(Corrects the mother’s last name in paragraph 2 to Wonsley)
By Brad Brooks
July 10 (Reuters) – A mother on Friday pleaded for anyone to come forward with information about what happened to her son, a young Black man whose body was found on an island off the coast of Mississippi after he traveled there over the Fourth of July weekend with three white friends.
“We just want to know what happened and why our baby didn’t come home,” Christine Wonsley, choking back tears, said at a press conference. The death of her son, Nolan Wells, has become a social media flashpoint, fueled by questions about race in America.
The body of Wells, 18, was found on July 6 on the northwestern tip of Horn Island, a long, thin barrier island with a beach along the Gulf of Mexico. He had visited the island and went missing on the Fourth of July holiday with a group of friends he had known from high school in nearby Ocean Springs, Mississippi. A lawyer for his family on Friday sought help in answering questions about issues including why his phone was not found with his body but with one of the friends.
Across social media, users have parsed timelines and circulated videos that authorities say remain unverified. For some Black Americans, the case has sparked painful discussions about navigating predominantly white spaces and racism, while civil rights leaders and others have renewed longstanding concerns about disparities in attention to missing persons cases involving Black victims.
As calls have grown for a thorough and transparent investigation, some people have urged caution against drawing conclusions before authorities release their full findings.
ABC News has reported that investigators said they suspect that Wells drowned, but that nothing had been ruled out. The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, the lead investigative agency, told Reuters on Friday that the investigation was ongoing and active, but provided no other details.
There are many troubling questions about the case, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents the family and is aiding an independent investigation including a private autopsy, said at Friday’s press conference in New York with Rev. Al Sharpton and Wells’ parents.
The main question, according to Crump, is that the group of three friends who traveled with Wells to the island said Wells told them he wanted to stay on the island with a young woman when they left on the afternoon of July 4, but the young woman has said that Wells got on the boat with the boys. Crump also said that videos circulating online allegedly show Wells in a heated argument with his friends. The videos could not immediately be verified by Reuters.
Also raising suspicions, according to Crump, is that Wells’ phone was found not with his body, but in the possession of one of the young men who had accompanied him to Horn Island. Wells’ mother tracked it down using Life360, and she said it appears that several social media messages had been deleted by someone from the phone.
In a July 7 statement, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office asked for the public’s help in providing any eyewitness accounts or video and photo evidence related to anything they might have seen on Horn Island on July 4 involving the Wells case.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado; Additional reporting by Kat Stafford ; editing by Donna Bryson and David Gregorio)
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