Civil rights attorney Ben Crump’s own digital expert in the Nolan Wells case has refuted the suggestion that Wells’ phone was accessed and had data deleted from it after Wells last locked the phone before his death. He also clarified a misinterpretation surrounding claims of “deleted” messages.
Andrew Garrett, a digital forensics expert and founder of Garrett Discovery, appeared with Crump’s team, including Wells’ parents, at a press conference on Sept. 24 to discuss the results of a forensic investigation of Wells’ phone. Earlier that week, Jackson County District Attorney Angel McIlrath announced that a grand jury returned no true bill on any criminal charges related to Wells’ Independence Day weekend death on Horn Island.
Wells died after traveling to Horn Island on a boat with a large group of friends on multiple boats to celebrate July 4. After the boat he had ridden out on began taking on water, part of the friend group decided to return to the mainland, but he stayed on the island, saying he would ride back on another boat. He disappeared, and search teams found his body washed up on the island on July 6.
Crump’s team pushed back on the grand jury’s report, arguing that questions about Wells’ death remained because neither the state autopsy nor the family’s arranged independent autopsy determined a cause of death. The grand jury report said drowning was a “diagnosis of exclusion,” meaning it would be the likely cause of death after ruling out all remaining plausible causes.
Crump’s Sept. 24 press conference focused on the forensic examination of Wells’ phone, which has been scrutinized in an attempt to recreate Wells’ whereabouts during the last hours of his life.
Garrett was asked whether things were deleted from Wells’ phone. “There were things that were deleted from the phone,” he responded. “I can’t talk to intent—unfortunately, that’s not my field of expertise, the psychology—but I can tell you that things were deleted on the phone from the time he last had the phone up until the time his parents got the phone.” Garrett specified that the “things” deleted were Snapchat messages.
“So his parents said when they got his phone, they thought things had been deleted,” Crump said. “And the question is, are they crazy to think that?”
“No,” Garrett responded. “I think if you were to look at the phone like we did and look through the message threads and stuff, you could put together that things were deleted.” Garrett said all 282 Snapchat messages as well as all forensic data related to the phone were delivered to the Jackson County district attorney.
“We gave it to them,” Garrett said. “We gave it to them on a silver platter so they didn’t have to do much work at all,” Garrett said. “They could go in and validate the data instantly, and they could look at all the reports and look at the digital evidence and say, ‘These match 100%,’ and therefore it saved them a lot of time and a lot of effort, and especially because they were forming a grand jury.”
However, Garrett clarified his statements, both before the Sept. 24 press conference and afterward.
On a TikTok livestream published to YouTube on Sept. 24, Garrett said, “When we say erased from the phone, you’ve got to be a little careful with that. What happens is, when you and I are in conversation on Snapchat, and you decide to delete the messages on my side of the phone, you can do that remotely. That was done. There are some messages that were recalled and deleted from the phone.”
Then, in an excerpt of the TikTok livestream that filmmaker Ashley Brant published to Facebook on Sept. 27, Garrett said he never suggested that Wells’ phone was accessed by someone else.
“I was very clear on what I said, even though he misinterpreted it and some other people did too,” Garrett said during the Sept. 27 livestream. “The last time Nolan logged into the phone—unlocked the phone—was the last time it was logged into.”
He also said that Well’s phone remained locked after the last time he accessed it around 2:18 p.m. on July 4 until his parents got the phone at 3:14 a.m. on July 5. He clarified that “deletions can happen remotely from people sending messages that can delete the messages afterwards.”
“I didn’t say somebody unlocked the phone and started playing with the phone and started deleting the phone because that’s exactly what I would’ve said,” Garrett said. “I said there was deletions on the phone and then there was interactions with the phone—the interactions with the phone are like people waking the screen up, you can see the messages on the front, that kind of stuff—but it’s not unlocking it.”
Jackson County District Attorney Angel McIllrath alleged in a Thursday press release that Crump’s team never provided the full digital download from Wells’ phone to her office, instead only offering two emails containing roughly 300 pages of selected findings. She also said that neither the state’s autopsy nor Dr. Roger A. Mitchell’s independent autopsy found evidence of fatal injury to Wells and that neither ruled out drowning.
“The Crump team advised my office that they had no evidence of a crime against Nolan Wells. They never advised anything differently,” she said in her release. “The Crump team is asking the public to ask questions that the Crump team has the answers to. They are the only ones who have had access to Nolan’s phone and the full extraction.”
In the grand jury report released Sept. 21, it acknowledged there is no statute of limitations on homicide cases in Mississippi.
“If credible evidence comes to light in the future that suggests Mr. Wells’ death was non-accidental, this matter should be re-presented to the Jackson County Grand Jury for further consideration,” the report said.
McIlrath called on Crump’s team to provide her with any new information they have uncovered.
“If the Crump team genuinely has new information or evidence that Nolan Wells was murdered they should stop playing games and immediately provide it to me,” McIlrath said.
The Mississippi Free Press reached out to Crump’s legal team on Sept. 25 for a response. The team responded it was checking to clarify and would follow up with a response, but did not provide one as of the time this article was published. It did not respond to four follow up emails. The Mississippi Free Press also reached out to Garrett for comment on the morning of Sept. 25, and on the morning of Sept. 29, a representative from Garrett’s office confirmed that Garrett’s statements on the livestreams were accurate, but could not speak further on the facts of the case.
Follow the Mississippi Free Press’ coverage of Nolan Wells and read past stories here.
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