
Does Leaving Nolan Wells Behind Count As A Crime?
Published: July 25, 2026
Duration: 56:57
Nobody has to push someone off a boat for a death to become a crime. Prosecutors may be about to test that with the Nolan Wells case.
Nolan was eighteen, a wide receiver at Southwest Mississippi Community College from Ocean Springs, Mississippi. On the Fourth of July, he and a group of friends took a boat out to Horn Island, an uninhabited barrier island roughly ten miles off the Mississippi coast. He was last seen there around three in the afternoon. His friends left without him. A National Park Service ranger recovered his body two mornings later, off t...