What happened to Nolan Wells? Family seeks answers two weeks after 18-year-old’s death | Mississippi
Two weeks after Nolan Xavier Wells was found dead, his family is still searching for answers.
On July 4, Wells, an 18-year-old Mississippi college freshman, and a group of friends took a boat to Horn Island, a barrier island several miles off the coast of the Mississippi Gulf.
About 300 One of Wells’ friends said young adults gathered on one part of the island for “one last hooray” before returning to college or work. Wells’ parents were supposed to take him to Southwest Mississippi Community College for football camp the following Monday.
Wells’ friends, phone, and keys were returned that day; he didn’t. Instead, his body was found on the island on July 6, following a missing person search that attracted national attention.
It’s still unclear exactly what happened on Horn Island and how the Ocean Springs native died; Local authorities’ investigation is ongoing. Due to the lack of answers, misinformation is rampant, especially on social media. This is what we know so far.
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Late on July 4, a Facebook post by Wells’ mother, Christine Wonsley, seeking answers about her then-missing son, went viral. viral.
When she shared a photo of Wells’ black and three white friends, social media users began to suggest that what happened to Wells was racially motivated.
At a press conference in New York on July 10 following the discovery of Wells’ body, Wonsley addressed the racial nature of the situation.
“Me and his father always talked to him about the importance of not only understanding our history as Black people, but also the importance of how you should operate in certain areas,” she said, standing next to the Rev. Al Sharpton and Ben Crump, whom the family has hired as attorneys.
Crumb in question Sunday at New Birth Missionary Baptist church outside Atlanta: “We’re in Mississippi. These were three young white men. Nolan was the only young Black man. We know that if the roles had been reversed, this investigation would have gone differently. It would have been like the first 48. They would have questioned those young, Black boys.”
Ashlee Cole, the mother of one of Wells’ white friends and a Jackson County judge, denied that her family obstructed the investigation in a statement. He said his son was interviewed by the Jackson County sheriff’s office and claimed Wells had left the island with a separate group of friends.
Tracestin Shepherd, who said she was a friend of Wells and was on the island on July 4, told ABC News that Wells had met a young woman and wanted to stay behind. Crump said the young woman said Wells had decided to return with his friends. Horn Island is a designated wilderness area. Other than a small ranger station, it is undeveloped and has neither public services nor commercial ferry service.
Wells’ family is skeptical of the claim that he would willingly choose to leave the band.
“We always taught him that if you go with a group, you stay with a group,” his father, Elmore Wonsley, said on Good Morning America. “If you leave with five, you return with five. Do not leave the group. Because I have always said: ‘Safety is in numbers.’ So he knew he would stay in this group, so why would he leave the group? “I don’t know.”
Crump argued that Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter’s claim that “no foul play was suspected” before the autopsy was completed was premature.
‘We want to know what happened’
Although Wells did not return from Horn Island, his phone did. The attorney also said the investigation into Wells’ phone will be conducted in partnership with local authorities and “our experts and their experts.” Crump said Wells’ mother used the live location-sharing app Life360 to track the home of one of the people Wells was traveling with on the boat. When he received the phone, the messages were deleted.
“When we got home, my sister and I went through Nolan’s cell phone, specifically Snapchat, because it’s so popular with kids,” he said at Friday’s press conference. “When we opened it, there was nothing. There were no photos saved, there were no snapshots from that day, and we opened it before the 24-hour period was up. We found this very alarming because anyone who has been around Nolan will tell you he was taking videos, taking photos at social gatherings.”
His father, Elmore, said Wells’ keys were found at the home of one of the men he was photographed with.
“We just want to know what happened and why our baby isn’t coming home,” Wells’ mother, Christine, said through tears at a news conference in New York.
Crump said the 18-year-old’s body was flown to Washington, D.C., for an autopsy funded by Colin Kaepernick. The state autopsy has been completed, but its results have not yet been released.
“Too many questions remain unanswered at this time, and the Wells family, concerned members of the Mississippi community and our nation, deserve nothing less than a full, transparent, independent and timely investigation into the circumstances that led to Mr. Wells’ disappearance and untimely death,” the Black Congressional group said in a statement.
Wells’ funeral will be held Monday at Center Pointe church in Ocean Springs; actor and filmmaker Tyler Perry is paying for the services.
