Nolan Wells' family disputes Brandon Tatum interview with ‘friend’ — Katie Pavlich Tonight

[0:01] With the autopsy results inconclusive, rumors continue to swirl around the death of Nolan Wells, [0:06] the 18-year-old who was found dead after boating with his friends on 4th of July weekend. [0:11] Wells' parents and their attorney, Ben Crump, spoke with Chris Cuomo earlier tonight, [0:14] and Nolan's mother said there's only one question she wants answered. Watch. [0:19] At the end of the day, we would want what any parent would want, which is answers to find out what happened. [0:27] They also listened to part of an interview that Brandon Tatum did with one of Nolan's friends, [0:33] and here's how Nolan's stepfather responded to it. [0:37] You heard that kid Trace in the interview say that he was friends with Nolan and that you guys would know him. [0:46] Do you know him? Do you recognize him? [0:49] No, I don't. [0:52] Just because you park your vehicle in someone's yard doesn't mean that they have to know you. [1:01] It sounds more to me like he's more focused on getting people to know him [1:09] and getting away from the fact that his so-called best friend is not here anymore. [1:19] Brandon Tatum is the host of The Officer Tatum Show, and like I just mentioned, [1:22] he spoke with some of Nolan's friends. He joins us now. [1:24] Brandon, thank you for being here. [1:26] So first, just your reaction to Nolan's stepfather saying he doesn't recognize his friend, Trace, [1:32] who you interviewed, basically alleging that you didn't know him very well at all, if at all. [1:39] It's slightly disappointing. [1:40] I mean, I don't know these people, to be honest. [1:43] I don't know who's really friends or not. [1:44] I'm just going off of what Trace told me. [1:46] But Trace did share pictures of him with Nolan at prom. [1:51] He told me he not only just parked the car outside, he had been over Nolan's house multiple times, [1:55] and he also gave Nolan a ride to school on multiple occasions. [1:58] So it's very confusing. I don't know why a young man would say that he's friends [2:02] and literally be emotional when he talked about Nolan. [2:06] I mean, he literally cried and teared up off camera, and I felt like it was very genuine. [2:11] And for the parents to say that they don't know him at all [2:14] and won't even consider the fact that he believed he was friends with Nolan, [2:19] it's very shocking to me. [2:20] And I don't know if they're being genuine, because you don't always know your children's friends. [2:26] Or are they still trying to hold on to this agenda that no one who disagrees with the narrative of racism [2:31] can possibly be associated with them because it destroys their money? [2:35] I'm not saying the parents' money, Griff, but Benjamin Crump's money, Griff. [2:39] Yeah, I mean, we heard from Nolan's parents, and of course his mother, [2:44] any parent would want to know what happened, and she expressed that. [2:47] But there are motives with Ben Crump and his history. [2:51] There are lawsuits now suing his friends and social media companies, fueled by Ben Crump. [2:58] Do you think that he's helping this family or hurting them in their quest for answers? [3:05] Well, Katie, I think he's destroying the reputation of this family and also hurting this investigation. [3:11] The fact that he put out the autopsy prematurely when law enforcement didn't even put out the autopsy [3:16] is it can convolute the investigation. [3:19] Because now when you interview witnesses, you don't know if they are saying things [3:23] because they saw it on television or have they genuinely had an experience [3:27] only they would have if they were actually there at the scene. [3:30] And then also, I want to believe his mother. [3:33] I don't have any reason necessarily, because I don't know her personally, [3:36] to believe that she would just lie. [3:38] But when I look at the facts, why wouldn't she communicate with Nolan, [3:42] I mean, with Warren and their family, they showed me text messages, [3:46] they showed me phone calls where they called and reached out to her. [3:48] And if I personally want to know what happened to my child, [3:52] the first person I'm going to talk to is the people who last saw him alive. [3:56] I don't understand why they take the position of saying it's us versus y'all. [4:01] And now you want to subpoena phones and do things like that, [4:03] which is which are going to take, I don't know, months for it to come out. [4:07] And they may not even get they may not be granted. [4:11] I mean, you've got to think Nolan was an adult. [4:13] He wasn't a kid. [4:14] So some of these social media platforms may not even grant them access to his account [4:18] if they don't have somewhat of a legal search warrant. [4:21] So I just wish that they would have came together as a community, [4:24] would have come together as a community and got to the bottom of this, [4:27] got information and then shared it to the public [4:29] instead of, you know, making it a divisive thing up front. [4:32] Yeah, you know, Brandon, we're still waiting on the toxicology report. [4:36] But from interviews with Nolan's friends, [4:38] we do know that drinking heavily was involved and that Nolan was was drinking. [4:45] And you have on good authority that drugs potentially could have been involved. [4:49] Well, you also visited the island. [4:51] Just what are your takeaways from what we know about the conditions there [4:55] and the status of the investigation? [4:58] Well, at this point, and I always encourage people to wait until the full investigation [5:05] is out before you make a conclusion or determination of whether somebody's guilty or not, [5:11] going out to Horn Island was very revealing to me [5:13] because the initial statements from people who are talking about this, [5:18] especially the Nolan Wells family, [5:20] that they were acting as if they just dropped Nolan off of an abandoned island [5:24] where no one was around to watch him get murdered or something. [5:28] And then now you go and look at it and you go, [5:30] well, no, there was tons of people there. [5:32] That gives me encouragement that somebody saw what happens. [5:35] But it also proves in many ways that they didn't just abandon him [5:41] as if he was a little kid on the island by himself. [5:44] So seeing the island go in there gave me a pretty good understanding about what happened. [5:49] Well, certainly injecting race, and we don't have all the facts either, is not helpful. [5:53] And we will continue to watch this. [5:54] Brandon Tatum, thank you for joining us tonight. [5:56] We appreciate your accounting of it. [5:58] Thank you for having me on. [5:59] Good to see you.