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A private autopsy revealed that football player Nolan Wells' death may have been an accident, as the 18-year-old's cause of death remains a mystery.
The teen football player disappeared during a trip to Horn Island with an all-White friend group in Mississippi on the Fourth of July and was found dead off the state's Gulf Coast two days later on July 6th. Unanswered questions surrounding his disappearance and subsequent death, coupled with odd behavior from Jackson County Sheriff's Office officials investigating, pushed the victim's parents, Christine and Elmore Wonsley, to look into the matter themselves.
However, the independent autopsy arranged by the family, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, and paid for by Colin Kaepernick ruled Wells' death is "undetermined, pending investigation." The operation was done in Washington, D.C., but the findings were revealed Wednesday morning during the annual NAACP National Convention in Chicago.
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Law enforcement officials believe that Wells accidentally drowned during his visit to the remote island, citing that his corpse was floating face-down in the water.
The Mississippi State Medical Examiner's Office performed its own autopsy on the body, but those results have not yet been made public.
Despite the results, NAACP President Derrick Johnson said he was unconvinced that the 18-year-old football player's death was an accident. "If it truly was an accident, they have the resources available to help them navigate the situation," he said.
The family's investigation is far from over.
They said they plan to hire tech experts to extract messages from Wells' phone before they surrender it to authorities. Crump, whom the teen's loved ones hired to represent them in the case, will remain involved in the independent investigation.
“We’re going to go wherever the truth leads us. We want the truth, no matter who it implicates or exonerates. We want justice, no matter who it acquits or convicts. So, we know they’re telling two different stories,” Crump said.
The details surrounding Wells' death have gained considerable attention from civil rights advocates, including Reverend Al Sharpton, who has urged the Black community to wait for more information to be released.
According to the three young men seen posing with Wells in a picture taken before his disappearance, the victim willfully chose to remain on the island when his friends departed for the mainland, ostensibly planning to hitch a ride on another boat. They said he had met a girl and wanted to spend more time with her, but that girl has since come forward and said Nolan told her he was heading back with his friends.
New footage released on Tuesday by TMZ showed a Black individual believed to be Wells speaking to unidentified individuals around 2:30 p.m. on the day he vanished.
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Reports from individuals who were there at the time say Wells was arguing with the people seen in the video. He can be heard saying “give me my freaking phone. What are you freaking doing?” according to Crump who said at a news conference earlier this month the footage was verified by multiple people with knowledge of the teen's actions that day.
Rev. Sharpton is offering a $100,000 reward for any new information about Wells' death.
