As Nolan Xavier Wells’ loved ones push for answers on what happened to their 18-year-old son, who was found dead on Horn Island in Mississippi, his parents, Christine and Elmore Wonsley, have tapped civil rights attorney Ben Crump to help them seek justice for their son. In an exclusive interview with theGrio, Crump addressed his role in the fight for justice, while drawing a clear line between Well’s case and the history of cases we’ve seen in this country involving Black people.
“The constitution says that under the Seventh Amendment, if you feel that you have been wronged, if you have been grieved, then you have a right to not try to go fight the battles out in the streets, but to come into the court of law and say, based on the Seventh Amendment, ‘I have a Right to Civil Justice.’ And for far too often in America, the government has failed us in equal justice under the law,’ Crump told theGrio’s Natasha Alford. “So what we try to do is do everything that a private lawyer can do under the constitution to get some measure of justice for good people like Christine and Elmore. Some measure of accountability. Some level of truth that has often evaded us in the past.”
“What we’re trying to do is fight to say that Black lives matter. And they don’t just matter, but they are valuable, too. That Nolan Wells was valuable not just to his family and to his community, but was a value to America,” he added. “There is no amount of value that you could give Christine or Elmore for our children’s lives. And that’s how we have to look at it. So that’s what we try to do. We understand we can’t put anybody in jail. Only the prosecutor, only the elected government officials can do that. But I’d be damned if we’re not gonna fight to say that our people can get some measure of justice. “
And now, Crump is helping this Black family fight for justice in the same state where a Black mother was unable to receive justice for their son Emmett Till when he was murdered in 1955. 71 years ago, Mamie Till-Mobley opened her son’s casket because the courtroom gave her nothing. Two men were acquitted in about an hour, then sold their confession to a magazine for a few thousand dollars. There was no civil suit to file, no damages to pursue, no lawyer she could hire to force a fact into the record. And that lack of justice is a pattern that has persisted for many years among Black communities in America.
“It’s amazing the times we live in because 20 years ago, Black people would have had no chance at justice. The local authorities would not charge anybody, nothing would happen. And nobody got to bring civil actions for Black life in America,” the civil rights attorney explained. “And it was this phenomenon that we have counter-created, I call it the legacy of Trayvon Martin, where we started talking about the value of Black life, where we started talking about the lived experiences of Black mothers and Black fathers when their children are taken from them in just unbelievable ways.”
Through this civil case, the family is able to subpoena the phone records, depose the people who were on that boat, and put testimony under oath where a text message that got deleted has to be accounted for. These distinctions are particularly important because as Nolan’s mother shared with theGrio, she has not received any updates from local authorities on their investigation.
So in their “ferocious search for the truth,” Crump’s team is running its own investigation in the meantime: dozens of witnesses, an independent autopsy, and an effort to retrieve deleted messages from that holiday weekend because, as he noted, when families wait on the state, autopsies can take four months, six months, or a year. The private track exists because the public one hasn’t historically shown up. The reason a family in Mississippi in 2026 has a lawyer running a parallel investigation is that a family in Mississippi in 1955 had no way to ensure accountability in the public sector.
“But now, after Trayvon, after Michael Brown, after Breonna Taylor, after George Floyd, Alton Sterling, Tamir Rice. Sandra Bland, Sonia Massey, Tyree Nichols…those cases we affirm that Black lives matter just like white lives matter. Black tears are just as painful as white tears and black pain hurts just as much as white pain,” he continued. “So what Elmore and Christine and all of us have been saying is that we want a zealous investigation for our son, too. We want you to do for our Son what you would do for anybody’s son and get to the bottom of this because it’s not adding up.”
For Christine and Elmore Wonsley, ultimately, this is about seeking answers about what happened to the “ray of sunshine” that used to run around their house, wanting to take pictures and videos with his mom and take funny videos of his dad while he’s sleeping.
“God took his time with that one; you will not find too many Nolan Wells in this world,” Christine said of her son.
“Nolan would have wanted to help, and as my wife said, if the shoes were on the other foot, he would do anything he could to help. He was a people person; his aura would light up a room. So anything he can do to help someone in need, even if he didn’t know them and he had some kind of information that will help, he will help,” Elmore concluded. “So, put yourself in our shoes, you will want to know. No matter if you’re black, white, Asian, whatever. Whatever. You would want to know what happened to your child.”
