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During a recent press conference, Nolan Wells’ parents and attorney discussed the dangers of the conflicting narratives surrounding his case.
This morning, as attorney Ben Crump announced the preliminary findings from the independent autopsy conducted on 18-year-old Nolan Wells, his parents took a moment to address the reality they’ve been navigating for the last two weeks in the public eye.
“This has been a difficult journey,” Christine, Nolan’s mother, explained. “Losing a child, it truly breaks your heart. It is a pain that just can’t be measured, especially for someone like Nolan, who brought so much joy and light and life to everyone. You don’t find too many genuine people like him. So to lose that light at such a young age, under these circumstances, has been absolutely difficult. Which is why we’ve gone this route. There are so many people out in the public asking all of these questions, but the only question that we have is what happened to our son. That is the only question. We have consistently been degraded by the public. There have been questions about our parenting, our GoFundMe, this, that, and other…I’ve been called a racist.”
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Since officials found Wells’ body on Horn Island in Mississippi on July 6, community members, local officials, and social media users alike have been asking the same question: What happened to Nolan? The teen’s body was discovered after he was reported missing on July 4th, after a boat day with friends. At the time, authorities suspected that Wells had drowned; however, the conflicting stories from those who were reported to have been with Nolan that day have raised suspicions.
“Narrative matters in this case,” NAACP president Derek Johnson said during the press conference. “And we’re saying that in Nolan Wells’ situation, the narrative should not be that it was an accident before there was an investigation. The narrative should not be the words of individuals who went on a boat to the island with him, but they came without him. But with his cell phone, you don’t investigate those individuals without accusing anyone of anything other than the state of Mississippi and local officials. We’re accusing them of being derelict in their duties.”
As Nolan’s parents, Christine and Elmore Wonsley, underlined in an interview with theGrio, there have been several inconsistencies in the recounting of what happened to Nolan. Christine remembers receiving a call from Nolan’s friends, who told her that her son was missing after he allegedly wanted to stay back to hang out with a young woman named Katie. However, Nolan’s parents grew suspicious when they learned that the teen allegedly left his phone on the boat.
“We just cannot fathom Nolan leaving his phone. Even his best friends are like no, if Nolan was going to stay anywhere, what he would say is, ‘Hey, man, give me my phone, let me grab my phone’ or something,” Christine Wonsley told theGrio emphasizing that staying behind is not in Nolan’s character. “He would take his phone. So to sit there and say that, ‘oh, you know, he just left his phone,’ that’s hard for me to believe. I just, I don’t see any teenagers without their phones.”
In addition to his cellphone, Crump, who was retained by the family, called out discrepancies in the witnesses’ stories. While his friends say Nolan stayed back to talk to a young girl named Katie, Katie told authorities that after their conversation, the teen said he was going back to the boat with his friends. Similarly, video footage from that day shows Wells was shirtless; however, Todd Terrell, president of the United Cajun Navy, a nonprofit that assisted in the search, told Nancy Grace that Wells’ body was found “face down” and “fully clothed” in “the same vicinity of where he possibly drowned.” And as more and more videos surface from that day and the investigation continues, the family’s only mission is to find out what happened to their son.
“My concern, and also my husband’s concern, was that it was not even an hour that his body had been removed, and the sheriff came out and said, ‘This is an accidental drowning. We don’t think there’s foul play.’ Again, that is why we’re doing what we’re doing and why we’re moving the way we are, because I sat there and asked them, ‘Please, act as if this is your child, your family member, your whatever,’ and they promised that they would. But when you make statements like that straight out the gate, that’s an issue,” Christine explained. “We did meet with the DA. She did promise transparency. However, damage has already been done, because now that’s the narrative being pushed by the general public, who, again, know nothing really, only what they’re hearing from other people.”
“It is very important to note that this narrative, this suggestion that it was an accidental drowning, nothing to see here, is troubling. There were 300 to 400 people out on Horns Island. You mean to tell me nobody saw anything? Nobody can tell us anything about what happened to one of the few Black people that were out there on that island that day. It just doesn’t add up,” Crump added. “Somebody saw something…Somebody knows something.”
And while the independent autopsy’s preliminary findings uncovered some details and highlighted the possibility of foul play, it did not answer all the questions in the case as the forensic pathologist found the cause and manner of death as “undetermined” pending the investigation of more details.
“We just want honesty. We want to know what happened to our son because the things that you’re telling us are not the character of our son. We know our son,” Elmore concluded during the press conference. “Understanding, you know, our children would do things that you know were kind of dumbfounded sometimes, but the things that we’re being told weren’t Nolan. So please keep us in your prayers, keep them in your prayers, and we’re gonna keep pushing and fighting until we find answers.”
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