What Nolan Wells’ Second Autopsy Was Supposed To Settle

A second autopsy is supposed to be a backstop. In the Nolan Wells case it has become the whole argument — because the family arranged one, sent their eighteen-year-old’s body to Washington, D.C. for it, and still doesn’t have an answer.

Neither examination has been released. Not the one done by the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office, and not the one the family paid for. Cause and manner of death remain undetermined. Attorney Ben Crump initially suggested the independent findings would land quickly, then said he hoped to share them soon.

Tony Brueski takes the mailbag on the credibility collapse in this case. Investigators signaled early that they believed Nolan drowned and did not suspect foul play — before there was a finished autopsy to point at. The sheriff’s office has since underscored that the work of determining exactly what occurred is ongoing.

Then there’s the device. Crump has said Nolan’s friends carried his phone off Horn Island and that when the family received it, messages had been deleted. Crump’s specialists and county investigators agreed to inspect it jointly.

The questions in this episode go where nobody official will. What if the two examinations disagree. Who wins that fight. Whether a grand jury can indict anyone for a death that has never been formally classified. District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath has said the case goes to a grand jury once the investigation is complete.

And the harder question under that: whether anything that happened on that island is chargeable at all, or whether the worst outcome here is a young man dying and the law having nothing to say about it.

The family already answered one question by shipping their son out of state.

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This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

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