Three of Nolan Wells’ friends say they will return to island where teen went missing on July 4 boat trip

By Jessie Yeung, Sarah Dewberry, CNN

(CNN) — More than a month after the body of Nolan Wells was found along the shoreline of a Mississippi barrier island, three friends believed to have traveled out to Horn Island with Wells will return there in an effort to investigate the case, their attorneys tell CNN.

Warren Hudson, Jax Pitalo, and Morgan Seymour, who are believed to have been with Wells on the Fourth of July, the day he went missing will go to the island to “investigate the layout and dynamic,” their attorneys, Edward Andrew Paltzik and J. Tyler Cox, told CNN. It is unclear how the group intends to handle its unofficial investigation on the island.

It’s also unclear if Hudson, Pitalo and Seymour were with Wells that day, or if they have been interviewed by police, but in July Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter, told the Sun Herald that three friends who traveled with Wells on the boat to Horn Island had been interviewed in depth.

“We are proud to stand with and fight for three completely innocent young men,” the attorneys said in a joint statement.

“We…will be focused solely on the truth, which is that these innocent young men had nothing whatsoever to do with the tragic death of Nolan Wells.”

CNN has reached out to the sheriff’s department for reaction to the trip to the island by the three men. No one has been arrested or charged in the case.

The Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office is conducting the official autopsy and have been awaiting toxicology tests to come back, Jackson County Coroner Bruce Lynd said. Those results can take weeks.

There were no immediate, obvious signs of foul play or trauma on Wells’ body, Lynd told CNN in July. But due to the uncertain circumstances, “we asked for an autopsy (at) the state medical examiner’s office so that they could do the full autopsy and be able to tell if there was any foul play or trauma,” he said.

For weeks, investigators have been searching for answers after Wells disappeared during the trip with his high school friends to the popular barrier island, which according to the National Park Service, has no shelter, no facilities and no communications.

The barrier islands have a history of powerful currents and drowning deaths – but the Wells’ family lawyer, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, voiced skepticism on the notion that the teenager may have drowned. Wells was a strong athlete and knew how to swim, he said.

Neither Crump nor Wells’ family have responded to CNN’s request for comment regarding the return to the island by the three men.

Photos from the excursion show Wells hanging out with what seem to be all-White friends, leading some to evoke harsh feelings about Mississippi’s fraught racial history and speculate about whether race played a role in his death.

Several of the friends who traveled with Wells told deputies, “When they left, he was in the company of an unknown female and that he chose to remain on the island,” a state Department of Marine Resources report shows.

Jayvon Williams, one of Wells’ friends who had seen him on the island on July 4, said that account doesn’t square with the person he knew. “I’ve never known Nolan to stay back while his friends leave,” he told CNN weeks after Wells’ death. “He’s always been a guy where if he rode with you, he’s going to come back with you. That’s always how he’s been every single time.”

After his friends returned to the mainland, Wells’ body was found two days later in the water near Horn Island.

The authorities have been criticized after Sheriff Lohn Ledbetter initially said they did not suspect foul play.

But the district attorney has said Wells’ case is a priority, telling local media she will forward any law enforcement findings to a grand jury to decide whether any charges are warranted.

The Wells family with their attorney hired and paid for an out-of-state medical examiner to also examine the body.

It found the cause of his death was “undetermined,” pending further investigation. Among the questions raised by forensic pathologist Dr. Roger A. Mitchell Jr.: how Wells entered the water, whether he had any neck injuries or brain bleeding and what was found in his stomach.

In the wake of Wells’ death, his family and some families of those who knew the 18-year-old say they have received threats amid intense public scrutiny. And three people, none of whom appear to know Wells, have been charged with threatening a witness, a judge and local officials connected to the case.

CNN’s Holly Yan contributed to this report.

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