A Mississippi grand jury has decided not to charge anyone in the death of Nolan Wells, the 18 year old who disappeared during a Fourth of July boat trip to Horn Island and was found dead two days later.
Jackson County District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath announced the decision Monday night in a video statement on Facebook. She said the grand jury met last week and unanimously returned a “no true bill,” the legal term for when a grand jury reviews a case and finds there is not enough evidence to bring criminal charges against anyone.
“In addition to bringing prosecutions against the guilty, the grand jury must also exonerate those who have been falsely accused,” McIlrath said.
She also directly addressed the claims that spread online for months. “There is absolutely no evidence to support the allegations that Nolan’s disappearance and death were racially motivated,” she said. “Nolan’s friends loved Nolan and Nolan loved them.”
Nolan Wells was an Ocean Springs native and a football player at Southwest Mississippi Community College. On July 4, he traveled by boat with a group of friends from high school to Horn Island, an uninhabited barrier island off the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Nolan was Black, and his friends were all white. When the boats headed back to the mainland that evening, he was not on any of them. A park ranger found his body in the water off the northwestern tip of the island on the morning of July 6.
Photos of Nolan surrounded by his white friends on the trip circulated widely, and with so little known about his final hours, speculation took over. Many influencers suggested his friends were involved in his death, and the investigation drew national attention.
The grand jury report released Monday lays out what it found. Jurors issued 132 subpoenas, heard from 43 witnesses, and invited seven people to testify. They reviewed physical and digital evidence, GPS and location data, cellphone extractions, photos, videos, and recorded statements. They also considered a 14 page report on Nolan’s phone prepared by the family’s own forensic examiner, along with a 261 page report of Snapchat conversations.
The report says the position, condition, time of discovery, and location of Nolan’s body are all consistent with drowning. The grand jury concluded that Nolan chose to stay behind on the island to keep socializing after the boats left. Nolan Wells’ phone made it back to the mainland without him, but the report notes that other passengers also had their phones return on different boats than the ones they rode. One of the boats, the Triton, took on water on the way back because of a bilge pump and motor failure and had to be towed by another vessel.
The report also addressed the bruise. The Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office found bruising on the back of Nolan’s head that was not fatal, and found no evidence of any fatal injury or disease. A witness testified under oath that he saw Nolan slip awkwardly off the side of a boat around 3:30 p.m. on July 4 but could not say whether he hit his head. According to that witness, Nolan kept hanging out after the fall and did not seem hurt. The grand jury said it found no other explanation for the bruise, but it could not say for certain that the fall caused it.
What the grand jury did not do is settle how Nolan died. The state medical examiner ruled his cause and manner of death undetermined, meaning there was not enough evidence to officially name one. The independent autopsy the family commissioned from forensic pathologist Dr. Roger A. Mitchell reached the same conclusion. Drowning was not ruled out by either, and the state noted that drowning is a diagnosis doctors reach only after eliminating other causes.
Nolan’s parents, Christine and Elmore Wonsley, retained civil rights attorney Ben Crump shortly after his death and pushed for a full investigation, asking that every fact be put before the grand jury. Tyler Perry paid for Nolan’s funeral, Colin Kaepernick helped fund the independent autopsy, and the Rev. Al Sharpton officiated the service in Ocean Springs in July. The family and Crump had not publicly responded to the grand jury’s decision as of Monday night.
The case also brought threats against people connected to it. In August, three people from outside Mississippi were charged with threatening a judge, a witness, and local officials tied to the investigation, including bomb threats called in to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office. None of them appeared to know Nolan, his family, or anyone on the trip.