NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks to Anita Lee, reporter for the Sun Herald, about the growing national attention in the case Nolan Wells, a teenager found dead off of Mississippi's gulf coast.

Transcript

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

The death of a teenager along the Gulf Coast is capturing national attention. Nolan Wells was 18, would've turned 19 next month. An athlete, wide receiver on his college football team. He disappeared after boating to Horn Island, Mississippi, with friends on the Fourth of July. A park ranger found his body Monday morning. The fact that Nolan was Black is raising questions on social media. So to hear more about what is and isn't known about this case, I want to turn to Anita Lee. She's a reporter with the Sun Herald newspaper based in Biloxi, Mississippi. Hi there. Welcome.

ANITA LEE: Hello, Mary Louise.

KELLY: Hey. So as I said, Nolan Wells went missing over the long holiday weekend. What else are investigators saying about what they know?

LEE: Well, they're not saying a lot because they don't know a lot, other than Nolan went out to Horn Island, which is about 6 miles offshore from Ocean Springs, Jackson County, where he lived, with some friends on a boat. There were hundreds of people on Horn Island that day celebrating the Fourth of July. He was last seen around 3 or 4 p.m. Didn't return on the boat with the group he went out with. And that evening, his mother called to report him missing, and the search began for Nolan.

KELLY: Right. I do want to take a minute to remember him, who he was. You've been talking to people who know him, who grew up with him in Ocean Springs. What are they telling you?

LEE: Well, it's just heartbreaking. They were just describing an exceptional young man. He was a very calm person. And these friends of his, they were a very tight-knit group. They played basketball, football. He was a superior athlete in any sport he tried. And he also was a swimmer. He had even taken lessons with his friends at the Y to be a good swimmer. But this was not the same group he went out to Horn Island with.

KELLY: OK, so we mentioned his death is getting a lot of attention on social media, and I want to dig into that. But first, just the direct question - have investigators said there is any evidence of foul play in this death?

LEE: No.

KELLY: And just to spell out the questions being raised on social media - Wells was Black. He was out with a group of white friends. Those friends all came home safely. How is that playing into all of the interest in this case?

LEE: Well, that all started on Facebook. There's some suspicion that something nefarious happened to Nolan, but again, no evidence of that. We do have drownings off the tip of Horn Island. The currents are very strong in that area. I've been to the islands a lot myself and would never attempt to swim in that area. We did not report the race in this situation because we don't really want to report what goes on on social media. We finally mentioned that when the family hired Ben Crump as their attorney, and Ben Crump sent out a news release about that.

KELLY: And Ben Crump is a prominent civil rights lawyer who now says he is representing Nolan Wells' family. What is he saying? What is the family saying, Anita, about what their concerns are, why they want a lawyer?

LEE: The immediate family is not saying anything. They have not talked to us. Ben Crump says he is going to insist on transparency and being able to gather all the evidence, including autopsy reports. So maybe his involvement would calm some of the concerns about there being a fair investigation.

KELLY: Yeah. I'm looking at a statement from Ben Crump, which reads - His family deserves answers. They deserve the truth. We will not rest until every fact about what happened to Nolan on Horn Island is brought into the light.

We've been speaking with Anita Lee, reporter with the Sun Herald in Biloxi. Thank you very much.

LEE: Thank you, Mary Louise.

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