The volunteer search group that found Nolan Wells' body says the 18-year-old was wearing only swim trunks, directly contradicting the claim civil rights attorney Ben Crump made at a national press conference.
Todd Terrell, founder and president of the United Cajun Navy, issued a public statement Wednesday making clear that Wells was not "fully clothed" when a Cajun Navy pilot spotted his body face down in the water off Horn Island, Mississippi. The clarification came after Crump told reporters at a press conference that Wells had been recovered fully clothed, a detail that, if true, would raise obvious questions about the official theory that the college football player drowned during a Fourth of July boating trip.
But Terrell says the detail is wrong, and he bears some responsibility for how it spread. The phrase first surfaced on the Nancy Grace Show, when Grace asked Terrell on Monday whether Wells had been found "face down, still fully clothed, on the beach." Terrell agreed on air. He now says he should not have.
Terrell told the New York Post he picked up the phone only three minutes before the Nancy Grace Show went on air. When Grace stated her recollection, that Wells was face down and fully clothed, Terrell simply agreed.
"Yes, that is correct. He was face down."
He went further during the same segment, saying, "When we say he was found fully clothed on the beach, it was in the same vicinity of where he possibly drowned." Only later, speaking to the Sun Herald, did Terrell acknowledge the mistake plainly: "I just agreed with her because the body was clothed. Maybe I should have corrected her."
What the Cajun Navy pilot actually saw from the air, Terrell said, was Wells wearing shorts. "He was clothed, meaning he had his shorts on, from what we could see." Wells had been pictured wearing blue swim trunks earlier on the day he disappeared.
The distinction matters. "Fully clothed" implies a young man found dead in street clothes, an image that does not square with a drowning at a beach. Swim trunks, on the other hand, are exactly what you would expect someone to be wearing if he went into the water on the Fourth of July.
By Wednesday, the inaccurate detail had traveled well beyond cable television. Crump, the civil rights attorney who previously represented the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Michael Brown, as the Washington Examiner noted, told national media at a press conference that Wells' body was found "fully clothed" on Horn Island. Representatives for Crump did not respond immediately to requests for comment on the discrepancy.
At the same press conference, Crump announced preliminary results from an independent autopsy performed by Dr. Roger Mitchell, a pathologist and president of the National Medical Association. That autopsy listed both the cause and manner of Wells' death as undetermined pending further investigation. The date of death was also listed as unknown.
One finding drew particular attention: Wells had a 12-by-8-inch red discoloration on the back of his head. Dr. Mitchell's report noted the discoloration in the soft tissue may indicate head trauma, but decomposition and a lack of associated injuries made the findings inconclusive.
That ambiguity has fueled public speculation. But the clothing claim, presented as established fact at a nationally covered press conference, was not ambiguous. It was wrong, according to the people who actually found the body.
The organization posted its correction on Facebook Wednesday, along with a clip of a follow-up interview with Nancy Grace in which the clothing detail was addressed directly. The United Cajun Navy, a grassroots rescue and disaster relief group formed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, did not hold back.
"Recent media reports have stated that Nolan Wells was found 'fully clothed.' That statement is not consistent with what the United Cajun Navy search team observed. Nolan was found face down wearing only swim trunks. The United Cajun Navy has never stated that Nolan was recovered fully clothed, and it's important that the facts surrounding this case are reported accurately."
The statement closed with a two-sentence declaration: "Facts matter. Families deserve the truth."
The Cajun Navy played a central role in the search for Wells after he failed to return from the boating trip. A Cajun Navy pilot spotted the body from the air. Fox News reported the body matching Wells' description was discovered at approximately 8:45 a.m. Monday in the water off the northwest end of Horn Island. Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter confirmed the recovery, and multiple agencies, including the Sheriff's Department, the Department of Marine Resources, Gulf Islands National Seashore, and the U.S. Coast Guard, had participated in the search.
Nolan Xavier Wells, 18, was a wide receiver at Southwest Mississippi Community College, an elite athlete his family says was able to swim. He traveled by boat to Horn Island on the Fourth of July with a group of friends but did not return with them that afternoon. His body was found two days later.
Sheriff Ledbetter told AP News that Wells' friends were cooperating with the investigation. "From the people we've talked to, it sounds like he chose to stay on the island with the assumption that he was going to ride back to the mainland with someone else," Ledbetter said.
Police, the specific agency was not named in the primary reporting, have stated that nothing yet points to foul play and suspect Wells likely drowned. But the family has pushed back. Breitbart reported that family members say they have seen video of a fight allegedly involving Wells on the island, and they have questioned why an athletic young man who could swim ended up dead in the water.
Crump, whose involvement is being funded by Colin Kaepernick's nonprofit Know Your Rights Camp, has promised a full independent review. His office stated that the legal team "will press for the timely release of all records, witness accounts, and autopsy findings."
"We will not rest until every fact about what happened to Nolan on Horn Island is brought into the light, and we call on investigators to pursue this case with the urgency and transparency this family deserves."
That was Crump's own pledge, as Newsmax reported. Rev. Al Sharpton has also joined the effort.
The Wells family has every right to demand answers. An 18-year-old is dead, the autopsy is inconclusive, and the circumstances remain murky. No reasonable person faults parents for hiring a lawyer and pressing investigators.
But the "fully clothed" claim is a case study in how a single uncorrected detail can reshape a national narrative. Grace introduced the phrase. Terrell, caught off guard, repeated it. Crump amplified it at a press conference covered by outlets across the country. And the people who actually found the body, the volunteer pilots and searchers of the United Cajun Navy, had to issue a public correction to stop the misinformation from hardening into accepted fact.
The Washington Examiner drew a parallel to the 2025 case of Demartravion Reed, a Delta State University student whose death also prompted Crump's involvement and a promised independent autopsy. Public results from that review have yet to materialize.
Wells' mother, Christine Wonsley, offered a statement after her son's body was found. "His father, our family, friends and I are absolutely devastated," she said. "My heart [is] broken for my sweet son who was always willing to cheer and uplift others."
That grief deserves honest facts, not a clothing detail inflated on cable television and repeated unchecked at a press conference. The Cajun Navy volunteers who searched for Nolan Wells understood that. The professionals who broadcast the wrong information to millions should have understood it first.
If facts matter and families deserve the truth, the first obligation is to get the basic details right before turning them into a national cause.
