What Nolan Wells' Most-Watched Video Really Caught

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This is HiddenKillers With Tony Brueski. Here now, Tony Brueski.

**Tony Brueski** (0:07)
So many questions in this case, still not a lot of answers, and at the end of the day, we still don't know. We still don't know a lot in the Nolan Wells situation, case, death, whatever happened. I want you to know that going into this discussion, and I welcome you to participate in this. This is not just me talking at you, this is us having a conversation. So I do welcome you giving your thoughts in the comment section on Substack and YouTube. As we go through this, we will continue our conversation right there. Let's start at the top. There's a video. If you'd follow this case at all, you have probably seen it. A group of young people on a beach, phones up, somebody screaming, the audio blown out, and it's hard to follow. An enormous number of people have watched that clip. Believing they were watching the last recorded moments of Nolan Wells' life. The family's attorney presented it publicly, saying you can hear Nolan asking for his phone back with certainty. The person screaming on that recording says, it isn't Nolan. He says it is him. Tristan Shepherd, 20 years old, a close friend of Nolan's, called Rolling Stone, on July 11th, that the voice in the video is his own. He said the argument was between him and a stranger who inserted himself into a disagreement Shepherd was having with his girlfriend. He said Nolan isn't in the shot at all. He gave investigators his full statement the day before he went public. He also pointed to one physical detail that makes the identification impossible. That detail goes and does more damage than the screaming actually does. And we'll get to that in a moment. And there's one document of the case that Mississippi law says Nolan's family is entitled to have, not the public, the family. That statute complicates everybody's story, including the ones being told by the people who have been loudest about transparency. Everyone in this story says they want the truth. The fight is over what counts as proof that somebody is hiding it. Nolan Wells was 18
OceanSprings, Mississippi. He was a wide receiver at Southwest Mississippi Community College, getting ready to go back for this season. And according to attorney Ben Crump, he would have turned 19 in August. On July 4th of 26, he rode out from a private dock near OceanSprings to Horn Island with friends. Horn Island is a federally protected barrier island, roughly 10 miles offshore. No facilities, no roads. You get there by boat or you don't get there at all. Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter told ABC News the group came back without Nolan. And that from when investigators understood he chose to stay behind. His mother, Christine Wansley, reported him missing around midnight going into July 5th. The United States Park Ranger found his body in the water off the island's northwest tip on the morning of July 6th. Warren Hudson, one of the friends on that trip, described the scene during the July 21st podcast appearance. Thousands of people, boats anchored for miles around the island, the most popular day of the year to be out on the water. Thousands of people on that sand. The boat that brought Nolan out pulled away at 431 in the afternoon taking on water, and he wasn't on it. On July 27th, 2026 TMZ reported that sources with direct knowledge of the investigation say authorities have evidence placing Nolan on the island after the boat left, and per that reporting at least two witnesses interviewed by law enforcement say they saw him there after it headed back. Those sources are anonymous and the Sheriff's Office has not confirmed it. What happened in the hours after 431 is the thing nobody has established. The argument that something is being buried deserves to be built as strong as it can be because it's not a stupid argument and the people making it aren't stupid people. The state autopsy was completed on July 7th according to sources. It hasn't been released. 16 days later, District Attorney Angel Myers confirmed it stays sealed until a grand jury reviews it. The family got their own funded by Colin Kaepernick. Crump announced those results on July 22nd at the NAACP National Convention in Chicago.
Cause and manner of death undetermined. Dr. Roger Mitchell reported no fractures and no deep tissue injuries. He described a red discoloration at the back of the skull as inconclusive and worth further investigation. Mitchell's report says the throat didn't arrive with the body, the trachea, the larynx cartilage, the thyroid horn and hyoid bone. He wrote that retaining anterior neck structures during an initial autopsy is common forensic practice. And it's been reported that pathologists do it when there is concern about the neck. It's not conspiracy that it was held back. It's for further evaluation. Now, look, I know we can go into conversation there. Well, look who's holding it back. Why are they holding it back? Can we trust them to hold it back? Excuse me. Allergy season. And I hear you. And that's why questions need to be asked. And that's why everybody's still talking about this. And holding any power that is in this story accountable. There are gazillions of eyes on this shit. There are. So consider that a boon to the investigation and to accuracy and to truth coming out. This isn't something where it's being shoved up in the rug and nobody's talking about it. There is so much attention here. And trust me, the investigators know it. If something starts to look off or shady, look, even things that are not off and not shady are being questioned is, is this off? Is this shady? When they're not. And that's the important thing with this story and why it is so important not to have a preconceived notion going into it.