A man places a photograph of Nolan Xavier Wells in front of the podium before a news conference at McCormick Place in Chicago, on July 22. Wells, an 18-year-old Mississippi college student, was found dead after a boat trip with friends on July 4.
Octavio Jones/AFP via Getty Images
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Octavio Jones/AFP via Getty Images
A Mississippi grand jury has decided not to bring indictments in the case of Nolan Wells, a teenager who was found dead off the Mississippi coast in early July.
“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 reads.
The grand jury met from Sept. 14 to Sept. 18, ultimately finding that Wells’ cause of death was consistent with drowning, based on where his body was found and multiple autopsies. The cause of death is undetermined, but clear absence of other causes of death make drowning a likely “diagnosis by exclusion.”
The 23 jurors heard from over 40 witnesses and reviewed evidence ranging from GPS data to cellphone extractions to photos and videos from Horn Island.
Evidence reviewed also included findings from civil rights attorney Ben Crump’s team, who is representing Wells’ family.
“No True Bill Does Not Resolve How Nolan Wells Died” Crump posted on Facebook, hours after the Monday release of the report, referring to the grand jury’s declining to issue any indictments.
From July 4 to grand jury report
Wells was found dead on Horn Island on July 6 after he boated there with several friends two days before to celebrate Independence Day.
Wells was the only Black friend in the group – and was also the only friend in his group who didn’t return from that trip to Mississippi’s barrier islands. He was not the only Black individual on Horn Island that day, per the grand jury report.
The grand jury found that Wells chose to stay on Horn Island the afternoon of July 4, characterizing it as “not unusual or suspicious for individuals to return from the island on boats they did not travel…on.”
The report found that the accounts of the occupants of the boats that went out that day were true, including reports of one boat —– the Triton —– taking on water and needing to be towed a short distance.
“Nolan chose to stay on the island that day, and there is not a scintilla of evidence to contradict that,” said District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath in a recorded statement released on Monday night, along with the grand jury report.
The grand jury found there was a “thorough search” of Horn Island on July 5 ahead of the discovery of Wells’ body the next 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. The report does not include other assertions or statements by jurors as to why his body was found a day later.
In her recorded statement, Myers McIlrath stated that: “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.”
Questions surrounding the state and independent autopsies
The forensic pathologist who performed an independent autopsy, Dr. Roger Mitchell, concluded along with the state medical examiner that the cause and manner of death is “undetermined” and that “drowning is a diagnosis of exclusion.”
Crump previously claimed that Mitchell did not have access to parts of Wells’ body during the independent autopsy, but the grand jury report states that Mitchell confirmed he received all body parts, except 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. “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 the 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.
“The available record does not definitively establish the decedent’s condition immediately before entering the water, whether he entered 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,” the report of the independent autopsy reads.
District Attorney Myers McIlrath said in her video statement: “After the Crump team conducted and released the results of its independent autopsy and after receiving hundreds of tips, they advised my office that they had no evidence of a crime being committed against Nolan Wells.”
Cellphone review caused issues in investigation
Questions have swirled around Wells’ death since July – why he chose to stay back on the island, as friends have claimed, as well as why he was found without a cell phone.
The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office initially investigated this as a death, not a homicide, per a press release.
Wells’ parents have expressed concerns that law enforcement moved too quickly at the outset of the investigation in assuming that foul play wasn’t involved, while being slow in communicating with them and in relaying new information to the public.
“Damage has already been done because that’s the narrative that’s being pushed by the general public,” Christine Wells-Wonsley, Wells’ mother, said at a press conference on July 22.
His parents also said they believed messages had been deleted off of his phone when his parents found it, after tracking it to a friends’ house the day that Wells’ body was found.
Very little was answered during the investigation – everything, including the state autopsy, was kept under seal while the investigation was ongoing and while evidence was under grand jury review.
It’s something Myers McIlrath has defended as preserving the integrity of the investigation.
“The secrecy of the grand jury is not a veil that we hide behind,” she said in her video statement on Monday night. “It is a shield that protects the integrity of prosecutions of the guilty and is meant to protect the innocent from the destruction of false allegations.”
In that statement, Myers McIlrath addressed several particular issues raised by Crump and his team during the investigation, particularly issues in reviewing Wells’ phone.
“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 cell phone, that I refuse to provide Nolan’s autopsy results to the family,” she said. “All lies.”
Myers McIlrath said a report, which her office received from Crump’s team, indicated that nothing had been deleted from Wells’ phone since his last use.
“I never received the full extraction data as promised, and I never received the complete extraction report of Nolan’s cell phone,” Myers McIlrath said. “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.”
Litigation may continue
Civil litigation may still be pursued in the case. The day of Wells’ funeral, attorneys for the family sent letters to Wells’ friends and their families as notice that litigation was “reasonably anticipated”.
A former teammate of Wells may pursue defamation charges following social media attacks and an alleged death threat.
“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 Rev. Al 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.
