“There is a way to strike a balance between ensuring the integrity of an investigation and providing comfort to the public,” says an NAACP official
By Janelle Griffith Published on August 21, 2026 07:43PM EDT
This week, the NAACP joined the legal team representing the family of Nolan Wells, the 18-year-old college athlete whose body was found off the coast of Horn Island, Mississippi, on July 6, two days after he had visited the area with friends to celebrate the Fourth of July.
Wells, who lived in Ocean Springs, traveled by boat to the barrier island on July 4. His friends returned to the mainland without him. Several of those friends have said in interviews with conservative commentator Brandon Tatum that Wells chose to stay behind after meeting a girl on the island. But Wells’ parents, Christine and Elmore Wonsley, publicly questioned those accounts, including why their son would separate from the group he traveled with and remain on the island without his cellphone or keys, which they retrieved after he was reported missing that evening.
Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter said early on that authorities did not suspect foul play and that Wells may have drowned, prompting Wells’ parents and others to accuse local authorities of rushing to judgement without a thorough investigation. Ledbetter also said Wells’ friend had been cooperating with the investigation.
The sheriff’s office, which is leading the investigation alongside the Jackson County district attorney’s office, has released few details since then, but said the investigation remains ongoing.
Kristen Clarke, general counsel of the NAACP, says the civil rights organization wants to help shine a light on the case and bring pressure in the quest to understand what happened to Wells.
“The NAACP has a long history of supporting families of the missing and the murdered, and those who lost their lives under questionable circumstances,” she told PEOPLE in an interview. “Our goal is to provide support to the family and to provide strategic, investigative and legal support to the legal team in” that effort.
“This is a family that is singularly focused on uncovering the truth,” she adds.
More than a month later, what led to his death and much about his final hours remains unknown.
The results of an official autopsy have not been released, while an independent autopsy commissioned by Wells’ family was inconclusive.
Dr. Roger A. Mitchell Jr., the forensic pathologist who conducted the independent autopsy, said that he could not determine Wells’ manner or cause of death without further investigation. Mitchell said some of the bones around Wells’ throat and neck were missing, which he believed the initial pathologist retained for additional evaluation.
Clarke says Mitchell wants to complete the independent autopsy once he has access to the remaining portions of Wells’ body.
Jackson County District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath has said a grand jury will evaluate Wells’ death once the investigation is complete, as is customary in the county when a person dies from unnatural causes, to determine whether there is enough evidence to indict someone for a crime.Indict = တရားဝင် စွဲချက်တင်သည် / ရာဇဝတ်မှုဖြင့် တရားစွဲဆိုရန် စွဲချက်တင်သည်
In the absence of answers, local officials have faced ongoing calls for greater transparency, which McIlrath addressed in a statement this week.
“I do not have the same freedom to share information publicly that private individuals may have,” she said. “For example, I do not have the freedom to release letters I’ve sent in this investigation, discuss witness cooperation, or the testing of evidence. I do not have the freedom to identify what information is verified and what information is false. I do not have the freedom to publicly adopt a narrative and choose one fact over another.”
Clarke, who led the Justice Department’s civil rights division between 2021 and 2025 and handled death cases during that time, says that in cases of intense national interest or high-profile matters, it is not uncommon for law enforcement agencies to try to reassure the public about the thoroughness of an ongoing investigation.
During her tenure, Clarke led the prosecution of six white former Mississippi sheriff’s officers who beat and tortured two Black men in 2023 after a warrantless raid. The former officers were members of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office and called themselves the Goon Squad. The former officers pleaded guilty to state and federal charges and were sentenced to federal and state prison terms ranging from 10 to 40 years.
“There is a way to strike a balance between ensuring the integrity of an investigation and providing comfort to the public to help them understand and have patience as the investigation plays out,” Clarke says. “And in Mississippi, we know that there is a lack of trust in law enforcement, and that looms heavy.”
Wells, who was a rising sophomore and wide receiver at Southwest Mississippi Community College, would have turned 19 this week.
we called for greater transparency
Yes. “We called for greater transparency” is completely correct and natural English.
It means:
1.We publicly asked or demanded that there be more openness and clearer information.
2.“We called for greater transparency from the government about how the decision was made.”
3.“They called for an investigation.” / “The public called for greater accountability.”
4. “Human rights groups called for the immediate release of the detainees.”
Tenure has a few meanings depending on context.
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