The Jackson County grand jury that reviewed Nolan Wells’ death did not issue a whisper of a decision. It sat again on September 14, 2026, finished on September 18, and on September 21 District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath released a report in which the panel unanimously returned a no true bill. Twenty-three people, thirteen men and ten women, ages 27 to 68, describing themselves as a cross-section of the county, had issued 132 subpoenas and heard from 43 witnesses, seven of whom testified in person. They had the full Jackson County Sheriff’s Office file, material from other agencies that ᴀssisted, GPS, video, maps, pH๏τographs, and phone reports, including a Snapchat conversation report running well over 260 pages prepared by the family’s own examiner, Garrett Discovery. The finding that traveled farthest was a single sentence: the position, condition, time of discovery, and location of Mr. Wells’ body were consistent with drowning. The panel was equally direct about what it did not find.

No credible evidence that anyone who rode to or from Horn Island that day on the Triton, the Palm Beach, or the Tideline committed a crime connected to his death. No evidence the death was racially motivated. No evidence of a physical altercation. Bruising on the back of his head was documented and was not a fatal injury. No fatal injury and no organic disease were found. He did not have cocaine in his system, and the jury found no evidence he had ever used it, while warning that toxicology on a decomposing body is a poor measure of what was in the blood at death. He had bought alcohol with a fake ID. An adult did not supply it on the island. The report also cut against the version of the day that had dominated social media. Wells was not the only Black person on Horn Island. Pool-party pH๏τographs that circulated as if they were from the night of July 4 were taken on July 3 and earlier in the week and had no bearing on the death. GPS and security video, the jury said, supported the pᴀssengers’ accounts.

Accusations against the boat group were described as the product of public clamor and private malice, and attacks on those people and their families as malicious, false, and without truth in fact or evidence. A detail that received less national attention is in the same report: Wells’ family and legal team had told the district attorney’s office in writing that their independent investigation had found no witnesses and no evidence of criminal activity, and they did not ask that further material in their possession be submitted to the grand jury. Both pathologists, the state chief medical examiner and Dr. Roger Mitchell, hired by the family, told the panel the cause and manner were undetermined and that drowning is a diagnosis of exclusion.

Neither ruled accidental drowning out. Mississippi has no statute of limitations on homicide, and the jury said that if credible evidence of a non-accidental death later appears, the case should come back. McIlrath, in a video statement, said there was absolutely no evidence the disappearance and death were racially motivated, and she rejected the shorthand that three white boys went to an island with a Black boy and only the white friends returned. The friends’ attorney, Edward Andrew Paltzik, told TMZ there had never been any doubt and that they were terrific people. The grand jury offered sympathy and said the evidence had convinced its members of Wells’ outstanding character. A no true bill is not a scientific certificate of drowning. It is a decision that the evidence did not support an indictment.

Source: https://nypost.com/2026/09/24/us-news/last-text-message-nolan-wells-sent-before-being-found-ᴅᴇᴀᴅ-in-water-after-july-4-boating-trip-revealed/