As the investigation drags on, and internet sleuthing fills the void, justice requires getting to the truth and nothing but.
By
Cristian Farias,
a legal writer focused on courts, the law, and politics
There is no playbook for how a mother grieving the death of her child, under unknown circumstances, should seek justice. For a Black mother whose 18-year-old son didn’t come home after a Fourth of July boating trip with his white friends, in a state with a history of disregard for Black lives, the search for answers carries added weight. Hardly a week after Christine Wells-Wonsley learned that her son, Nolan Wells, was found dead on Horn Island, on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, she traveled to New York City to speak to anyone who would listen. “This is not how I wanted the world to meet my son, but here we are,” she said during a news conference on July 10, flanked by her husband, Elmore, and a group of civil-rights leaders.
