A mysterious July 4 tragedy has shocked Mississippi, USA, as an 18-year-old boy named Nolan Xavier Wells went missing near the state’s Gulf Coast after he went out with his friends to celebrate the weekend at a nearby island. His body was discovered near the same island two days later.
The story has become a central talking point among Mississippi’s Black community due to the victim’s racial identity and the mysterious circumstances of the death which don’t seem to add up.
The July 4 mystery
The incident started with Wells taking a boat trip up to Horn Island for the July 4 weekend with a few of his friends, but failing to return home that day. As per the family’s lawyers, the island is typically uninhabited, only accessible by boat, and hosted around 200 people that particular weekend, Wells supposedly being the only Black visitor among everyone else, The Associated Press reported.
An investigation launched into the circumstances of his death claims that the victim had asked his friends to leave without him, planning to come back to the mainland later, but accidentally drowned instead. These claims have been questioned by the parents who find it hard to believe that a seasoned athlete like Wells could die due to drowning.
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What adds to the mystery is the fact that Wells’s cellphone and keys were reportedly with his friends instead of him. “What teenager would leave their phone behind if they’re going to stay on this island? What teenager wouldn’t take their phone?” the family’s lawyer Ben Crump said. “It’s not adding up at all.”
Furthermore, Crump claimed that a bystander video showed Wells in an argument with someone to get his phone back from them and added another witness report claiming Wells was supposed to come back with his friends, in contrast to Sheriff John Ledbetter’s claims.
The parents were first alerted about the incident when one of Wells’s friends called her just after 11 PM on July 4 after alerting the US Coast Guard. She immediately reported her son missing and met with an officer in a McDonald’s parking lot along with her husband. The process faced issues over legal jurisdiction possibly because Horn Island is a roughly 11-mile long (17.7 kilometer) spit of land near Alabama’s state line.
The victim’s father even went out on a boat near Horn Island the next morning to try and locate his son, but to no immediate avail.
His body was later discovered on Monday, more than a day after he was last seen alive, along the shore of Horn Island, about 7 miles (11.2 kilometers) off the Mississippi coast, reports news agency AP.
“If he’s drowning, nobody sees him drown? Nobody offers assistance? Nobody tries to help? I mean, obviously he stands out,” Crump said. “I think he’s the only Black person I saw when I’m looking at the videos.” So far, a photo posted from the day shows Wells standing with his arms around three male friends.
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Christine Wonsley, the victim’s mother, further added that she suspects some messages are mysteriously missing from her son’s phone, after the device was located via a tracking app installed on her phone.
Despite being an avid photographer, both of Wells’s Snapchat accounts were devoid of any photos or messages. When the father went to collect his sons’ car keys from one of his friend’s place, the vehicle was still parked in the yard.
“We just want to know what happened and why our baby didn’t come home,” Christine Wonsley said tearfully at a news conference held on Friday in New York City.
As per Sheriff Ledbetter, Wells’s friends have hired their own lawyers and have been cooperative with law enforcement so far.
Calls for justice
Elmore and Christine Wonsley, the victim’s parents, have called for a fair investigation into the incident, openly citing their mistrust of law enforcement due to their racial identity and Mississippi’s shaky history when it come to police fairness in racial cases.
Crump revealed that the family has commissioned an independent autopsy, to be performed by a forensic pathologist in Washington, D.C. with no ties to Mississippi law enforcement. The results of the official autopsy too are awaited, though it could take weeks.
“The history of Mississippi is something that they don’t just read about in books,” Crump told reporters at Sharpton’s National Action Network headquarters in Harlem. “It’s a lived experience for many Black Americans that oftentimes when our children are killed in highly questionable situations that there is this notion that ‘Oh, there was nothing wrong, no foul play, let’s just sweep it under the rug.’ Well, we refuse to sweep it under the rug.”
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Experts have also been hired to recover what appear to be deleted messages from the victim’s phone and will eventually turn over the device to official authorities. Echoing a familiar request from Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, the family has requested any witnesses to come forward if they possess any inputs that may benefit the investigation.
The mysterious death has kicked off a storm of Black community rallying in Mississippi as the state grapples with a troubled history when it comes to racial cases in a predominantly white majoritarian space.
Actor and producer Tyler Perry is contributing towards funeral costs, former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick is helping pay for the independent autopsy, and filmmaker Spike Lee showed up to the news conference in a show of support for the aggrieved family.
