, we're going to do our own investigation, the independent autopsy, which was inconclusive, and we don't trust that there will be criminal charges filed, so we're going to do an investigation via lawsuit through private lawyers. That's where the preservation letter comes from. So in other words, through discovery, through the exchange of material, through depositions, things of that nature. Do you think that this could potentially get

them the answers that they're looking for? I think they're going to get the answers from the criminal investigation, because a criminal investigation is just not being super transparent. It's kind of normal, though, with criminal investigations. And the DA said they're going to produce things once they vet it through a grand jury. They're going to take the information to a grand jury and then they'll release the autopsy, the toxicology report, all these things are relevant.

So once the investigation is closed, then everyone will see it. If there is a case, then everyone will see it too. So I think that they're just making sure that all the T's are crossed and dies are odded, eyes are dotted, but in the end, I don't think they're going to get

any additional information that they will not already get from the criminal investigation. Just want to focus us on a second what a lawsuit would look like. What would be the claim, either wrongful death, X, Y, and Z, you cause Nolan's death, or you left him by himself and he died? Is that a legal cause of action? And also, do they have any claim against law enforcement?

Much tougher to sue law enforcement. They've got sovereign immunity. You can sue friends, though. Private citizens don't have any such immunity. You could go after them for culpable negligence or just plain negligence. You violated your duty of care, if you can establish a duty of care. But in the end, it's not so easy because if you don't have real evidence, If you're just going on a fishing expedition, then the subpoenas, the deposition notices could get quashed by the court. They could say, no, no, no, you just can't without evidence. Because if you file a lawsuit, the first thing the defendant will do will file a motion to dismiss it, saying, even if you say everything is true, it doesn't support the claims, your causes of action. Is there a cause of action, right?

What's the cause of action? And because what you say in the lawsuit has to be, you have to have based on something. Right. So what they'll do is they'll make allegations, and then the judge could throw it out. if there's no there there, but if the judge does not, then it's discovery, and then they can get information that they think they've been deprived of. But I really do believe that they're going to get all this information. It's just going to take a little longer than we all want, and it's coming from the state. One of the other legal developments is you have this apparent friend of

Nolan Wells, Bart Edmitson Jr. And apparently he has gotten caught in the crossfire by some online sleuths. Some have speculated that he had a connection with this. young woman that Dave and I were talking about before, the one that no one was reportedly talking to, maybe stayed on the island with, that they were romantically linked. His attorney, yes, he has an attorney says, that is not true, that is not the young lady. And that is the point. Edmondson is legally fighting those he claims are spreading misinformation about him. In fact, in a statement to law and crime, I'm going to read this to you, it says, quote, after a week of egregiously false and defamatory accusations against Bart Edmitson Jr., accusations which

resulted incredible death threats now being investigated by the FBI, the Edmondson family has released a statement addressing their son's knowledge of and cooperation in the Nolan Wells investigation. Please see the attached statement as well as a cease and desist evidence preservation notice sent today to an online influencer in anticipation of defamation litigation against her. My law office is representing the family. If you have any questions, please direct them to this address. So then you go to this statement of Edmondson family on Nolan Wells investigation, pervasive defamation and threats. It says, quote, The Edmondson family expresses its sincere condolences to the family of Nolan Wells for their tragic loss.

Recent targeted attacks on our son, Bart Jr., now make our silence impossible. Hundreds of Mississippi Gulf Coast residents journeyed out to Horn Island to celebrate the holiday on the 4th of July. Home from college, Bart Jr. was among them. He piloted his own boat to Horn Island and piloted his own boat home. When a nearby boat suffered a mechanical malfunction on the afternoon of the 4th, which is what we were just talking about before, Barr Jr. gave advice and direct aid to the distressed vessel. As part of this, he boarded the distress vessel, removed its transom plug, got back onto his boat, and towed the distress vessel for a short distance. These actions allowed water that had accumulated on the distress vessel to drain.

Bart Jr. believes that more than 20 passengers were spread across the two boats to witness these events. It goes on to say, when Nolan's disappearance in death came to light, Bart Jr. freely and fully cooperated with law enforcement investigating the tragedy. He sat for interviews, answered all of the questions he was asked, and shared all of his recollection from July 4th, 2026. Barg Jr. also compiled a list of potential witnesses. Goes on to say he allowed his phone to be viewed and shared. Requested photographs and videos from that day with law enforcement. He also permitted the inspection of his boat and GPS device. At no point in this process, has Bart Jr. ever been identified as a suspect in Nolan's death? This has not stopped people from engaging in dangerous speculation, nor has it stopped outright fabrications.

This week, it has been Bart Jr.'s turn to be accused by thousands of online strangers who do not know him, do not know any relevant facts, and do not care about our community or the truth of what happened. We have retained legal counsel for the purpose of pursuing recourse against those individuals fabricating lies about him or our family. The first ceased and desist and spoliation letter is being issued today to an online user who originated many of the falsehoods against. Bart Jr. This user shared pictures of our home, our residential address, landplats, and information about our work while simultaneously falsely asserting through various videos and posts that Bart Jr. is a suspect that he caused or contributed to Nolan's death or that he is involved in a cover-up of Nolan's death. It is a toxic combination in an emotionally charged

environment. None of these things are true. And just to give you an idea here, we have a copy of that cease and desist letter, and it says in part, quote, Dear Miss Lee, I have been retained to represent Bart Edmondson, Jr., a Mississippi resident in response to numerous false and defamatory statements you have published on social media channels under your control, including but not limited to Facebook and Instagram channels operating under the name of Kimbra Lee. We have also determined two potential aliases, including Susan Speezer and Lauren David. Dave, what do you make of that? I mean, that is quite the statement. Again, it kind of goes back to what I said before. If he really had something to do with this, if he had something to hide, I don't know if you'd be filing a lawsuit where all this could potentially get exposed. That's the discovery process. You've got to be careful because if you file these lawsuits, then you open yourself up to discovery, depositions, document production.

So the fact that they're taking initiative, again, tells me that I think they're being sincere, incredible, and I don't believe this young man had anything to do with it. But he and others have been raked through the coals by people who have an agenda who want to get clicks and likes and they want to monetize it and they're taking advantage of a terrible situation. So I applaud them for doing this because actually I believe what they're doing is the right thing. Generally speaking, if a lawsuit is filed in connection with a death investigation, so whether it is potentially the family's lawsuit or you have a lawsuit here, does that complicate investigators work? Does that complicate prosecutors work? Yes, actually, it's a good point because when you start doing interviews and it can conflict with the interviews of the state. The state's doing their own interviews.

So now if you have witnesses that you're depending on are now saying something different in the civil deposition, oh my gosh, right? Also, when you're talking about a criminal investigation, that generally would come first because if the civil investigation goes first, if the civil lawsuit goes first, the prosecutors are less likely. to charge a case. Why? Because law enforcement and prosecutors don't want to be used as leverage in a civil case. So if there's a... Can you explain that? What do you mean? Well, for example, if there is an ongoing criminal investigation right now and all of a sudden you see civil lawsuits filed, the law enforcement and prosecutors may look at that say, okay, are we being used as leveraged that they're finally civil lawsuits? And they're telling us what we want to hear so that we will put pressure on the defendants to settle to...

Interesting. And so, for example, I'm a private lawyer now. And we have clients who come to us and say, we have a beef with this other company, take it to law enforcement, and we also want to sue. I said, well, if we sue first, when we take it to law enforcement, they're going to say, oh, you want us to join in here so that you have leverage in your civil lawsuit. No thanks. So you've got to be careful on the time. And also, by the way, you and I both know that if there's pending litigation, if this goes to a trial, right? Again, we have no reason to suspect there's foul play at this point.

We don't know of any suspects, but the DA has indicated, at least through Ben Crump, what Ben Crump has said, that this might go to a grand jury for potential filing of criminal charges. If this were to go to a criminal trial, some of these witnesses would be asked under cross-examination. Don't you have an incentive? Exactly. Because of your pending lawsuit, and that can go to credibility of who could otherwise be very credible witnesses. Right. Can you imagine the cross-examination? Are you suing this person for money? Yes.

Now, that's impeachment, right? Do you have a financial interest in all of this? That's impeachment. That's another reason why prosecutors would be like, slow down on that side. Let us do our work before you guys get involved. From a legal point of view, and this is one of those cases that has taken on a life of its own,

there's a lot of online commentators, a lot of theories, a lot of speculation. You know, and I'll just, I'll get into it now because you think about the potential harassment here, right? People have a lot of passion about this, understandably so. But people allegedly making threats. Aside from the one who I just mentioned, It was reported that another friend got threats, that the mom of one of the young men out there, I'm talking about Ashley Cole, has been receiving threats.

Christine, again Nolan's mom, has reportedly been harassed, bad reviews being posted at her workplace, threatening messages, harassing mail. First of all, are you surprised to see this in today's day and age, our true crime space? And number two, what is the line? What is the First Amendment Free Speech line versus, you know, you're crossing into legal liability? Well, death threats are illegal. threats of violence, illegal, extortion is illegal. And we see this now so often. This is part of our culture, sadly.

And we saw us in the Karen Reed case, where you have the family of the victim, you have people in the house, innocent people who to this day are bad mouthed and harassed and threatened. And I don't understand how we've gotten here. The Internet makes any keyboard commando in their mother's basement a very brave, courageous person until they go out in public. then they would never say to your face what they would say behind your back on a computer keyboard

on the anonymity of the internet. So we're seeing this more and more, and it should be held accountable. And that's why I think defamation lawsuits can be used in this context, but they're tough because if you're dealing with a public figure, you've got to prove what's called actual malice. Here these plaintiffs are not public figures. These friends of Nolan Wells are not public figures. They will have an easier time winning a defamation lawsuit. So if you're an online commentator and you're saying this person should be looked at or there's some suspicious things about this person, like where does it go from online speculation again into legal territory?

Is it like you have to make a definitive false statement? That person's a killer. That person did that. I mean, where is it like, you know, this person should be looked at it? There's some questions surrounding this person. That's not actionable. I mean, where is, again, the line? See, that's for a jury and a judge to decide.

But you do not get immunity for using words like, allegedly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Allegedly, I think that guy's a child molester. That doesn't immunize. It's not like you sprinkle on those words and it goes away. It's still defamation. You can't also, if you are repeating a false statement, you can't say, well, it's reported that if that's a false statement, you own it just as if you had said it originally.

I'm glad to have you here because this autopsy, I think, is going to be key. It was, I think, last week when Ben Crumb held that press conference, talked about the findings of the independent autopsy, how they were limited because of the condition of Nolan's body. The body that was handed over to them was missing portions of the throat and neck because of the work that was done by the state medical examiner. Now, it is important to note that's not unusual. That can happen. It seems that they are testing, right? They're testing for trauma. They're testing for drowning. Talk to me about what we can expect from the state medical examiner, the toxicology report. If they take those components, does that signify to you that they are going to have an answer

as to what happened to Nolan, or considering this was in, you know, looks like in the water, decomposition, they might not have the full answers. They are going above and beyond to try to get as conclusive answers as possible. But when you have a drowning, yeah, it's possible. They're saying it's inconclusive because right now there's no signs of blunt force trauma. There's no lacerations on the skin. There's the red discoloration in the back of the head. They're going to have to explain that what that could be.

This is, by the way, I say that, but this is according to the medical examiner, the pathologist that was hired by the family. The family hired a medical examiner their own, and that medical examiner did a good job because he said it's inconclusive, right? You could have hired someone who just, with a preordained outcome in mind. Yeah. But instead he said, yeah, you can't. And it looks like just the most, the easiest answer is the correct answer here, which is, and I'm going to wait until the reports come out. But right now it looks like an accidental drowning. And it's tragic, but I don't have been.

any evidence of foul play. So just to push back on this for one second. I spoke to a couple medical examiners about this. First of all, they all say the work of Dr. Mitchell was great. But it could be two different things. One could be from decomposition, the red discothe. Or it could actually be a blunt force injury of some kind because the body won't bruise like that after death. So two different ways to look at it. Now, I want to jump on something you just said, even if it was accidental drowning. And I talked about yesterday, there's reports that, he might have been heavily intoxicated. No one saw anything.

All those people. No one saw anything. No one helped to jump in. That's the part that I'm stuck on. Isn't it just as crazy to have all those people there and not one person sees an attack, an act of physical violence against someone who apparently was popular amongst the whole group?

Not one video. No one has alleged a thing. Unless law enforcement has all of the law enforcement has all that information, they're just not releasing yet. Unless they're like, we have multiple statements about an attack. We have multiple people who saw Nolan drowning. But would they release it now to try to quiet the hysteria or they say, look, we can't yet because the investigation's going on. That's where I say in a case like this, when there's so many conspiracy theories that they should be more transparent. Sure. But the fact is that people can't keep secrets, right? You know, Mark Twain said

two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead. If this were the case, if people had seen some of you'd think that it would have gotten out. So it looks like that he drowned in an area where people weren't looking or no one noticed it sadly. But if there was an attack, violence, where it's multiple combatant action, yes, someone would have seen, heard something, even recorded it. That to me makes it impossible that that actually happened. That's why I think that there was an accidental drowning.

Now could someone have been involved and pushed him over or something? I don't know, but that's what I'm hoping that this autopsy and the toxicology report will reveal more. Dave Arrenberg, great to see you. Thanks so much. Did you remember the name of your substacks for everybody to say? It's either Dave Arrenberg official

or official Dave Aronberg. I want to try them out. You'll say, thanks so much for taking the time. Thank you see you. And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube,

Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcast. You can also check us out on NBC's Peacock as well. If you want to follow me, X, Instagram, My News Nation Show, Jesse Weber Live, Monday through Friday, 11 p.m. Eastern. See you next time everybody