Nolan Wells’ parents are speaking out for the first time since their son’s death.
Christine Wonsley and Elmore Wonsley addressed the public four days after the body of the 18-year-old Mississippi teenager was found, sharing their grief and raising questions about the circumstances surrounding his disappearance.
“We always taught him that if you go with a group, you stay with a group,” his father said during a July 10 interview on Good Morning America. “Because I always said, ‘Safety is in numbers.’ So he knew to stay with this group, so why would he split from the group? I don’t know.”
Christine voiced similar concerns while responding to statements from Nolan’s friends, who said they last saw him during a Fourth of July boating trip to Horn Island in Mississippi.
“[The friends] left [Horn Island] and went back without Nolan,” Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter said, according to ABC News. “From what we understand, he chose to stay there.”
Nolan’s family, however, is questioning the suggestion that he would have voluntarily separated from the group. As Christine put it, “I can’t fathom why he would.”
Authorities recovered Nolan’s body on July 6 near the northwest end of Horn Island. Jackson County coroner Bruce Lynd Jr. told CBS News that an autopsy was performed the following day, though the results have not yet been released.
The family has also expressed concern over what was found on Nolan’s cellphone. Christine said a friend located the device by tracking it through Life360, though she did not disclose where the phone was recovered.
Christine claimed the phone’s location history differed from what his friends said Snapchat was telling them on their end. And she said no photos or videos from the trip were found on the social media platform.
“I was just like, ‘That can’t be.’ There was absolutely nothing,” Christine explained. “I’ve seen Nolan whenever he snaps. When he goes and he’s having fun, he does videos. There was absolutely nothing.”
All of these are questions the family is hoping to answer through an independent investigation.
“No young person leaves their cell phone,” civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who joined the Wonsleys in their GMA interview, told host Michael Strahan. “Why didn’t his body wash up with the tide on Sunday? Why would it come on Monday? It’s not adding up.”
This comes after Crump announced that he’s been retained by the family amid the law enforcement investigation.
“His family deserves answers. They deserve the truth,” he wrote on X. “We will not rest until every fact about what happened to Nolan on Horn Island is brought into the light, and we call on investigators to pursue this case with the urgency and transparency this family deserves.”
Meanwhile, Ledbetter previously shared in his ABC News interview that investigators don’t suspect foul play.
“There is no information that we have right now,” the sheriff said, “that would lead us to believe that a crime has occurred.”
