{"id":39296,"date":"2025-11-14T12:09:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T12:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/39296\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T12:09:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T12:09:08","slug":"nyc-designer-martha-nolans-friends-sent-haunting-text-message-hours-before-her-death-at-montauk-yacht-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/39296\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC designer Martha Nolan’s friends sent haunting text message hours before her death at Montauk Yacht Club"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friends of the Manhattan fashion designer found dead<\/a> at the Montauk Yacht Club sent her a haunting text message joking that \u201cmaybe she\u2019s dead\u201d hours before her body was discovered.<\/p>\n

Martha Nolan-O\u2019Slatarra, 33, was at the swanky yacht club on Long Island\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you guys are looking for more money, let\u2019s sit down and talk about it,\u201d Durnan wrote in a text to Nolan-O\u2019Slatarra and her business partner Dylan Grace,\u00a0according to New York Magazine.<\/a><\/p>\n

Martha Nolan-O\u2019Slatarra was found dead on a boat at the Montauk Yacht Club on Aug. 5, 2025. Martha Nolan \/ Facebook<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old, who went by Martha Nolan professionally, was scheduled to meet with Durnan \u2014\u00a0who owns a 13 percent stake in the brand \u2014 at 4 p.m., but was pushed back three hours. <\/p>\n

Nolan and Durnan took a boat 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 the outlet.<\/p>\n

During their trip out to sea, the fashion designer\u2019s friends and boyfriend, Nicholas DiRubio, became concerned when she wasn\u2019t answering any messages sent to her.<\/p>\n

The panicked pals tracked Nolan\u2019s location to somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean before listing possible reasons for her radio silence.<\/p>\n

\u201clmao. I\u2019m sure her phone died. Or maybe she\u2019s dead,\u201d read one message sent at 9:20 p.m.<\/p>\n

Christopher Durnan, an investor in East x East, was with Nolan in the hours before her death. Obtained by the NY Post<\/p>\n

Nolan was found dead on the \u201cRipple\u201d docked at the yacht club on Aug. 5, 2025. Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post<\/p>\n

Ten minutes later, Nolan confirmed that she was back at the yacht club.<\/p>\n

\u201cLol I\u2019m at the yacht club now, my phone is on,\u201d she wrote to the group.<\/p>\n

Nolan is believed to have died about an hour after sending the message, according to police. She was found unconscious on the docked vessel \u201cRipple\u201d after residents nearby reported hearing screams late at night.<\/a><\/p>\n

The New York Post front cover on Aug. 7, 2025 scalle<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStart your day with all you need to know\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMorning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Durnan was found running around the yacht club naked, throwing sunscreen at other boats, attempting to get their attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think for me it\u2019s like, \u2018Why is the man naked, right?’\u201d one unidentified friend told the outlet.<\/p>\n

Nolan was pronounced dead at the scene.<\/p>\n

Officials found no signs of violence on her body, <\/a>deepening the mystery of the grim discovery. <\/p>\n

An official cause of death has not been released. Investigators suspect she died from an accidental overdose influenced by \u201cdesigner drugs,\u201d after a powdery white substance was found near her body on the moored vessel.<\/p>\n

Martha Nolan and her boyfriend Nick DiRubio. Martha Nolan\/TikTok<\/p>\n

Investigators suspect Nolan died from an accidental overdose influenced by \u201cdesigner drugs.\u201d Instagram\/@marthanolan<\/p>\n

Martha Nolan\u2019s boyfriend Nicholas DiRubio and other pallbearer carry Nolan\u2019s casket out of the Cathedral of the Assumption in Carlow, Ireland on Aug. 20, 2025. Padraig O’Reilly for NY Post<\/p>\n

Cops still don\u2019t definitively know if the powder discovered near\u00a0the 33-year-old beauty<\/a>\u00a0is heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, or a deadly cocktail of all three.<\/p>\n

Police had been searching for the dealers in the area who may have sold the drugs believed to have killed Nolan.<\/p>\n

\u201c[These dealers] may or may not have known [they were selling] poison to this girl, but that doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d a source told The Post in August.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWith higher profile cases like this poor girl in Montauk, you\u2019re going to see more and more of these dealers getting locked up,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors could \u201cseek manslaughter or [criminally negligent] homicide charges\u201d against the drug peddlers, the same source said. \u201cThere\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Friends of the Manhattan fashion designer found dead at the Montauk Yacht Club sent her a haunting text…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[18565,1015,776,57,15418,22889,9,56,63,65,64,6094],"class_list":["post-39296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-boats","tag-deaths","tag-long-island","tag-metro","tag-montauk","tag-montauk-yacht-club","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-texting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}