{"id":857225,"date":"2026-09-23T01:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T01:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/857225\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T01:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T01:24:12","slug":"nolan-wells-case-no-criminal-charges-in-death-of-mississippi-teen-grand-jury-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/857225\/","title":{"rendered":"Nolan Wells case: No criminal charges in death of Mississippi teen, grand jury finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

A grand jury will not pursue charges in the death of Nolan Wells<\/a>, the local district attorney said Monday, forcefully rejecting months of speculation that race played a role in the death of the Mississippi teenager this summer.<\/p>\n

District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath made the announcement in a video message<\/a>, saying the grand jury returned a \u201cno true bill,\u201d meaning it did not find sufficient evidence to indict anyone with a crime. A partially redacted copy of the grand jury report<\/a> was also posted to the DA\u2019s Facebook page.<\/p>\n

Wells, 18, was with friends<\/a> celebrating July Fourth and was last seen on Horn Island, a barrier reef off Mississippi accessible only by boat. His body was found at the northwestern tip of the island July 6, his family\u2019s lawyer said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is absolutely no evidence to support the allegations that Nolan\u2019s disappearance and death were racially motivated,\u201d Myers McIlrath said Monday. \u201cNolan\u2019s friends loved Nolan, and Nolan loved them. Nolan chose to stay on the island that day, and there is not a scintilla of evidence to contradict that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family\u2019s lawyer, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, had called into question whether race was a factor in Wells\u2019 death, as it appeared Wells was one of a few Black people there that day.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Myers McIlrath took aim at Crump and his team, saying they also previously informed her office that they\u2019d found no evidence a crime had been committed against Wells.<\/p>\n

\"AA picture of Nolan Wells is displayed during his funeral at Center Pointe Church in Ocean Springs, Miss., on July 20, 2026.Ayrton Breckenridge \/ USA Today via Reuters<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not suggesting that a grieving mother police the rumors surrounding her child\u2019s death,\u201d the DA said. \u201cWhat I am suggesting is that the Crump team knew better but did not do better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crump in a statement Tuesday said that the grand jury\u2019s report leaves \u201cmore questions than answers\u201d and that neither Wells\u2019 family nor its legal team will rest until they \u201cknow what happened to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said Mississippi\u2019s medical examiner found bruising on the back of Wells\u2019 head and that an independent autopsy revealed traces of blood and \u201crecent blunt force injuries\u201d to the back of his head and back.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo this day, not one person has explained how they got there,\u201d Crump said.<\/p>\n

The grand jury report noted bruising to the back of Wells\u2019 head, as well as disagreement between the state\u2019s medical examiner and a forensic pathologist retained by the Wells family regarding \u201cnon-deep tissue\u201d bruising on his buttocks and shoulder. <\/p>\n

The report, however, said the bruising to Wells\u2019 head was \u201cnot a fatal injury,\u201d and added that a witness testified to seeing Wells awkwardly slip off the boat. The witness could not say whether Wells hit his head but testified that he continued to socialize. <\/p>\n

The grand jury issued 132 subpoenas and heard from 43 witnesses, and seven people were invited to testify before the panel, according to the partially redacted report. <\/p>\n

It was made up of 23 grand jurors from a \u201ccross section of citizens\u201d from Jackson County between 27 and 68 of age, it said. Among them were 13 men and 10 women, including \u201c12 Caucasians, five African Americans, one Asian, two Hispanics, two Native Americans and one individual who preferred \u2018other,\u2019\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe grand jury finds no credible evidence to support the public allegations that any persons who rode to or from Horn Island on July 4, 2026 … engaged in any criminal conduct related to \u200bthe death of Mr. Wells,\u201d the report released by McIlrath\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n

Wells was last seen sometime in the afternoon of July 4. Friends told police that they had to leave early because their boat started taking on water<\/a> but that Wells chose to stay and catch a ride back later with others.<\/p>\n

The grand jury report found that it was common for people on Horn Island to \u201csocialize on boats and in the water,\u201d and that it was \u201cnot unusual or suspicious\u201d for people to return from the island on different boats.<\/p>\n

It concluded there was no evidence that Wells had any sort of physical altercation or argument with anyone the day he was last seen. It added \u201cthat the position of, the condition of, time of discovery, and location of Mr. Wells\u2019 body is consistent with drowning.\u201d <\/p>\n

Crump and Wells\u2019 family have previously rejected notions that he drowned, saying he was athletic and a good swimmer. An independent autopsy commissioned by the family\u2019s legal team found that the teenager\u2019s cause and manner of death were \u201cundetermined<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s chief medical examiner and the forensic pathologist retained by Wells\u2019 family both \u201copined that the cause and manner of Mr. Wells\u2019 death is undetermined and that drowning is a diagnosis of exclusion,\u201d according to the grand jury report. It noted, however, that neither has ruled out accidental drowning as a cause. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know how Nolan died, and neither does the State of Mississippi,\u201d Crump said. \u201cMississippi must keep investigating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wells\u2019 funeral<\/a> attracted hundreds of people.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour absence has left an emptiness that can never truly be filled,\u201d his mother, Christine Wells-Wonsley, said at the time. \u201cIn a world that can often feel dark, be like Nolan, be the light that brightens the lives of those around you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A grand jury will not pursue charges in the death of Nolan Wells, the local district attorney said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":857226,"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-857225","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\/857225","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=857225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}