They Couldn’t Even Attend Their Best Friend’s Funeral

WATCH PART THREE OF MY FULL INTERVIEW ON YOUTUBE HERE:

This is Part Three of my conversation with Warren Hudson, Jax Pitalo, and Morgan Seymour.

And for this final part, I wanted to do something simple.

I wanted to put some of the biggest questions surrounding the Nolan Wells case directly in front of the young men who were actually there.

What was their real relationship with Nolan?

Why was his phone left on the boat?

Why did they leave Horn Island without him?

Was the boat actually in danger of sinking?

When did they contact law enforcement?

Did investigators get their phones?

And why didn’t Nolan’s closest friends attend his funeral?

I’ve seen people online answer these questions for them.

This time, I wanted you to hear their answers for yourself.

One of the narratives these young men have dealt with from the beginning is that they weren’t actually close with Nolan.

So I asked them about it.

Their response was simple.

“I know my relationship with Nolan. Nolan knew his relationship with me. I know who my best friend is.”

They described Nolan as funny, genuine, a peacemaker and the kind of person who could light up a room.

They talked about years of friendship.

Trips together.

Going to each other’s houses.

Picking Nolan up because he didn’t regularly drive with their group.

Spending time together at school and away from school.

They also pushed back against the idea that not having a close relationship with Nolan’s parents somehow proves they weren’t close with Nolan himself.

According to the young men, Nolan spent significant time around their families and regularly stayed at their homes.

Their point was clear.

They don’t believe strangers on the internet get to redefine the relationship they had with their friend.

Another important piece of context came up when I asked about the Fourth of July.

Was this some unusual trip?

According to them, absolutely not.

They said Horn Island was something their friend group did regularly and that Nolan had been there with them multiple times.

They described the Fourth of July gathering as an annual tradition and one of the biggest boating days of the year.

According to their account, Nolan had even been at Horn Island with them roughly two weeks before July Fourth.

That’s important context because some people have portrayed this trip as if Nolan was suddenly taken somewhere unfamiliar with a group of people he barely knew.

That’s not how Warren, Jax, and Morgan describe it.

They say boating with Nolan was normal.

Horn Island was normal.

And celebrating the Fourth there was normal.

This may be one of the most discussed pieces of the entire case.

Why did Nolan leave his phone behind?

People have treated that fact as inherently suspicious.

The young men say there’s a much simpler explanation.

When you’re spending the day swimming in saltwater, you don’t carry your phone around.

They said people regularly left their phones on the boat’s dashboard while they were in the water, especially because cell service around Horn Island could be extremely spotty.

And according to them, Nolan wasn’t the only person who left a phone behind.

They said several other people left their phones on the boat too and later retrieved them.

That includes another friend whose phone they say was returned without incident.

So from their perspective, Nolan leaving his phone wasn’t some bizarre occurrence.

It was normal behavior during a day on the water.

Then we got into one of the most important moments of the entire timeline.

According to the young men, one of their boats began taking on water.

Morgan had already departed on another boat.

That left two remaining boats preparing to leave.

They say Nolan was with a young woman at that point.

According to their account, their friend Wyatt repeatedly told Nolan to get on the boat because they needed to leave immediately.

Nolan declined.

They say Nolan told them he had another ride back.

And this is something I wanted them to explain because people hear that and naturally ask:

Why would you leave your friend on an island?

Their answer comes down to understanding Horn Island and the local boating community.

They told me it wasn’t unusual for someone to arrive on one boat and return on another.

There were large numbers of people and boats around, and they believed Nolan could easily get a ride back to the mainland.

They even described another person that same Fourth of July who couldn’t locate his original boat and was given a ride back by people he didn’t know.

According to them, there was no reason at that moment to believe Nolan was in danger.

You’ve probably heard the Sea Tow call.

You hear urgency.

You hear them talking about sinking.

But critics have asked an obvious question.

If the boat never actually sank, how serious was the problem?

So I asked them to explain it.

They said the boat’s bilge pump malfunctioned.

Water accumulated beneath the deck where electronics and batteries were located. According to their account, the water eventually reached the point where they could see the boat sitting lower and water entering the deck area.

They described the electronics malfunctioning and said they believed the boat was going down.

That’s when panic set in.

Eventually, they say they managed to get the motor functioning again.

Once they got the boat moving fast enough to plane across the water, they removed the drain plug and used the movement of the boat to help evacuate the accumulated water.

They then made it back toward the mainland.

Whether somebody online thinks their reaction was excessive is one thing.

But according to the people who were physically on that boat, they genuinely believed they had an emergency.

Then I asked them something very specific.

I’ve previously released a short piece of video showing people on the boat around the time of the Sea Tow situation.

According to the young men, a portion of that video overlaps with the period of the Sea Tow call.

And they said something important:

Nolan is not on that boat.

Their position is that the video provides a visual representation of who was aboard during that period.

That matters because people have spent countless hours analyzing background audio and claiming they can hear Nolan during the Sea Tow call.

Warren, Jax, and Morgan categorically reject that interpretation.

Then there’s the photograph.

You’ve seen it.

It’s been shared everywhere.

People have treated the image as though everybody pictured necessarily traveled together on the same boat.

According to the young men, that’s not what happened.

They say the photo was taken after multiple boats had already arrived at Horn Island.

And here’s another interesting detail.

They said the photograph wasn’t taken on a cellphone.

It was taken with a small standalone camera one of the women brought with her.

According to Jax, Nolan himself saw the camera and wanted to take a picture.

That photo eventually became extremely important after Nolan went missing because they were trying to determine exactly what he had been wearing.

According to the young men, the woman who took it provided the picture so it could be shared with Nolan’s mother and used to help identify him during the search.

In other words, they say the same photograph that later became part of the internet speculation was originally provided because they were trying to help find their friend.

I also wanted to directly address another allegation.

The story has circulated that Nolan’s mother essentially had to track these young men down to recover his phone.

Warren disputes that characterization.

He told me that during his first phone conversation with Nolan’s mother after Nolan was discovered missing, he explicitly told her they had Nolan’s phone.

“One of the first things I said to her... ‘He left his phone with us.’”

According to Warren, there was never an attempt to hide the phone.

The young men say someone later came to the house and the phone was handed over.

They also discussed Nolan’s keys, which they say had been left at the house before the boating trip and were later returned.

These are their accounts, and there are obviously competing public narratives surrounding portions of this case.

That’s why I wanted them on camera explaining exactly what they say happened.

The story gets even more intense from there.

According to the young men, roughly 10 to 15 people eventually arrived at the house where they were gathered.

They described the encounter as confrontational.

They say people demanded answers about Nolan’s whereabouts and asked where the boat was located.

Remember the timing here.

Nolan was missing.

People were scared.

People wanted answers.

And Warren specifically told me he does not believe the initial confrontation was motivated by race.

He said he knew some of the people involved and believed they were angry and desperately trying to figure out where Nolan was.

I think that’s important to include.

Because I’m not interested in forcing every interaction into a racial narrative either.

According to the young men, however, the situation eventually became disruptive enough that police were called and people were removed from the property.

Another allegation I’ve repeatedly seen is that these young men didn’t care enough to search for Nolan.

They dispute that too.

The following morning, they say members of the friend group took multiple boats out to search.

They encountered Mississippi Department of Marine Resources personnel, park rangers and other searchers.

They described splitting up areas and searching different portions around Horn Island.

They also followed areas where currents could potentially have carried someone.

They acknowledged something important.

They weren’t professional search-and-rescue personnel.

They didn’t have the equipment or resources available to government agencies.

But according to them, they went anyway.

Because Nolan was their friend.

This may be one of the most important sections of the interview.

There’s been a narrative online that these young men didn’t cooperate with law enforcement or somehow talked to me before speaking with investigators.

They say that’s false.

According to Warren, Jax, and Morgan, investigators contacted them as early as July 5, while the search was still underway or immediately afterward.

They say they answered initial questions and then participated in formal interviews in the days that followed.

And I asked them directly:

Did you give investigators your phones?

Their answer was yes.

They said they voluntarily turned their phones over and allowed them to be forensically examined, including by the FBI.

Their explanation was straightforward.

“We literally have nothing to hide.”

They also categorically denied deleting anything from Nolan’s phone and said they didn’t know his password.

Again, I’m giving you their account.

But if you’re going to accuse people of refusing to cooperate with investigators, you should at least hear what they say actually happened.

Near the end of the interview, I asked them whether there was anything else they wanted people to understand.

That’s when the conversation changed.

They stopped talking about boats.

Phones.

Timelines.

Investigators.

And they started talking about their friend.

“Nolan was like a brother to all of us.”

They told me nobody wants to know what happened to Nolan more than they do.

They talked about being teenagers accused online of killing their best friend.

They talked about praying for the people attacking them.

They talked about their faith.

And then they told me something that I think illustrates just how far this entire situation has gone.

They didn’t attend Nolan’s funeral.

Think about that for a second.

Your best friend dies.

You’re 19 years old.

You’re grieving.

The internet begins accusing you of murdering him.

And now you have to decide whether it’s even safe to attend his funeral.

The young men told me they originally intended to go.

They wanted one final opportunity to say goodbye to Nolan.

But according to them, people around them warned that they could be attacked or hurt if they showed up.

They also worried their presence would turn the funeral into a spectacle and take attention away from Nolan.

So they stayed away.

“We couldn’t even go to our best friend’s funeral.”

Warren described Nolan as a brother and said the online accusations effectively took away their opportunity to say goodbye.

Whether you agree with everything these young men have said or not, that’s heartbreaking.

A young man is dead.

His friends say they’re grieving.

His family is grieving.

And somewhere along the way, this became an internet war.

I’ve said this throughout my coverage.

I don’t want you blindly believing me.

I don’t want you blindly believing Warren.

Or Jax.

Or Morgan.

And I certainly don’t want you blindly believing somebody because they made a convincing TikTok video.

Listen.

Look at the evidence.

Compare timelines.

Ask questions.

Allow law enforcement to investigate.

And stop pretending an accusation becomes a fact because enough people repeat it online.

These young men came on camera and answered my questions.

Some of them were uncomfortable.

Some were pointed.

But they answered them.

Now you can watch the interview and judge their answers for yourself.

WATCH PART THREE OF MY FULL INTERVIEW ON YOUTUBE HERE: