{"id":778077,"date":"2026-07-22T15:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/778077\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T15:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:25:09","slug":"nolan-wells-preliminary-independent-autopsy-results-released","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/778077\/","title":{"rendered":"Nolan Wells preliminary independent autopsy results released"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmrvzsduj001y27maggkucvvh@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            The cause of death for Nolan Wells, an 18-year-old <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/07\/20\/us\/nolan-wells-death-investigation-2-weeks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">whose body was found<\/a> July 6 along the shoreline of Horn Island off the Mississippi coast, has not been determined, according to preliminary independent autopsy results announced Wednesday.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmrw390yy0000356rtvljufnc@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            An independent investigator ruled the manner of death to be undetermined pending investigation, family attorney Ben Crump said.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmrw390yz0001356rmo1wiqmn@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            The independent autopsy, which was requested by Wells\u2019 family and was privately funded, is separate from the official autopsy performed by the Mississippi State Medical Examiner\u2019s Office on July 7. Results from the state\u2019s autopsy investigation have not been released, pending the outcome of standard toxicology tests.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmrw5cfou000h356rohb1ardz@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            Wells and his friends went on a Fourth of July boat trip to Horn Island \u2014 an uninhabited stretch of federally protected land off the Mississippi coast that authorities said was busy with holiday revelers.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmrw5chcx000j356rxe2xunwp@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            When photos from the trip showed the Black teen surrounded by White friends, his death sparked nationwide attention and speculation that race may have played a role, given Mississippi\u2019s fraught racial history.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmrw5e5or000l356rnjiet6sh@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            This is a developing story and will be updated.\n    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The cause of death for Nolan Wells, an 18-year-old whose body was found July 6 along the shoreline&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":778078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-778077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=778077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}