(CNN) — At first, the mysterious death of a beloved 18-year-old unified a small Mississippi community in grief and uncertainty.
One month later, a dearth of answers about what happened have led strangers nationwide to fill the void with speculation, vitriol and even threats.
Some of the conjecture stemmed from photos of the Black teen, Nolan Wells, surrounded by White friends while on a Fourth of July trip to Horn Island, a popular holiday destination off the Mississippi coast.
Wells’ friends rode out to the island on multiple boats. One of the friends was another Black teen who said he was supposed to be on the same boat as Wells before it filled up. But Wells was the only one who did not make it back. And some of Wells’ friends who were on the trip have differing thoughts on whether the teen decided to stay behind to talk to a girl on the island.
Suspicions about the case developed against the backdrop of Mississippi’s fraught history of racial violence, leading some to speculate whether race played a role in Wells’ death. And the family’s attorney has said Wells’ parents don’t fully trust law enforcement.
“The family has distrust of the Mississippi law enforcement officials giving them a fair investigation where their Black son ended up dead after going out on a boat with three young White men,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family, said at a news conference in July.
Now, Wells’ family members and friends have received both animosity and support, with many strangers taking sides and leaving a mark beyond online commentary.
Death threats from across the US
Some of Wells’ friends who were with him that day and local officials have said they received threats against their lives.
Some of the alleged threats were deemed serious enough that three people were charged with crimes, The Associated Press reported. The suspects — from Illinois, Ohio and California — do not appear to have any connection to the families in Mississippi.
Meanwhile, Wells’ father said his grieving family has received online attacks — including a sudden barrage of negative reviews against his wife, a nurse practitioner, and vitriol from strangers.
“The disrespect that’s been coming toward my wife and my family — for any parent, no matter what race you are, they need time to grieve,” Elmore Wonsley said at a news conference last month. “A parent can’t grieve when you have people attacking them, attacking their jobs, attacking their character.”
A deluge of donations
As the animosity intensified, so did the outpouring of support from strangers toward Wells’ family and friends.
A GoFundMe page that aimed to help Wells’ family with various expenses has garnered more than $830,000 in donations.
In addition to honoring Wells, the funds will be used “to investigate what happened to Nolan and how he died, to pursue legal and just consequences for Nolan’s death, and to fight for transparency and justice in our pursuit of the truth,” his mother, Christine Wonsley, wrote.
“Any remaining funds will help us cover expenses while we take time away from work to grieve and navigate this painful loss, as well as treat and manage the mental and emotional anguish associated with Nolan’s disappearance, his death, and all the unanswered questions surrounding his death.”
And a GiveSendGo fundraiser has yielded more than $162,000 in donations to support Wells’ friends who “have been inundated with death threats, threats of violence, and defamation,” the organizer wrote.
Benjamin Hudson, the father of one of Wells’ friends who was on the Horn Island trip, said he organized the fundraiser to help Wells’ friends pay for legal expenses in potential wrongful death claims and to pursue legal action over alleged slander and libel.
Most of Wells’ friends from the trip “could not even attend their own best friend’s funeral. Why? Because race baiters sent a deranged army after them online in the name of ‘justice,’” Hudson wrote.
Wells’ friends have cooperated with authorities since the beginning of the investigation, Hudson said, and “provided an overwhelming number of witnesses accounting for their whereabouts.”
“This is not about silencing legitimate discussion or respectful disagreement. People are free to ask questions and express opinions,” he wrote. “This is about drawing a line against defamation, targeted harassment, threats of violence, doxxing, intimidation, and coordinated campaigns that destroy lives before the facts are known.”
Why we still don’t have answers
When Christine and Elmore Wonsley buried their son last month, they did so without knowing why his life was cut so tragically short.
“We just want answers,” Wells’ mother said. “That’s all we’ve ever wanted.”
The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office has not publicly commented on their investigation for weeks, deferring questions to the district attorney — who acknowledged the public’s frustration.
“As divided as the discussion surrounding Nolan’s death has become, I know we all want the same thing: to understand what happened to Nolan,” Jackson County District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath said in a video posted on July 23.
The DA said authorities are “taking the time required” to complete the investigation, and she’ll forward the results to a grand jury to decide whether any crime may have been committed and if any charges should be filed.
“Every piece of evidence must be examined. Every credible lead must be followed to its conclusion. Every witness interview must be analyzed in the context of all other evidence. The pressure for answers does not change what the work requires,” she said.
“Our restraint in communicating facts and evidence is not an effort to keep the truth from the public; it is an effort to protect the integrity of this investigation and the grand jury proceeding,” she added.
Neither Wells’ official state autopsy nor the autopsy requested by his family has provided clear answers about the teen’s death.
A preliminary report of the autopsy requested by Wells’ family was released last month and said the cause of death was “undetermined” pending further investigation.
Jackson County Coroner Bruce Lynd, whose office received Wells’ body the day it was found, said there were no immediate, obvious signs of foul play or trauma on Wells’ body. But given the uncertain circumstances, “we asked for an autopsy (at) the state medical examiner’s office so that they could do the full autopsy and be able to tell if there was any foul play or trauma,” he said.
The state autopsy has been completed, and it’s not clear whether the results of toxicology tests — which are standard in death investigations and can take weeks — are also completed. The findings have not been made public.
In the absence of answers, speculation abounds
Wells’ family and their attorney have raised questions about why Wells’ cellphone made it back to the mainland with his friends, but Wells did not.
“What teenager would leave their phone behind if they’re going to stay on this island?” Crump said. “It’s not adding up.” Investigators have not publicly said how or why Wells’ cellphone left Horn Island while Wells did not.
Crump has cast doubt on the notion that Wells may have accidentally drowned, saying he was a strong athlete who knew how to swim.
But the currents near Horn Island — which has no shelters or restrooms — can be notoriously rough, with the local coroner saying his office has received numerous drowning victims from the area in recent years.
Another point of debate from Crump was audio from a widely shared cellphone video, in which someone can be heard demanding his cellphone back. At a news conference, the attorney suggested the voice may have been Wells’.
But two of Wells’ friends who were on the trip that day said it was another person’s voice.
“That’s me yelling,” friend Tracestin Shepherd told ABC’s “Good Morning America,” saying he was involved in an altercation and needed to be restrained.
Race and the state’s history of racial tensions have also been repeatedly highlighted by Crump, although the attorney has said he’s not incriminating or exonerating anyone.
“The history of Mississippi is something that they don’t just read about in books, but it’s a lived experience for many Black Americans,” he said.
But the commissioner for Mississippi’s Department of Public Safety, Sean Tindell, who is White, has said Mississippi has changed over the decades.
“The Mississippi I grew up in, I had a lot of Black friends through high school. I went to integrated schools. The days of the past, in the ’40s and ‘50s or ‘60s, are something that most Mississippians my age and younger don’t know anything about, including my children,” Tindell said.
“So we see the world a lot different than those that tainted our history as a state. And I can tell you it’s a much different place than it was back then.”
The-CNN-Wire
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