Family’s lawyers challenge grand jury drowning finding with autopsy evidence
Wells, an 18-year-old Black college freshman, went missing on 4 July while on Horn Island, a barrier island off the Mississippi coast, during a boating trip with friends. His body was found on the island two days later. The cause and manner of his death remain undetermined.
The Jackson County grand jury declined to indict anyone in the case, having determined that Wells drowned. An independent autopsy by Roger A Mitchell Jr., a forensic pathologist and president of Howard University Hospital, reached a different conclusion. The autopsy found no evidence of drowning — specifically, no water in Wells’s stomach, lungs or throat — and documented bruising on his head, back, left shoulder and buttocks.
“We do not believe Nolan drowned, and the blunt force trauma to his head cannot be ignored or explained away,” Crump, the civil rights lawyer representing Wells’s family, said in a statement. “Nolan’s family deserves the truth, and we will keep fighting until every question is answered and justice is served.”
On Tuesday, Crump and Wells’s parents joined Cynthia Choi, Stop AAPI Hate’s executive director, in calling for a federal investigation into Wells’s death and disappearance. California Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Florida Congresswoman Frederica Wilson and others sent a letter to Jessica Bowron, the acting director of the US National Park Service, noting that most of Horn Island is federally designated land. The letter called on the NPS’s investigative services branch to open a “prompt and exhaustive investigation” into the case.
Wells’s father, Elmore Wonsley, made the case for federal involvement at a press conference. “Today, I am asking the people whose job it is to serve and protect to keep their word to our family,” he said. “Our son was found on federal land, and we are asking the FBI to step in and do a full investigation. We’re not asking for special treatment. We’re asking for what any father would do for his child, and that’s to find the truth about what happened to his child.”
President Donald Trump said Wednesday he is considering asking the FBI to investigate. As he left the White House, reporters asked Trump whether he planned to push the FBI to launch an independent investigation into Wells’s death. “Well, we’re looking at that. Yes, we are,” Trump said.
Crump said Sunday will mark 100 days since the family has been looking into Wells’s death. His response to Trump’s comments framed the president’s words as carrying federal weight. “When President Trump responds to news reporters that ‘we’re looking into it,’ we believe that carries more weight than the response given by the FBI,” Crump said. “Our team stands ready to work with the federal government to ensure Nolan’s death is investigated to the fullest extent.”
Wells’s mother, Christine Wells-Wonsley, began searching for him after he disappeared, and a photo of Wells with three white friends on a boat went viral. In the months between Wells’s body being found and the grand jury’s decision to decline indictment, social media became rife with misinformation about Wells, his family and his friends. Many have suggested that the treatment Wells’s family has received by local officials would have been different if they were white.