I don't follow you here at all. The balls were deflated. That's the result. That could have happened 'naturally/acidental' (cooling environment, old man loses equilibrium) or 'unnaturally/deliberately' (needle, old lady pushes)
yes, not all the tapes were missing; not all the server contents are missing. Not all the cell phone chatter is missing. What remains isn't helpful to the argument that deflation wasn't deliberate. But your observation begs the question: what about the missing chatter?
Given my awful experiences with AT&T, would not be surprising if they couldn't retrieve a cold beer from a fridge, let alone 'missing' texts.