Daniel Erving’s family says an accidental drowning ruling does not explain why two teens allegedly left him in Lake Ray Hubbard, got rid of his belongings and never called for help.
The 18-year-old Texas student vanished April 13 after leaving his Rowlett home. Police said he walked out around 4:45 p.m. with his cellphone, but left behind his driver’s license, money and other personal belongings.
Three days later, the search ended at Lake Ray Hubbard, where authorities found Erving’s body near Paddle Point.
Dallas police later pointed to the medical examiner’s conclusion of an accidental drowning.
“The Medical Examiner determined Daniel Erving’s cause of death was drowning, and the manner of death was ruled accidental,” the department stated.
Police also emphasized that detectives had carried out a “thorough investigation,” including witness interviews, evidence collection and work with the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office.
But the criminal case now centers on what allegedly happened after Erving entered the water.
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Detectives eventually focused on two people who were present at the lake, accusing them of failing to report the drowning and later discarding Erving’s belongings.
Lucas Roper, 19, and a juvenile suspect were arrested, with each facing a third-degree felony evidence-tampering charge.
Fox 4 Dallas obtained an affidavit that put the three teens together at Lake Ray Hubbard, where they allegedly jumped from a railroad bridge near Miller Road.
The affidavit’s most damning allegation is what came after the drowning. They suspects made no 911 call, discarded clothes, deleted phone messages, a cellphone thrown from a moving vehicle and two teens leaving the scene.
Roper allegedly told investigators he had arranged the trip by text, picked up Erving and gone to the lake with the third teen before panic took over after the drowning, according to an affidavit obtained by WFAA.
At a Monday news conference, Erving’s family made clear they do not believe the current charges are enough.
Family attorney Sean Daredia said the Ervings have hired an independent investigative team to examine the circumstances surrounding Daniel’s death.
Daredia questioned whether the evidence fits an accidental drowning. “If it’s an accident, why hide the clothes? Why flee the scene? Why toss Daniel Erving’s cell phone out the car?” he asked.
He wants prosecutors to let a grand jury weigh the evidence and consider homicide charges if the facts support them. Daredia also urged anyone with information about what happened at Lake Ray Hubbard to come forward.
Daniel’s mother, Tameca Erving, pressed the same question from a parent’s view. “A reasonable-minded person would know if you are not guilty of a crime, why would you throw away his clothes and delete messages and not even call his mother?” she said. “I want justice for my son.”
She called for murder charges against the teens and blasted the delay between her son’s death and the arrests.
“Our family has gone through so much the past three months waiting for the justice system to provide justice,” Erving said.
Rowlett police handled the disappearance first, but Dallas police took over once Erving was found in the lake because the death fell inside Dallas city limits.
A second drowning mystery centers on Nolan Wells, an 18-year-old who went to a Mississippi island with high school friends on the Fourth of July and never made it back with them.
His friends returned to the mainland. Wells did not. The alarm came late July 4, when a friend called the family around 11 p.m. and Wells was reported missing.
The next day, the search widened to include the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department, the U.S. Coast Guard and Mississippi’s Department of Marine Resources.
The uncertainty over Wells’ last hours has pushed the case into national attention.
Sheriff John Ledbetter later told the AP that witness accounts suggested Wells stayed behind on the island believing someone else would bring him back.
“From the people we’ve talked to, it sounds like he chose to stay on the island with the assumption that he was going to ride back to the mainland with someone else,” Ledbetter said.
One friend gave ABC News another piece of that account, saying Wells had stayed back with a girl he met.
His family has struggled to accept that explanation. They said they “can’t fathom” why he would separate from the friends he came with.
“We always taught him, ‘If you go with a group, you stay with the group,’” his father said.
On July 6, officials found a body near the shoreline that matched Wells’ description.
The sheriff said that day that “no foul play was suspected.”
Jackson County Coroner Bruce Lynd told CNN the body showed no immediate physical injury, but the state medical examiner was asked to handle the autopsy because of its “condition” and the need to rule on trauma or foul play.
Toxicology and other test results were still pending before officials could determine the cause of death, according to Lynd.
Wells’ phone has become one of the details his family cannot shake.
Tracetin Shepherd, one of Wells’ friends, said the phone stayed on the boat because Wells did not want it getting wet while he was in the ocean.
By that night, the phone was back on the mainland with a friend. Wells’ parents tracked it through an app and went to retrieve it from the friend’s home.
His family said Wells used Snapchat constantly, yet there were no posts or messages from roughly the 24 hours before they got the phone back.
They consider that unusual and potentially important.
At a Wednesday meeting with District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath, the family discussed how the inquiry would proceed, and attorney Ben Crump said the case would go to a grand jury once the investigation is finished.
The family is also expected to work with a local prosecutor’s office to inspect the phone’s contents.
NBC News later obtained audio from a call in which the boat’s operator reported trouble at the west tip of Horn.
“Hey, we’re at the west tip of Horn, and our bilge pump stopped working. We’re going. We’re sinking. Can you all please come?” the operator said. “I want to get this boat unsank and towed back.”
Around 4 p.m., the boat was already in trouble. During the towing call, a dispatcher asked whether everyone aboard was healthy, and the caller answered, “Yeah, yeah everybody is on board.”
The caller put the number aboard at “like seven,” and NBC News reported that the boat was towed roughly three miles before it was moving normally again less than an hour later.
