Nov. 17, 2025
Final Texts And Final Moments For Martha Nolan As The Mystery Deepens Behind Her Montauk Death
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RSS Feed It’s been more than three months since 33-year-old Martha Nolan was found dead on a boat at the Montauk Yacht Club. While police opened a homicide investigation, her autopsy showed no signs of violence and her cause of death is still undetermined. Amy and T.J. go through Martha’s final texts and the detailed timeline of what happened from the attorney of the man she was with when she died. Hear his explanation as to why he was naked, running around the dock trying to get help.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey there everybody. It is Monday, November seventeenth. It's been about three months since Martha Nolan mysteriously died in Montalk. Well, we now have some of her final texts with friends, with her boyfriend, and we are hearing about that night from the attorney representing the man she was on that boat with when she died. And with that, welcome everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ. We were in Montalk when this mysterious death happened, and we were following it hour by hour.
00:00:39
Speaker 2: It was the talk of the town. And still there aren't really many answers.
00:00:42
Speaker 3: Our by hours, not month by month. We got it seemed like we know barely more than we knew three months ago. Yeah, this is a Montalk mystery that we still don't know if it was a Montalk murder mystery, we still don't know how this young lady died. Wow.
00:00:56
Speaker 1: And the New York magazine put out a fascinating article over the weekend basically giving a timeline of what we know and what we've learned from her friends who were texting with her and from the attorney of the man who she was with. And so we know that this meeting that she was at on this Monday evening was supposed to actually be on Saturday, and it was supposed to be during the day with her business partner. But somehow it morphed into a Monday night, late night boat ride, a sunset cruise complete with champagne, and it ended in her death. But we have the name of the man of the boat she was on. He was an investor in her business. His name was Christopher Dernan and he was the last person to see Martha Nolan alive.
00:01:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, we know this now. We're getting more details now and hearing I guess his side of things to a certain degree. But right after we did know in the day, the hours, the days afterwards that the story was she was filed this thirty three year old young lady. It was a fashion designer working on elevated swim there in montak originally from Iran. But she was found on a yacht at the Montagu Yacht Club dead. Nobody knows why. But the story was that a man was running up and down the dock, throwing things, banging things, trying to get everybody else's attention and robes. The detail that stood out at the time was that this man was naked, were like, what the hell is going on? Why was he naked? What was going on? Those were all what I just told you all were all the details we had. I swear rose were like a.
00:02:30
Speaker 1: Week and we were careful not to report some of those details because they weren't corroborated by police and we didn't want to be sensational. But certainly some of the folks who were there who were awakened by apparently him throwing a I guess they said it was a sunscreen bottle at their window, trying to wake people up, trying to get help, all reported that he was completely naked at midnight. So, yes, that was all very suspicious, and it led to a lot.
00:02:58
Speaker 2: Of folks insinuation. Could this be a murder mystery? What could have happened?
00:03:03
Speaker 1: How did it go from being a business meeting to her dead and him naked?
00:03:07
Speaker 2: It was all very confusing.
00:03:09
Speaker 1: So we are getting some details from friends who were saying that they basically were in constant contact with Martha.
00:03:17
Speaker 2: They were texting, they were in.
00:03:18
Speaker 1: A group chat, but she kind of went silent after a while and they began to wonder what was going on, And so she had told her boyfriend who was out of town, that she was going to take an uber home at one am, but around nine twenty friends were wondering she had stopped texting them back. One friend wrote this at nine to twenty because they have the text here at LMAO, I'm sure her phone.
00:03:40
Speaker 2: Died or maybe she's dead.
00:03:43
Speaker 1: One of her friends texted that ten minutes later, and they believe this was her last text. She responded, Lol, I'm at the yacht club now my phone is on.
00:03:54
Speaker 3: So she wasn't dead, right, but she was soon to be right. She was soon to be. What I'm saying is that we have watched and seen enough murder mysteries to the point of how do we know she was the one responding? Why does she go dark? Why was she quiet for all that time? And then the only thing she responded was that thing, and she was never heard from again by any body other than the person she was with at the time, who we at the time, we didn't know a lot of details. His name was not out there, no at the time, even though we knew what boat she was on. So now they're starting to fill in some blanks. But quite frankly, what's the saying it just gives us more questions and answers.
00:04:36
Speaker 1: Now it is true though, because there is there are some missing There is a missing hour, specifically a little bit more than an hour where police don't know what happened. They're investigating. It's what happened in that critical hour. And you know what, I hadn't even thought about someone else texting on her behalf. That didn't even cross my mind. But yes, there is no way to verify she's the one who wrote that or not. And this was a period of time. This was a night where the marina is quiet, the yacht clubs, restaurants, the pools are closed on Monday nights, The dock is pretty secluded, and it was a time of night where a lot of people weren't out. So there really aren't any eyewitness reports. After they took off on that sunset cruise, there were definitely some neighboring boats, some folks who were there on the dock at the marina who saw the two of them go off and take a ride around on Helen a Bucket I believe was the name of that boat. Then they switched over to his other boat called Ripple, which was moored there at the dock, and that is where she was ultimately found.
00:05:35
Speaker 2: But this is interesting. This is the first time I.
00:05:38
Speaker 1: Have heard an explanation via his attorney about what Christopher Dernan says happened on that night.
00:05:45
Speaker 3: He claims that around is explaining why he was naked, which, yes, I was trying to stay with him robes throughout this story because a lot of the details don't make sense. I am not at all, folks, and I'm stating this being a accusatory about this man. But the story was already mysterious. Now we're starting to hear some answers and you then hear something, Go wait a minute, that doesn't make sense. And there's a couple of moments in here. Well, it just doesn't make sense.
00:06:18
Speaker 2: It could be true, it.
00:06:19
Speaker 1: Could all be true, but it seems as though there are key details that have been left out.
00:06:24
Speaker 3: But then the ones they fill in the blanks with don't make a lot of sense.
00:06:28
Speaker 2: It's bizarre. So yes, okay.
00:06:30
Speaker 1: So, according to Dernan's attorney, who spoke on the record, he said that around ten thirty or eleven PM, Martha Nolan suddenly went limp. He claims that Christopher Dernan thought she was having a heart attack and tried to perform CPR. His quote, she was gone almost immediately. She was non responsive. And again, according to the attorney, ten thirty or eleven pm, the Christopher Durnan never called nine one one. How can you answer that police got the call from the bystander and that was at midnight, so there was an hour Now we don't know what happened. Why wouldn't he have called nine one one? And why was it not until an hour later that he started running around naked trying to get people to help him.
00:07:24
Speaker 3: Okay, do I have it right? They're back, As far as the story goes, she goes limp or whatever when they're back at the boat that's parked, not when they were out at all, still on the water.
00:07:37
Speaker 1: Correct, yes, according to the timeline from Even the friends verified this too, because when she texted them at nine thirty, she said we're back at the dock now, So she confirmed that, and Nolan even said that that was exactly the case as well. No, I excuse me, Nolan said that, and then Dernan also said that they got back to the marina at nine to thirty pm. So that's all agreed upon by both Mark This text, and what he is telling.
00:08:01
Speaker 3: What time was this nine one one call? What time the police get called?
00:08:04
Speaker 1: It was midnight, midnight, And it wasn't from him, It wasn't from Christopher Durnan.
00:08:09
Speaker 2: It was from folks who were on an adjacent folk.
00:08:12
Speaker 3: Okay, I don't have it in front. We take me back nine thirty. What happened at nine thirty?
00:08:15
Speaker 2: Again, nine thirty.
00:08:16
Speaker 1: They came back to the marina and apparently we're talking business.
00:08:20
Speaker 3: Everything's fine, drinks all right, Yes, evening's going fine. So she goes limp a what.
00:08:25
Speaker 1: He claims, between ten thirty and eleven PM she suddenly went limp. So for an hour, according to him, their talking business. She's asking for more money to reinvest so she can bring her business to Miami and other cities. But somehow between nine thirty and ten thirty she goes limp. But my big timeline issue is what happened between ten thirty and eleven and midnight when police were notified.
00:08:50
Speaker 2: What was going on during that hour?
00:08:52
Speaker 3: The argument he makes, right, the lawyer makes, is just everything was chaotic and just the time is getting mixed up a little bit.
00:09:00
Speaker 1: Perhaps according to his attorney, he said that and This is the question, because the reporter specifically said, why in God's name was your client naked at midnight?
00:09:11
Speaker 3: Oh you have the time, Okay, the explanation of the time, How do they explain why he just he was just dismissive of the idea that that, hey, the time's not working out. He's just saying this was all just chaos.
00:09:24
Speaker 1: They said he was distraught that he had just watched one of his dear friends die in trauma, and he froze.
00:09:32
Speaker 3: Wait, and he was frozen for an hour.
00:09:34
Speaker 2: They just said he was absolutely destroyed.
00:09:37
Speaker 3: Okay, all right.
00:09:39
Speaker 1: They really didn't give a clear explanation. They did give a very specific explanation though, about why he was naked.
00:09:47
Speaker 2: Okay, you want to hear it?
00:09:49
Speaker 3: Sure, Okay.
00:09:51
Speaker 1: So, according to Holdman, this is Durnan's attorney, Durnan had to strip his clothes off because they were soaked with Nolan's vomit. Okay, So I never I missed that part because according to the attorney earlier, the concern was when Martha Nolan went limp, but perhaps before she went lip she started vomiting on him in some way somehow, at some point, the claim is being made that he was soaked with her vomit, so he stripped his clothes off, and that's when the lawyer said, Chris is distraught. He watched his friend Diane trauma. He's absolutely destroyed. And when the attorney said, detectives pressed his client on what could have happened, what he thought maybe happened to Martha Nolan. He said that there were two occasions where Martha excused herself to go to the bathroom. Okay, that would happen when you're on a boat having champagne and drinking. And he thought that maybe it could be an indication that she did drugs or that something else could have been going on in the bathroom. He wasn't sure, so that had a problem with that. Yes, offer of an explain.
00:11:04
Speaker 3: Okay, fine, and then maybe that did happen, and everything he said could be true. Let's go with this. Every word he said is one hundred percent true. It still sounds crazy, Yes, if every word is true, it's just that it's a bizarre night. It's a it's a freaking night in which in a healthy thirty three year old woman just dropped not you know what this is not he's saying she didn't have an event. She just collapsed and it was over, maybe.
00:11:35
Speaker 2: But there was vomiting at some point when.
00:11:38
Speaker 3: Preyer posts passing out dead. Don't know, I don't know what. I don't know how to explain that. Maybe it's a bizarre medical event and he just happened to be misfortunate enough to be there when it happened. And if this was somebody he cared about the way he said, then yes, I imagine that was dramatic for him, and that trauma continues with man that story to to the suggestion making a suggestion, And I guess maybe Robes, this is something's wrong with us because we watched too many of these snapped and scorned love Kills episodes and all this stuff.
00:12:12
Speaker 2: Real crime, true crime.
00:12:13
Speaker 3: Yes, but when we hear an immediate explanation for possibly what happened to her, Well, she went to the bathroom twice, so you don't know, you know, maybe he's doing in the bathroom. So direct to that almost is I mean, he would know if she he knows as well as he does, he would know if she does drugs or not.
00:12:32
Speaker 1: So and look in terms of his believability and what he's saying, and obviously police have been talking to him, and he's never been named a suspect. We want to point that out very specifically. They're not even claiming that there's foul play involved right now. This isn't a murder mystery. This is just a death that they're trying to explain or investigate or understand what may have happened to a yes, otherwise perfectly healthy, thirty three year old woman, which the autopsy showed she had no underlying conditions. There was nothing about her physically that would make her death make any possible sense. But there were some other issues with this man claiming to his attorney and then backpedaling slightly that he was in some sort of a relationship with Martha Nolan, who, by the way, had a serious boyfriend. She had a divorce finalized. I believe the year before. She was very much in love with her boyfriend. A lot of her friends thought that they were going to be engaged and get married, so that would fly in the face of that. But he's kind of gone back and forth saying I loved her as a friend, we didn't have a hard relationship, and then when pressed further about whether or not they did have any sort of sexual relationship. The answer from the attorney was, Chris is not interested in sharing anything like that, whether it's an absolute no or an absolute yes. I don't think he thinks it's fair to her memory. He doesn't want to talk about it. But her friends and her family took total issue with that and said absolutely not. Were they in any kind of a relationship.
00:13:56
Speaker 3: Then why would the attorney put that out there?
00:13:59
Speaker 2: Exactly?
00:14:00
Speaker 3: There's no benefit to that, certainly his client. All that does it makes someone look more suspicious if they're romantically involved with someone who is dead, so there's no upside to doing so. But he flat out said that his client had been in a romantic relationship and then walk that back, but only kind of sorta. This is some bad lawyering or bad pr I should say, yes, no offense to this lawyer, but I'm saying he has to know that is not beneficial to his client publicly.
00:14:33
Speaker 1: I'm surprised he spoke at all. That was shocking to me. And as you said at the beginning of this, what we're learning is actually creating more questions. And this has been a mystery from the get go. We just haven't gotten a lot from police at all. Because it seems as though they don't have a lot to go on, and that is deeply concerning. So when we come back, we're going to tell you where the police investigation stands today and what was, according to Dernan, that white substance they found all over the cushions of his boat.
00:15:16
Speaker 3: All right, welcome back, folks. Well continue here on, Amy and TJ. Robes. I didn't say the most jaw dropping part of this story for me, at least we're talking about Martha Nolan, oldslatterer. Did she go by the old slaterer?
00:15:27
Speaker 1: She did?
00:15:28
Speaker 2: I think technically, but everyone refers to as Mark.
00:15:30
Speaker 3: Martha Nolan, young lady thirty three years years old, mysteriously died in August in Montague. They said they were going to get some toxicology reports, said it could take months. We still haven't seen those over getting more information now from her. I guess her business partner's attorney, the guy she was with on the night she did die. I guess Robes. In all of this story, I guess when you first hear thirty three year old young businesswoman montalk yacht died, man running naked, yelling, you start piecing some things together you're going to assume she was in something that was a romantic evening at least taking place, and no one, no one has suggested that at all. Police haven't, and I'm pretty sure early on all the reports out there was that, no, this was not a romantic thing. Correct.
00:16:21
Speaker 1: Yes, that was always what folks had said, in fact, very specifically that this was their sole investor. He gave them the seed money to start this business, and now they were looking to expand, and so he was open to further investing with them. And so this was a meeting that initially was supposed to be both business partners, but her best friend and business partner actually took a trip and she ended up going on her own.
00:16:48
Speaker 3: So what I'm saying here robe was that all of that I had put it away, never crossed my mind that it was a romantic thing going on. The attorney's comments made my jaw drop. What because I never crossed my mind at least the initial because it was just it was shot down. Why would he say those things?
00:17:15
Speaker 1: It's almost as if I thought the same thing. It's almost as if Drnan. I mean, he's sixty two years old, he is single.
00:17:25
Speaker 2: Maybe he was.
00:17:26
Speaker 1: Proud of the fact that he had had a sexual relationship with her.
00:17:30
Speaker 2: Maybe he wanted it to.
00:17:31
Speaker 1: Be known, because look, at the end of the day, you look at this, this young woman on her own, this gorgeous woman on a yacht seven point thirty at night, taking a sunset champagne fueled cruise with her business investor.
00:17:44
Speaker 2: It does raise eyebrows.
00:17:46
Speaker 1: But she was in contact with her boyfriend, she was in contact with her friends until she.
00:17:50
Speaker 2: Wasn't, and she did have plans to head home.
00:17:53
Speaker 1: We the only person who knows what actually happened on that boat is Christopher.
00:17:58
Speaker 3: Why his attorney that publicly suggests to us he wasn't poked and prodded and have he offered this up saying that they were in a romantic relationship at one they dated at one.
00:18:14
Speaker 4: Point they said yeah, he said prior prior, Yes, yes, which would say who knows what happened?
00:18:19
Speaker 2: Enough, alcohol, enough, whatever.
00:18:22
Speaker 3: I'm not. I'm saying to romantically link his client to a woman who has a mysterious death is perplexing. Why would you do that?
00:18:33
Speaker 1: It's true, and today the police investigation, this is where it stands. They opened a homicide investigation. There is an open, active homicide investigation, even though the initial autopsy did not show any evidence of violence.
00:18:48
Speaker 2: That's how they put it.
00:18:49
Speaker 3: That's very important to say, very important.
00:18:51
Speaker 2: So there's no evidence of violence.
00:18:53
Speaker 1: And then the family actually commissioned an independent autopsy, and I would do the same. I can understand why they would want to do that. And that second autopsy also confirmed the initial findings that there was not she met no violent death, and so it doesn't, however, rule out foul play. The family is still concerned that there could be foul play, and certainly police have not closed this case.
00:19:16
Speaker 2: They haven't. They haven't said.
00:19:18
Speaker 1: One way or another where they are. But the final autopsy, with that toxicology report, they say it can take months. It's been three months, so it seems as though we should be getting that sooner rather than later. But one of the things people pointed to who a lot of media obviously swarmed to the scene when this happened, and they were taking pictures, and there was a white powdery substance on the seat cushions that a lot of folks were pointing to, and the attorney has an explanation for it. He actually says that that was dust from police fingerprinting the scene. It was not cocaine, It was not another illegal substance. It was actually the dust left over from police fingerprinting the boat.
00:20:06
Speaker 3: Okay, is that possible? I thought that stuff was black.
00:20:10
Speaker 4: I have no idea, but there was a white battery substance all over this see wherever we Obviously people are putting two and two together and saying, Hm, he doesn't call police right away, Maybe because he needed to sober up, Maybe because he didn't want drugs being found on his boat. Maybe he needed to clean up some of the paraphernalia that would then implicate him for perhaps because if you give somebody drugs that leads to their death, you can be culpable in that person's death.
00:20:35
Speaker 3: Ctarly, I'm saying it's possible that two and two can equal seven. Sometimes this might be one of those cases where everything lines up with her. That looks bad, that looks bad, that looks bad, and that looks bad, but turns out that's actually what happened. She could have had a bizarre, rare, unfortunate medical event. Who the hell knows. I still I forgot to ask you as we wrap here, was he.
00:21:01
Speaker 2: Fully naked by all accounts.
00:21:04
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, I'm trying to find a scenario where I'm there's so much vomit on me that my underwear also need to come off.
00:21:15
Speaker 1: That is one of those if you're wearing underwear two and two. He could have had swim trunks on and no underwear.
00:21:20
Speaker 3: But the point he what he's trying to explain, right, or his argument is had to he had to dis robe. He told us this. If he was just in swim trunks, do you need to take those off? If you're just in a robe.
00:21:33
Speaker 1: I would also say that if your friend just dies in front of you and you're performing CPR, and yes, somehow that person bot.
00:21:41
Speaker 2: I'm not worried.
00:21:42
Speaker 1: About the vomit that's on me in that moment. I'm worried about calling nine one one. I'm worried about getting help. I'm worried about we think you don't know what.
00:21:50
Speaker 3: I've never been in that, so I don't want to fault him there. It's just that's one of those things. I don't know how what amount of vomit could get on someone that their underwear also need to come on. To your point, maybe he was all ready to disrobe if he was in a robe or were you suggested maybe he was naked already. We don't know when whatever was taken.
00:22:08
Speaker 1: Didn't we say that, but that is what a lot of people were thinking. Could possibly have been the case.
00:22:11
Speaker 3: You say what people were thinking. But then we go back to what the lawyer is saying exactly, which is confirming that he had to take his clothes off. So he's giving us this man, this lawyer has needs a pr person.
00:22:26
Speaker 2: Goodness, at least as far as Christopher Durning goes. He's not being charged with anything criminally.
00:22:31
Speaker 1: That lawyer, of course, you know, said what he said, but this is not right now, there's no focus on Christopher Jerning, just a lot of interest and a lot of fascination.
00:22:40
Speaker 2: I did want to end with this. I thought this was also really interesting. This is a sad story.
00:22:45
Speaker 1: This is a life cut short, a life that was just kind of re beginning. By all accounts by her family and her friends. She had just finished this divorce, her business, she had gone through a lot of different tough iterations and was finally building on something serious, and you had so.
00:23:00
Speaker 2: Much hope for the future.
00:23:02
Speaker 1: This actually gave me, I don't know, in a weird way, maybe a little bit of comfort because her best friend and her business partner said that it gives him comfort. He said when asked about just the unbelievable attention that her death created from the media, there was a media frenzy. Everyone was talking about it, and still we're talking about it three months later.
00:23:24
Speaker 2: He said.
00:23:25
Speaker 1: The frenzy around her death, including the coverage of the funeral, was a source of comfort. This was a quote from him. She loved press, she loved media. I just knew that she'd be so happy. That's how she went out.
00:23:42
Speaker 3: You gotta give him credit for finding some silver lining it all. Yeah, had to smile. But that says what happened to this young lady. We still don't know, but it's a shame reading her background, what she's gone through and the hell and the ups and the downs, and everything looked good until media, but she went through some hell and trying to get her business and even getting married for the sake of the immigration status and all. That's kind of she went through a lot, and she was hustling, and it's too bad. This is where we are, this young lady. But we're talking about her and to that point, then that gives me some comfort that I know this young lady never knew what east By East was, but now I know it. And if I ever see something of that swimwhear line, I'll buy it.
00:24:29
Speaker 2: I agree, I agree. I thought it was a cool way to end it, and we hope that this isn't the end.
00:24:33
Speaker 1: We hope there are some more answers, and as soon as they've become available, we will of course pass them along to you. But for now, everyone, I'm Amy Roeboch alongside TJ.
00:24:41
Speaker 2: Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Hey there everybody. It is Monday, November seventeenth. It's been about three months since Martha Nolan mysteriously died in Montalk. Well, we now have some of her final texts with friends, with her boyfriend, and we are hearing about that night from the attorney representing the man she was on that boat with when she died. And with that, welcome everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ. We were in Montalk when this mysterious death happened, and we were following it hour by hour.
00:00:39
Speaker 2: It was the talk of the town. And still there aren't really many answers.
00:00:42
Speaker 3: Our by hours, not month by month. We got it seemed like we know barely more than we knew three months ago. Yeah, this is a Montalk mystery that we still don't know if it was a Montalk murder mystery, we still don't know how this young lady died. Wow.
00:00:56
Speaker 1: And the New York magazine put out a fascinating article over the weekend basically giving a timeline of what we know and what we've learned from her friends who were texting with her and from the attorney of the man who she was with. And so we know that this meeting that she was at on this Monday evening was supposed to actually be on Saturday, and it was supposed to be during the day with her business partner. But somehow it morphed into a Monday night, late night boat ride, a sunset cruise complete with champagne, and it ended in her death. But we have the name of the man of the boat she was on. He was an investor in her business. His name was Christopher Dernan and he was the last person to see Martha Nolan alive.
00:01:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, we know this now. We're getting more details now and hearing I guess his side of things to a certain degree. But right after we did know in the day, the hours, the days afterwards that the story was she was filed this thirty three year old young lady. It was a fashion designer working on elevated swim there in montak originally from Iran. But she was found on a yacht at the Montagu Yacht Club dead. Nobody knows why. But the story was that a man was running up and down the dock, throwing things, banging things, trying to get everybody else's attention and robes. The detail that stood out at the time was that this man was naked, were like, what the hell is going on? Why was he naked? What was going on? Those were all what I just told you all were all the details we had. I swear rose were like a.
00:02:30
Speaker 1: Week and we were careful not to report some of those details because they weren't corroborated by police and we didn't want to be sensational. But certainly some of the folks who were there who were awakened by apparently him throwing a I guess they said it was a sunscreen bottle at their window, trying to wake people up, trying to get help, all reported that he was completely naked at midnight. So, yes, that was all very suspicious, and it led to a lot.
00:02:58
Speaker 2: Of folks insinuation. Could this be a murder mystery? What could have happened?
00:03:03
Speaker 1: How did it go from being a business meeting to her dead and him naked?
00:03:07
Speaker 2: It was all very confusing.
00:03:09
Speaker 1: So we are getting some details from friends who were saying that they basically were in constant contact with Martha.
00:03:17
Speaker 2: They were texting, they were in.
00:03:18
Speaker 1: A group chat, but she kind of went silent after a while and they began to wonder what was going on, And so she had told her boyfriend who was out of town, that she was going to take an uber home at one am, but around nine twenty friends were wondering she had stopped texting them back. One friend wrote this at nine to twenty because they have the text here at LMAO, I'm sure her phone.
00:03:40
Speaker 2: Died or maybe she's dead.
00:03:43
Speaker 1: One of her friends texted that ten minutes later, and they believe this was her last text. She responded, Lol, I'm at the yacht club now my phone is on.
00:03:54
Speaker 3: So she wasn't dead, right, but she was soon to be right. She was soon to be. What I'm saying is that we have watched and seen enough murder mysteries to the point of how do we know she was the one responding? Why does she go dark? Why was she quiet for all that time? And then the only thing she responded was that thing, and she was never heard from again by any body other than the person she was with at the time, who we at the time, we didn't know a lot of details. His name was not out there, no at the time, even though we knew what boat she was on. So now they're starting to fill in some blanks. But quite frankly, what's the saying it just gives us more questions and answers.
00:04:36
Speaker 1: Now it is true though, because there is there are some missing There is a missing hour, specifically a little bit more than an hour where police don't know what happened. They're investigating. It's what happened in that critical hour. And you know what, I hadn't even thought about someone else texting on her behalf. That didn't even cross my mind. But yes, there is no way to verify she's the one who wrote that or not. And this was a period of time. This was a night where the marina is quiet, the yacht clubs, restaurants, the pools are closed on Monday nights, The dock is pretty secluded, and it was a time of night where a lot of people weren't out. So there really aren't any eyewitness reports. After they took off on that sunset cruise, there were definitely some neighboring boats, some folks who were there on the dock at the marina who saw the two of them go off and take a ride around on Helen a Bucket I believe was the name of that boat. Then they switched over to his other boat called Ripple, which was moored there at the dock, and that is where she was ultimately found.
00:05:35
Speaker 2: But this is interesting. This is the first time I.
00:05:38
Speaker 1: Have heard an explanation via his attorney about what Christopher Dernan says happened on that night.
00:05:45
Speaker 3: He claims that around is explaining why he was naked, which, yes, I was trying to stay with him robes throughout this story because a lot of the details don't make sense. I am not at all, folks, and I'm stating this being a accusatory about this man. But the story was already mysterious. Now we're starting to hear some answers and you then hear something, Go wait a minute, that doesn't make sense. And there's a couple of moments in here. Well, it just doesn't make sense.
00:06:18
Speaker 2: It could be true, it.
00:06:19
Speaker 1: Could all be true, but it seems as though there are key details that have been left out.
00:06:24
Speaker 3: But then the ones they fill in the blanks with don't make a lot of sense.
00:06:28
Speaker 2: It's bizarre. So yes, okay.
00:06:30
Speaker 1: So, according to Dernan's attorney, who spoke on the record, he said that around ten thirty or eleven PM, Martha Nolan suddenly went limp. He claims that Christopher Dernan thought she was having a heart attack and tried to perform CPR. His quote, she was gone almost immediately. She was non responsive. And again, according to the attorney, ten thirty or eleven pm, the Christopher Durnan never called nine one one. How can you answer that police got the call from the bystander and that was at midnight, so there was an hour Now we don't know what happened. Why wouldn't he have called nine one one? And why was it not until an hour later that he started running around naked trying to get people to help him.
00:07:24
Speaker 3: Okay, do I have it right? They're back, As far as the story goes, she goes limp or whatever when they're back at the boat that's parked, not when they were out at all, still on the water.
00:07:37
Speaker 1: Correct, yes, according to the timeline from Even the friends verified this too, because when she texted them at nine thirty, she said we're back at the dock now, So she confirmed that, and Nolan even said that that was exactly the case as well. No, I excuse me, Nolan said that, and then Dernan also said that they got back to the marina at nine to thirty pm. So that's all agreed upon by both Mark This text, and what he is telling.
00:08:01
Speaker 3: What time was this nine one one call? What time the police get called?
00:08:04
Speaker 1: It was midnight, midnight, And it wasn't from him, It wasn't from Christopher Durnan.
00:08:09
Speaker 2: It was from folks who were on an adjacent folk.
00:08:12
Speaker 3: Okay, I don't have it in front. We take me back nine thirty. What happened at nine thirty?
00:08:15
Speaker 2: Again, nine thirty.
00:08:16
Speaker 1: They came back to the marina and apparently we're talking business.
00:08:20
Speaker 3: Everything's fine, drinks all right, Yes, evening's going fine. So she goes limp a what.
00:08:25
Speaker 1: He claims, between ten thirty and eleven PM she suddenly went limp. So for an hour, according to him, their talking business. She's asking for more money to reinvest so she can bring her business to Miami and other cities. But somehow between nine thirty and ten thirty she goes limp. But my big timeline issue is what happened between ten thirty and eleven and midnight when police were notified.
00:08:50
Speaker 2: What was going on during that hour?
00:08:52
Speaker 3: The argument he makes, right, the lawyer makes, is just everything was chaotic and just the time is getting mixed up a little bit.
00:09:00
Speaker 1: Perhaps according to his attorney, he said that and This is the question, because the reporter specifically said, why in God's name was your client naked at midnight?
00:09:11
Speaker 3: Oh you have the time, Okay, the explanation of the time, How do they explain why he just he was just dismissive of the idea that that, hey, the time's not working out. He's just saying this was all just chaos.
00:09:24
Speaker 1: They said he was distraught that he had just watched one of his dear friends die in trauma, and he froze.
00:09:32
Speaker 3: Wait, and he was frozen for an hour.
00:09:34
Speaker 2: They just said he was absolutely destroyed.
00:09:37
Speaker 3: Okay, all right.
00:09:39
Speaker 1: They really didn't give a clear explanation. They did give a very specific explanation though, about why he was naked.
00:09:47
Speaker 2: Okay, you want to hear it?
00:09:49
Speaker 3: Sure, Okay.
00:09:51
Speaker 1: So, according to Holdman, this is Durnan's attorney, Durnan had to strip his clothes off because they were soaked with Nolan's vomit. Okay, So I never I missed that part because according to the attorney earlier, the concern was when Martha Nolan went limp, but perhaps before she went lip she started vomiting on him in some way somehow, at some point, the claim is being made that he was soaked with her vomit, so he stripped his clothes off, and that's when the lawyer said, Chris is distraught. He watched his friend Diane trauma. He's absolutely destroyed. And when the attorney said, detectives pressed his client on what could have happened, what he thought maybe happened to Martha Nolan. He said that there were two occasions where Martha excused herself to go to the bathroom. Okay, that would happen when you're on a boat having champagne and drinking. And he thought that maybe it could be an indication that she did drugs or that something else could have been going on in the bathroom. He wasn't sure, so that had a problem with that. Yes, offer of an explain.
00:11:04
Speaker 3: Okay, fine, and then maybe that did happen, and everything he said could be true. Let's go with this. Every word he said is one hundred percent true. It still sounds crazy, Yes, if every word is true, it's just that it's a bizarre night. It's a it's a freaking night in which in a healthy thirty three year old woman just dropped not you know what this is not he's saying she didn't have an event. She just collapsed and it was over, maybe.
00:11:35
Speaker 2: But there was vomiting at some point when.
00:11:38
Speaker 3: Preyer posts passing out dead. Don't know, I don't know what. I don't know how to explain that. Maybe it's a bizarre medical event and he just happened to be misfortunate enough to be there when it happened. And if this was somebody he cared about the way he said, then yes, I imagine that was dramatic for him, and that trauma continues with man that story to to the suggestion making a suggestion, And I guess maybe Robes, this is something's wrong with us because we watched too many of these snapped and scorned love Kills episodes and all this stuff.
00:12:12
Speaker 2: Real crime, true crime.
00:12:13
Speaker 3: Yes, but when we hear an immediate explanation for possibly what happened to her, Well, she went to the bathroom twice, so you don't know, you know, maybe he's doing in the bathroom. So direct to that almost is I mean, he would know if she he knows as well as he does, he would know if she does drugs or not.
00:12:32
Speaker 1: So and look in terms of his believability and what he's saying, and obviously police have been talking to him, and he's never been named a suspect. We want to point that out very specifically. They're not even claiming that there's foul play involved right now. This isn't a murder mystery. This is just a death that they're trying to explain or investigate or understand what may have happened to a yes, otherwise perfectly healthy, thirty three year old woman, which the autopsy showed she had no underlying conditions. There was nothing about her physically that would make her death make any possible sense. But there were some other issues with this man claiming to his attorney and then backpedaling slightly that he was in some sort of a relationship with Martha Nolan, who, by the way, had a serious boyfriend. She had a divorce finalized. I believe the year before. She was very much in love with her boyfriend. A lot of her friends thought that they were going to be engaged and get married, so that would fly in the face of that. But he's kind of gone back and forth saying I loved her as a friend, we didn't have a hard relationship, and then when pressed further about whether or not they did have any sort of sexual relationship. The answer from the attorney was, Chris is not interested in sharing anything like that, whether it's an absolute no or an absolute yes. I don't think he thinks it's fair to her memory. He doesn't want to talk about it. But her friends and her family took total issue with that and said absolutely not. Were they in any kind of a relationship.
00:13:56
Speaker 3: Then why would the attorney put that out there?
00:13:59
Speaker 2: Exactly?
00:14:00
Speaker 3: There's no benefit to that, certainly his client. All that does it makes someone look more suspicious if they're romantically involved with someone who is dead, so there's no upside to doing so. But he flat out said that his client had been in a romantic relationship and then walk that back, but only kind of sorta. This is some bad lawyering or bad pr I should say, yes, no offense to this lawyer, but I'm saying he has to know that is not beneficial to his client publicly.
00:14:33
Speaker 1: I'm surprised he spoke at all. That was shocking to me. And as you said at the beginning of this, what we're learning is actually creating more questions. And this has been a mystery from the get go. We just haven't gotten a lot from police at all. Because it seems as though they don't have a lot to go on, and that is deeply concerning. So when we come back, we're going to tell you where the police investigation stands today and what was, according to Dernan, that white substance they found all over the cushions of his boat.
00:15:16
Speaker 3: All right, welcome back, folks. Well continue here on, Amy and TJ. Robes. I didn't say the most jaw dropping part of this story for me, at least we're talking about Martha Nolan, oldslatterer. Did she go by the old slaterer?
00:15:27
Speaker 1: She did?
00:15:28
Speaker 2: I think technically, but everyone refers to as Mark.
00:15:30
Speaker 3: Martha Nolan, young lady thirty three years years old, mysteriously died in August in Montague. They said they were going to get some toxicology reports, said it could take months. We still haven't seen those over getting more information now from her. I guess her business partner's attorney, the guy she was with on the night she did die. I guess Robes. In all of this story, I guess when you first hear thirty three year old young businesswoman montalk yacht died, man running naked, yelling, you start piecing some things together you're going to assume she was in something that was a romantic evening at least taking place, and no one, no one has suggested that at all. Police haven't, and I'm pretty sure early on all the reports out there was that, no, this was not a romantic thing. Correct.
00:16:21
Speaker 1: Yes, that was always what folks had said, in fact, very specifically that this was their sole investor. He gave them the seed money to start this business, and now they were looking to expand, and so he was open to further investing with them. And so this was a meeting that initially was supposed to be both business partners, but her best friend and business partner actually took a trip and she ended up going on her own.
00:16:48
Speaker 3: So what I'm saying here robe was that all of that I had put it away, never crossed my mind that it was a romantic thing going on. The attorney's comments made my jaw drop. What because I never crossed my mind at least the initial because it was just it was shot down. Why would he say those things?
00:17:15
Speaker 1: It's almost as if I thought the same thing. It's almost as if Drnan. I mean, he's sixty two years old, he is single.
00:17:25
Speaker 2: Maybe he was.
00:17:26
Speaker 1: Proud of the fact that he had had a sexual relationship with her.
00:17:30
Speaker 2: Maybe he wanted it to.
00:17:31
Speaker 1: Be known, because look, at the end of the day, you look at this, this young woman on her own, this gorgeous woman on a yacht seven point thirty at night, taking a sunset champagne fueled cruise with her business investor.
00:17:44
Speaker 2: It does raise eyebrows.
00:17:46
Speaker 1: But she was in contact with her boyfriend, she was in contact with her friends until she.
00:17:50
Speaker 2: Wasn't, and she did have plans to head home.
00:17:53
Speaker 1: We the only person who knows what actually happened on that boat is Christopher.
00:17:58
Speaker 3: Why his attorney that publicly suggests to us he wasn't poked and prodded and have he offered this up saying that they were in a romantic relationship at one they dated at one.
00:18:14
Speaker 4: Point they said yeah, he said prior prior, Yes, yes, which would say who knows what happened?
00:18:19
Speaker 2: Enough, alcohol, enough, whatever.
00:18:22
Speaker 3: I'm not. I'm saying to romantically link his client to a woman who has a mysterious death is perplexing. Why would you do that?
00:18:33
Speaker 1: It's true, and today the police investigation, this is where it stands. They opened a homicide investigation. There is an open, active homicide investigation, even though the initial autopsy did not show any evidence of violence.
00:18:48
Speaker 2: That's how they put it.
00:18:49
Speaker 3: That's very important to say, very important.
00:18:51
Speaker 2: So there's no evidence of violence.
00:18:53
Speaker 1: And then the family actually commissioned an independent autopsy, and I would do the same. I can understand why they would want to do that. And that second autopsy also confirmed the initial findings that there was not she met no violent death, and so it doesn't, however, rule out foul play. The family is still concerned that there could be foul play, and certainly police have not closed this case.
00:19:16
Speaker 2: They haven't. They haven't said.
00:19:18
Speaker 1: One way or another where they are. But the final autopsy, with that toxicology report, they say it can take months. It's been three months, so it seems as though we should be getting that sooner rather than later. But one of the things people pointed to who a lot of media obviously swarmed to the scene when this happened, and they were taking pictures, and there was a white powdery substance on the seat cushions that a lot of folks were pointing to, and the attorney has an explanation for it. He actually says that that was dust from police fingerprinting the scene. It was not cocaine, It was not another illegal substance. It was actually the dust left over from police fingerprinting the boat.
00:20:06
Speaker 3: Okay, is that possible? I thought that stuff was black.
00:20:10
Speaker 4: I have no idea, but there was a white battery substance all over this see wherever we Obviously people are putting two and two together and saying, Hm, he doesn't call police right away, Maybe because he needed to sober up, Maybe because he didn't want drugs being found on his boat. Maybe he needed to clean up some of the paraphernalia that would then implicate him for perhaps because if you give somebody drugs that leads to their death, you can be culpable in that person's death.
00:20:35
Speaker 3: Ctarly, I'm saying it's possible that two and two can equal seven. Sometimes this might be one of those cases where everything lines up with her. That looks bad, that looks bad, that looks bad, and that looks bad, but turns out that's actually what happened. She could have had a bizarre, rare, unfortunate medical event. Who the hell knows. I still I forgot to ask you as we wrap here, was he.
00:21:01
Speaker 2: Fully naked by all accounts.
00:21:04
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, I'm trying to find a scenario where I'm there's so much vomit on me that my underwear also need to come off.
00:21:15
Speaker 1: That is one of those if you're wearing underwear two and two. He could have had swim trunks on and no underwear.
00:21:20
Speaker 3: But the point he what he's trying to explain, right, or his argument is had to he had to dis robe. He told us this. If he was just in swim trunks, do you need to take those off? If you're just in a robe.
00:21:33
Speaker 1: I would also say that if your friend just dies in front of you and you're performing CPR, and yes, somehow that person bot.
00:21:41
Speaker 2: I'm not worried.
00:21:42
Speaker 1: About the vomit that's on me in that moment. I'm worried about calling nine one one. I'm worried about getting help. I'm worried about we think you don't know what.
00:21:50
Speaker 3: I've never been in that, so I don't want to fault him there. It's just that's one of those things. I don't know how what amount of vomit could get on someone that their underwear also need to come on. To your point, maybe he was all ready to disrobe if he was in a robe or were you suggested maybe he was naked already. We don't know when whatever was taken.
00:22:08
Speaker 1: Didn't we say that, but that is what a lot of people were thinking. Could possibly have been the case.
00:22:11
Speaker 3: You say what people were thinking. But then we go back to what the lawyer is saying exactly, which is confirming that he had to take his clothes off. So he's giving us this man, this lawyer has needs a pr person.
00:22:26
Speaker 2: Goodness, at least as far as Christopher Durning goes. He's not being charged with anything criminally.
00:22:31
Speaker 1: That lawyer, of course, you know, said what he said, but this is not right now, there's no focus on Christopher Jerning, just a lot of interest and a lot of fascination.
00:22:40
Speaker 2: I did want to end with this. I thought this was also really interesting. This is a sad story.
00:22:45
Speaker 1: This is a life cut short, a life that was just kind of re beginning. By all accounts by her family and her friends. She had just finished this divorce, her business, she had gone through a lot of different tough iterations and was finally building on something serious, and you had so.
00:23:00
Speaker 2: Much hope for the future.
00:23:02
Speaker 1: This actually gave me, I don't know, in a weird way, maybe a little bit of comfort because her best friend and her business partner said that it gives him comfort. He said when asked about just the unbelievable attention that her death created from the media, there was a media frenzy. Everyone was talking about it, and still we're talking about it three months later.
00:23:24
Speaker 2: He said.
00:23:25
Speaker 1: The frenzy around her death, including the coverage of the funeral, was a source of comfort. This was a quote from him. She loved press, she loved media. I just knew that she'd be so happy. That's how she went out.
00:23:42
Speaker 3: You gotta give him credit for finding some silver lining it all. Yeah, had to smile. But that says what happened to this young lady. We still don't know, but it's a shame reading her background, what she's gone through and the hell and the ups and the downs, and everything looked good until media, but she went through some hell and trying to get her business and even getting married for the sake of the immigration status and all. That's kind of she went through a lot, and she was hustling, and it's too bad. This is where we are, this young lady. But we're talking about her and to that point, then that gives me some comfort that I know this young lady never knew what east By East was, but now I know it. And if I ever see something of that swimwhear line, I'll buy it.
00:24:29
Speaker 2: I agree, I agree. I thought it was a cool way to end it, and we hope that this isn't the end.
00:24:33
Speaker 1: We hope there are some more answers, and as soon as they've become available, we will of course pass them along to you. But for now, everyone, I'm Amy Roeboch alongside TJ.
00:24:41
Speaker 2: Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.