Civil rights attorneys push for continued investigation and full autopsy release
The grand jury concluded its five-day session September 18 and issued a partially redacted report released publicly Monday. The panel found “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.”
Wells had traveled to Horn Island, a barrier island off the Mississippi coast, with several friends to celebrate Independence Day. He was the only member of the group who failed to return from the island. His body was found on July 6. The grand jury report characterized Wells’ decision to remain on the island as “not unusual or suspicious for individuals to return from the island on boats they did not travel […] on.” The jury also determined that there had been a “thorough search” of the island on July 5 and that “had his body been on the island at that time, it would have been discovered during the extensive search.”
Jackson County District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath said in a recorded statement released with the grand jury report that “Nolan chose to stay on the island that day, and there is not a scintilla of evidence to contradict that.” McIlrath added that “the family, the Crump team, and anyone close to Nolan knew that his disappearance and death were not the result of racial hate or violence,” but said “the flames of that narrative set against the backdrop of Mississippi’s terrible history were fanned by both people who knew the truth and those who didn’t.”
The grand jury noted that, despite public assertions that Wells was the only Black person on the island that day, those assertions were false and “led to misidentification, speculation, and rumors concerning the death of Mr. Wells.” Wells was the only Black teenager among the group that traveled to Horn Island, and his family has repeatedly questioned whether the investigation would have proceeded differently had the deceased been white.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Wells’ family, highlighted bruising on the back of Wells’ head that the state medical examiner’s report said was not a fatal injury. “Nolan Wells’ parents deserve answers,” Crump said at a press conference Tuesday, urging the district attorney to keep the investigation open. “What really happened to Nolan Wells? What caused the blunt force trauma to his head? That is the crux of the matter.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who delivered Wells’ eulogy, wrote that the grand jury’s failure to charge anyone “is not an answer to how 18-year-old Nolan Xavier Wells left for an outing with friends and never came home.” Sharpton added: “We will not confuse the absence of an indictment with the presence of an answer.”
Following Crump’s release of the independent autopsy report, the NAACP is pressing the district attorney’s office to release its own report publicly. “Nolan’s family deserves nothing less than a full, fair, and independent investigation that is exhaustive and leaves no stone unturned,” wrote Kristen Clarke, NAACP general counsel, in a statement. The organization urged the district attorney to “continue the investigation, release the full autopsy report from the state’s medical examiner, and make the investigative file public.”
Dr. Roger Mitchell, the forensic pathologist who performed the independent autopsy, concluded along with the state medical examiner that the cause and manner of Wells’ death is “undetermined” and that “drowning is a diagnosis of exclusion.” Crump has previously said Mitchell did not have access to parts of Wells’ body during the independent autopsy, but the grand jury report disputes that assertion, noting that Mitchell had full access with the exception of internal neck structures in the custody of the state medical examiner.
The independent autopsy report recommends keeping the investigation open because of uncertainties surrounding Wells’ death and the condition he was in when he entered the water. According to the report, the investigation does not make clear whether Wells entered the water “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 said the Crump team had previously “advised my office that they had no evidence of a crime being committed against Nolan Wells.” She also addressed a dispute over access to Wells’ cell phone. “The state of Mississippi had no legal avenue to seize and search Nolan’s cell phone,” she said, adding that “Nolan’s family and the Crump team have always been in complete control of Nolan’s cell phone.” After the grand jury convened, Crump’s team provided “a 282-page selection of reports from Nolan’s cell phone, which the grand jury considered,” according to McIlrath.
McIlrath said the Crump team “allowed the public to believe, among other false narratives,” including that the medical examiner withheld Wells’ lungs and stomach when his body was released, that data had been deleted from Wells’ phone before it was returned to his family, that she refused to cooperate with examination of the phone, and that she refused to provide autopsy results to the family. “All lies,” she said.
Civil litigation may still be pursued. On the day of Wells’ funeral, attorneys for the family sent letters to Wells’ friends and their families as notice that litigation was “reasonably anticipated.” A former teammate of Wells who went with him to Horn Island on July 4 may sue Wells’ family for defamation, and several of Wells’ friends have also threatened to sue figures including Sharpton and Sunny Hostin, co-host of “The View.”
McIlrath said witnesses, public officials, and others “who are completely unrelated to this case have been subjected to threats of harm and intimidation by an angry mob.” The grand jury report characterized allegations against Wells’ friends as the product of “public clamor and private malice.”
Mississippi has no statute of limitations on homicide cases, leaving open the possibility that new evidence could be considered in the future.