Wells’ Autopsy Raises More Questions – Suspicious Deaths Continue

   A second, independent autopsy in the death of Nolan Xavier Wells has failed to determine how the 18-year-old died, civil rights attorney Ben Crump announced Wednesday, July 22nd in Chicago, where the NAACP is holding its national convention this week at McCormick Place. The announcement came two days after hundreds gathered in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, to bury Wells, at a funeral where the Rev. Al Sharpton delivered the eulogy and demanded a full investigation into his death.

   The Crusader has chronicled this pattern of disputed deaths since the hanging death of Demartravion “Trey” Reed at Delta State University last September. Wells’ case is the latest, and Crump used Wednesday’s news conference to link it to two other young Black men who died over the July 4 holiday, each the only Black person in a group of Caucasians at the time.

  Wells, a Southwest Mississippi Community College football player who was an adept swimmer, disappeared July 4 during a boat trip to Horn Island with friends and was found dead in the water two days later. His surname comes from his mother’s side; his maternal grandfather, Christopher   

  Wells Sr., has also spoken publicly about the case. His parents, Christine and Elmore Wonsley, joined Crump and NAACP President Derrick Johnson at Wednesday’s podium.

  Forensic pathologist Dr. Roger A. Mitchell Jr. performed the second exam July 10 and filed his report July 19. The cause and manner of death are listed as undetermined, pending investigation. Mitchell found no fractures or broken bones but flagged an unexplained 12-by-8-inch area of red discoloration in the deep tissue at the back of the skull, over the occipital bone.

  He also noted the throat, including the hyoid bone, had not been sent with the body for the second exam, limiting what he could rule out, including foul play. A similar detail arose last year in Alabama, where the hyoid bone was reportedly missing when Dennoriss Richardson’s body was returned to his family after his hanging death was ruled a suicide. Toxicology results had not been returned as of Wednesday.

  Monday’s funeral drew hundreds to Center Pointe Church, including former NFL player Terrell Owens and filmmaker Spike Lee, while thousands of others watched online. Mourners wore black and blue, Wells’ high school colors, at the family’s request.

  “We thank you, Lord, for the beautiful 18 years that you blessed us with him,” Christine Wells-Wonsley told the crowd. Elmore Wonsley described his son as “Mr. Cool Hands” on the football field and said, “Nolan meant a lot to a lot of people, and today just shows us how much he meant to the community, to the country and to the world.”

  In his eulogy, Sharpton invoked the killings of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers and pressed for answers about why Wells’ phone and keys ended up with his friends and why local officials were so quick to rule out foul play. “Somebody knows something,” he said, announcing a $50,000 reward that actor and filmmaker Tyler Perry, who also paid for the funeral, matched to bring the total to $100,000. Crump closed the service, leading mourners in a chant of “Justice for Nolan Wells.”

  “This is another Emmett Till 2.0,” Priscilla Williams-Till, a cousin of the slain 14-year-old who was lynched in 1955, told the Crusader. “It is the same thing. You have a grieving mother fighting for answers and justice, and a full-blown coverup by law enforcement and government officials and the white community.

  “Until we have significant legal oversight and a groundswell of people and organizations who will get to the bottom of all of these deaths, they will continue to get away with lynching our people,” she said. “When they found Nolan, he was fully clothed, though he was last seen in blue swimming trunks. They sent his body with his throat and organs missing. The sheriff, who isn’t a detective or investigator, went to the scene and immediately said there was no foul play before an autopsy was done.

  During the NAACP appearance, Wonsley told reporters her only contact with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office came a day or two after her son’s body was found, when she texted the department asking for updates and was told investigators were “still interviewing.” Her frustration, she said, began within an hour of that recovery, when the sheriff’s office publicly ruled out foul play. “I sat there and asked them, please take this case as if this is your child, your family member, and they promised that they would,” she said. “But when you make statements like that straight out the gate, that’s an issue.”

  Two other cases came up at Wednesday’s news conference. Daniel Erving, 18, drowned in April during a fishing trip on Lake Ray Hubbard near Dallas, where he was the only Black person among the group, according to Crump. His two white companions discarded his cellphone and clothing and deleted their text messages with him, Crump said, and both have been charged only with tampering with evidence. “If they will lie about his cellphone and his clothes and deleted messages, then they will lie about what really happened to Daniel Erving,” Crump said.

  Tyler Smith, 18, was the only Black person at a July 4 house party in Lexington, Kentucky, when he was shot in the head, Crump said. Police told the family the shooting happened while the group was playing Russian roulette and that officers saw no need for gunshot residue testing on Smith or anyone else in the house, according to Crump. Lexington police have not used the term Russian roulette in their own public statements, saying only that the shooting was reported as accidental and self-inflicted; one man, Bryce Chestnut, 20, has been charged with tampering with evidence. Crump argued that all three cases would have drawn a very different response had the roles been reversed. “We just want equal justice,” he said.

  Dr. Mitchell declined to discuss the three open cases when reached separately by the Crusader. “I cannot comment on open cases,” he said. He has previously spoken with the Crusader about the disjointed system that investigates deaths like these. “The system is comprised of two major subsystems, a coroner system and a medical examiner system,” said Mitchell, the 126th president of the National Medical Association and a tenured professor at Howard University. “The report gave definition on where that system does not have parity… it does not have federal oversight.” Vague rulings, he has said, obscure racial disparities in how deaths are investigated. “It definitely perpetuates disparity,” he told the Crusader.

  Wells’ death fits a pattern the Crusader has documented for nearly a year: Reed, found hanging on the Delta State campus 35 miles from where Emmett Till was lynched in 1955; six African Americans, including Jade “Sage” McKissic, pulled from Houston bayous that same week; Torrance Medley, found hanging at a Wisconsin golf course in November; Kyle Bassinga, found hanging in a Georgia park in February; an unidentified man found hanging blocks from a D.C. police station in April; Juliana Nzita, 16, found hanging on church grounds in Charlotte in May; and Tonea Miller, found hanging near a Miami-Dade park in June. Each death was ruled a suicide or accident within days. Every family disputed the finding.

  On December 8th of last year, Russell Houston was found burning in South Jackson. Mississippi, and no one was questioned or arrested in the death. Less than three months later, another Black man was found in a similar state. Activists also noted the suspicious 2022 death of 28-year-old Rasheen Carter, who was found in Taylorsville, MS, without his head and chopped into pieces after phoning his mother in a panic and saying he was being chased by three truckloads of white men. No charges or arrests were made in the case.

  In June of this year, 1-year-old Kohen Kartier Wiley was shot and killed by a newly hired Senatobia, MS police sergeant while in his mother’s arms in a Walmart parking lot. The incident, which sparked multiple demonstrations and police deployment of tear gas, remains under investigation. “Police shootings are part of this country’s lynching history,” said Marquell Bridges, who is leading several demonstrations. “It isn’t just in Mississippi; it’s happening everywhere.”

  The proliferation of suspicious deaths across the country have barely raised an eyebrow in the nation’s capital, where thousands of masked, Caucasian men; marched on this year’s Independence Day. The oft-described white nationalists and neo-fascists wore blue dress shirts and khaki pants, which some claimed is the modern version of the Klan’s white robes and hoods.

  Despite what some activists and Crump say is a pattern of racial hostility and violence against African Americans, the federal government has yet to lift its voice.

  Congress did not make lynching a federal hate crime until March 29, 2022, when President Joe Biden signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, introduced by Illinois Rep. Bobby Rush. It passed the House 422 to 3 and the Senate by unanimous consent, more than a century after the first federal antilynching bill was blocked. None of the deaths the Crusader has tracked have been prosecuted under it.

  The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to Wednesday’s findings. Crump said he hopes Mitchell will be allowed to testify before a Mississippi grand jury alongside the results of the state’s own autopsy, which have not been made public. “We still have more questions than we have answers at this time,” he said Wednesday morning.

  Williams-Till, who recently ran for a U.S. Senate seat, put it another way: “Here we are 72 years later after the murder of Emmett, and it is the exact same thing,” she said. “Mississippi is leading in these murders, but they are happening all around the country. People need to open their eyes. Until we deal with this white supremacy system with the full weight of the law and the full weight of our power, these lynchings and cover-ups will continue.”