More than a month after the body of Nolan Wells was found along the shoreline of a Mississippi barrier island, three friends believed to have traveled out to Horn Island with Wells plan to return to the island to investigate the case. Warren Hudson, Jax Pitalo, and Morgan Seymour will go to the island to “investigate the layout and dynamic,” their attorneys, Edward Andrew Paltzik and J. Tyler Cox, told CNN.
Investigation and Autopsy
The Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office is conducting the official autopsy and has been awaiting toxicology tests to come back, Jackson County Coroner Bruce Lynd said. Those results can take weeks. There were no immediate, obvious signs of foul play or trauma on Wells’ body, Lynd told CNN in July.
The Wells family, with their attorney, hired and paid for an out-of-state medical examiner to also examine the body. The cause of his death was found to be “undetermined,” pending further investigation. Among the questions raised by forensic pathologist Dr. Roger A. Mitchell Jr.: how Wells entered the water, whether he had any neck injuries or brain bleeding, and what was found in his stomach.
Family and Friends React
Neither Wells’ family lawyer, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, nor Wells’ family have responded to CNN’s request for comment regarding the return to the island by the three men. Photos from the excursion show Wells hanging out with what seem to be all-White friends, leading some to evoke harsh feelings about Mississippi’s fraught racial history and speculate about whether race played a role in his death.
Jayvon Williams, one of Wells’ friends who had seen him on the island on July 4, said that the account of Wells staying back on the island doesn’t square with the person he knew. “I’ve never known Nolan to stay back while his friends leave,” he told CNN weeks after Wells’ death. “He’s always been a guy where if he rode with you, he’s going to come back with you. That’s always how he’s been every single time.”
Original reporting: El Paso News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
