Attorney Ben Crump speaks during a memorial service for Nolan Xavier Wells, an 18-year-old found dead after taking a July 4 boat trip with friends, Monday, July 20, 2026, in Ocean Springs, Miss. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
- The family’s attorney said the parents will provide the Jackson County District Attorney with the phone once “protocol is agreed on.”
Attorneys for the parents of Nolan Wells say the family has not refused to cooperate with the Jackson County District Attorney’s Office despite not turning over the deceased 18-year-old’s cellphone to local law enforcement since his body was found on Horn Island on July 6.
In a letter to DA Angel Myers McIlrath dated August 13 from Ahmad R. Smith, the Mississippi-based attorney working with Ben Crump, Smith said they agree that examination of Wells’ phone was discussed during the July 15 meeting between Wells’ parents, Crump and the DA.
However, the family attorney said they agreed to “a jointly coordinated forensic examination of the phone that would include the use of the Digital Forensics Lab at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College as well as possible FBI involvement.”
“Subsequent correspondence with your office reflected our continued willingness to proceed through
a mutually agreeable procedure,” Smith wrote in the letter posted to Crump’s law firm’s website.
He went on to tell McIlrath that their office contacted the DA on July 25th, “while traveling
abroad,” and indicated that they would reconnect upon their return.
“Accordingly, our prior correspondence with your office should not be understood to suggest that our legal team had been unwilling to facilitate a forensic examination of the phone,” Smith continued. “To date, Nolan’s parents remain willing to facilitate an appropriate forensic examination of Nolan’s phone, including FBI involvement, according to our agreement on July 15th. However, your letter sent to Eric Hertz on August 12th at 12:51pm ET set a deadline for the Wonsleys to deliver the phone to your office by August 14th at 9am.”
Smith said that timeline was “not practicable for a number of reasons,” as it gave the family less than 48 hours notice when they were traveling outside of Mississippi.
Wells’ parents have been in Atlanta attending the National Association of Black Journalists Convention where they spoke on stage with Crump and Al Sharpton.
“Second, the parties never agreed to simply deliver the phone to your office. Instead, the agreement was that we would set a mutually agreeable date and time for the phone to be examined together by your office’s forensic professional(s), our forensic professional(s) and possibly the FBI as well,” Smith wrote. “Third, the parties have not yet agreed upon a forensic protocol addressing, at a minimum, the scope and method of the examination, chain of custody, preservation of the forensic extraction, access to resulting forensic data, treatment of information outside the agreed scope, retention of the extraction, and return of the device.”
Smith then asked the DA to “send us your proposed protocol as soon as possible. As soon as that protocol is agreed on, we will be able to schedule the forensic examination of phone immediately.”
As previously reported, the teen was reported missing July 4 after he did not return from an outing with friends where they were celebrating the holiday on Horn Island off of the Mississippi Coast. The friends have publicly said that Wells chose to stay on the island and not return with them. When Wells did not return later that evening, the friends and Wells’ parents began searching for the teen. Wells’ body was found the morning of July 6 on the shoreline of the island.
Since that time, the Sheriff’s Department has been working with other agencies, including the FBI, to conduct an investigation into Wells’ death. The initial autopsy performed on Wells by the Mississippi State Medical Examiner as well as the toxicology report ordered by that office has been completed, with the results sent to the Jackson County District Attorney. The DA and local law enforcement have asked the public to be patient as they continue to investigate the death.
Rampant social media speculation as to the cause of Wells’ death took hold almost immediately. Accusations of the death being the result of a racially motivated act has stirred despite no evidence to back up such claims to date. Photos of Wells, a black teen, with his friends, who were mostly white, have been spread around by social media influencers and even celebrities making racially charged claims against the white teens, their families, and the Mississippi community at large.
