By admin 
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump and his legal team pledged Tuesday to continue investigating the death of Nolan Xavier Wells, repeatedly rejecting the findings of a Jackson County grand jury that resulted in no criminal indictments.
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Crump made the statements during a news conference one day after Jackson County District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath released the grand jury report.
Joining Crump for the 90-minute press conference in Georgia were members of his legal team and Wells’ parents, Elmore and Christine Wonsley.
Crump said the family and their attorneys would continue seeking answers about what happened to the 18-year-old student-athlete from Ocean Springs despite the grand jury’s findings.
Wells traveled to Horn Island, a barrier island about 10 miles from the Mississippi Coast, on July 4 to celebrate Independence Day.
His friends returned to the mainland without him, saying he stayed behind to talk to a girl. Two days later, authorities found his body off the northwest tip of the island.
NAACP General Counsel Kristen Clarke joined Crump in calling for the release of the full autopsy report conducted by the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office.
“The NAACP is bringing the full breadth of our resources to the next phase of this fight,” Clarke said.
“We are calling for the Justice Department to do the right thing here and hope in a full and fair investigation into this matter,” she said. Horn Island is a federal barrier reef island, managed by the National Park Service, she said, so a Justice Department investigation is warranted.
Blunt force trauma is key
A Jackson County grand jury found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing in connection with Wells’ death, though the manner and cause of death remain inconclusive and undetermined.
Both the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office and a forensic pathologist who performed an independent autopsy on Wells made the same ruling.
However, neither could rule out drowning as a possible cause of death.
The grand jury said in its report that it “finds that the position of, the condition of, time of discovery, and location of Mr. Wells’ body is consistent with drowning.”
Crump spoke at length Tuesday about blunt force trauma to the back of Wells’ head that was noted by both the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office and an independent pathologist hired by Crump’s team to conduct an independent autopsy.
Crump said the presence of those injuries warrants further investigation despite the grand jury’s findings.
He also questioned whether the investigation into Wells’ death was “exhaustive,” referencing a statement McIlrath made after the grand jury report was released Monday.
“Was it exhaustive, or were they just exhausted?” Crump asked.
‘Nolan deserved to come home,’ mom says
Christine Wonsley said she learned about the grand jury’s ruling in her son’s death from a text message the district attorney sent her at 7:50 p.m. Monday. Shortly afterward, she said, the district attorney released the grand jury findings on social media.
“To me, that action showed a lack of empathy and a need to get this case done and over with,” she said.
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Wonsley said she and her husband, Elmore Wonsley, read the report several times but still don’t know what happened to their son.
“What we have learned is that we still have no answers,” she said.
“There is no explanation as to how the bruising on his body and the blunt force trauma to the back of his head occurred,” she said.
She also questioned how a grand jury could reach a conclusion consistent with a drowning when the autopsies clearly identified trauma to his body and the cause and manner of death remain unknown.
“Elmore and I do not believe that Nolan simply and accidentally drowned,” she said.
“Nolan is loved,” she said. “He is cherished. He is honored, and he did not deserve to have his life taken away so suddenly.”
Fight to continue
Crump said another press conference will be held Thursday in Orlando..
Attorney Eric Hertz said he is leading the independent investigation and will introduce more information about the blunt force trauma and how Wells’ cellphone was handled after it traveled back to the mainland without him.
“So we’re going to start showing some of the facts that we can, the district attorney had her chance to do what she could do, and now us as civil lawyers will have a chance to open this back up and to get to all the facts,” he said, without the secrecy of the grand jury process.
“This is not over,” NAACP General Counsel says
Crump said the phrase “we’ll never know” was something District Attorney McIlrath wants the Wells family to accept after the grand jury ruled.
“We will never stop,” Crump said, adding that his legal team would continue working to find answers “until we get to the truth of what happened to Nolan Wells.”
He defended the Wells’parents against criticism over their continued pursuit of answers and said other parents would similarly demand answers if their child died under circumstances they considered unexplained.
“Whatever you want for your children, we want the same thing for our children,” he said.
Crump pushed back against criticism from McIlrath that he and his team had made the case about race, but argued that the family and their supporters had a right to continue asking questions.
“I don’t know if race was a factor in Nolan’s death. I do know that we can’t accept ‘we’ll never know’ as his epitaph.”
Clarke said the NAACP has long been concerned that “our justice system delivers unfair and uneven results, fails to deliver full investigations for all people, including Black people, and we won’t tolerate the outcome here.”
“Your job is not done,” Clarke said. “This is not over. You have a duty to press forward in pursuit of the truth.”
Sun Herald reporter Mary Perez contributed to this report.
This story was originally published September 22, 2026 at 12:26 PM with the headline “‘We still have no answers.’ Attorneys, family of Nolan Wells decry grand jury report.”
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