MINI TRUE CRIME ROUNDUP: What happened to Nolan Wells? Here's a new timeline of the events surrounding his mysterious death

**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 have updates into the Nolan Wells death investigation. Wells was an 18-year-old whose body was found after he went missing while partying on Horn Island in Mississippi for July 4th. His death has been met with rumors, conspiracy theories and questions about race.
Scoot from Audacy Station WWL in New Orleans has been following the story, and he put together a timeline this week that we'll share in this episode.
What happened to Nolan Wells? It's a question that people are asking all over the country after the young black athlete was found dead near a Gulf Coast island amid July 4th festivities. By this point, it's been weeks since he's been found, and the case seems as mysterious as ever. Here's Scoot from Audacy Station WWL in New Orleans with an update this week.

**Scoot** (1:17)
So here is some new information on the Nolan Wells case. Nolan Wells was found off the coast of Horn Island. Horn Island has one side in the Mississippi Sound, the other side is the Gulf of Mexico. So Nolan was with friends on July 4th. This was a big blowout on Horn Island. I did not know this, but I've learned this from this story. That Horn Island is, I knew this, it's uninhabited, there's nobody there. But I didn't realize that so many people went to Horn Island, and I guess that's why they go. But Horn Island is apparently usually populated with a lot of boats. Depending on the boat and the water conditions, it's a 20 to 60 minute ride out to Horn Island. Now, Ship Island has a big concession stand. I don't know what they have added. I haven't been there in years, but I used to love taking the excursion boat out to Ship Island. But Horn Island is one of the islands just off the coast of the Gulf Coast, where there's nothing. But people go there to party. They park their boats and they all get together. So this 18-year-old Nolan Wells was part of this last hurrah on July 4th weekend before the students were going to have to start reporting to college soon. So he was with his friends on July 4th, and apparently he wanted to go talk to a girl. And he said, I will find a way home. The three friends that he was with left.
And they went back to the Gulf Coast. So he is on the island and nobody seems to know exactly what happened on July 4th, but he at some point disappeared and his body was found two days later off the coast of Horn Island. So I'm bringing you up to date if you have missed this whole story. One thing that has made me curious is why there's such a delay in releasing autopsy information from the Mississippi State Medical Examiner's Office. Are they protecting somebody? And here's something that complicates matters. Nolan Wells is African American. His three friends were white. You know, when you think about young people today, and I don't know, maybe you have no contact with young people at all, but younger generations just seem to blend together.
Like race doesn't seem to be a big deal to them, like it was to boomers growing up. And I mean, I had an African American friend at East Jefferson. He was one of my one of my close friends there. And I'm sorry that I'm not in contact with him today because we went our separate ways and that was it. But as you know, I love flying solo when I was 16, and I wasn't able to continue for a couple of reasons, but I love flying and I would have loved to have become an airline pilot. And Glenn, my friend at East Jefferson, his goal in life was to become an airline pilot. So we had that in common. He was a good guy. But the Mississippi State Medical Examiner's Office seems to be reluctant to release some official autopsy information. And the information that came out from an independent study from the family was that they don't know how he died.
Now, do the Mississippi examiners know? I don't know. But here's the timeline. This is some new information that we know. This is according to documents that were obtained by ABC News.
Now, Christine, Nolan's mom, reported her son missing at 1222 a.m. on July 5th.
Last time she saw him was July 3rd. So he goes off. So now it's July 5th, and she hasn't heard from her son. At 1222 in the morning on July 5th, she's responding to officers saying that she was responding to the call that she made about her son being missing. And apparently, friends said that they last saw him at 3 p.m. on July 4th. So this is when, at 3 p.m. on July 4th, this is when his friends apparently went back to the Gulf Coast shore and they didn't see him again.