Clancy, Nolan Wells, and the Siders 16 Kids: Coffindaffer on WHAT?!

**Todd** (0:01)
This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Dre.

**Tony Brueski** (0:09)
Nolan Wells stayed behind on Horn Island on the 4th of July without water, transportation or his phone, which had been left on a boat with his friends. Two days later, a park ranger discovered his body in the water. The FBI is currently conducting forensics on that phone, investigating separate death threats linked to the case and maintaining that the local sheriff has jurisdiction, despite the island being a non-federal land. There's lots of questions in this case, not a lot of solid answers yet, but a lot of people who think they have solid answers based on opinions, thoughts, history, all of it. Jennifer Coffindaffer is joining myself and Robin Drake, retired FBI special agent, to discuss where this case is at right now and where it is headed. Jennifer, welcome and are you literally coming to us from Germany today?
Is that accurate?

**Jennifer Coffindaffer** (1:05)
I am in Germany and pass out Germany and I'm just so glad to have you back. It was like Robin and I were trying to go to the store. But now everything is copacetic.

**Tony Brueski** (1:18)
Well, I'm glad to be back. I'm glad to be back with everybody. I was just like, wow, Germany. Now that's a little trick there. Well, glad to have you on to dive into this case. I've been following your tweets, been following everybody's reporting on this for the last several weeks when I've been gone. One of the big things on this that seems to stand out is the Snapchat. That's a big thing that is being talked about.
I think it's important to contextualize it. The family reports that Nolan's accounts were wiped clean. That has not been confirmed by Snapchat or any authorities. That's coming from the family. I don't have any reason to disbelieve it, but it is a pretty big piece if in fact the accounts were wiped or was there just nothing ever put on the accounts to begin with on an island that doesn't have cell service? It's a fair question. It suggests a potential cover up and a lot of people are putting their chips in that basket. How heavily does the depth of this investigation depend on that accusation alone being true, Jen?
We may have lost her already. We may have lost her in Germany already. Robin, I'll go to you. What do you think?

**Robin Drake** (2:43)
How much does the depth of everything rely on Snapchat?

**Tony Brueski** (2:48)
Obviously, there's public indictment that's going on here.
But I'm curious and obviously, there's a lot of things being pulled, a lot of levers being pulled here to investigate this. But that is a big one. I mean, if in fact they get the phone back or Snapchat responds back and they say, yeah, looks like this thing was wiped and it wasn't just there was no activity. I mean, if there's no activity, that's how the phone was on the boat and nobody was using Snapchat. That could be a possible explanation. But if it in fact does show somebody went onto the account and deleted it or deleted the posts, I mean, what does that say? What does that mean for the investigation? It's a big if. I'm saying that.

**Robin Drake** (3:38)
Yeah, exactly. We talked about it yesterday when we're talking about with Eric, what it would take to elevate this investigation to probable cause on things, and go to before judges get subpoenas, and that would be one of them, definitely. Because I think what you do as an investigator and what Jen and I did throughout our career is you start with the laws of probability, as I always do in cases like we did yesterday. I look at the research, I look at the number of riptide drownings compared to number of deaths by homicide in areas like this, and so you just start with a general idea, and then you start drilling down and you take in all the data from the investigation, the forensics, and also from what the family is saying.
Now, the family and individuals, not this family in particular, but any family that is really close to an individual, they're going to have their own confirmation biases of what they're looking for, of what they think might have happened, and you look at all that because that gives you something to look at, examine, and in this case, if they say Snapchat should be there, but it's missing, what it does say is like, all right, look here to see if there's a wobble, as I always say. And if there's a wobble, well, then that might be something to drill deeper on. And if you see a wobble or a deviation from what you're expecting, that's something you can now bring before a judge and do a deeper dive, a deeper research. Now you can start serving subpoenas to see if there's more there. But if you're not seeing one, it's all copacetic. In other words, if the baseline remains consistent, that things weren't deleted here, they're not deleted here. Stories are somewhat consistent, but inconsistencies that are commensurate to the level of potential intoxicants that were being used. So that's what they're assessing in all these things.