Civil rights attorney Ben Crump has scheduled the release of a forensic examination of Nolan Wells’ cellphone just days after a Mississippi grand jury declined to recommend anyone be charged in the teen’s death.
asserted
anyone → schedule → death
Attorneys representing the 18-year-old Black college student’s family have called for transparency, asking that the grand jury investigative materials and the official autopsy report be publicly released.
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materials → represent → transparency
Crump released the final independent autopsy report Tuesday on behalf of the family and scheduled a livestreamed release of the cellphone report Thursday.
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Crump → release → report
The grand jury had been given access to that information when it convened last week, according to its report.
uncertain
it → give → report
But details of those findings have not been made public.
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details → make → findings
Wells’ family and their legal team have slammed the grand jury report and have been working to keep the investigation open and active.
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family → slam → investigation
They’ve asked for federal authorities to look into the events around Wells’ death.
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authorities → ask → death
His body was found two days after he went with a group of mostly white friends on a boat trip to a barrier island for a July 4 party.
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he → find → party
The high-profile death in a Deep South state with a history of racial tension has sparked rampant speculation and suspicion.
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death → spark → speculation
While state and local officials and several of Wells’ white friends who had become the target of that speculation hoped that the grand jury report would quell critics, there was little sign that the suspicion was subsiding in the immediate days after the report’s release.
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suspicion → become → release
Wells’ parents and their lawyers voiced suspicions after Wells’ friends left the island without him, saying he wanted to stay behind and talk to a girl.
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he → voice → girl
Wells’ phone was on the boat that took him to the island, and his family and their attorneys have expressed doubt that he would choose to stay behind without his phone.
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he → take → phone
They also raised concerns about the phone possibly being tampered with given that there were no recordings or messages in the hours before he was last seen on social media apps his family said he avidly used.
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he → raise → apps
A number of the grand jury’s written findings appeared to attempt to dispel those suspicions, such as that Wells chose to stay behind, that leaving on different boats was common on crowded days on the island and that it wasn’t unusual for phones to be left on boats and eventually returned on the mainland.
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phones → write → mainland
The report also directly addresses the veracity of accusations against the white friends seen in a picture with Wells the day he went missing.
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he → address → Wells
The grand jury findings attempt to explicitly clear the people who left the island without Wells from any wrongdoing, and to squash online interpretations of a call to a sea towing company that suggested an attack could be heard in the background as being “not true and accurate.”
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attack → attempt → background
A lawyer representing several of the friends said the report had lifted a weight from his clients.
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report → represent → clients
The report said the grand jury found Wells’ death to be “consistent with drowning” and found that he had not been in a fight or altercation while on the island.
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he → say → island
Both Crump and Wells’ parents questioned how the panel could determine Wells drowned, when both the official and independent autopsies said the cause of death could not be determined.
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cause → question → death
They said both also noted that Wells had unexplained blunt force trauma on the back of his head.
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Wells → say → head
A witness testified to the grand jury that he saw Wells slip awkwardly off the side of a boat around 3:30 p.m. on July 4, but that Wells continued to socialize after the fall and didn’t appear injured, the report said.
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report → testify → fall
The panel said it couldn’t determine whether the fall caused the bruising on Wells’ body, but noted the bruising was not a fatal injury.
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bruising → say → body
At a news conference Tuesday, Wells’ mother, Christine Wonsley, Crump and representatives of the NAACP called for an independent investigation by the U.S. Justice Department.
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mother → call → Department
The grand jury report noted that federal law enforcement had been involved in the investigation, but it was unclear what role they played or the extent of their participation.
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they → note → participation
“What we have learned is that we still have no answers,” Wonsley said.
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Wonsley → learn → answers
“And the report reinforced the fact that Nolan was not given a thorough, transparent and honest investigation.”
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Nolan → reinforce → investigation
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