Grand Jury: No Charges in Nolan Wells Death at Horn Island

PASCAGOULA — The Jackson County Grand Jury has unanimously returned a No True Bill in the death investigation of Nolan Xavier Wells, declining to issue any indictment in connection with his death on or about July 4, 2026, according to a grand jury report filed with the Circuit Clerk of Jackson County.

The grand jury was impaneled April 20, 2026, reconvened September 14, and adjourned September 18. In its report, the grand jury says it conducted a thorough and complete investigation that included 132 subpoenas and testimony from 43 witnesses.

The grand jury found that the position, condition, time of discovery and location of Wells’ body are consistent with drowning. It found no credible evidence of criminal conduct by any of the people who traveled to or from Horn Island on July 4 on the boats Triton, Palm Beach and Tideline, calling the public allegations against them “not based in truth” and “solely the result of public clamor and private malice.”

Among the report’s key findings:

• The Triton suffered a bilge pump and motor malfunction on July 4 and was actively taking on water. It was towed a short distance by the Tideline while a passenger manually held the motor trim button down.
• A thorough search of Horn Island was conducted July 5, before Wells’ body was discovered. The grand jury said it was confident the body would have been found had it been on the island at that time.
• Contrary to public assertions, Wells was not the only African American on Horn Island that day. The grand jury said those false claims led to misidentification, speculation and rumors.
• GPS data and security footage confirmed the accounts of passengers on all three boats. Wells was not in any physical altercation or argument on July 4, and everyone involved cooperated fully, providing GPS devices, surveillance footage, cell phones and statements.
• Wells chose to remain on Horn Island after the boat he arrived on departed, which the grand jury noted is common on holidays and crowded days.
• Sea Tow call recordings circulating online are “not true and accurate,” and widely shared pool party photos were taken July 3 — not July 4 — and have no evidentiary value.
• Wells purchased alcohol with a fake identification card. No one over 21 provided alcohol to him or his friends.

The grand jury also reviewed the Wells family’s independent investigation. The family’s legal team reported it found no witnesses or evidence warranting referral to the district attorney’s office, but turned over forensic examinations of Wells’ cell phone conducted by Garrett Discovery Inc., including a 261-page Snapchat conversation report.

A forensic pathologist retained by the Wells family, Dr. Mitchell, conducted an independent autopsy with full access to the investigative materials. The report says Dr. Mitchell visited Horn Island with law enforcement, met with the state chief medical examiner at the Mississippi Forensics Laboratory, and confirmed that retention of the internal neck structures was appropriate and best practice — dispelling rumors that other organs, including the lungs and stomach, had been retained.

The grand jury found no conflicts of interest in the investigation and expressed confidence in the work of both federal and state law enforcement agencies. It extended its sympathy to Wells’ family, saying the evidence convinced the jurors of his “outstanding character.”

The report notes there is no statute of limitations on homicide in Mississippi, and that if credible evidence emerges suggesting the death was non-accidental, the matter should be presented to the grand jury again.

In a video statement posted to her office’s Facebook page on Sept. 21, District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath responded to the report, saying that in addition to prosecuting the guilty, the grand jury “must also exonerate those who have been falsely accused.” She said a redacted copy of the report is publicly available on her office’s website and Facebook page and at the circuit clerk’s office.

McIlrath directly addressed what she called the false narrative that “three white boys and a black boy went to an island and only three white friends returned,” saying it spread like wildfire but was false. She said Nolan went to Horn Island on July 4 with a large group of friends and connected with even more friends on the island, and that there is “absolutely no evidence” his disappearance and death were racially motivated. She said Nolan chose to stay on the island that day and “there is not a scintilla of evidence to contradict that.”

The DA said that on July 15, 2026, Nolan’s family and the Crump team were shown evidence of Nolan purchasing his own alcohol but chose not to share that fact with the public. She said that on Aug. 13, after the Crump team conducted and released its independent autopsy and after receiving hundreds of tips, it advised her office that it had no evidence of a crime being committed against Nolan Wells. She also rebutted a congresswoman who she said met with the family and the Crump team “just this weekend” and called Nolan “another black boy murdered and no one seems to care,” saying the Crump team knew better.

On the dispute over Nolan’s cell phone, McIlrath said the state had no legal avenue to seize and search the device, which the family received in the early morning hours of July 5 and has controlled ever since. She said she accepted the Crump team’s offer of a mutual examination at the July 15 meeting and remained agreeable to any conditions the family wished to impose — but that on the morning of the agreed extraction date, investigators were told privately retained examiners with Garrett Discovery had begun a private extraction the night before and it was incomplete, so the mutual examination did not occur. She said that on Aug. 28 the Crump team promised the extraction data by FedEx within 48 hours and provided a 14-page preliminary report indicating the phone had not been accessed by anyone other than the family and nothing had been deleted — but that she never received the full extraction data or a complete report as promised. After the grand jury convened, she said, the Crump team provided a 282-page selection of reports from the phone, which the grand jury considered.

McIlrath also detailed the independent autopsy process: Dr. Roger Mitchell accepted her invitation to come to Mississippi, spent Aug. 30 through Sept. 1 in the state with full access to the complete investigative file, was taken to Horn Island to see GPS locations relevant to the case, met with the chief medical examiner, physically examined Nolan’s internal throat structures and requested histological slides that her office shipped overnight. Mitchell subsequently testified before the grand jury.

She called false the claims that her office withheld Nolan’s autopsy and toxicology results from the family — saying she reached out to Nolan’s mother directly and shared the results with one of her Mississippi attorneys — along with the claims that the medical examiner withheld Nolan’s lungs and stomach, that data had been deleted from the phone, and that she refused to cooperate on the phone examination. “All lies, and they knew it,” she said.

McIlrath closed by calling on federal and state legislators to pass constitutionally sound legislation addressing the threats and harassment she said witnesses, public officials and people completely unrelated to the case endured from “an angry mob” driven by false narratives.

The report was accompanied by extensive correspondence between the Wells family’s attorneys and Jackson County District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath that reveals a weeks-long dispute over the forensic examination of Wells’ cell phone.

The family chose independent examiners Andrew Garrett and Christian Garrett of Garrett Discovery to extract data from the phone; the grand jury reviewed their reports, and McIlrath asked the family to turn over the complete raw extraction data within 10 days. Separately, the DA arranged for the FBI to conduct its own examination at the Mississippi Cyber Initiative lab on the MGCCC Harrison County Campus in Gulfport, asking the family to deliver the phone by 9 a.m. on Aug. 14 — later moved to Aug. 19.

Family attorney Ahmad R. Smith, of A.R. Smith Law in Jackson — retained as local counsel working alongside Ben Crump Law — pushed back on the unilateral deadline, saying the July 15 agreement had been for a jointly coordinated examination under a mutually agreed protocol covering scope, chain of custody and data access, not a simple handover. Smith said the family remained willing to make the phone immediately available Aug. 18–21 and that forensic pathologist Dr. Roger Mitchell was available Aug. 19–21 to complete the independent autopsy.

McIlrath wrote that her office had been waiting since the July 15 meeting for the family’s team to follow through on arranging the exam, and that the state had no legal basis to seize the phone — it had to rely on the family’s cooperation.

The letters also show the DA declined to arrange Dr. Mitchell’s visit to the state crime lab through the family’s attorneys after correspondence was released publicly, citing serious threats, intimidation and harassment directed at Dr. Turner and Mississippi Forensics Laboratory staff. She said she would work directly with Dr. Mitchell instead.

According to the correspondence, the family’s legal team said it was receiving 100 tips per day, had retained audio engineers and other experts, and confirmed its independent investigation found no evidence of criminal activity warranting referral. In a July 29 letter, McIlrath said she could not share non-public information during an active grand jury investigation and raised concerns about widespread threats and harassment of witnesses, law enforcement and uninvolved people — much of it tied to unverified information spread publicly, including by the Ben Crump team.