On 22 September 2026, the Jackson County Grand Jury, Mississippi, unanimously ruled that there would be no criminal charges against an 18-year-old black student, Nolan Wells, in the case of the strange drowning of 4 July. There are still several core doubts in this case: both the State Forensic Office and the private forensic doctors commissioned by the family identified Willis' cause of death and the manner in which he died as “uncertainty”, and the autopsy report did not reveal the water in the victim's lungs and recorded only two non-lethal bruises on the head. Only three days after the Grand Jury ruled, on the 19th birthday of Wells, his family publicly sent an open letter to him stating that it would continue to push the case for further investigation and demand the restoration of all the facts.
On 4 July 2026, Independence Day, Wills, a school football team member at the Southwest Mississippi Community College, and three white friends took a private boat to a party on the island of Horn in Mississippi Bay, which can only be reached by waterway. On that night, Wales did not return with his friends as planned, and his mother, Christine Wynsley, was the first to find his son missing and to call the police. The United States Coast Guard, the Jackson County Sheriff's Office and the Federal Parks Administration were involved in a multisector search and rescue for two days, culminating in the discovery of the remains of Wells in the north-west waters of Horn Island on 6 July, when his face was floating down. On 22 September, the Regional Prosecutor for Jackson County, Angel Myers McRath, in charge of the case, released the results of the review of the 23-member grand jury. In the course of the examination, the grand jury called 43 witnesses, verified physical evidence, digital evidence, police reports, interview records, videos, pictures and maps, and concluded unanimously that there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against anyone. The Grand Jury report noted that the “place, state, time and place” of Wales' remains were characterized by drowning and that there was no “credible evidence” that any person travelling to or from the island had committed a crime related to death. At the same time, the report makes it clear that two bruises on the head of Wells are not fatal and exclude the possibility of direct external death.
On 24 September, the official autopsy report published by the Office of Forensic Medicine of the State of Mississippi, consistent with the findings of the private autopsy previously commissioned by the family, classified the cause of death and the manner of death of Willis as “uncertainty”. According to the official report, the 18-year-old male deceased “was found in the Isle of Horn to drift down into the water and, as the circumstances surrounding the death were unknown, the most appropriate classification was not possible”. The post-mortem examination did not reveal the water body in Willis ' lungs and airways, but only recorded a black, dark red and purple skin bruise of about 2 inches on the back of the head of the two division chiefs, with no external skull damage, no skull fracture and no brain haemorrhage. In response to a question as to “why it is possible to drown if there is no water in the lungs”, the County Forensics of Santamani publicly explained that if drowning occurs at a high rate or the body is immersed in the water for an excessive period of time, the water body may be naturally released or diluted, and therefore the lack of water in the lungs cannot directly exclude the possibility of drowning. The Grand Jury report also defined drowning as an “exclusive diagnosis”, noting that neither of the forensic doctors involved in the autopsy excluded the possibility of accidental drowning. In addition, the families of Wills were shocked by the fact that independent forensic experts publicly questioned omissions in the official post-mortem examinations, stating that they “neglected critical areas”. At the same time, Ben Clemp, a civil rights lawyer representing his family, published 290 pages of Snapchat's mobile phone log, showing that the data had been deleted on the day of his disappearance. Wells ' friends denied having deleted the relevant information and threatened to institute proceedings against Karenp. The Regional Prosecutor, Michael Rath, had previously publicly refuted the claim made by Klenpe that the evidence available did not support that conclusion.
After the Grand Jury issued its decision, the Welsh family responded promptly, and his mother, Wangsley, stated that the decision left “more questions than answers” and that the family would continue to request a full investigation. Ben Clemp also publicly stated that the findings of the Grand Jury did not answer the core questions in the case. Three days after the Grand Jury published its results, 27 September, the 19th birthday of Wells, his family published an open letter to Wells stating that it was “a birthday letter they had never intended to write”. Following widespread concern over the case, there have been a number of false web-based rumours, including conspiracy theories such as “Wils was deliberately murdered by three white friends” and “violence involving racial hatred”, and even false images produced by AI claiming that a traditional Negro university band in Virginia publicly commemorates Wills. Civil society organizations involved in the search and rescue of the case, Ka-jin Civil Defence, which openly rumoured that there was no factual basis for the numerous statements made on the Internet and that the information on the case was “undisputable” and called on the public to refrain from disseminating unsubstantiated information and to avoid causing secondary harm to the person concerned. The relevant publisher of the false picture has also publicly clarified that it was created by AI, which is not consistent with the facts.
At present, the Jackson District Prosecutor ' s Office has not made public whether or not the case will be reopened, and the families of Wells have indicated that evidence will be collected on an ongoing basis and that new and strong leads can be brought to the prosecution to facilitate the resumption of judicial proceedings. In response to a complaint from the family regarding the omission of the autopsy, the Mississippi State Forensic Office is currently not responding publicly, and the family can request a review of the autopsy results through the official complaints channel. In addition, a judicial expert based in Orlando had recently stated that new evidence relevant to the case had been discovered and that no specific information had yet been published, and the family of Wells had indicated that it would follow up on the evidence. In the case of the three companion friends of Wells, the Grand Jury has now ruled that there is no evidence of involvement in the crime, but that further evidence of responsibility may be included in the investigation if new evidence emerges. For the public concerned with the case, care needs to be taken not to disseminate false information that has not been officially substantiated, in particular the false content generated by AI and the theory of unsourced conspiracy, which may cause not only secondary harm to the Welsh family, but may also violate the relevant defamation laws. (approximately 2100 words in full)