A person holds a placard that reads "Justice for Nolan" outside of the National Action Network headquarters in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., July 10, 2026. REUTERS/David 'Dee' Delgado
Based on Capitol Hill, Matt Laslo has been covering campaigns and every aspect of federal policy since 2006. In addition to his reporting for Raw Story, Matt has been a contributor at WIRED, VICE News, VICE News Tonight, The Daily Beast, Rolling Stone, and Playboy. He also contributes reports to NPR and more than 40 of its affiliates and numerous other publications, including The Atlantic and Billboard. He also has the The LCB — or Laslo Congressional Bureau — a Washington-based wire service. Since 2009, he’s sat on the board at the Regional Reporters Association, and in 2011, he graduated cum laude from The Johns Hopkins University MA in Government and Public Policy program. He now teaches there as an adjunct political communications professor, as well as teaching communications and/or journalism at George Washington University, Boston University and the University of Maryland.
WASHINGTON — In the wake of an inconclusive independent autopsy, Mississippi’s only Black U.S. Congressman says the FBI should get involved in the investigation into 18-year-old Nolan Wells’ mysterious death on the Fourth of July.
“Given Mississippi's history, it's very suspicious,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) told Raw Story. “For a young Black boy to, basically, be with all white kids who are friends of his and come up missing and the fact that he was left on an island by the same people who went with him, it's just not adding up.”
Wells went missing July 4 during s boat trip to Mississippi's Horn Island and his body was found two days later, facedown near the shoreline. Wells appeared to be the only Black man in the friend group photographed that day, fueling speculation and racial tension around his death.
A private, independent autopsy found the cause and manner of death "undetermined," with the pathologist unable to rule out injury to the neck as a contributing factor, describing “discoloration in the soft tissue of the back of the head, the occipital region" — leaving the case unresolved as the official state autopsy remains pending.
Like Wells' family, Thompson says he currently has more questions than answers.
“We need to find out exactly what it is. There's some concerns based on the second autopsy that some of the things that have been outlined were not outlined in the first autopsy, which creates additional suspicion,” the dean of the Mississippi delegation and only Black representative of the state said. “I feel sorry for the family.”
Local authorities have treated the death as an accidental drowning, but the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office has yet to release its autopsy as officials await a toxicology report.
“The authorities need to release more information,” Thompson said. “The family is not satisfied, nor has there been any public effort to collect information that I'm aware of.”
“Do you trust local officials in Mississippi?” Raw Story pressed. “Or do we need the feds as a part of this?”
“Well, I would hope that the feds have been called,” Thompson, who chaired the Select Jan. 6 Committee, said. “They should be.”
It’s not just Mississippi’s history that concerns Thompson.
“Sometimes our local authorities don't have the capacity to conduct those kinds of investigations,” Thompson continued.
The FBI’s reportedly assisting with out-of-state threats that have targeted some of Wells’ surviving friends, but they don’t appear to be actively investigating the 18-year-old’s death.
Thompson said that should change.
“I'd recommend it,” he said.
The ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee says the family deserves answers, and, now that the case has garnered national attention, so do concerned African Americans coast to coast.
“They need not just clarity on what happened but, I think, this whole country deserves it,” Thompson told Raw Story. “This was not a traditional young person. This was somebody going to school and just out for a July Fourth celebration and came up dead.”
