A former FBI agent says newly surfaced audio tied to the disappearance and death of Nolan Wells does not appear to point to “anything nefarious.”
Wells, 18, vanished on July 4 after joining friends for a boating trip to Horn Island, a barrier island along Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. Search teams spent two days combing the area before a National Park Service ranger discovered his remains on July 6 near the island’s northwestern tip.
Authorities have said the group returned to shore later that day without Wells. Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter previously stated that investigators believe Wells decided to stay behind on the island. His mother was not told he was missing until later that night, when one of his friends contacted her, leading her to alert law enforcement.
INC News obtained audio from a call placed to Sea Tow on the evening of July 4 by a person on the boat. In the recording, the caller reported that the vessel was taking on water as the group prepared to head back to the mainland and said seven people were aboard.
Nolan Xavier Wells disappeared on the Fourth of July during a boating outing with friends, officials said. (Jackson County Sheriff’s Department via Facebook)
“Hey, we’re at the west tip of Horn, and our bilge pump stopped working. We’re sinking. Can y’all please come?” a person is heard telling the Sea Tow dispatcher.
Asked by the dispatcher how much water was entering the boat, the caller responded, “It’s coming up… we’re just sinking. I don’t know. We’re going down though.”
The dispatcher then asked, “And is everyone on board and in good health otherwise?”
“Yeah, everyone is on board,” the individual on the boat responded.
The man heard talking to the Sea Tow dispatcher requested someone to come help un-sink the boat and get it towed back to the Fort Bayou launch in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
Nolan Wells smiles on the field while playing wide receiver for Southwest Mississippi Community College. (Christine Wonsley/Facebook)
The dispatcher then spoke with a captain, who said he was already on the phone with a man who owned the boat, a relative of the teen who called, and said those on the boat were in a “panic” because the boat wouldn’t crank.
“It sounds like a bunch of kids on board on Horn Island,” the dispatcher told the captain. “He’s saying the boat is sinking and he’s on Horn Island. It’s just unfortunate, he’s just a kid. It’s a lot going on.
“He wants you guys to go out there and un-pump the boat and then tow it in,” the dispatcher said.
The captain said the boat’s owner told him the teens didn’t “need any help right now, but if something changes, he’ll call me back.”
Sea Tow didn’t end up towing the boat.
Former FBI agent Jonathan Gilliam told INC News he doesn’t believe the Sea Tow audio points to any signs of foul play, as some people on social media have claimed.
“I don’t hear anything nefarious… it just sounded like there was a lot of stuff going on, that they were taking on water — not panic as much as this young person was trying to resolve a situation in a party atmosphere.”
Gilliam also pointed out that the call itself undercuts the idea of a cover-up.
“By the way, they’re taking on water. They’re going to be calling for assistance, which could lead to authorities. If they had done something, that’d be a very bad time for a person who’d done something nefarious to call out people and for them to get away with something. So I don’t think it added anything to the conspiracies of something having occurred knowingly in a nefarious manner.”
Several of Wells’ friends told authorities he “chose to remain at the island” with an unidentified female rather than return to the mainland with the group he arrived with, according to a Mississippi Department of Marine Resources police report obtained by INC News.
According to the police report, authorities “did not have reason to believe there were any water related exigencies or emergencies and he believed the most likely scenario was Nolan rode in on another vessel but did not have his phone in his possession to make contact with family.”
During a July 22 news conference, attorney Ben Crump revealed that an area of “red discoloration” was found on Wells’ head, but said Dr. Roger Mitchell, who performed an independent autopsy, couldn’t come to a conclusion on a cause or manner of death “pending further investigation.” An official autopsy into Wells’ death hasn’t been completed.
Wells was a wide receiver at Southwest Mississippi Community College and had hopes to play at the Division 1 level, according to Crump, an attorney for his family.
