An Illinois man is facing federal charges in Mississippi after authorities say he threatened a witness connected to the high-profile death investigation of teenager Nolan Wells.
Edward James Porter, 40, was arrested in July after allegedly sending death threats to Bart Edmiston Jr., a friend of 18-year-old Wells who had been with the young football player on the day he disappeared and later drowned.
Wells’s body was discovered floating in the water after he and friends took a Fourth of July boating trip off the Mississippi Gulf Coast near Horn Island. Investigators ruled out foul play in his death, but the circumstances surrounding his disappearance drew widespread attention and scrutiny.
According to attorney Russell Latino, both Edmiston Jr. and his father were allegedly targeted by Porter’s threats.
Court records show Porter has been formally indicted on a charge of transmitting a threatening message in interstate commerce.
The indictment alleges Porter told Edmiston Jr. that he intended to “come kill” him and his family.
Prosecutors also claim Porter sent Edmiston Jr. a text message containing the teen’s home address and said he was outside the residence.
Latino wrote on Facebook that Porter had also allegedly threatened to kill Edmiston Sr., dismember him and place his body in a suitcase.
Nolan Wells’s body was found after the 18-year-old football player and his friends were on a boating trip off of the Mississippi Gulf Coast near Horn Island for the Fourth of July
Edward James Porter, 40, was arrested in July after allegedly sending death threats to Wells’ friend who was with him the day he died
Porter allegedly told Bart Edmiston Jr (pictured) that he planned to ‘come kill’ him and his family
Edmiston Jr had been on the boat with Wells when it began to take on water, according to Latino’s post.
It comes after Joseph Alfredo Vasquez Dumarce was hit with charges after allegedly threatening the mother of another of Wells’s friends who had been on the trip with the teen.
Dumarce allegedly wrote to Warren Hudson’s mother, Judge Ashlee Cole, on Facebook saying: ‘There will be a package coming to your guys office in the next few days. It’s gonna blow you away when you see it. LoL. Probably best to have the boys there to see as well.’
Meanwhile, Ohio woman Michelle Francine Edwards was also hit with the same charge after allegedly making over 20 phone calls to the George County chancery clerk in Mississippi to say ‘the clock is ticking’ and ‘die,’ according to a federal complaint obtained by People.
Wells’s parents have also been targeted online, with the family’s lawyer telling NewsNation of threats being sent to the teen’s mother, Christine Wonsley.
‘Sick people have been going on [Christine] company’s website giving her negative reviews,’ the hired high-powered civil rights attorney Ben Crump said.
‘They are just sick, evil people who would attack this mother and this father for simply saying, “We want to know what happened to our child.” Don’t worry, Christine, we are standing with you.’
Wells’s death garnered national attention, with his heartbroken family calling for an investigation into the tragedy despite law enforcement’s determination that his death involved no foul play
The teen’s mother became more suspicious after getting her son’s phone back, where she checked Snapchat and saw that her son had not taken any photos of his day out, which she said was unusual for the football player
Wells’s death garnered national attention, with his heartbroken family calling for an investigation into the tragedy despite law enforcement’s determination that his death involved no foul play.
Police said that Wells had drowned, but his family demanded a more thorough investigation citing a lack of trust in Mississippi law enforcement.
Crump said the family had a ‘distrust of law enforcement officials giving them a fair investigation where their black son ended up dead after going out on a boat with three white young men.’
The teen’s mother became more suspicious after getting her son’s phone back, where she checked Snapchat and saw that her son had not taken any photos of his day out, which she said was unusual for the football player.
‘When we opened it up, there was nothing. There were no saved pictures. There were no snaps from that day, and we did open it before the 24-hour expiration,’ she said at a press conference.
‘So we found that very concerning, only because anyone who’s ever been around Nolan will tell you at social gatherings, he’s taking videos, he’s taking pictures, he’s even come up to me when I’m getting ready to go to bed: “Hey, Ma, come on, take a picture of me.”
‘You know, that was Nolan, so that’s why we feel that things may have been deleted, because of the fact that there was nothing in either one of his accounts.’
Crump also pointed out that a girl Wells was allegedly talking to had said he was going back to the boat.
However, his friends said he had decided to stay on the island when they left because their boat was experiencing a mechanical issue, one of the other boy’s mother said.
Wells’s parents have also been targeted online, with the family’s lawyer telling NewsNation of threats being sent to the teen’s mother, Christine Wonsley
A friend of Wells’s, Warren Hudson, addressed the speculation that the group deleted content on Wells’s phone during the trip last month.
‘There was no reason for us to get on Nolan’s phone, no one touched Nolan’s phone. If none of us had touched Nolan’s phone then y’know there’s no reason for anything to be deleted,’ Hudson said in an interview on the YouTube show, The Officer Tatum.
‘No one even was in contact with his phone until it was moved from the boat to the truck, and none of us have access to Nolan’s password to get on his phone and delete anything.’
‘We had no reason to delete anything. There’s nothing to hide here.’
Crump previously said that Wells’s friends had his phone when they left him on the island, which he alleged included a video of the teen and another individual ‘yelling at one another on the boat.’
The attorney also claimed that when the family got Wells’s phone back, messages had been deleted.
However, Hudson disagreed with the sequence of events, recalling in his recent interview that many of the partygoers left their phones on the boat.
Attorney Ben Crump pointed out that the girl Wells was allegedly talking to had said he was going back to the boat, while his friends said he had decided to stay on the island while they left as their boat was experiencing a mechanical issue
A friend of Wells’s, Warren Hudson, said in an interview on the YouTube show, The Officer Tatum Show that there was ‘no reason’ for the teen’s friends to go through Wells’s phone
Hudson said that he then put Wells’s phone in his truck and gave it back to his mother on the night of the Fourth of July.
He doubled down that no one on the trip touched or deleted content on Wells’s phone. Hudson said the only time anyone came in contact with the phone was to bring it from the boat to his truck.
He clarified that the last time he saw Wells was at 3pm on the Fourth of July, but that ‘dozens of boats’ were still anchored at the island when the group left.
Tatum then asked Hudson a series of questions, including whether he ‘killed Nolan,’ to which Hudson replied, ‘absolutely not.’
When asked why he did not attend Wells’ funeral, Hudson said he did not want to take the attention off of Wells because of the speculation surrounding his friend’s death.
‘It breaks my heart that I can’t go. And it hurts me more than anything because, I want to say my last goodbye to one of my best friends,’ Hudson said.
‘But if I’m getting crazy death threats of people saying they’re going to kill me and do crazy things to my family, and I just couldn’t bring myself to go. I gotta put my own safety first, even if that means missing my friend’s funeral,’ he continued.
‘It’s horrible and I wish I could’ve been there, but that’s what’s been going on.’
Judge Ashlee Cole, left, with her son Warren Hudson. Hudson said it was ‘horrible’ that he could not go to Wells’ funeral, but that it was not safe due to death threats he and his family received
Hudson’s mother Chancery Court Judge Ashlee Cole previously spoke out about rumors surrounding Wells’ death, writing on Facebook that her son and his friends departed the island due to a mechanical problem around 4.30pm.
She added that her son last saw Wells at 3pm and she and her husband were not on Horn Island during the holiday weekend.
Cole said she graduated high school with Wells’s mother and had the ‘utmost respect for her and all of the Wells family.’
‘We mourn the loss of Nolan with them,’ she said. ‘Our son, Warren, loved Nolan dearly. My family is hopeful that this information will help to redirect the attention to the Wells family, their grief, and their need for our community’s support.’
Cole added another update on July 9 that her family has received death threats and they would not be speaking to the media, but were open to a conversation with the Wells family or Crump.
Crump shared the findings of Dr Roger Mitchell, the chair of pathology at Howard University College of Medicine, who said ‘interior neck parts’ removed during the initial autopsy had not been given to them for the second procedure.
Examining these body parts is usually only done after someone dies of a broken neck, Mitchell wrote, with Crump saying that meant foul play could not be ruled out.
Mitchell wrote in his report that he could not rule out the possibility that ‘non-accidental factors contributed to or caused the death’ without further investigation.
Our News Outlet reached out to Ben Crump and Russell Latino for comment.
