CHICAGO (AP) — An independent autopsy commissioned by the family of Nolan Xavier Wells found the 18-year-old’s cause and manner of death to be “undetermined” pending further investigation.
The civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the Wells family, announced the preliminary findings Wednesday in front of a standing-room-only crowd at the annual NAACP National Convention in Chicago.Reading from a report prepared by forensic pathologist Dr. Robert Mitchell, Crump said the report showed no evidence of fractures or bruising, but also did not rule out the possibility of foul play.
The board-certified pathologist found “red discoloration” in the soft tissue in the back of Wells’ head, but no underlying skull fractures or lacerations to the skin around the area, Crump said. He noted that the decomposition of the body, along with other limiting factors, had made it impossible to make a determination.
Without further information, the pathologist wrote he “cannot rule out if any intervening nonaccidental factors contributed to or caused the death of Nolan Wells,” according to the attorney.
The autopsy is part of an independent investigation led by Crump into the circumstances of the teenager’s disappearance, which followed a July 4 boat trip with friends to an island off the coast of Mississippi. Wells did not return to the mainland with his friends. His body was found floating off the island’s coast two days later.
The Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office conducted its own autopsy but has yet to release the results.
The second autopsy was arranged by the family and Crump, and paid for by former NFL player Colin Kaepernick. It did not include a toxicology report.
“This is only another part of the puzzle, and even though it tells us significant information, we still have more questions than we have answers at this time,” Crump said of the results.
The still-unknown circumstances around Wells’ death have touched off rampant online speculation and prompted calls from Black leaders for transparency from local authorities. Wells, who was Black, had traveled to the island with a group of high school friends, all of whom are white.
A reward of $125,000 — jointly funded by the Rev. Al Sharpton, actor and producer Tyler Perry and former NFL player Terrell Owens — is now being offered in exchange for information leading to an arrest and conviction in connection with the death.
The autopsy announcement comes two days after Wells was laid to rest in his hometown of Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
In his eulogy, Sharpton lamented the “inconsistencies and unanswered questions” that had placed a dark cloud over the grieving family.
He questioned why Wells’ friends had left him behind, taken his phone and keys and failed to report him missing. And he suggested local investigators had spoken prematurely in statements to the news media indicating no crime was suspected.
“The reason that a lot of people across the nation are looking at this Nolan situation is because we’re looking at the history in Mississippi,” Sharpton added. “We can’t have someone in law enforcement saying there was no foul play before there was an investigation.”
Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter said initial interviews suggested Wells chose to stay on the island and that his friends believed he would get a ride with someone else. He has said the friends were cooperating with the investigation, which remains ongoing.
“We are trying to be respectful and collaborative as much as we can,” Crump said. “But it’s always troublesome to all of us when these investigations just take forever.”
I believe it was fowl play because WHY didn’t the white friends call his parents, and they gave 2 different answers? Why would anyone give their cell phone and keys to someone on an island by themselves? If he was a football star in which this goes on with other young good athletes coming from high school its ALOT of jealousy and hate and these innocent fellows are killed. I feel he was hit in the head or hit his head on the boat after given some type of drug or poison and acting erratically doing some dare devil mess. Or push off the boat..I feel additional autopsy and opinions should be given. Because if this was innocent WHY did the young white boys told different stories??? Each of them should be detained and interrogated like they do if this was 3 black boys and one white boy and he come up floating on some water by himself leaving his phone and keys!!!
The more likely scenario is that a death resulted as a result of teen males doing stupid things like we do … particularly at that age. Had the friends not hidden stuff, they probably would be looking at charges related to an unintentional negligent death.
The lay of the land fits that scenario far more than it does a race related death.
First of all it’s a profit making industry to start crying racism every time a black person gets killed. However, 90 percent of black homicides are committed by black killers. And this “party”, for anybody with a brain the size of a peanut, had all the ingredients necessary to produce an accidental death. There were thousands of people there, hundreds of boats. The partying was on the boats. The pictures I saw there was no life jacket in sight. He was bare footed on a slippery deck. These are big boats with no apparent safety ladders over the side in case somebody fell in. In America about two people a day die is such alcohol laden circumstances; they simply drown and it’s COMMON PLACE. IT’S NOT MYSTERIOUS. People went there to avoid the rules: if they tried to party in a harbor, authorities would have shut them down due to safety concerns. Why would anybody’s parents let their kids go on such a trip? I wouldn’t. Booze, boats, no life jackets, no safety training. This was the Ocean, not a pond. Fantasizing this was a murder is a sickness. We should be asking did he know how to swim. He’s dead because his parents were negligent in their supervision. It is very easy bare footed to slip off the deck of a boat. With lots of noise and music, you might not be heard. If you have no life jacket and there is no ladder to use to climb back on deck, you will drown. YOU WILL BE FOUND FACE DOWN IN THE WATER. And if you are on a stranger’s boat nobody might notice you are missing. But there is just too much money, publicity, power available to those who really only care about their self promotion and only see “racism.” He was invited to the party wasn’t he? Was it a huge trap involving a thousand people? This kind of thing happens constantly because people are stupid around the water; especially the ocean. And these kinds of accidents HAPPEN EVERY DAY. But it’s only when you can yell “racism” that it is ever a big story because all of you are profiting from the sensationalizing of the event.
The truth will come out! It’s 2026 and people know how to get the word out about Nolan Wells’ mysterious death.