The recording of the call for aid to the vessel captures a harried, often confusing scene
NEED TO KNOW
- A newly released recording of an emergency call made from the boat that carried 18-year-old Nolan Wells to Horn Island on July 4 is fueling the online speculation
- Mississippi authorities initially said they saw no signs of foul play and suspected Wells drowned in an area known for dangerous rip currents. His family called that a rush to judgment
- Some observers have claimed they can hear in the new audio that someone is saying Wells’ name as well as “oh my God” and similar statements
A newly released recording of an emergency call made from the boat that carried 18-year-old Nolan Wells to Horn Island on July 4 is fueling the online speculation about what really happened to him and what his friends and other partiers were doing before he was found dead two days later.
Mississippi authorities initially said they saw no signs of foul play and suspected Wells drowned in an area known for dangerous rip currents. His family called that a rush to judgment and pressed for a thorough investigation.
The new recording, released by the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources and obtained by local TV station WLOX and other outlets, was placed about 4 p.m. local time to the private marine towing company Sea Tow, hours before Wells was reported missing by a friend and his mom.
He had traveled that morning by boat to Horn Island — a remote stretch of land off the Gulf Coast that is a popular gathering spot in the summer — but did not return with his friends.
Why he didn’t come back with his group remains disputed, and much about his final hours alive is still unclear.
His body was discovered by officials, face-down and still in his swim trunks, on the morning of July 6 on the island’s northwest tip.
Some of Wells’ friends have said he chose to stay behind on the island, amid a raucous party, after meeting a young woman.
His parents said that would have been out of character for him to separate from the group he traveled with.
Wells’ friends said they left the island on the afternoon of July 4 because of a problem with their boat. The audio of the emergency towing call captures a harried, often confusing scene and not everything in the recording is audible or makes sense.
At the start of the call, a young man tells a dispatcher that they are at the west tip of the island and their bilge pump stopped working, causing the boat to sink.
“Can y’all please come?” the caller says.
The dispatcher asks how far the water is coming up in the boat and the caller says they’re unsure. “We’re going down though,” they say.
The dispatcher then asks, “And is everyone on board and in good health otherwise?”
The caller responds, “Yeah, yeah, everyone is on board.”
The caller gives the dispatcher the boat’s GPS coordinates, just off the tip of Horn Island.
“What do you want to do? Do you want to be towed back?” the dispatcher asks.
“I want to get this boat unsank and towed back, yes,” the caller says. The caller asks for the boat to be moved to a Fort Bayou launch.
The caller says that no one on the boat is over the age of 21 and estimates “like seven people” are aboard.
The dispatcher speaks separately with the rescue boat’s captain, who says he had just talked with the original caller’s grandfather, who he believes owns the boat, and that the grandfather told the rescue captain that they didn’t need emergency help after all.
“I’m guessing that they may have figured it out,” the captain says.
The dispatcher relays that the caller is in “a panic” with his group and “really upset.”
“I get it, he’s a kid, he just doesn’t understand,” the dispatcher says.
The captain asks to be transferred to speak with the original caller and says he will also update the caller’s grandfather.
Though the details of the call match the timeline of what some of Wells’ friends have said previously about leaving the island, the raw audio fueled further scrutiny of the case online — including viral claims that the recording picked up background discussion about Wells himself.
Some observers have claimed they can hear someone saying Wells’ name as well as “oh my God” and similar statements early in the audio.
Talking about Wells would seem at odds with an account from a friend in that group, Warren Hudson, that he last saw Wells about an hour earlier that afternoon, though the full context of what the group was discussing in their boat emergency isn’t clear.
In an interview last week with conservative commentator Brandon Tatum, Hudson said Wells was among roughly two dozen friends who went to Horn Island that morning on three boats.
Hudson, whom PEOPLE has not been able to reach for comment, said Wells “was drinking” that day at the island party but “seemed completely” fine the “couple of times” he spoke to him.
Hudson also said a member of the group tried to persuade Wells to leave with them but Wells chose to stay behind with a girl he had met on the island.
Wells’ parents, Christine and Elmore Wonsley, publicly questioned that account as very unusual — in part because Wells did not have his phone on him. (Hudson and another friend from the island, Tracestin Shepherd, said Wells and others left their phones on the boat to avoid the ocean.)
Last week, the family’s attorney, Ben Crump, released the preliminary findings of an independent autopsy commissioned by Wells’ family. Crump said the autopsy found Wells’ cause and manner of death to be “undetermined” pending further investigation.
He said the report could not rule out foul play but found no fractures or deep tissue injuries on the Wells’ body.
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The report also described a “red discoloration” in the back of Wells’ skull as “inconclusive” and said it warranted further investigation. The results of the official autopsy have not been released.
Crump’s legal team is conducting its own probe of Wells’ death.
Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter has said Wells’ friends are cooperating with the investigation, which remains ongoing.
District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath said in her own statement: “Our responsibility to Nolan and our community is to complete this investigation thoroughly, carefully, without compromise, supported by the evidence and worthy of the confidence of the people we serve.”
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