MINI TRUE CRIME ROUNDUP: What happened to Nolan Wells? Plus, criminal sentences and crime rates

**Lauren Barry** (0:02)
This is a True Crime Roundup from The On Deadline Podcast. We explore crime stories reported on by Audacy's radio newsrooms across the country. I'm your host, Lauren Barry. This week, we're going to look into the case of Nolan Wells, an 18-year-old black college athlete whose body was recovered from the waters near Horn Island days after he vanished on July 4th. Was his death an accident? A racially motivated crime? There are several theories out there, and Scoot out of Audacy station WWL in New Orleans covered them extensively this week. We'll also hear about yet another deadly incident involving ICE agents, this time in Houston, Texas.
To end the show, we'll hear discussions of laws that impact violent criminals and national crime statistics. Now onto the big mystery of our show this week. What exactly happened to Nolan Wells, the 18-year-old young man who was found dead in the waters around Horn Island, Mississippi after July 4th celebrations?
Scoot from Audacy station WWL has been following the story. He'll fill us in on the details.

**Scoot** (1:22)
So, we've been talking about the case of the 18-year-old who died on Horn Island. So, I'm getting some really interesting, interesting text. And I don't know really what happened. All I know is what I'm hearing in the news. I'm trying to put it together and share it with you so it makes sense. But I love the information that I'm getting. And so, there is one train of thought that there was some kind of problem. And he ended up dead. And then they brought his body back to Horn Island. The thing that doesn't make sense about that is the idea that he wanted to be on Horn Island to maybe kind of hang out with this girl and talk to this girl. And you know, if you're a guy and you're straight, friends with your guy friends, that's one thing. But if you get a chance to to to knack on a girl, if you get a chance to, you know, flirt with a girl because you got kind of got a crush on her, that supersedes your male friends. Hey, you guys can go. I'll get a ride back with her. I'm going to hang out with her. But that doesn't explain what happened and how he ended up dead. And I guess the other thing that I'm concerned about with Nolan Wells is he died July 4th. His body wasn't found until July 6th.
It seems like he was always in somebody's company. It doesn't seem like he was ever alone.
So somebody had to see what happened.
And if the person who saw something happen was involved in any way, they're not going to come forward. But doesn't it sound like he was never really alone?
But yet it seemed like he ended up alone and dead in the water. But they have not said yet that he died from drowning. So as far as I know, we don't yet know how he drowned, or I mean, how he died, whether it was drowning or something else. I don't think we know that yet. But I mean, it only takes so long to do the autopsy and to send the evidence off and then to get it back. It only takes so long. So we should know something soon about the cause of death. I mean, that would be an obvious thing. An autopsy has been done. What's the cause of death? That's what we need to know. That's going to tell us a hell of a lot. If he drowned, okay, how did he drown? And who was there when he drowned? Or did he just go off on his own? And why was he off on his own if he did not have a way back to the mainland from the island? I mean, if you didn't have a boat ride back to the coast from the island, you wouldn't want to be alone.
So it seems like he had to always be with somebody.
Or was he killed in some other way? Or did he die in some freak accident and ended up in the war? Again, these are just questions we don't know. But it should not take long to get the autopsy results back. And then we'll know a lot how he died.

**Lauren Barry** (4:49)
One caller dialed in to Scoot's show to explain why some people are concerned that Wells may have been the victim of a racially motivated crime, and why some people are frustrated at the way his case has been represented.

**Geraldine** (5:03)
I fully believe that if the situation were to be reversed, those boys would have been arrested immediately, and no bond and no high-price lawyer would have saved them.