On 4 July, Nolan Xavier Wells, an 18-year-old from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and a group of friends went on a boat trip to Horn Island, a barrier island about 10 miles off the Mississippi Gulf coast. Wells’s friends all returned back home that evening, but Wells did not, prompting his mother to report him missing and ask for help on social media, triggering a two-day search that caught national attention. That search came to an end on Monday, when a body was found on the island. On Tuesday, Wells’s mother, Christine Wonsley, identified the body as belonging to Wells.“
His father, our family, friends and I are absolutely devastated,” Wonsley wrote in a Facebook post. “My heart is broken for my sweet son who was always willing to cheer and uplift others. Nolan was a special soul, God took his time creating our son.”
No cause of death has been reported and an investigation is ongoing.
Wells, a college freshman at Southwest Mississippi community college, would have turned 19 next month.While the search was still ongoing, Wonsley posted photos of Wells and the rest of the Horn Island group on Facebook. Social media users quickly suggested that Wells’s disappearance was due to a racial incident: per the photos, Wells was Black, and the other three men on the boat were white.
National civil rights organizations have commented on Wells’s death.
“His name was Nolan Xavier Wells. He was 18. He was loved. He deserved more time,” the NAACP wrote on Instagram. “Our hearts are with Nolan’s family, friends, and community as they navigate this devastating loss. Every Black man deserves the chance to grow old.”
“Too many unanswered questions how can a Island that was searched yesterday produce my grandsons body this morning,” Wells Sr. wrote Monday. “There’s nothing right about this, Nolan Xavier Wells deserved the same things that people he knew and associated with will enjoy in life.” [...]
“Where is the video of the big fight that occurred Saturday evening before everyone left the island?” he asked on Facebook.
A viral video circulating online shows a panoramic view of water, but at one point, an argument can be heard in the background. The camera then pans to a group of young men in swimsuits talking on the beach. There is one Black man wearing a blue swimsuit. Many online believe that it is Wells.
However, Atlanta Black Star is unable to confirm the identities of the people in the video and the original source.
One witness, Matthew Lamp, claimed on Facebook he was in one of the boats when he heard the fight.
“One of my passengers is pretty certain he was part of the group that was almost fighting around 5 p.m.,” Lamp wrote on Facebook. He said the boat that Wells’ friends were in left the scene very quickly after the fight.
“The three people on my boat that saw it all say [the fight] was amongst themselves,” Lamp wrote on Facebook.
In the video, you can also hear swearing from the group of young men on the beach.
“One of the boat drivers did mention [Nolan] and his friends was fighting amongst themselves,” Deidra Archangel, another witness, wrote on Facebook.
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