A Mississippi grand jury has declined to bring criminal charges in the death of Nolan Wells, the 18-year-old whose disappearance and death off the Mississippi coast this summer drew national attention and months of public speculation. The grand jury found no evidence of criminal conduct and no support for allegations that race played a role in his death, though the family’s legal team maintains the case remains unresolved.
What the Grand Jury Found
Wells was last seen on July 4, celebrating Independence Day with friends on Horn Island, a barrier reef roughly 10 miles off Mississippi’s Gulf Coast that’s accessible only by boat. According to the grand jury’s report, Wells’ friends returned to the mainland after their boat, the Triton, developed a mechanical issue, but Wells chose to remain on the island. His body was discovered in the water off Horn Island two days later, on July 6.
The grand jury, which met from September 14 to September 18, heard testimony from more than 40 witnesses and reviewed evidence including GPS data, cellphone extractions, and photos and video from the island. In its report, filed Friday in Jackson County, the panel concluded: “The position of, the condition of, time of discovery, and location of Mr. Wells’ body is consistent with drowning.”
The report also directly addressed public allegations of wrongdoing: “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.”
District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath announced the “no true bill” decision — meaning the grand jury did not find sufficient evidence to indict anyone — in a video statement Monday, alongside a partially redacted copy of the report.
Addressing the Allegations of Racial Motivation
Wells, who was Black, was the only member of his friend group who didn’t return from the July 4 trip, a detail that fueled widespread public speculation that race may have played a role in his death. The grand jury report pushed back directly on that narrative, noting that Wells was not the only Black person on Horn Island that day and describing the circumstances of his staying behind as “not unusual or suspicious for individuals to return from the island on boats they did not travel…on.”
McIlrath was similarly direct in her statement: “There is absolutely no evidence to support the allegations that Nolan’s disappearance and death were racially motivated. Nolan’s friends loved Nolan, and Nolan loved them. Nolan chose to stay on the island that day, and there is not a scintilla of evidence to contradict that.”
The report also found that a search of Horn Island conducted on July 5, the day before Wells’ body was found, had been thorough, stating the grand jury was “confident that had his body been on the island at that time, it would have been discovered during the extensive search.” The report did not offer an explanation for why his body wasn’t discovered until the following day.
What the Investigation Uncovered
One witness testified under oath that they saw Wells slip “awkwardly” off the side of a boat around 3:30 p.m. on July 4, though the witness couldn’t say for certain whether he struck his head in the fall. According to the witness, Wells continued socializing afterward and didn’t appear injured.
The report noted unexplained bruising on the back of Wells’ head, as well as suspected bruising on his buttocks and shoulder, but stated the grand jury “cannot say without absolute certainty” that the earlier fall caused those injuries.
Investigators also found that Wells had purchased alcohol using a fake ID in the lead-up to his death, and that no legal-age adults provided alcohol to him or his friends that day. The report found no evidence he had used cocaine.
Competing Autopsy Findings
Both the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office and Dr. Roger Mitchell, a forensic pathologist retained independently by the Wells family, reached the same conclusion: that Wells’ cause and manner of death were “undetermined,” with drowning considered a “diagnosis of exclusion” — meaning it was arrived at by ruling out other explanations rather than through direct evidence.
The grand jury report also addressed an earlier claim by civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents the Wells family, that Dr. Mitchell had not been given access to all parts of Wells’ body during the independent autopsy. According to the report, Mitchell confirmed he received all of the body except internal neck structures, which remained in the state medical examiner’s custody.
The Family’s Response
Crump has continued to raise questions about the case following the grand jury’s decision. In a statement posted to Facebook Monday night, he wrote that “No True Bill Does Not Resolve How Nolan Wells Died,” and pointed to the unexplained bruising as an open question: “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. 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 also released the independent autopsy report Monday night, which recommends the investigation remain open given the uncertainty surrounding Wells’ condition before he entered the water. The report states: “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.”
McIlrath, for her part, said that after reviewing the independent autopsy and hundreds of public tips, the Crump team itself had told her office it had no evidence a crime had been committed against Wells.
Investigative Controversies Along the Way
The case drew scrutiny not just for its outcome but for how the investigation unfolded. The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office initially classified the case as a death investigation rather than a homicide investigation, and Wells’ parents have said law enforcement moved too quickly toward that conclusion while communicating too slowly with the family and the public.
“Damage has already been done because that’s the narrative that’s being pushed by the general public,” Wells’ mother, Christine Wells-Wonsley, said at a press conference on July 22.
Wells’ parents have also said they believed messages had been deleted from his phone before it was returned to them, after they tracked it to a friend’s house on the day his body was found. McIlrath disputed that characterization directly in her statement, saying, “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[‘s] cell phone, that I refuse to provide Nolan’s autopsy results to the family. All lies.”
The grand jury report also pushed back on public speculation about Wells’ friends, calling online harassment campaigns targeting them “malicious” and “false,” and noting that Wells’ phone wasn’t the only one that returned to the mainland without its owner that day.
McIlrath has defended keeping much of the investigation, including the state autopsy, under seal while it was ongoing. “The secrecy of the grand jury is not a veil that we hide behind,” she said. “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.”
Remembering Nolan Wells
Wells’ funeral on July 20 drew hundreds of mourners. “Your absence has left an emptiness that can never truly be filled,” his mother said at the service. “In a world that can often feel dark, be like Nolan, be the light that brightens the lives of those around you.”
In her Monday statement, McIlrath reflected on the broader impact of the case on the community: “The death of Nolan Wells has devastated our community. Outsiders and influencers have attempted to exploit Nolan’s death to divide and create chaos here. But we are better together.”
