The family of Nolan Wells will work with a local prosecutor’s office to inspect the contents of his cellphone, a new step in the investigation into his death. The move comes after the family said messages appeared to have been erased from the phone before it was returned.
That decision followed a meeting on Wednesday with District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath, whose office is handling the case. The family has been pressing for answers since Wells went missing during a July Fourth boat trip to an island off the Mississippi coast and was later found dead.
Wells had traveled with friends, but when they left around 3 p.m. he did not return with them. Horn Island, where the trip took place, sits about 7 miles offshore, and conflicting accounts have circulated about whether he meant to stay behind to talk to a girl or head back with the group.
At a news conference on Friday, July 10, 2026, at National Action Network headquarters in New York, Christine and Elmore Wonsley appeared alongside their attorney, Ben Crump, who said McIlrath committed to taking the completed investigation to a grand jury. Crump said the hope is that when the case reaches that stage, all relevant witnesses and evidence will be presented so the public can get a fair and impartial accounting of Nolan Wells’ death.
The family’s agreement to cooperate with prosecutors does not erase the suspicion they have already voiced. They still say the cellphone may hold missing messages that matter, and they still want the investigation to examine every part of how Wells died, including what happened to the data on his phone before it was handed back.
That next step now rests with McIlrath’s office. If the phone inspection adds anything important, it will become part of the material sent to the grand jury; if it does not, the unanswered questions around the erased messages will remain at the center of the Nolan Wells case.
