EDITOR’S NOTE: Nolan Wells’ family and their attorney are scheduled to appear on CNN’s “First of All” with Victor Blackwell, which begins at 8 a.m. ET Saturday.
It’s been one week since Nolan Wells and his friends went on a Fourth of July trip to Horn Island – an uninhabited stretch of pristine wilderness off the Mississippi coast with no shelters, no facilities and no communications.
His friends made it back home. Wells, a student and wide receiver at Southwest Mississippi Community College, did not. His body was found by a National Park Service agent face-down in the water off the shoreline Monday morning.
Now, many questions remain unanswered: Why didn’t he return on the boat with his friends? Why didn’t he have his cellphone with him? Was Wells involved in an altercation? Did he break off from his friends to speak with a girl on the island?
While the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department is still investigating, Wells’ death has stoked speculation and distrust in part due to Mississippi’s fraught racial history, the fact that Wells appeared to be the only person of color in an image with friends on the trip, and an earlier comment from the sheriff saying he didn’t suspect foul play – but didn’t explain why.
