Ben Crump, Rev. Al Sharpton hold press conference with grieving parents of Nolan Xavier Wells: ‘This does not smell right’
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Parents of Nolan Xavier Wells open up about the support they have received since his disappearance on July 4.
During a noon press conference on Friday in Harlem, New York, Ben Crump, joined by Rev. Al Sharpton, stood alongside the grieving parents of Nolan Xavier Wells, an 18-year-old football player at Southwest Mississippi Community College who was found dead after he went missing in the state on July 4th, as the family called for transparency in the investigation into his mysterious death.
Broadcasting live from the National Action Network’s House of Justice, the civil rights attorney, who is representing the family, and the civil rights leader, who has stepped in to help apply pressure, said things in the case, despite preliminary findings from local authorities, are simply not adding up.
“I’m from Brooklyn, so I’m a little different than some of y’all,” Sharpton said at the top of the press conference.
“I was built different. My nose is out here, my eyes are here, my brain is here, which means some things I can smell before I could see and before I can figure out,” he continued. “This does not smell right.”
The case of Wells, who went missing on Independence Day during a boat outing with friends to Horn Island and was later found dead in the water near the island on July 6, has captured national attention. After investigators said they did not suspect foul play and officials said his death was most likely the result of an accidental drowning, the circumstances surrounding his disappearance and death have led to intense speculation. During Friday’s press conference, parents Christine and Elmore Wonsley shared that they have launched a private investigation because they just want answers as more questions about why Wells didn’t make it home continue to mount.
“I would hope that any parent who, God forbid, would be in our situation, I would hope that you would do the same thing,” Christine said.
“I would hope that you would ask for any help, receive any help, to get answers,” she continued. “Because at the end of the day, that’s all we want. We just want to know what happened and why our baby didn’t come home.”
The timeline of Nolan’s movements on July 4, leading up to when his body was found, remains inconsistent. While the three boys—all of whom are white while he is Black—he traveled to the island with said he stayed behind to talk with a girl that afternoon, that same girl said Nolan told her he was leaving with the boys. When the family finally got his phone back from a friend—they tracked it down themselves with the help of a phone monitoring app and a family friend—that same family friend and her sons also noticed something unusual when Nolan’s Snapchat. They said he regularly updated, but he had no activity for the previous 24 hours and a location that didn’t match where the phone was found.
The answers also doesn’t sit well with his parents after an encounter with one of the boys he was last with. The encounter turned tense when Elmore went to his house looking for Wells’ keys. The boy initially said he didn’t know where the keys were, until another peer said she had seen them the day before. After that, the boy found them.
“So that right there, it’s when you lied to me, it killed all trust in anything you had to say,” Elmore said.
Sharpton and Crump also highlighted that while they are not intentionally bringing race into the conversation, when you have the optics this case has given the history of America, race is already present.
As the confusion continues to grow, the family has had Wells’ body sent from Mississippi to Washington, D.C., for an independent autopsy.
“As soon as we get those results, we will make them known to you because we believe transparency is very important. We want to lead by example. We want them to be transparent, and we want to be transparent,” Crump said.
They had hoped to have the results of the independent autopsy by Friday’s press conference, but because of challenges getting the body on a flight to Washington this week, they are still awaiting those results. Once they have them, they will decide their next steps. In the meantime, Crump and his team urged anyone who was on Horn Island on July 4 or who may have heard anything in the days since to contact his office directly.
“If there are any people on that island, any young people who recorded videos, who witnessed things, who may have saw Nolan at any time on the island, please, please, please let us know,” he urged.
In addition to updates on the case and clarifying what is currently known, the family also shared the high-profile support they’ve received, including Tyler Perry paying for the funeral, Spike Lee offering his support, and Colin Kaepernick arranging for the independent autopsy.
They said traveling from Mississippi to New York City for this was important to them because they wanted to make this appeal to the public and ensure the focus remains on getting answers for their son. Speaking about Wells, both parents described his big, kind heart on multiple occasions and said he was someone who often served as a peacemaker and couldn’t stand to see anyone left out.
His mother shared that the last time she and his father saw him before his disappearance was on the evening of July 3. He had cooked them dinner, baking salmon before heading off to begin his Independence Day weekend celebrations.
“He baked it,” she said, before adding with a small smile that she was “so proud, and then after that, he was just like, ‘Hey, mom, I’m about to go. I love you.’ It was hug, kiss, and he left.”