The attorneys for the pals of Nolan Wells claim they had nothing to do with the deleted messages discovered missing from the college football star’s cell phone after he mysteriously vanished and was later found dead.
Forensic examiner Andrew Garrett said messages were deleted from Wells’ cell phone between the last time he used his device on the day he vanished and when it was recovered and given back to his family.
Garrett, who was hired by Wells’ family, was unable to determine who deleted the messages but asserted “somebody had to take a user action to delete data” at a press conference Thursday.
The attorney for Wells’ friends, who were with the 18-year-old college athlete the day he vanished celebrating the Fourth of July on Horn Island, said the grieving pals had nothing to do with the messages being deleted.
“Warren [Hudson], Jax [Pitalo] and Morgan [Seymour] did not erase anything and never had access to his phone,” attorney Edward A. Paltzik told TMZ.
“If anything was erased, they didn’t do it,” he asserted.
Wells last used his phone at 2:18 p.m. on July 4 and the device was retrieved from Horn Island, where he vanished and his body was found several days later, according to the Wells family attorney, Ben Crump.
Attorney Tyler Cox, who is also repping Wells’ friends, told the outlet, “A girl from the group got all the phones left in the boat (which included Nolan’s) and put them in Wyatt’s truck.”
“It stayed there until Christine’s friend came over to get Nolan’s phone. The same girl in the group retrieved the phone from the truck and gave it to Christine’s friend around 1:30 a.m.,” Cox added.
Cox confirmed that a grand jury did not find anything deleted from Wells’ phone and claimed the “people on the boat did not erase anything.”
“Ben [Crump] keeps calling for transparency, yet they refuse to give the biggest evidence — his phone — to the DA,” Paltzik added.
Over 280 pages of records were examined by Garrett and it was determined Wells used Snapchat and Instagram for 95% of his communications.
A group chat continued to message after Wells’ death and the individuals in the text chain were unaware the messages were syncing to his phone, according to the forensic examiner.
“We have all of the snaps. I mean all of them, from his friend group,” Crump said, noting they have been shared with the District Attorney.
“We won’t divulge any of their names for privacy purposes, but they were very telling and very enlightening,” he said.
Crump claimed some messages obtained from Wells’ device show his friends were worried about people being racist on Horn Island.
Other texts pointed out “real sketchy” people in a nearby boat and how “you wouldn’t want to be left alone with them, especially if they’re drunk.”
“When they say the friends had conversations about racism, what friends are they talking about? This is vague nonsense. What is he talking about?” Paltzik told TMZ in response to the reported group chat.
Paltzik told the outlet his legal team intends to sue Crump for defamation.
