The cellphone Nolan Wells left behind is now providing new information about what happened after the 18-year-old was separated from the device.
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Digital forensic expert Andrew Garrett, whose firm was hired by Wells’ family to examine the phone, said Thursday that Snapchat data was deleted during the period between Wells’ final use of the device and the moment his parents recovered it. The Nolan Wells phone findings give new weight to concerns his mother raised shortly after her son disappeared on Mississippi’s Horn Island on July 4.“There were things that were deleted from the phone,” Garrett said. “I can’t talk to intent. Unfortunately, that’s not my field of expertise, the psychology, but I could tell you from a digital standpoint, things were deleted on the phone from the time he last had the phone up until the time that his parents got the phone.”
Garrett identified the deleted material as Snapchat content and said deleting it required a user action. However, he did not identify who performed that action or why it happened.
That distinction matters. The forensic findings establish that deletions occurred, but they do not establish who was responsible or whether the deletions were connected to Wells’ death.
“I explained my job is to analyze digital evidence and tell you the facts, no spin, no conjecture, no opinions,” Garrett said. “I lay it out on the table, let other people formulate those opinions as to what it means.”
According to Garrett, Wells last used his phone at approximately 2:18 p.m. on July 4. GPS information examined by his team reportedly showed the device later traveling over water from Horn Island, arriving at a boat ramp and eventually remaining at a residence before Wells’ parents recovered it early the following morning.
Wells was not with the phone.
He had traveled to Horn Island with friends for a Fourth of July outing. His friends returned to the mainland while Wells remained behind. His body was recovered from the water on July 6.
The cellphone became a major focus almost immediately.
Wells’ mother, Christine Wonsley, previously said she noticed something unusual when the family got the device back. She said Wells regularly documented social gatherings, yet she found no Snapchat pictures or videos from that day.
“When we opened it up, there was nothing,” Wonsley said in July. “There was no pictures or saved snaps from that day, and we did open it before the 24-hour expiration. We found that very concerning because anyone around Nolan at social gatherings will tell you he’s always taking pictures, taking videos.”
One of Wells’ friends, Warren Hudson, later publicly denied that anyone in the group deleted material from the phone and said he did not know Wells’ password.
Garrett’s examination does not establish that Hudson or any other specific person deleted the material.
The forensic team said it created an extensive image of Wells’ phone and recovered more than one million digital artifacts, allowing investigators to examine information including app activity, GPS data, and phone usage.
“There were no nefarious acts. There was no contention between the parties. It was completely agreeable,” Garrett said while discussing the process of creating the forensic copy.
The findings arrived just days after a Jackson County grand jury unanimously declined to indict anyone in Wells’ death. District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath said the grand jury heard testimony from 43 witnesses and reviewed extensive evidence before finding no credible evidence of criminal conduct.
Authorities said the evidence was consistent with drowning, although both Mississippi’s medical examiner and an independent forensic pathologist retained by Wells’ family left the official cause and manner of death undetermined.
The family’s independent examination also documented blunt-force injuries, including injuries involving Wells’ head and back. The grand jury report acknowledged bruising but found no injuries that it concluded caused his death.
That leaves several facts sitting next to each other without automatically explaining one another: Wells was separated from his phone, the phone returned to the mainland without him, Snapchat material was deleted during the period before his parents recovered the device, and his cause and manner of death remain officially undetermined.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump stressed that the latest findings are not an accusation against a particular person.
“We’re not accusing anybody of anything nefarious,” Crump said. “Even with the phone extraction, Mr. Garrett says we don’t know the intent of any of that stuff, but what we are saying is, if you care anything about Nolan Wells, if you know anything, come forward.”
For Wells’ family, the forensic analysis answers one question they have raised since July: material was, in fact, deleted.
It also creates another one that digital evidence alone has not answered.
Who deleted it?
