Martha Nolan final texts before her suspected overdose death while ‘partying’ with investor, Christopher Durnan raise new questions.
Authorities investigating the death of doomed Hamptons fashion designer have revealed her friends sent her a final message joking that ‘maybe she’s dead’ just hours before the woman’s body was found.
Martha Nolan-O’Slatarra, 33, was at the Montauk yacht club on Long Island’s South Fork for a meeting with investor and boat owner Christopher Durnan to discuss the expansion of her swimwear fashion company, ‘East x East’ on August 4.
Concern for the Hamptons designer mounted as she failed to respond to texts
‘If you guys are looking for more money, let’s sit down and talk about it,’ Durnan wrote in a text to Nolan-O’Slatarra and her business partner Dylan Grace, according to New York Magazine.
The swimwear designer, who went by Martha Nolan professionally, was scheduled to meet with Durnan — who owns a 13 percent stake in the brand — at 4 p.m., only for the meeting to be pushed back three hours.
Nolan and Durnan took a ride on one of his two vessels to watch the sunset and drink champagne while Grace skipped the meeting due to an overseas trip to Greece, according to NY Mag.
During their trip out to sea, the fashion designer’s friends and boyfriend, Nicholas DiRubio, became concerned when she wasn’t answering any messages sent to her.
The panicked friends tracked Nolan’s location to somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean before listing possible reasons for her radio silence.
Why was Hampton designer business partner naked?
‘lmao. I’m sure her phone died. Or maybe she’s dead,’ read one message sent at 9:20 p.m, according to investigators.
Ten minutes later, Nolan confirmed that she was back at the yacht club.
‘Lol I’m at the yacht club now, my phone is on,’ she wrote to the group.
But her fate was sealed. Investigators surmise that Nolan was dead less than an hour later after sending the message. She was found unconscious on the docked vessel Ripple after residents nearby reported hearing screams late at night.
Durnan was found running around the yacht club naked, throwing sunscreen at other boats, attempting to get their attention.
‘I think for me it’s like, ‘Why is the man naked?,’ right?’ one unidentified friend told the outlet.
Nolan was pronounced dead at the scene.
Durnan would later claim ‘removing’ his clothes after Nolan vomiting over him before going into cardiac arrest.
Officials found no signs of violence on her body, deepening the mystery of the grim discovery.
An official cause of death has not been released. Investigators suspect she died from an accidental overdose influenced by ‘designer drugs,’ after a powdery white substance was found near her body on the moored vessel.
Cops still don’t definitively know if the powder discovered near the 33-year-old was heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, or a deadly cocktail of all three. And how the drug cocktail may have ended up on the boat and who brought it.
Police had been searching for the dealers in the area who may have sold the drugs believed to have killed Nolan.
“[These dealers] may or may not have known [they were selling] poison to this girl, but that doesn’t matter,” a source told the nypost in August.
‘With higher-profile cases like this poor girl in Montauk, you’re going to see more and more of these dealers getting locked up,’ the source said.
Police declined to say who they believe the drugs were sold to, whether Nolan or Durnan or another party.
Prosecutors could ‘seek manslaughter or [criminally negligent] homicide charges’ against the drug peddlers,’ the same source said. ‘There’s a slew of possession and trafficking charges, and they could decide to get [federal authorities] involved, which would mean more time in prison if these bastards are convicted.’
