NEW YORK (AP) — Just one week ago, 18-year-old Nolan Xavier Wells boarded a boat with a group of friends to celebrate the Fourth of July on an island off Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. He would never return home.
His body was discovered two days after he disappeared. According to Wells’ parents, what exactly happened remains deeply unclear — a puzzle filled with contradictory accounts, explanations that don’t hold up, and critical details that seem to be missing. The case has also raised concerns given Mississippi’s troubled racial history and widespread distrust of law enforcement in the region.
On Friday, Christine and Elmore Wonsley held a news conference in New York City, urging investigators to conduct a thorough and open inquiry into their son’s death. They expressed serious doubt over claims that Wells told his friends to leave the island without him, and over suggestions that he — a high-level athlete who knew how to swim — had accidentally drowned.
Wells’ body was recovered in the early morning hours of Monday along the shoreline of Horn Island, an uninhabited strip of land roughly 7 miles (11.2 kilometers) off the Mississippi coast, more than a day after he was last seen alive. The island, approximately 11 miles (17.7 kilometers) long and located near the Alabama state line, can only be reached by boat. The family’s attorneys said approximately 200 people were on the island that Fourth of July.
“We just want to know what happened and why our baby didn’t come home,” Christine Wonsley said, glancing upward several times as she stood beside her attorney, Ben Crump, and the Rev. Al Sharpton, who will preside over Wells’ funeral.
Crump announced that the Wells family has hired a forensic pathologist based in Washington, D.C. — one with no connection to Mississippi law enforcement — to conduct an independent autopsy while the family waits for the official autopsy results, which could take several weeks. Crump also said the family plans to bring in experts to recover messages that appear to have been erased from Wells’ cellphone, with plans to eventually hand the device over to authorities.
The family also made a public appeal for any witnesses at Horn Island to come forward and asked people to share any video footage that may capture Wells during his time on the island. That request mirrors a similar call from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office as investigators try to piece together what happened in the moments before Wells vanished.
A social media photo, reportedly taken during the boat ride to the island, shows Wells with his arms around three white male friends. Sheriff John Ledbetter stated that Wells’ friends are cooperating with investigators and that authorities do not currently suspect foul play. However, Crump noted that those friends now have legal representation and that his own investigators have not yet been able to speak with them.
Wells’ death has sparked widespread speculation and suspicion, with many people reflecting on Mississippi’s history of racial tension and what it means to be a Black person in a predominantly white setting.
Actor and producer Tyler Perry is helping cover the cost of Wells’ funeral. Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick is helping fund the independent autopsy. Filmmaker Spike Lee attended Friday’s news conference to show solidarity with the Wells family.
Crump said Wells’ parents came to him because they do not believe Mississippi law enforcement will conduct a fair investigation, citing the state’s history under Jim Crow — including the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till and the killings of three civil rights workers in the 1960s.
“The history of Mississippi is something that they don’t just read about in books,” Crump told reporters at the Rev. Sharpton’s National Action Network headquarters in Harlem. “It’s a lived experience for many Black Americans that oftentimes when our children are killed in highly questionable situations that there is this notion that ‘Oh, there was nothing wrong, no foul play, let’s just sweep it under the rug.’ Well, we refuse to sweep it under the rug.”
This is the second case Crump has taken on in Mississippi in recent months. He was also recently hired by the family of a one-year-old Mississippi child who was killed when police opened fire on a moving vehicle.
Sheriff Ledbetter told the Associated Press this week that investigators believe Wells “chose to stay on the island with the assumption that he was going to ride back to the mainland with someone else.”
But Wells did not have his cellphone or his keys with him — both were in the possession of his friends.
“What teenager would leave their phone behind if they’re going to stay on this island? What teenager wouldn’t take their phone?” Crump said. “It’s not adding up at all.”
Crump said video recorded by bystanders on the island appears to show someone he identified as Wells in an argument, apparently trying to get his phone back. A witness also reportedly told investigators that Wells had intended to leave on the boat with his friends — directly contradicting the sheriff’s account of events.
“The friends come back and he’s left there with some story about how he said leave him behind,” Sharpton said. “But then by some magic one of the friends has his keys and his phone.”
The sheriff did not respond to Associated Press requests for comment on the family’s concerns.
Christine Wonsley said her worry began when a friend of her son called her just after 11 p.m. on July 4. After attempting to locate him herself, she reported him missing to police and met an officer with her husband at a McDonald’s parking lot. The process was further complicated by a dispute between law enforcement agencies over which one had jurisdiction over the island. One of Wells’ friends had also separately reported him missing to the U.S. Coast Guard.
Elmore Wonsley said he went out on a boat the morning of July 5 to search for his son near Horn Island. Crews from multiple local and state agencies launched an extensive search operation, and Wells’ body was found early Monday, according to family members.
“If he’s drowning, nobody sees him drown? Nobody offers assistance? Nobody tries to help? I mean, obviously he stands out,” Crump said. “I think he’s the only Black person I saw when I’m looking at the videos.”
Christine Wonsley said she used a phone-tracking app to locate her son’s device and, after a friend retrieved it, discovered that some of his messages appeared to have been deleted. Wells, who was known for taking photos at social and family gatherings, had two Snapchat accounts — but both were empty, with no pictures or saved messages, she said.
During the search for their son, Elmore Wonsley went to collect Wells’ car keys from the home where his friends had stayed the night before the island trip. His son’s car was still parked outside, he said.
Wells, who would have celebrated his 19th birthday next month, played wide receiver for the football team at Southwest Mississippi Community College in Summit, Mississippi, and had dreams of competing at a top-tier Division I program.
His coach, Les George, spoke to WAPT-TV about the young man’s character. “He was a guy that never had a bad day. Never,” George said. “He was very sociable with everyone, didn’t meet a stranger. He would pop up at my office and come sit on the couch just to hang out and talk.”
Christine Wonsley said she and her husband made a point of teaching Wells about history and preparing him to navigate the racial tensions that remain present throughout the South.
By all accounts, Wells was a peacemaker who disliked conflict — his parents even recalled a moment when, still in diapers, he broke into a dance to lighten the mood during one of their arguments. He had a reputation for wanting everyone to feel included and for avoiding confrontation.
“Nolan is a person with a big heart,” Elmore Wonsley said.
The last time his parents saw him was the evening before the boat trip. He stopped by their home, cooked them salmon for dinner, and hugged his mother goodbye.
As mourning and protests have spread in the wake of Wells’ death, Christine Wonsley had a message for those speaking out on his behalf.
“Please be peaceful,” she said. “Nolan was not someone who liked fights, physical fights. He didn’t even really like arguments. Don’t go out there trying to be tough. Think about what Nolan would want, and he wouldn’t want that type of behavior.”
