Phone data, witness accounts diverge in Mississippi teen's death on island

Family says phone tracked to friend, messages deleted

Christine Wonsley, choking back tears, said at a news conference Friday that she wants to know why her son did not come home. “We just want to know what happened and why our baby didn’t come home,” she said.

The body of Nolan Wells, an 18-year-old from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, was discovered July 6 on the northwestern tip of Horn Island, a barrier island along Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. He had traveled to the island on July 4 with a group of friends and went missing that same day.

The case has become a flashpoint on social media, driven by questions about race in the United States. For some Black Americans, the case has renewed painful discussions about navigating predominantly white spaces and racism, while civil rights leaders have raised concerns about disparities in attention to missing persons cases involving Black victims.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents the family, said at Friday’s press briefing in New York that there are “many troubling questions” about the case. Crump is assisting an independent investigation that includes a private autopsy. The Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader, also attended the briefing.

Crump said the three friends who traveled with Wells told authorities that Wells said he wanted to stay on the island with a young woman when they left on the afternoon of July 4. But the young woman has told investigators that Wells got on the boat with the boys, according to Crump.

Crump also said that videos circulating online allegedly show Wells in a heated argument with his friends. The videos could not immediately be verified by Reuters.

Crump also raised questions about the location of Wells’s phone. The phone was found not with Wells’s body, but in the possession of one of the young men who accompanied him to the island. Wonsley said she tracked the phone using the Life360 family location app and that several social media messages appeared to have been deleted from the phone.

The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office said in a July 7 statement that it is seeking the public’s help for any eyewitness accounts or video from Horn Island on July 4 related to the case. The office told Reuters on Friday that its investigation is ongoing and active but provided no other details.

ABC News has reported that investigators said they suspect Wells drowned, but that nothing has been ruled out. The family’s independent autopsy is expected to provide additional information.