ORLANDO, Fla. – Civil rights attorney Ben Crump held a press conference in Orlando Thursday, unveiling new forensic evidence in the death of 18-year-old Nolan Xavier Wells — including cell phone GPS data, recovered Snapchat messages and details from a state medical examiner’s autopsy report.
Wells, a Black college freshman and football scholarship athlete, disappeared during a July 4 boating trip to Horn Island off the Mississippi Gulf Coast. His body was found two days later on the island’s northwestern tip.
A Jackson County grand jury recently declined to charge anyone in his death, finding the evidence consistent with drowning.
Crump’s team worked with Andrew Garrett of Orlando-based Garrett Discovery to extract data from Wells’ phone, producing more than 1 million artifacts of data. Garrett reconstructed a GPS-based timeline tracking the phone’s movements throughout July 4 — from a morning McDonald’s stop to Horn Island and back to a boat ramp that evening.
“We have every moment of Nolan’s phone from morning to night,” Garrett said.
Garrett said Wells’ phone recorded movement back on the mainland after the group left Horn Island — despite friends saying Wells chose to stay behind. He added that some of that phone activity occurred after Wells died, but before his parents retrieved the device.
The team also manually recovered 282 pages of deleted Snapchat messages from Wells’ friend groups and provided them to the Jackson County district attorney. Garrett confirmed data was deleted from the phone after Wells last had it in his possession.
“In order for that to be done, somebody had to take a user action to delete data,” Garrett said.
The state medical examiner’s autopsy found two roughly two-inch contusions on the back of Wells’ skull — and no water in his lungs, airways or stomach. Both the state medical examiner and independent forensic pathologist Dr. Roger Mitchell listed the cause of death as undetermined.
“We don’t know what happened to Nolan Wells,” Crump said. “If you know anything, come forward.”
Crump mentioned a news conference tentatively scheduled for next Thursday in Atlanta where Mitchell would present and explain both autopsy reports in detail.
Grand jury declines to charge anyone in teen’s death
On September 21, 2026, A Mississippi district attorney announced a grand jury convened to determine if someone should be charged in the case, found no evidence of criminal misconduct.
The grand jury report noted that examinations of Nolan Wells’ body by the Mississippi medical examiner’s office and an independent forensic pathologist hired by Wells’ family found the cause and manner of death to be undetermined.
“If credible evidence comes to light in the future that suggests Mr. Wells’ death was non-accidental, this matter should be represented to the Jackson County Grand Jury for further consideration,” the grand jury’s report said.
