An 18-year-old Mississippi teen vanished after a Fourth of July boat outing, only to be discovered dead two days later—now, his phone has become the center of a deepening mystery.
Nolan Wells’ mother grew alarmed when she got back her son’s device and found zero photos or videos on his two Snapchat accounts, calling the emptiness “suspicious” and raising fears that someone may have tampered with the data.
But the teen’s self-proclaimed best friend, Warren Hudson, is pushing back hard, insisting nobody had a reason or ability to erase anything from the promising athlete’s phone.
“There was no reason for us to get on Nolan’s phone, no one touched Nolan’s phone,” Hudson told YouTuber The Officer Tatum. “If none of us had touched Nolan’s phone then, y’know, there’s no reason for anything to be deleted.”
Hudson explained the group left the phone on the boat while at Horn Island because everyone was in the water, waist-deep, and nobody carries a phone while swimming.
He also noted that none of his friends knew Wells’ password and that the device was moved from the boat to a truck without anyone accessing it. “We have nothing to hide here,” Hudson added.
Meanwhile, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents the Wells family, has not yet responded to requests for comment on Hudson’s statements.
At a packed hometown funeral Monday, Wells’ devastated mother, Christine Wonsley, begged those in attendance to “keep Nolan’s memory alive.”
An independent autopsy conducted in Washington, D.C., after the body was flown over 800 miles, listed the cause and manner of death as “undetermined.”
Dr. Roger Mitchell’s preliminary report noted a 12-by-8-inch red discoloration in the deep soft tissues on the back of Wells’ head—but extensive decomposition and a lack of associated injuries made the finding inconclusive.
The report emphasized that the discoloration was significant enough to flag for further investigation.
So if nobody deleted anything, why was Nolan’s phone completely wiped clean of memories?
