The legal fight surrounding the death of 18-year-old Nolan Wells has entered a new phase as attorneys working with civil rights lawyer Ben Crump seek records from several social media platforms and a popular location-tracking app.
New subpoenas filed Tuesday request information tied to Wells’ accounts on Snapchat, WhatsApp, TikTok, Meta Platforms, and Life360, according to court records reviewed by the Sun Herald.
Mississippi attorney Gary Bufkin, of the Ridgeland law firm Carroll Bufkin PLLC, filed the subpoenas as part of the independent investigation into Wells’ death.
What Happened to Nolan Wells
The requests come weeks after Wells disappeared during a Fourth of July trip to Horn Island with friends.
Wells, who was Black, traveled to the island by boat with at least three white friends. According to investigators, the group returned to shore without him but brought back his cellphone. They told authorities Wells had stayed behind to talk with a girl and other friends.
Two days later, search crews found his body off the island’s northwest tip.
The Jackson County Sheriff’s Department continues to lead the investigation with assistance from the FBI. Federal agents are also investigating reported threats made against the Wonsley family, law enforcement officers, and others connected to the case.
Wells’ mother, Christine Wells-Wonsley, serves as the administrator of her son’s estate. She and her husband, Elmore Wonsley, retained Crump after their son’s death as they continue searching for answers.
Requests for Digital Data
The newly issued subpoenas seek extensive digital records connected to Wells’ online activity.
Among the requested information are subscriber records, current and former usernames, email addresses, phone numbers, display names, account creation dates, and the IP addresses used to create and access each account.
The subpoenas also request login histories, password reset records, two-factor authentication activity, IP addresses tied to friend events, public communications, metadata, non-content account information, and records that could identify anyone who exchanged messages with Wells.
Attorneys are also seeking communications, chats, posts, stories, and other data connected to the accounts.
The latest filings follow a series of intent-to-sue letters Bufkin recently sent to Wells’ friends, their families, local law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, the coroner’s office, the state medical examiner’s office, and others involved in the investigation.
Those letters instructed recipients to preserve all evidence in their possession in its original, unaltered form. They also directed recipients to suspend any automatic deletion or overwrite functions that could erase potential evidence.
How Digital Data Connects to Nolan Wells’ Death
The subpoenas mark the latest step in the family’s effort to reconstruct Wells’ final movements and communications as the investigation into his death continues.
Wells’ family expressed concern because his friends kept the teen’s cellphone after he went missing. The 18-year-old was reportedly very active on social media, and they believe some of his messages were deleted.
A family friend who retrieved the phone from his friends told CNN’s Laura Coates she got the runaround.
“For Christine, it said one place, but for them on Snapchat, it said another place,” the friend said. “So, that’s the place we went to. And it showed that everybody that was in the house, it was like a lot of people there. So, that’s how we knew where to go. We went there. They were all there. They were sitting there, lights off, watching TV. They did. They gave me the phone, but it took about 15 minutes.”
Forensics expert Heather Barnhart said investigators need to find evidence of someone without a password attempting to access the phone to prove tampering.
“Someone just looking in the phone, you can get a glimpse, but you can’t see what’s deleted and hiding below the surface,” Barnhart told legal commentator Nancy Grace. “We need a forensic acquisition to do that. We can tell if it was just soft deleted, so like sitting in a trash can, or a hard delete.”
“So if you empty your trash on your phone and then you go and throw it into a dumpster and the trash is taken away, there is a log that tracks everything. Also with timestamps on when that activity occurred,” she added.
