Nolan Wells' Friends Went Silent For THIS Reason

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Drake.

**Robin Drake** (0:07)
And with that, we're going to continue the conversation about this tragic event that happened over July 4th weekend. And this is going into the wingman factor and law enforcement's involvement. And Jen, just to catch up the speed, this is the event that happened with young man Nolan, who's out boating Mississippi.
Tragically, they found his body a couple of days later after he was left on shore. His friend group said that the boat was having some leakage or sinking, and he also was talking to some girl on the shore. Anyway, that's what we kind of talked about in the first segment. But this one is this. Every friend group has its own version of what happened on that island. And in this one, at the least, one of those friends came home to a mother who sits on the bench as a Jackson County judge. That connection, paired with local sheriff's office, now fielding transparency demands from a sitting congressman and a nationally known civil rights attorney that the parents retained, has turned this into a case about who gets protected and who gets pressed. So joining us today as ever, retired special agent, Jennifer Coffindaffer, as we dig into what it means when people investigating a death have personal ties to people they're investigating. So with all that, Jen, so the friend is a son of a sitting county judge.
The judge has gone dark and there's a lot of silence, and the YouTube universe and our universe loves to fill silence with conjecture. So Jen, what's your take on the judge, the friends and everything's going on here so far?

**Jennifer Coffindaffer** (1:41)
Well, first of all, my condolences to the family because these tragedies happen all too often.
I can't tell you how many individual males who have gone out drinking and end up deceased in the water. It's unbelievable. That's why there's the smiley face killer conspiracy, right? Because it just happens all too often. In this situation, the problem is, I think, is that you have multiple versions of what happens. There's no video, at least that I know of, that really highlights what happened with him, right? We don't know. And so because of that, the question is, will this relationship feed into it? And I just have to tell you, it's going to likely have some effect on what happens from this point on.

**Robin Drake** (2:35)
And what do you think that effect is going to be? Is that the relationship between the judge, you think?

**Jennifer Coffindaffer** (2:39)
Yeah, that's all I'm saying is. And when I say that, you know, you just have to completely recuse and get out. But the problem is, that judge likely has all sorts of relationships. And because of those relationships, you never know how that could affect the decision made on this case, if there's one to really be made, right? We don't know that anything nefarious happened. It seems like it's a huge accident, but you can't leave your wingman.

**Todd** (3:08)
Jen, I want to get your thoughts. So I'm going to back up just a little bit. When you first heard the story, because you've been tweeting about it and putting out some content about it since it happened. What was your initial thought when you saw the pictures, when you saw the report? What was going through your mind right away?

**Jennifer Coffindaffer** (3:24)
My initial thought was like the others, this was a case of somebody being overly served, over served and getting into that water and not being able to swim out.
And that it was more than more likely just a horrible accident. That was my initial thought. Alcohol, young men and water do not mix ever.

**Todd** (3:48)
And what are your thoughts on the community calling for transparency here? You know, we just had a we just had a text come in. I hope the local police department is competent. Is that a concern for you?

**Jennifer Coffindaffer** (4:00)
You know, it's always a concern in these cases, right? You just have to make sure that the local department responded. Did they treat it? You have to treat it like something nefarious happened.
You know, you have to treat every case like that, whether I'll use the big examples, John Benet Ramsey, Nancy Guthrie. Did they treat it like something nefarious happened? No.
And whenever that happens, that's a problem. So in this case, you have to treat it like something more nefarious happened. Do I think something like that happened? But did they treat it that way in terms of the possible scene?

**Robin Drake** (4:39)