NEW YORK (AP) – A week ago, 18-year-old Nolan Xavier Wells took a boat trip with friends to celebrate the Fourth of July on an island off the Mississippi Gulf Coast. He never came back.
Two days later, he was found dead. What happened, Wells’ parents say, is a mystery filled with conflicting stories, implausible explanations and missing details. It’s a case overshadowed by the state’s fraught racial history and lingering distrust of law enforcement.
At a news conference Friday in New York City, Christine and Elmore Wonsley called for a full and transparent investigation into their son’s death, skeptical of claims that Wells told his friends to leave the island without him and suggestions that he, an elite swimmer, had accidentally drowned.
Wells’ body was found early Monday along the coast of Horn Island, about 7 miles (11.2 kilometers) off the Mississippi coast, more than a day after he was last seen alive. The roughly 11-mile-long (17.7 kilometers) stretch of land is near the Alabama state line. The island is uninhabited and only accessible by boat. About 200 people were there on July 4, the family’s lawyers said.
“We just want to know what happened and why our baby didn’t come home,” said Christine Wonsley, looking up several times as she stood alongside her attorney, Ben Crump, and the Rev. Al Sharpton, who will officiate at Wells’ funeral.
The family commissions an independent autopsy
Crump said Wells’ family has ordered an independent autopsy, performed by a forensic pathologist in Washington, D.C., unrelated to Mississippi law enforcement, while they await the results of an official autopsy, which could take several weeks. They also plan to hire experts to recover messages that appeared to have been deleted from his cellphone, Crump said. They will eventually turn the device over to authorities, he said.
Wells’ family also encouraged witnesses to come forward and asked people to submit any video they recorded that might show him on Horn Island, echoing a call from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office to help shed light on the moments before Wells’ disappearance and death.
A photo posted on social media, apparently from the boat trip to the island, shows Wells with his arms around three white male friends. Sheriff John Ledbetter said Wells’ friends were cooperating and that investigators do not suspect foul play. Crump said those friends now have attorneys and that his investigators have not yet attempted to speak with them.
Wells’ death has led to rampant speculation and suspicion as people grapple with Mississippi’s history of racial tension and what it means to be a black person in a predominantly white space.
Actor and producer Tyler Perry is helping pay for Wells’ funeral, former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick is helping pay for his independent autopsy, and director Spike Lee appeared at the press conference to show support for Wells’ family.
The family doesn’t trust Mississippi authorities, Crump says
Crump said Wells’ parents hired him to conduct an independent investigation into their son’s death because they don’t believe law enforcement officials will conduct a fair investigation in a state still reckoning with its Jim Crow past, including 1955 lynching of Emmett Till AND the killing of three civil rights workers in the 1960s.
“Mississippi’s history is something they don’t just read about in books,” Crump told reporters at the Sharpton National Action Network headquarters in Harlem. “It’s a lived experience for many black Americans that often when our children are killed in very controversial situations, there’s this notion that ‘Oh, there was nothing wrong, no foul play, let’s sweep it under the rug.’ Well, we refuse to sweep it under the rug.”
It’s the second case Crump has taken on in the state in recent months. He was also recently held by the ea family Mississippi 1 year old who was killed when police fired into a moving car.
Ledbetter told The Associated Press this week that investigators suspect Wells “chose to stay on the island under the assumption that he would return to the mainland with someone else.”
Wells did not have his cell phone or keys
But Wells didn’t have his cell phone or his keys — his friends did.
“What teenager would leave their phone behind if they stayed on this island? What teenager wouldn’t take their phone?” Crump said. “It’s not adding up at all.”
Crump said video footage from the island showed a person he said was Wells arguing with someone to return the phone to him. In another discrepancy, Crump said a witness reported that Wells planned to leave on the boat with his friends, contradicting the sheriff’s theory.
“Friends come back and he’s left there with some stories about how he said leave him behind,” Sharpton said. “But by some magic, one of the friends has his keys and phone.”
The sheriff did not return messages from The Associated Press seeking his response to the family’s concerns.
The parents try to track down their son and then report him missing
Wells’ mother, Christine Wonsley, said she became concerned when a friend of his called her shortly after 11pm on July 4.
After trying to track him down herself, she reported him missing to police and went with her husband to meet an officer in a McDonald’s parking lot, she said, a process made worse by a dispute over which law enforcement agency had jurisdiction over the island. One of Wells’ friends had also reported him missing to the US Coast Guard.
Wells’ father, Elmore Wonsley, said he went out in a boat on the morning of July 5 looking for his son near Horn Island. Crews from multiple local and state agencies began an extensive search and his body was found early Monday, family members confirmed.
“If he’s drowning, no one sees him drown? No one offers help? No one tries to help? I mean, obviously he stands out,” Crump said. “I think he’s the only black person I saw when I watch the videos.”
Christine Wonsley said she used an app to track his phone and, after a friend went to where he was on the ground to pick it up, noticed some of his messages appeared to have been deleted. Wells, a social and family event junkie, had two Snapchat accounts — but neither had photos or messages saved, she said.
While they were looking for their son, Elmore Wonsley went to get Wells’ keys from the house where he stayed with his friends from the boat the night before their trip to the island. He said his son’s car was still parked in the yard.
A peacemaker with football aspirations
Wells, who would have turned 19 next month, played on the football team at Southwest Mississippi Community College in Summit, Mississippi, and had aspirations of playing at a top Division I program.
His trainer, Les George, told WAPT-TV that Wells “There was a guy who never had a bad day. Never.”
“He was very outgoing with everyone, he didn’t meet a stranger,” George said. “He would come out to my office and sit on the couch just to come out and talk.”
Christine Wonsley said she and her husband have studied Wells in history and talked with him about navigating the racial tensions that still run through the South.
Wells was a peacemaker who disliked separations, once breaking into a dance while still in diapers to ease tensions while his parents were fighting, they said. He wanted everyone involved and avoided confrontation.
“Nolan is a person with a big heart,” said Elmore Wonsley.
Wells’ parents said they last saw him the night before the boat trip. He came to their house, grilled them salmon for dinner, and hugged his mother goodbye.
As people mourn and protest Wells’ death, Christine Wonsley urged them to follow his example.
“Please be calm,” she said. “Nolan wasn’t somebody who liked fights, physical fights. He didn’t really like arguments either. Don’t go out there trying to be tough. Think about what Nolan would want and he wouldn’t want that kind of behavior.”
By MICHAEL R. SISAK and CLAUDIA LAUER Associated Press
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