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Final Text Messages Between Teen Lost at Sea and His Mom Revealed: 'My iPad Is Dead…I Love You'

The final text messages between Perry Cohen, one of two 14-year-old boys lost at sea
The final text messages between Perry Cohen, one of two 14-year-old boys lost at sea in July, and his mother were revealed to PEOPLE by an attorney representing the Cohen family. 

At 9:49 a.m. on the morning of July 24, 2015, Perry sent a text message to his mother, Pamela Cohen. "Mom, it's Perry. My iPad is dead... I'll text you in a little. Love you." "OK. I wanted you to sleep home tonight," Pamela responded a minute later. "I miss you. We leave Sunday morning for New York. What about your work?" Presumably referring to homework, Perry answered back, "I've been doing it but I was going to sleep at...This mid-sentence end to communication between a mother and her son is an eerie reflection of two young lives cut short and two families forever broken. Later that day, Perry and his longtime friend, Austin Stephanos, would set out on a boating excursion f-rom Florida's Jupiter Inlet and were never seen again, despite a weeks-long search by the US Coast Guard and dozens of others who combed sea, air and land for clues to the boys' disappearance. 

Because Perry's own cell phone was broken on that day, he sent those text messages on Stephanos' phone. The phone, along with tackle and other personal effects and Stephanos' 19-foot Seacraft boat, were discovered in March after drifting for nearly nine months. 

Final Text Messages Between Teen Lost at Sea and His Mom Revealed: 'My iPad Is Dead…I Love You'| Real People Stories
The crew of the Norwegian shipper who spotted the boat about 100 miles off the Bermuda shore, airmailed the iPhone to the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission and is having the boat shipped back to the state. Soon after the discovery, state investigators announced that, because the teens' disappearance is not considered a criminal case, the items would be returned to the families. The Cohen family, however,quickly challenged that decision, saying that all items, particularly Austin's iPhone, should be held by law enforcement until a full forensics investigation can be completed. 

On Monday, Pamela Cohen filed a lawsuit with the Palm Beach County Court, naming Austin's father, Blu Stephanos, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission as defendants and seeking to block the return of the iPhone and other items found pending a forensics investigation. 

Both boys' families took to social media to state their cases. Cohen pleaded with the Stephanos family to give their consent to allow the FFWCC to keep the phone in its custody until all potentially retrievable data including text messages, photos and GPS location information could be extracted and analyzed. Blu Stephanos posted assurances that his family was working with the phone's manufacturer and independent IT specialists to get the phone operational again and would share any relevant information retrieved with the Cohen family and the proper authorities. Now, it looks as if there may be a quick resolution to the lawsuit. "In the interest of cooperation and to help both families learn more details about what happened to our boys, we accept the offer of Blu Stephanos to share the contents of the iPhone with us and the FWC," Pamela Cohen said in a written statement released Tuesday. "Therefore we will be withdrawing our lawsuit as soon as FWC receives the written consents it needs f-rom both families to put the iPhone in the hands of the best impartial iPhone extraction experts available, in a proper legal chain of custody.

Cohen also posted on Facebook a copy of her signed consent, which reads: "I hereby consent to the put the iPhone in the hands of the best impartial iPhone extraction experts available, in a proper legal chain of custody, and for the FWC to retain this iPhone and any information retrieved by such experts that may be helpful in determining what happened to my son, and to confidentially share that information with the families of both boys." "They want to d-rop the case," Cohen's attorney, Guy Bennett Rubin, told PEOPLE on Tuesday afternoon.

"They have signed a consent to the FWC and they've asked the other family to sign the exact same consent. As soon as we receive those consents, we will d-rop the case. We have no interest in litigation anything. Our only interest is in getting as much information as there is to find out what happened." While awaiting a response f-rom the Stephanos family, Rubin filed a motion with the Palm Beach County Court for an emergency hearing on the injunction requested in the lawsuit. Judge Gregory M. Keyser will preside.

 "One day at a time, one issue at a time," Rubin said when asked how his clients were coping with the loss of their son and the possibility of finally getting answers they've desperately prayed for. "They have a very successful business which is probably a welcome distraction but this is their priority. Mom, Pamela is just an incredibly strong and composed woman that I admire greatly. I don't see clients like this often. She's very determined to speak for Perry because he can't."

Author: People Magazine

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