What Nolan Wells' Sheriff Did Before The Autopsy

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This is The Big Breakdown, a long look back at some of the biggest stories we're covering for you at the Hidden Killers Podcast and True Crime Today. This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Drake.

**Tony Brueski** (0:17)
We've got a lot to talk about this morning. We're going to be getting to the latest in the Lindsay Clancy case where things are at as the defense is getting ready to rest and hand it over to a jury very early next week. We'll get to that. But first, this morning, we're going to be starting with the latest in the Nolan Wells investigation and where all of that is at. Nolan Wells' phone left Horn Island with his friends on July 4th. His body didn't. Six weeks later, that phone has still not been examined. And that's where the story is at.
And the family, the DA and the friends' attorneys are all pointing fingers at each other for the delay. So what the hell is going on? That's been my reaction. I'm here to help us answer that question. Eric Faddis, defense attorney, former prosecutor and, of course, my co-host, as always, Robin Drake, retired FBI Special Agency for the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program. So this is a piece of evidence, but I think we need to take a step back even further and this is not a criminal investigation as of right now either. So when we're thinking of evidence and things being obtained, you have to hit that level of it being criminal to get there. So maybe that answer is part of this. But it's still a rather odd thing, considering we don't know what happened to Nolan Wells. On July 15th, the family and District Attorney McGrath agreed to a joint forensic examination, both sides, experts, possibly the FBI, at a Digital Forensics Lab in the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. No date apparently ever been set, though. A month has now passed, and now the DA is sending a demand letter out to the family, saying, You got 48 hours to give us the phone. Sounds like the DA is done playing games with critical evidence.
How did we get here? Eric, people want answers. The people who seemingly want the most answers are the ones holding the actual device that can probably provide most of them.

**Eric Faddis** (2:25)
Yeah, I hear you. I mean, it's sort of intuitive to think that, my gosh, if a family lost their son under unknown circumstances, and they want it to be further investigated, you would expect them to want to be cooperative with the government, to provide the phone, to provide other information.
It sounds like that probably hasn't happened. What is the reason for that? I think there are a number of potential reasons for that, but I think the ultimate effect is that it is hampering the possible criminal investigation that could take place without turning this over. And like I said, I think there are several possible reasons for that.

**Tony Brueski** (3:06)
The first thing that came to my mind is, okay, in other investigations, not that, you know, not everything is the same, nothing's ever the same, but if you're in the middle of a criminal investigation, which this is not yet, it may never be, if the authorities want your device, they're going to come get that device, if it may reveal information about a crime. I know they've agreed for transparency, here's how we're going to handle this. And I think that's great. As transparent as you can be on this, extra steps need to be taken just because of all the eyes that are on this, for the sake of everyone involved and people not being accused of things that they didn't do, or people being prosecuted that do need to be prosecuted. Transparency is key. But here we are, we're six weeks in. Either side, I mean, there really isn't an excuse here. If you want to get the phone dump and the data off of it, Crump's team certainly has the ability to get that done.
Apparently it has not been done.
I'm just, I'm failing to see what the problem is here. If this is a leaning into a criminal direction, wouldn't they have just went and gotten the phone by now?

**Eric Faddis** (4:22)
You would think so, and that would certainly be an option. In terms of how the government can come into possession of evidence, one is through consent.
Maybe they're hoping that the family is going to ultimately provide this without the government having to go through the motions of the alternative. The alternative is a search warrant, and that's a judicial process. You have to show probable cause. You have to go seize the phone.