As Nolan Wells’ family prepares to lay the 18-year-old to rest on Monday, they will do so without knowing why his young life was cut so tragically short.
It’s been 16 days since Wells and his friends went on a Fourth of July boat trip to Horn Island — a popular destination for holiday revelers 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 two days later, on July 6, facedown in the water off the shoreline of Horn Island by a National Park Service agent.
While his loved ones mourn, some of Wells’ friends who were on the trip have received death threats. Photos from the excursion show Wells hanging out with what seem to be all-White friends, leading some to evoke harsh feelings about Mississippi’s fraught racial history and speculate about whether race played a role in his death.
Others say the currents near Horn Island can be notoriously rough, with the local coroner saying his office has received numerous drowning victims from Mississippi’s barrier islands in recent years.
