Nolan Wells family to release phone forensic report as grand jury clears friends

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump is set to release a forensic examination of Nolan Wells' cellphone on Thursday, days after a Mississippi grand jury declined to recommend charges in the death of the 18-year-old Black college student.

The family's legal team has pressed for transparency, calling on authorities to make public the grand jury's investigative materials and the official autopsy report. Crump released the final independent autopsy on Tuesday.

The grand jury had access to the cellphone findings when it convened last week, according to its report, but those details have not been disclosed publicly.

Wells' body was recovered two days after he joined a group of mostly white friends on a July 4 boat trip to a barrier island. His parents and their attorneys have questioned the account that he chose to remain behind to talk to a girl, noting that his phone was left on the boat that carried him to the island and that he would not likely have stayed without it. They also raised concerns about possible tampering, pointing to an absence of recordings or messages in the hours before he was last seen on social media apps he used frequently.

The grand jury's written findings sought to address those suspicions, stating that Wells chose to stay behind, that departing on different boats was common on busy days, and that phones were often left on boats and returned later on the mainland. The panel also rejected online interpretations of a call to a sea towing company that suggested an attack could be heard in the background, calling that account "not true and accurate." A lawyer for several of the friends said the report had lifted a weight from his clients.

The report described Wells' death as "consistent with drowning" and said he had not been in a fight or altercation on the island. Both Crump and Wells' parents disputed how the panel could reach that conclusion when the official and independent autopsies said the cause of death could not be determined and noted unexplained blunt force trauma on the back of his head.

A witness told the grand jury he saw Wells slip awkwardly off the side of a boat around 3:30 p.m. on July 4, but that Wells continued to socialize afterward and did not appear injured. The panel said it could not determine whether the fall caused the bruising on his body, though it noted the bruising was not fatal.

At a news conference Tuesday, Wells' mother, Christine Wonsley, Crump and representatives of the NAACP called for an independent investigation by the U.S. Justice Department. The grand jury report noted federal law enforcement had been involved in the investigation, but its role and the extent of its participation remained unclear.

"What we have learned is that we still have no answers," Wonsley said. "And the report reinforced the fact that Nolan was not given a thorough, transparent and honest investigation."