Christine Wonsley and Elmore Wonsley, mother and stepfather of Nolan Wells, stand on a stage with a photo of their son as they appear at the National Urban League’s annual conference to share updates on his death on Thursday, July 30, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn.
John Amis/AP Photo
hide caption
toggle caption
John Amis/AP Photo
A Mississippi grand jury has decided there’s not enough evidence to bring charges in the case of Nolan Wells, a Black teenager who was found dead off the Mississippi coast in early July. However, activists, attorneys and Wells’ family are continuing to push for answers.
During a press conference Tuesday, civil rights attorney Ben Crump highlighted a detail mentioned in the medical examiner’s report: the bruising on the back of Wells’ head, which the report said was not a fatal injury.
“Nolan Wells’ parents deserve answers,” said Crump, who is representing Wells’ family. He urged the district attorney to keep the investigation open. “What really happened to Nolan Wells? What caused the blunt force trauma to his head? That is the crux of the matter.”
The fact that the grand jury didn’t find enough evidence to charge someone with a crime “is not an answer to how 18-year-old Nolan Xavier Wells left for an outing with friends and never came home,” the Rev. Al Sharpton, who led Wells’ eulogy, wrote in a statement. “We will not confuse the absence of an indictment with the presence of an answer.”
Following Crump’s release of the independent autopsy report, the NAACP is pushing the district attorney’s office to release its own report to the public.
“Nolan’s family deserves nothing less than a full, fair, and independent investigation that is exhaustive and leaves no stone unturned,” wrote Kristen Clarke, NAACP general counsel, in a statement. “We urge the District Attorney to continue the investigation, release the full autopsy report from the state’s medical examiner, and make the investigative file public.”
The grand jury, which met from Sept. 14 to Sept. 18, ultimately found that Wells’ cause of death was undetermined and based on the condition of his body and where it was found, his death was “consistent with drowning.”
“The Grand Jury finds no credible evidence to support the public allegations that any persons who rode to or from Horn Island on July 4, 2026 on the Triton, the Palm Beach, or the Tideline engaged in any criminal conduct related to the death of Mr. Wells,” the report, which is partially redacted, reads.
The 23 jurors issued over 100 subpoenas, heard from over 40 witnesses and reviewed evidence ranging from GPS data to cellphone extractions to photos and videos from Horn Island, a barrier island off the coast of Mississippi.
Evidence reviewed also included findings from Crump’s team, including a report of what was on Wells’ cell phone.
However, Wells was the only Black teen among the group of friends that traveled to Horn Island on July 4, and his family has repeatedly questioned if the investigation would have gone differently with a white teenager.
In a recorded statement released Monday night with the grand jury report, Jackson County District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath said those concerns are baseless.
“The family, the Crump team, and anyone close to Nolan knew that his disappearance and death were not the result of racial hate or violence,” Myers McIllrath said. “Yet the flames of that narrative set against the backdrop of Mississippi’s terrible history were fanned by both people who knew the truth and those who didn’t.”
From July 4 to grand jury report
Wells was found dead on Horn Island on July 6, two days after he boated there with several friends to celebrate Independence Day.
Wells was the only member of the group who failed to return from the island, and the report says he chose to stay, characterizing it as, “not unusual or suspicious for individuals to return from the island on boats they did not travel […] on.”
“Nolan chose to stay on the island that day, and there is not a scintilla of evidence to contradict that,” Myers McIlrath said in her recorded statement.
The grand jury report emphasized that despite “public assertions” that the teen was the only Black person on the island that day, those assertions were false and “led to misidentification, speculation, and rumors concerning the death of Mr. Wells.”
The grand jury determined there had been a “thorough search” of Horn Island on July 5 before Wells’ body was discovered the following day.
“The Grand Jury is confident that had his body been on the island at that time, it would have been discovered during the extensive search,” the report reads.
Questions surrounding the state and independent autopsies
Dr. Roger Mitchell, the forensic pathologist who performed an independent autopsy, concluded along with the state medical examiner that the cause and manner of Wells’ death is “undetermined” and that “drowning is a diagnosis of exclusion.”
Crump has previously said that Mitchell did not have access to parts of Wells’ body during the independent autopsy. But the grand jury report disputes that assertion, noting that Mitchell had full access to the body, with the exception of internal neck structures in the custody of the state medical examiner.
Bruises were found on Wells but were not considered fatal injuries. One was on the back of his head, which Crump addressed following the grand jury report Monday night.
“Mississippi’s own pathologist found two bruises on the back of this young man’s head and informed investigators of them early in this investigation,” Crump wrote in a statement. “An independent autopsy documented traces of blood and recent blunt force injuries to the back of Nolan’s head and his back. To this day, not one person has explained how they got there.”
Crump released his team’s independent autopsy on Monday night as well. That report recommends keeping the investigation open because of uncertainties surrounding Wells’ death and the condition he was in when he entered the water.
According to that report, the investigation doesn’t make clear whether Wells entered the water “voluntarily or was forced, whether he was conscious or impaired, or why he would have been unable to extricate himself despite reportedly being able to swim and while in the presence of other persons.”
But in her own statement on Monday night, Myers McIllrath said the Crump team has not been acting in good faith. She said they had previously “advised my office that they had no evidence of a crime being committed against Nolan Wells.”
Cellphone review caused issues in investigation
Among the issues Myers McIllrath addressed Monday is a dispute over Wells’ cell phone.
“The state of Mississippi had no legal avenue to seize and search Nolan’s cell phone,” she said. “Nolan’s family and the Crump team have always been in complete control of Nolan’s cell phone, including when, where, how and if the phone would be examined by the state.”
Wells’ family and attorneys offered to share his phone’s data with the state. However, Myers McIllrath said she never received the data or the complete results of the data analysis Crump’s team solicited.
“After the grand jury convened in this case, the Crump team provided a 282-page selection of reports from Nolan’s cell phone, which the grand jury considered,” she said.
However, her office did receive a report from Crump’s team that indicated that nothing had been deleted from Wells’ phone since his last use, she said.
“The Crump team knew better, but allowed the public to believe, among other false narratives, that our medical examiner withheld Nolan’s lungs and stomach when his body was released, that things had been deleted off of Nolan’s phone before it was given back to his family, that I refused to cooperate with the examination of Nolan’s cell phone, that I refuse to provide Nolan’s autopsy results to the family,” she said. “All lies.”
Litigation may continue
Civil litigation may still be pursued in the case. On the day of Wells’ funeral, attorneys for the family sent letters to Wells’ friends and their families as notice that litigation was “reasonably anticipated.”
In addition, a former teammate of Wells who went with him to Horn Island on July 4, may sue Wells’ family for defamation.
“What we have seen happen in Nolan’s case, where lives and reputations have been damaged, is reprehensible. People have suffered. Public offices have been harassed,” said Myers McIlrath. “Witnesses, public officials, and others who are completely unrelated to this case have been subjected to threats of harm and intimidation by an angry mob.”
Several of Wells’ friends have also threatened to sue figures like Sharpton and Sunny Hostin, co-host of “The View,” for defamation.
The grand jury report called allegations against Wells’ friends the result of “public clamor and private malice.”
Mississippi doesn’t have a statute of limitations on homicide cases, meaning new evidence that comes up could be considered.
