The teen had gone to Horn Island for a holiday gathering before he disappeared; his body was later found
NEED TO KNOW
- A Mississippi grand jury has decided not to indict in the unusual death of teen Nolan Wells, who vanished during a large Fourth of July party
- The 18-year-old’s death after going to Horn Island had attracted national attention and his parents openly wondered if race was a factor
- The state’s medical examiner and an outside expert hired said they believed “the cause and manner of Mr. Wells’ death is undetermined and that drowning is a diagnosis of exclusion”
No one will be charged in the unusual death of Mississippi teen Nolan Wells, who vanished from a large Fourth of July party and whose body was found two days later, authorities said — a decision that may not quell the scrutiny of the case, given the circumstances.
In a video statement on Monday, Sept. 21, the district attorney said the grand jury had been unanimous in not returning a true bill, or indictment, after considering a wide range of evidence from witnesses and other sources, including elements of the independent investigation launched by Wells’ family.
“The death of Nolan Wells has devastated our community. Outsiders and influencers have attempted to exploit Nolan’s death to divide and create chaos here, but we are better,” said the prosecutor, Angel Myers McIlrath.
Both the state’s medical examiner and an outside expert hired by Wells’ family said they believed “the cause and manner of Mr. Wells’ death is undetermined and that drowning is a diagnosis of exclusion,” according to documents released on Monday by McIlrath.
The grand jury further found that the “position of, condition of, time of discovery, and location” of his body was “consistent with drowning.”
The 18-year-old’s death after going to Horn Island off the coast of Mississippi attracted national attention, and his parents openly wondered if race was a factor, given the state’s fraught history.
“Had the survivors been young Black men and they were with a young White man and he ended up dead, what kind of investigation would that have been?” the family’s attorney, Ben Crump, previously said. (He couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on Monday.)
Some of the friends from that day maintained that Wells had chosen to stay behind on the island and was separated from his group before dying.
His family called that out of character and even suspicious — though the grand jury’s report supported that same conclusion. They also did not find evidence of an altercation or involvement by Wells’ friends with him on the boat, whom the report said had been maliciously attacked.
Credit: Robert Rausch/The New York Times
What the grand jury learned
The grand jury was impaneled on April 20, reconvened on Sept. 14 and adjourned on Friday, Sept. 18.
The 23 grand jurors ranged in age from 27 to 68 and included 13 men and 10 women. Twelve of the jurors were White, five were Black, one was Asian, two were Hispanic, two were Native American and one was “other,” according to information released by the prosecutor.
The grand jury heard from 43 witnesses.
The jurors, through the prosecutor, asked Wells’ family and their team to produce any evidence from their independent investigation, and a representative said that probe didn’t find witnesses or evidence “whom the legal team reasonably believes possess information germane to potential criminal activity that warrants referral” to the district attorney, according to the information released on Monday.
According to the grand jury’s report, they found “that Mr. Wells did not have cocaine in his system at the time of his death and found no evidence to suggest Mr. Wells ever used cocaine” — rebutting a claim that spread online.
Wells had, however, purchased alcohol with a fake ID, per the grand jury’s findings, and no one over the age of 21 provided alcohol to him or his friends on July 4.
At the same time, the grand jury noted that it had considered the toxicology report but said that it was not “particularly informative” or reliable given the decomposition in Wells’ body.
Separately, per the report, there was bruising on the back of Wells’ head but it was not a fatal injury and the grand jury didn’t find evidence of any fatal injury or organic disease to Wells’ body.
The state’s chief medical examiner and the doctor who performed the independent autopsy “disagree[d] about the presence of bruising non-deep tissue” on Wells’ butt and shoulder, according to the grand jury report.
Jurors considered credible evidence concerning the circumstances of how Wells sustained the injury to the back of his head, but the cause of the injury “remains uncertain,” per the documents released on Monday.
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A witness had said they saw Wells slip off the side of a boat at the island around 3:30 p.m. local time on July 4 but could not say whether he struck his head during the fall, and the witness testified that he continued to socialize afterward and did not appear injured.
“While the Grand Jury found found no other evidence to explain the bruising on the back of Mr. Wells’ head, or the suspected bruising on his buttocks and shoulder, the Grand Jury cannot say with absolute certainty that this fall caused this bruising,” according to the report.
The grand jury also considered information from Well’s family’s legal team about the contents of his phone from July 4 — which some of his friends have claimed he chose to leave behind on a boat while at the party — as well as insight from the outside expert who conducted his independent autopsy.
McIlrath, the prosecutor, said that the expert was able to review more of Wells’ body as part of the grand jury proceeding than had been originally provided, such as parts of his neck.
In her video statement on Monday, McIlrath struck a defensive tone against those who worried racism was a factor in Wells’ death.
Wells’ parents have repeatedly said they want transparency and a thorough investigation into how their son ended up dead from a public gathering on a sunny, happy day.
“Nolan’s friends loved Nolan, and Nolan loved them,” McIlrath said in her video statement. “Nolan chose to stay on the island that day and there’s not a scintilla of evidence to contradict 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.”
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