Attorneys Deny Friends Deleted Messages from Deceased Football Player's Phone
Lawyers for Nolan Wells' friends state their clients had no access to the phone and did not erase any data.
Attorneys representing the friends of Nolan Wells, a college football player who died after disappearing on July 4th, have vehemently denied allegations that their clients deleted messages from Wells' cell phone. A forensic examiner hired by Wells' family stated that messages were erased from the device between the time Wells was last seen using it and when it was recovered.
Andrew Garrett, the forensic examiner, reported that data was deleted from Wells' phone after he vanished, but he could not determine who was responsible. Garrett stated at a press conference that "somebody had to take a user action to delete data." The attorney for Wells' friends, Edward A. Paltzik, asserted that his clients, Warren Hudson, Jax Pitalo, and Morgan Seymour, "did not erase anything and never had access to his phone."
"If anything was erased, they didn’t do it," Paltzik told TMZ. He also criticized Ben Crump, the attorney representing Wells' family, for allegedly refusing to provide the phone to the District Attorney while seeking transparency.
Wells, 18, was last active on his phone at 2:18 p.m. on July 4th, according to Wells' family attorney, Ben Crump. The phone was later recovered from Horn Island, where Wells disappeared and his body was found days later. Another attorney for Wells' friends, Tyler Cox, explained that a female member of the group collected all the phones left on the boat, including Wells', and placed them in a truck. The phone was later retrieved from the truck by another individual and given to a friend of Wells' mother around 1:30 a.m.
Cox confirmed that a grand jury found no deleted content on Wells' phone and reiterated that the individuals on the boat did not erase anything. According to Garrett's examination of over 280 pages of records, Wells primarily used Snapchat and Instagram for communication. Garrett noted that a group chat continued to exchange messages even after Wells' death, with participants unaware that the messages were syncing to his device.
Crump stated that all Snapchat messages from Wells' friend group have been shared with the District Attorney, describing them as "very telling and very enlightening." He also claimed that some messages indicated Wells' friends were concerned about racist individuals on Horn Island and described other texts referencing "real sketchy" people in a nearby boat.
Paltzik dismissed these claims as "vague nonsense" and stated his legal team intends to sue Crump for defamation. The attorneys for Wells' friends maintain that their clients had no involvement in the deletion of any messages from Wells' phone.