The Congressional Black Caucus is urging the Department of Justice to launch a federal review into the death of 18-year-old Nolan Wells.
The request for the “independent federal review of the circumstances surrounding the disappearance and death” of the Mississippi teen was announced Thursday by lawmakers, Wells’ family and supporters.
Rep. Lucy McBath, a Georgia Democrat, attended a press conference with Wells’ family, their lawyer Ben Crump and Rev. Al Sharpton at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention in Atlanta on Thursday to make the announcement.
“We’re demanding a full federal investigation as to what has actually happened to Nolan Wells,” McBath said at the press conference Thursday. “All of our children’s and our families’ lives matter, and we must fight back.”
McBath lost her own teen son, Jordan Davis, in 2012 when he was shot by Michael Dunn in Florida over loud music. Dunn is serving a life sentence for the murder.
A man places a photograph of Nolan Xavier Wells in front of the podium before a news conference during the 117th NAACP National Convention at McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois, on July 22, 2026.
Octavio Jones/AFP via Getty Images
Even as lawmakers called for the investigation, Sharpton expressed doubts about the current Justice Department.
“There was a time that we could say if state authorities fail us, we can go to the Justice Department,” Sharpton said. “Even under George Bush, we went to the Justice Department.”
In a statement to ABC News on Thursday, the DOJ confirmed that it received the CBC’s letter and “is ensuring the appropriate personnel within the Department are reviewing it carefully.”
Wells vanished after going on a Fourth of July boat trip with friends to one of the Gulf Coast’s barrier islands, officials said. Wells was last seen on Horn Island, a barrier island about 10 miles from the Gulf Coast, according to authorities. His body was recovered several days later.
No one has been charged with any wrongdoing in the incident.
Once local authorities complete their investigation, the case materials, including the autopsy report by the state medical examiner, will be presented to a grand jury, which will decide whether Wells’ death involved a crime. The findings from the state’s autopsy have not been released.
A private autopsy commissioned by Wells’ family preliminarily found that his cause and manner of death are “undetermined pending investigation,” with the independent pathologist acknowledging multiple limitations in the report, the family’s attorney said last month.
The Jackson County District Attorney’s office has previously said it will present the case to a grand jury once the local sheriff’s department investigation into Wells’ death is complete. The DA’s office said convening a grand jury does not mean there is any criminality and is standard procedure for most unnatural or suspicious deaths in the county.
Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter has said there was no initial indication of a crime, but he stressed that investigators were “working diligently to determine exactly what occurred.”
“Nolan Wells’ family deserves a thorough and factual investigation, and that’s exactly what they’re going to get,” he told ABC News last month.
Crump announced on Thursday that the family wanted to hold a national day of prayer for Nolan Wells on Aug. 19, which would have been his 19th birthday.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Christine Wonsley, Wells’ mother, said his loss is getting harder for her as his birthday approaches.
“That realization is really sinking in that we don’t have our son physically here anymore, and I think a lot of people have forgotten,” Wonsley said. “Only thing we want to know is what happened.”
ABC News’ Jeana Fermi contributed to this story.
