Angel Myers McIlrath, the district attorney for the 19th Circuit Court District of Mississippi, slammed prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump as “not worthy of our trust” after he challenged a grand jury’s finding that there is insufficient evidence to charge anyone in the July death of 18-year-old Nolan Wells on Horn Island, a barrier island off the Mississippi coast. “My interactions with Mr.
Crump, as well as his conduct in this case, have demonstrated that he is not worthy of our trust. I did not expect that his characterization and representations in this case would be any different today, nor do I expect anything better from him in the future,” McIlrath said in a three-page missive challenging Crump to provide her office with “evidence that Nolan Wells was murdered” if he has it.
“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,” she declared. McIlrath’s statement came after Crump and digital forensics firm Garrett Discovery presented phone-tracking data and what they described as contradictions in the timeline of Wells’ death during a press conference Thursday.
Andrew Garrett, a digital forensics examiner and CEO of Garrett Discovery, said Snapchat messages were deleted from Wells’ phone. The deleted conversations included descriptions of “sketchy” people. “One of the Snaps, conversations talked about, 'Do you all remember real sketchy looking guys behind us in two boats?'” Crump said, reading a recovered message.
Crump and the forensic investigators said the messages vanished between the time Wells last used his phone and when his family recovered the device, but they could not confirm how they were deleted.