Nolan Wells’ friends Warren Hudson, Jax Pitalo and Morgan Seymour have filed defamation lawsuits against NFL Hall of Famer Terrell Owens and a TikTok creator, accusing both of falsely telling the public that the three young men killed Wells.
The suit against Owens was filed Monday in federal court in Gulfport, Mississippi. It centers on a post Owens shared on X that read “ARREST THEM IMMEDIATELY!!” with a link to an Instagram video. According to the lawsuit, that video theorized that the three killed Wells and tampered with his phone. The young men are between 18 and 21, and Mississippi law treats anyone under 21 as a minor, so their fathers filed the case on their behalf.
The timing of Owens’ post sits at the heart of the case. The lawsuit says he shared it after a Jackson County grand jury declined to charge anyone in Wells’ death, and the friends argue he acted with malice by calling for their arrest after that decision. They also say the post put their lives in danger.
Owens has been one of the loudest public voices in the case. He offered a $25,000 reward for information about Wells’ death and attended his funeral in Ocean Springs on July 20.
The second lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Mississippi, targets Sandra L. Butler. The suit says Butler runs the TikTok account “gods_bestgirl” and calls herself “Royalty.” Nolan Wells’ friends claim she repeatedly told her followers they killed Wells on a boat on July 4, fled the scene, tampered with his phone and lied to cover it up. According to the lawsuit, Butler told viewers, “They are guilty. They did something,” and later claimed one of the men picked Wells up and slammed him onto the boat.
The friends say Butler kept posting after the grand jury’s decision, calling their version of events “a story to cover their tracks” and claiming someone accessed and deleted information from Wells’ phone. The lawsuit points out that the grand jury investigation involved 132 subpoenas and testimony from 43 witnesses.
Owens and Butler may not be the only defendants. The Associated Press reported that the friends filed a handful of defamation claims against content creators this week, though only these two have been named publicly so far.
The friends have also gone after bigger names. Their attorneys previously sent demand letters, the formal warnings that usually come before a lawsuit, to Rev. Al Sharpton and The View co-host Sunny Hostin over comments both made about Wells’ death. Neither has been sued. Sharpton has said he welcomes a lawsuit, arguing it could force the friends to answer questions under oath. The attorneys have said they have no plans to sue Wells’ family.
Wells, an 18 year old Black college student, traveled to Horn Island with a group of about 30 friends on three boats for the Fourth of July. The island can only be reached by private boat. Nolan Wells’ friends say he chose to stay behind to talk with a girl when the group headed back to the mainland, an account his family disputes. Hudson called Wells’ mother, Christine Wonsley, at about 11:07 p.m. and contacted the U.S. Coast Guard to report him missing. Wells’ body was found in the water two days later.
Many people questioned why Wells, the only Black person in the group, was left on the island, and the three friends became the focus of much of that speculation online. Two of them were singled out in part because they appear with Wells in a boat photo that spread on social media after he disappeared. Their attorneys deny that any of them touched or erased data from Wells’ phone or lied to investigators.
The grand jury returned what is called a “no true bill,” meaning it found no basis for criminal charges. The panel said the circumstances were consistent with drowning, but Wells’ official manner of death remains undetermined. His family rejects the drowning conclusion, pointing to unexplained bruising on the back of his head and noting that his airways and stomach contained no water. Wells’ parents and civil rights attorney Ben Crump are now renewing their call for a federal investigation.