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What to Know About the Nolan Wells Independent Autopsy Results · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Imagine for a second that you are left behind on
0:02
a deserted island.
0:03
Speaker 2: Oh man, that's a nightmare scenario.
0:06
Speaker 1: Right there, right, I mean, the sun is starting to
0:07
go down and your friends are leaving on a boat. Yeah,
0:10
but before they pull away from the shore, they take
0:12
your phone. Wow, And they take your car keys and
0:16
your house keys. They leave you completely cut off from
0:18
the outside world, just stranded, literally stranded ten miles out
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in the ocean with you know, absolutely no reliable way back.
0:27
And then two days later your body is pulled from
0:29
the water.
0:29
Speaker 2: It's just it's incredibly dark, it.
0:32
Speaker 1: Is, and to your family looking at that sequence of events,
0:35
I mean, it's obviously a crime.
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Speaker 2: It has to be, right, Oh, absolutely, The human brain
0:39
immediately jumps to foul play, exactly.
0:42
Speaker 1: But what happens when a world renowned, like highly paid
0:46
forensic pathologist examines your body and just says, I don't know.
0:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, that creates this almost unbearable cognitive dissonance. Oh totally,
0:55
because we live in a world where we expect answers,
0:58
and we expect them immediately.
1:00
Speaker 1: We want the nate little wrap up at the end
1:01
of the hour, exactly. Yeah.
1:03
Speaker 2: But forensic pathology, it just doesn't operate on a Hollywood
1:06
script where that definitive clue is you know, always founded
1:10
in the microscope in the final act. Great, sometimes the
1:13
evidence just isn't there.
1:15
Speaker 1: And when the evidence isn't there, the speculation rushes in
1:18
to fill that void.
1:19
Speaker 2: Like instantly, one hundred percent.
1:21
Speaker 1: So today our mission is to cut through this massive
1:24
wall of noise surrounding a really intense, unfolding national news story.
1:30
We are doing a deep dive into the case of
1:32
eighteen year old Nolan Xavier Wells.
1:34
Speaker 2: And this is such an important case to look at closely.
1:37
Speaker 1: It really is. And I want to be clear, this
1:39
isn't just your standard true crime timeline. We are framing
1:42
this as a masterclass in the incredibly frustrating realities of
1:46
forensic science.
1:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, the absolute limits of the human body after death.
1:50
Speaker 1: Yes, and the friction between a public that is demanding
1:53
swift justice and an investigation that frankly moves at the
1:57
agonizingly slow speed of.
1:59
Speaker 2: Biologyology does not care about the news cycle.
2:01
Speaker 1: It really doesn't. Okay, let's unpack this.
2:03
Speaker 2: So to really grasp the complexity of this case, we
2:06
have to look at the intersection of a very very
2:10
unforgiving environment, a series of bizarre behavioral anomalies, and then
2:14
the structural limitations of a second autopsy.
2:17
Speaker 1: Right, and to set the baseline for you listening, just yesterday,
2:20
so July twenty second, twenty twenty six, at the one
2:23
hundred and seventeenth NAAACP National Convention in Chicago, civil rights
2:28
attorney Ben Crump stood before this massive.
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Speaker 2: Crowd, a hugely public state massive.
2:33
Speaker 1: And he released the preliminary findings of an independent autopsy
2:37
performed on Nolan Wells. I mean, this was the moment
2:39
everyone was waiting for.
2:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, the family, the public, the media, everyone.
2:43
Speaker 1: They were waiting for this highly credential doctor to step
2:45
up to the microphone and basically blow the case wide open.
2:48
Speaker 2: They were fully expecting a turning point, you know, a
2:51
definitive statement that would either completely validate the local police
2:55
department's theory or conversely, completely validate the family's worst fears.
3:00
Speaker 1: But the results were essentially just a giant, scientifically formalized question.
3:04
Speaker 2: Mark YEP, undetermined.
3:05
Speaker 1: And our goal today is to equip you with a
3:08
deep understanding of exactly why this case is so incredibly complex.
3:13
We're going to take all the available sources.
3:15
Speaker 2: Right, the timelines, the medical report.
3:17
Speaker 1: Public statements, and pieced together why a top tier forensic
3:21
pathologist couldn't give the family the answer they so desperately need.
3:25
Speaker 2: We really have to start with the foundational facts here.
3:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have to start with the young man at
3:29
the center of this and the place where it.
3:31
Speaker 2: All happened, because honestly, without understanding the victim's physical capabilities
3:37
and the sheer hostility of the environment he was in,
3:39
nothing else in this timeline will make sense exactly.
3:43
Speaker 1: So Nolan Wells, he was an eighteen year old black
3:46
student athlete, right. He was a wide receiver at Southwest
3:50
Mississippi Community College, originally from Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
3:53
Speaker 2: A strong, healthy kid, very The.
3:55
Speaker 1: Reports consistently describe him as athletic, strong of promise, and
4:01
this is a detail that haunts every single conversation about
4:04
this case. He was known to be a very capable swimmer.
4:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that specific detail, his swimming ability, that is
4:11
the lens through which everyone is viewing his death.
4:14
Speaker 1: It's the first thing people point.
4:15
Speaker 2: Out because when a strong swimmer is found in the water,
4:18
the immediate human assumption is that something unnatural must have
4:22
occurred to put him.
4:23
Speaker 1: Under, like someone held him down or he hit his
4:26
head right.
4:27
Speaker 2: But that assumption often completely fails to account for the
4:30
reality of the.
4:31
Speaker 1: Ocean, which brings us to the setting the fourth of
4:33
July twenty twenty six on Horn Island. Yeah, for anyone
4:37
who hasn't been down to the Mississippi Gulf coast, Horn
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Island sounds like this, you know, tropical getaway.
4:43
Speaker 2: It sounds lovely.
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Speaker 1: It does. It's part of the Gulf Island's National seashore.
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It draws massive crowds of boaters for holiday celebrations. But
4:51
the word island is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
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Speaker 2: Well on heavy lifting.
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Speaker 1: It is an uninhabited barrier island. It sits about ten
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miles off the coast. There are no There are no
5:01
permanent shelters.
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Speaker 2: No restrooms, no infrastructure, nothing.
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Speaker 1: It is literally just a strip of sand and scrub brush.
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Cell service is notoriously spotty or just non existent. It is,
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for all intents and purposes, the wilderness.
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Speaker 2: It is absolute wilderness, and it is surrounded by a
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highly dynamic, often violent, aquatic environment.
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Speaker 1: What do you mean by dynamic in this context.
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Speaker 2: Well, a Barrier Island is essentially a giant sandbar that
5:27
is constantly being reshaped by the ocean.
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Speaker 1: Oh wow, Okay.
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Speaker 2: Because of that, the underwater topography is wildly unpredictable. You
5:36
can be standing in waste deep water having a great time,
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take one single step and suddenly drop into a twenty
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foot channel that is terrifying it is, and with a
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current moving fast enough to rip you out to sea
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before you can even react.
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Speaker 1: So even for a college athlete, you know, a really
5:52
capable swimmer, this isn't a swimming pool.
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Speaker 2: Well far from it. Horn Island is notorious among locals
5:56
and maritime authorities for strong, very deceptive ripped These waters
6:01
have claimed many many lives over the years. Local coroners
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have a very long documented history of recording drowning deaths out.
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Speaker 1: There because the water just overpowers you.
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Speaker 2: Water does not care how much you can bench press
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or how fast you can run a forty yard dash. Furthermore,
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you really have to factor in the physiology of a
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Fourth of July celebration.
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Speaker 1: Right they're out there partying, it's a holiday exactly.
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Speaker 2: You have individuals out in the relentless July sun for six, eight,
6:31
maybe ten hours just baking. Yes, that leads to severe dehydration,
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which rapidly leads to muscle cramping. You have the potential
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for fatigue.
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Speaker 1: And obviously there's drinking on the fourth of July.
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Speaker 2: Exactly, you have the potential for impairment from alcohol or
6:46
other substances, which drastically lowers your spatial awareness and physical coordination.
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Speaker 1: It's a bad combination.
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Speaker 2: It's deadly. Even a minor medical event like a cramp
6:56
in your calf, can become instantly fatal if you are
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caught in a title pull ten miles offshore.
7:01
Speaker 1: Wow, So the environment itself is almost a suspect in
7:03
this case. It is just incredibly dangerous, absolutely, and Nolan
7:07
is out there with a glop of high school friends.
7:10
The reports note that this group was predominantly white, which
7:12
becomes very relevant later when we talk about the cultural
7:15
context and the intense public reaction.
7:18
Speaker 2: Right that dynamic is a huge part of the discourse.
7:20
Speaker 1: They are surrounded by crowds of other revelers, boats everywhere,
7:24
a typical chaotic, sun drenched holiday party. But then we
7:30
hit the turning point, the moment the timeline fractures. It's
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time to.
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Speaker 2: Go home, and this is where the narrative completely shifts
7:37
from an environmental hazard to a major behavioral anomaly. The
7:42
departure of that boat is the epicenter of this entire.
7:45
Speaker 1: Mystery, because, according to the version of events shared with
7:48
the authorities by the friends, when they prepared to return
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to the mainland, Nolan did not board the boat. The
7:55
account claims he voluntarily decided to stay behind. He allegedly
7:59
won to speak with an unidentified girl on the island,
8:02
and he told them he would just find another ride
8:04
back to the mainland later.
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Speaker 2: Okay, but then we get.
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Speaker 1: To the detail that just stops everyone in their tracks.
8:08
When the friends left on that boat, they took Nolan's
8:11
phone and his keys with them. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: From an investigative and honestly a psychological standpoint, that action
8:17
requires intense scrutiny. It's great because it actively contradicts basic
8:21
human survival instincts.
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Speaker 1: Right, I mean, anyone looking at this timeline is immediately
8:26
going to hit a brick wall right here. Why take
8:29
the keys? It defies every basic rule of human behavior,
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It really does. Like if I'm going to a party
8:34
in the middle of a city, right and I tell
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my friends, hey leave without me, I want to stay. Yeah,
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I'm still keeping my phone to call an uber, and
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I'm keeping my keys so I can actually get into
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my house when I get there. Exactly on an uninhabited island,
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your phone is literally your only lifeline if something goes wrong.
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If he was just staying behind to talk to someone,
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what logical reason is there for taking his lifeline to
8:58
the outside world.
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Speaker 2: There isn't on The environmental context amplifies the absurdity of
9:03
the action. You are leaving someone in an environment with
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no shelter, incoming weather possibilities, and zero infrastructure.
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Speaker 1: Just sand and water.
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Speaker 2: Removing their means of communication and their means of access
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to their vehicle or their home on the mainland is
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a glaring contradiction. If the story is that he was
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casually staying behind to chat, the removal of his primary
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survival tools just doesn't align with the casual departure.
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Speaker 1: So the family sees this and they are rightfully screaming
9:31
from the rooftops like this doesn't make sense. And to
9:34
make matters worse, there is a delay in reporting him missing.
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He wasn't immediately flagged to the coastguard or the police
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as a missing person when the sun went down and
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he didn't return. It wasn't until the morning of July sixth,
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so two days after the outing that Nolan's body was
9:51
discovered floating face down in the water near the island's shoreline.
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Speaker 2: And that delay in reporting severely compounds those behavioral nominalies
10:00
we just talked about.
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Speaker 1: How so like procedurally, Well, if.
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Speaker 2: You leave a friend in a remote location and you
10:05
know you have their phone and their keys the moment
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they don't show up that evening or even the next morning,
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the standard human response.
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Speaker 1: Is alarm, right, you'd be panicking.
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Speaker 2: The delay raises serious questions about the group's internal communication,
10:18
their perception of the danger, or potentially their knowledge of
10:22
what actually occurred.
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Speaker 1: Now, when you look at those behavioral red flags, you
10:26
would think the authorities would immediately lock down the area,
10:29
declare it a crime scene, and start aggressively interrogating everyone
10:33
on that boat.
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Speaker 2: You'd assume, so, yes, but.
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Speaker 1: That isn't what the public saw happening in the early stages.
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Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter released statements indicating that, based
10:43
on their interviews with the friends, they believed Nolan had
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chosen to remain on the island. The sheriff indicated that
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they suspected it was a tragic drowning, and crucially, he stated,
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there was no immediate indication of foul play.
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Speaker 2: Well, and we have to remember that law enforcement in
10:59
those very early initial stages is performing triage.
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Speaker 1: Okay, what do you mean by triage here?
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Speaker 2: They're making assessments based strictly on the immediate physical evidence
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at the scene and the preliminary witness statements. They arrive
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at a location that is already well known for drownings, right,
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They recover a body from the water that doesn't have
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a visible gunshot wound or a night sticking out of.
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Speaker 1: It, so no obvious murder weapon.
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Speaker 2: Exactly, And they have multiple witnesses offering a cohesive, albeit
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highly illogical narrative that he stayed voluntarily in the absence
11:35
of glaring physical trauma. The default working theory for local
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authorities often becomes accidental death.
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Speaker 1: But the family isn't looking at this like a statistic
11:45
or a standard procedure. They are looking at the gaping
11:47
holes in the logic of that story.
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Speaker 2: Right, the phone and the keys.
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Speaker 1: Yes. Christine Wells, Wansley, Nolan's mother, expressed this profound heartbreak
11:55
and frustration. She pointed out that after the initial recovery
11:59
of the body. The family's last substance of contact with
12:02
the sheriff's office occurred only a day or two later.
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Speaker 2: That's agonizing for a family.
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Speaker 1: It is to them it felt like the authorities took
12:09
one look at the water, took the friend's bizarre story
12:12
completely at face value, and just closed the book.
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Speaker 2: And that dynamic creates what we call a narrative vacuum.
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Speaker 1: A narrative vacuum.
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Speaker 2: Yes, you have an official, procedural silence from law enforcement, which,
12:23
to be fair, is standard during an ongoing investigation. Sure,
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but that silence collides violently with a family's agonizing need
12:31
for answers regarding wildly inconsistent behavior from those friends, and
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nature abhors a vacuum.
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Speaker 1: It really does.
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Speaker 2: When official channels don't immediately explain the phone, the keys,
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and the delay in reporting, suspicion and speculation will fill
12:46
that space immediately.
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Speaker 1: Which is the direct catalyst for the second autopsy. Absolutely,
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the family felt they couldn't trust the local process, They
12:54
felt ignored, so they needed an expert to look at
12:57
the physical evidence, completely independent the local jurisdiction, you know,
13:01
to see if Nolan's body could tell the story that
13:04
the witnesses weren't telling right. This brings in doctor Roger A.
13:08
Mitchell Junior, and.
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Speaker 2: Bringing in doctor Mitchell is a very significant move. He
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is not just any doctor now.
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Speaker 1: His resume is wild.
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Speaker 2: He is a board certified forensic pathologist. He's the president
13:19
of the National Medical Association WOW, and he's the former
13:22
chief medical Examiner for Washington d C. He has a
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very extensive resume dealing with high profile, incredibly complex death investigations.
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Speaker 1: So he knows exactly what he's looking at exactly.
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Speaker 2: He brings a level of undeniable expertise and perceived credibility
13:37
to the process.
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Speaker 1: But the logistics of this second autopsy are just wild.
13:41
So Nolan's body was found in Mississippi on July sixth.
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The first autopsy, the official state autopsy, was carried out
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by the Mississippi State Medical Examiner's Office on July seventh.
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Right to get this independent examination, Nolan's body had to
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be physically transported over eight hundred miles to the DC area.
14:00
Speaker 2: A massive journey for a deceased body.
14:02
Speaker 1: Doctor Mitchell didn't perform his autopsy until July tenth. This
14:06
was a huge undertaking and it was funded in part
14:08
by Colin Kaepernick's Know Your Rights Camp, plus a combined
14:12
reward of one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars was
14:14
offered by al Sharpton, Tyler Perry and Terrell Owens for
14:18
any information leading to a conviction if a crime occurred.
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Speaker 2: So the nation was watching a lot of heavy hitters involved.
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Speaker 1: Everyone expected doctor Mitchell to find the smoking gun, and.
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Speaker 2: The expectation in these cases is always that the independent
14:29
expert will find the hidden fracture, the overlook bruise, the
14:33
definitive proof of a cover up, the CSI moment exactly,
14:37
But science is entirely dependent on the condition of the
14:40
subject at the exact time of examination. Moving a deceased
14:44
body eight hundred miles days after death, especially after it
14:48
has already been subjected to a primary invasive autopsy, it
14:52
introduces a staggering number of variables, and.
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Speaker 1: The result of that examination was a bombshell, but really
14:57
not the kind people wanted. The primary inclusion of doctor
15:00
Mitchell's preliminary report was that both the cause of death
15:04
and the manner of death are quote undetermined pending further investigation. Right,
15:10
he couldn't even tell them exactly what day Nolan died.
15:12
He found no evidence of bone fractures, no deep tissue injuries,
15:16
just undetermined.
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Speaker 2: And I know, undetermined feels incredibly unsatisfying to the public.
15:20
It sounds like the doctor's just shrugging his shoulders.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, like he's just given up, right.
15:24
Speaker 2: But in forensic pathology, undetermined is a highly specific, very rigid,
15:30
scientific classication.
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Speaker 1: Okay, let's break that down, because when I read undetermined,
15:33
I immediately think failed investigation, like you had one job.
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Speaker 2: It's actually a testament to scientific integrity, Believe it or not.
15:41
Undetermined is not a finding of an accident, and it
15:43
is not a finding of homicide.
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Speaker 1: Okay.
15:45
Speaker 2: It means that the pathologist has laid out all the
15:48
available physical evidence, the toxicological data, and the scene evidence
15:53
and found that it does not meet the rigorous threshold
15:55
required to legally and medically declare exactly how and why
16:00
a person died.
16:01
Speaker 1: So they just don't have enough pieces of the puzzle.
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Speaker 2: The data is incomplete.
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Speaker 1: So it's a scientific equivalent of saying I refuse to.
16:08
Speaker 2: Guess exactly, I will not guess. And this is especially
16:11
prevalent in suspective drownings. What's fascinating here, is that drowning
16:15
is very often what we call a diagnosis of exclusion.
16:19
Speaker 1: A diagnosis of exclusion meaning you have to rule everything
16:21
else out first.
16:22
Speaker 2: Yes, there is no single magic physical marker that definitively
16:28
proves drowning in every single case. It's not like finding
16:31
a bullet where a bullet clearly shouldn't be. To prove
16:34
an in rounding, you essentially have to prove that everything
16:37
else in the universe didn't kill him first.
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Speaker 1: That sounds nearly impossible. I mean, how do they even
16:41
do that on an autopsy table.
16:42
Speaker 2: Well, it requires a meticulous process. First, pathologists look for
16:47
supportive physiological science. When a person drowns, there is a frantic,
16:53
violent struggle to breathe underwater. This causes a massive mixture
16:57
of water, air, and a natural substance in the lungs
17:00
called pulmonary surfactant. That churning creates a very specific type
17:06
of dense, persistent froth in the airways and the mouth.
17:09
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
17:10
Speaker 2: They also look for hyperinflated, really water logged lungs. But
17:14
the thing is those signs aren't always present, especially if
17:17
the body has been in the water for a while
17:19
or has.
17:19
Speaker 1: Been moved and If they don't find that froth, then.
17:21
Speaker 2: The exclusionary work becomes even more critical. They have to
17:24
comprehensively rule out lethal trauma.
17:26
Speaker 1: Like blunt force trauma, yes, blunt.
17:28
Speaker 2: Force of the head, a stab wound, manual strangulation. Then
17:31
they have to rule out sudden natural disease, an undiagnosed
17:35
heart defect, a massive aneurysm.
17:38
Speaker 1: Tish're literally checking off boxes. No heart attack, no kniphooned.
17:41
Speaker 2: Right. Only when they have systematically excluded trauma and disease
17:46
and combined that exclusion with the circumstantial evidence of the
17:50
body being found in water can they officially declare drowning.
17:53
Speaker 1: But doctor Mitchell didn't just find nothing. He did find
17:56
one major physical anomaly. His report documented an area of
18:02
red discoloration in the soft tissue at the back of
18:05
Nolan's head.
18:06
Speaker 2: Yes, that was a key finding, and it wasn't small.
18:08
Speaker 1: It measured roughly twelve by eight inches. Wow, that is
18:11
a massive mark on the back of his head.
18:13
Speaker 2: It is a substantial area of discoloration, and in the
18:16
context of the family suspicions, it immediately became the focal
18:20
point of the entire case.
18:22
Speaker 1: Naturally, people see a massive red mark on the head
18:25
and they immediately think, Okay, someone.
18:27
Speaker 2: Hit him, right. It's like, imagine you walk out to
18:29
your driveway and you find a massive dent in the
18:31
side of your car.
18:32
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a good analogy.
18:33
Speaker 2: You know, the dent is there, you can measure it,
18:35
but just looking at it doesn't tell you how it
18:37
got there. That another car sideswipe you did a kid
18:41
hit a baseball into it? Without a security camera, you
18:44
don't know the story of the impact.
18:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense.
18:47
Speaker 2: The car analogy is a good starting point for understanding
18:49
visual ambiguity. But with a biological organism, we have a
18:53
biological clock ticking. The dent is actively changing shape. In
18:57
forensic pathology, particularly with a body red covered from water,
19:01
a twelve by eight inch mark like that has three
19:04
completely distinct possibilities, and two of them have absolutely nothing
19:09
to do with violence.
19:10
Speaker 1: Let's walk through them, because this is where the science
19:12
gets really granular, and I think people need to hear this.
19:14
Speaker 2: The first possibility, which obviously aligns with the family's fear,
19:18
is blunt force trauma. Someone struck Nolan, or he was
19:22
pushed and hit his head on the boat, or maybe
19:25
a piling in the water physiologically, and impact ruptures blood
19:29
vessels and blood escapes into the surrounding tissue, causing a
19:32
hemorrhage a bruise.
19:34
Speaker 1: What's the second possibility.
19:36
Speaker 2: The second is a completely natural post mortem process called
19:39
liver mortis.
19:39
Speaker 1: Liver mortis.
19:40
Speaker 2: Yes, after a person dies, the heart stops acting as
19:44
a pump. Gravity instantly takes over the blood inside the
19:47
vessels begins to settle at the lowest points of the
19:49
body based on its resting position, so it just pools
19:52
exactly and as the red blood cells break down, they
19:55
stain the surrounding tissues. If a body is floating or
19:59
rest against the shoreline in a specific way, the pooling
20:03
of that blood can create large dark, reddish purple discolorations
20:08
on the skin and deepen the soft tissues.
20:10
Speaker 1: And it looks like trauma.
20:11
Speaker 2: It looks remarkably, almost indistinguishably similar to a massive bruise.
20:16
Speaker 1: So gravity alone can make it look like someone was
20:18
brutally beaten.
20:19
Speaker 2: Yes, it happens all the time. And the third possibility
20:22
is honestly the most destructive decomposition.
20:25
Speaker 1: Oh right, because of the environment.
20:26
Speaker 2: We have to factor in the environment. No one went
20:28
missing on July fourth, He was found on July sixth.
20:32
The water of the Gulf of Mexico in July are
20:34
incredibly warm, like bath water. Warm salt water is basically
20:38
an incubator for bacterial growth. The moment of person dies,
20:41
the bacteria inside the body begin to rapidly break down
20:44
the tissues. This process produces gases, it cosses skin slippage,
20:48
and it creates massive spreading areas of red and green discoloration.
20:52
Speaker 1: So it completely changes how the body looks.
20:54
Speaker 2: It can completely obscure or mimic traumatic injuries.
20:57
Speaker 1: So we have this massive mark, But it could be
20:59
a brutal stre to the head, It could be gravity
21:02
pulling the blood down, or it could just be the
21:04
warm ocean water accelerating bacterial breakdown.
21:08
Speaker 2: How is a pathologist supposed to know which one it is?
21:10
Speaker 1: Like?
21:10
Speaker 2: How do you tell the difference?
21:12
Speaker 1: They look for deeper corroborating evidence. They look for fractures
21:15
in the skull bone directly beneath the mark. They look
21:18
for deep torn muscle fibers that indicate force.
21:22
Speaker 2: Did doctor Mitchell find any of that?
21:24
Speaker 1: No. Doctor Mitchell found none of that, No skull fractures,
21:27
no deep tissue tearing. And because the body had already
21:30
undergone a previous autopsy, plus days of transport, plus decomposition.
21:35
The origin of that specific mark remains entirely ambiguous. Wow,
21:40
scientifically he could not declare what caused it.
21:42
Speaker 2: But the ambiguity of that mark wasn't even the biggest
21:45
issue in this report. The deepest limitations of doctor Mitchell's
21:48
autopsy weren't about what he found on Nolan's body. Yeah,
21:51
it was what was completely missing from it.
21:53
Speaker 1: And this is where the structural limitations of a second
21:55
autoxy become a profound roadblock. This is exactly why he
21:59
had to classify the death as undetermined. This was the
22:02
absolute bombshell of the press conference. Doctor Mitchell wrote in
22:06
his report that he could not examine Nolan's airway, he
22:09
could not examine his lungs, he could not examine his stomach,
22:13
and he could not examine his internal neck structures, specifically
22:17
the trachea and surrounding cartilage.
22:19
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:20
Speaker 1: Why because they simply weren't inside the body anymore. They
22:24
had been entirely removed and retained by the Mississippi State
22:27
Medical Examiner's Office during the very first autopsy.
22:31
Speaker 2: It is a devastating, almost insurmountable limitation for a pathologist
22:36
trying to reconstruct a timeline of death. It's crazy, particularly
22:40
when drowning or asphyxiation are your primary theories.
22:43
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting, because I think most
22:45
people hear this and their jaw just hits the floor.
22:48
Let's break down why these organs matter so much. Like
22:50
a missing stomach in a drowning case might sound irrelevant
22:53
to a layperson. But the lungs in the airway that
22:55
seems obvious, right, Oh, The lungs.
22:57
Speaker 2: In the airway are the absolute primary sites identifying the
23:01
physiological evidence of drowning we discussed earlier. Yes, if you
23:05
want to find that specific frothy mixture, if you want
23:09
to look at the microscopic damage to the alveole, those
23:11
are the tiny air sacks and the lungs caused by
23:14
water rushing in. You need the physical tissue, you can't guess.
23:17
You can't without the airway and the lungs. Doctor Mitchell
23:21
was entirely stripped of his ability to check for the
23:23
supportive signs of drowning.
23:25
Speaker 1: Okay, what about the stomach? Why keep the stomach?
23:27
Speaker 2: The stomach basically acts as a time capsule really yes.
23:31
When someone drowns, they almost always swallow a significant volume
23:35
of water in their panic. Examining the gastric contents can
23:39
reveal that water. Furthermore, it contains the digestion of their
23:43
last meal.
23:43
Speaker 1: Ah, so it helps with the timeline precisely.
23:46
Speaker 2: By analyzing how broken down the food is, pathologists can
23:50
often establish a much tighter timeline of exactly when death
23:53
occurred relative to when they last ate. Without it, doctor
23:57
Mitchell couldn't pinpoint the time of death.
24:00
Speaker 1: And then we get to the internal neck structures, the trachea.
24:03
This is the one that really sets off alarm bells
24:05
for the public.
24:06
Speaker 2: It is the most sensitive missing piece in the context
24:09
of the family's.
24:09
Speaker 1: Suspicions because of strangulation.
24:11
Speaker 2: Exactly if you suspect foul play, you absolutely must rule
24:16
out manual strangulation or compressive trauma to the neck. The
24:22
internal structures like the hyoid bone, which is a tiny
24:25
fragile bone in the neck, the thyroid cartilage, the surrounding muscles.
24:30
These are incredibly delicate structures.
24:33
Speaker 1: So they break easily very.
24:35
Speaker 2: If someone is choked, even if there are no bruises
24:38
on the outside of the skin, a pathologist will find
24:40
microfractures in that hyoid bone or tiny particular hemorrhages deep
24:46
in those.
24:46
Speaker 1: Muscles, and doctor Mitchell didn't have them.
24:48
Speaker 2: Without those structures on his table, Doctor Mitchell was flying
24:51
completely blind regarding any trauma to the neck.
24:54
Speaker 1: Let me push back on this because I know I
24:56
am outraged on behalf of the public right now. It's
24:58
like you hire a master r. It's an investigator to
25:00
figure out why a house burned down. Okay, they show
25:03
up to the ashes and they realize the local fire
25:05
department already came in, scooped up all the charred floorboards,
25:08
took them back to their station, and just didn't tell anyone.
25:11
You can't test for accelerants if the actual burned wood
25:14
is sitting in another zip code. How is it legally
25:17
permissible for a medical examiner to just take someone's internal
25:21
organs and keep them. Why isn't the family notified immediately
25:23
about that.
25:24
Speaker 2: I completely understand the visceral reaction, and your analogy of
25:29
the fire scene missing the wood is very apt.
25:32
Speaker 1: It just feels wrong.
25:33
Speaker 2: It does, but we have to separate medical procedure from
25:36
nefarious intent. Here in the realm of forensic pathology, retaining
25:41
organs is actually standard practice.
25:44
Speaker 1: Wait, standard practice to just gut the evidence.
25:47
Speaker 2: Well, it isn't gutting the evidence, it is preserving it
25:49
for highly specialized testing that simply cannot be done on
25:52
the autopsy table. Oh I see, when a state medical
25:55
examiner performs an autopsy, especially a complex one, they routinely
25:59
removed the lungs, the stomach, or the brain and place
26:02
them in a chemical called formuline.
26:04
Speaker 1: What does that do?
26:05
Speaker 2: This fixes the tissue, basically stopping all decompositions so it
26:08
could be sliced paper thin and examined under a microscope
26:11
weeks later. Retaining the anterior neck structures is also very
26:15
very common, even the next structures. Yes, they take them
26:18
out intact so they can examine the hyoid bone for
26:21
those microfractures with specialized equipment that isn't in the main
26:25
autopsy suite. The state isn't stealing the organs, they are processing.
26:29
Speaker 1: Them, so the Mississippi Medical Examiner wasn't necessarily doing something
26:33
malicious to cover up a crime.
26:35
Speaker 2: According to standard national forensic protocols, retaining those organs is
26:40
a sign of a thorough investigation, not a cover up.
26:44
They're keeping them to run complex toxicological and histological tests.
26:48
Speaker 1: But doctor Mitchell didn't know that.
26:50
Speaker 2: That's where the friction is. It's communication. Doctor Mitchell noted
26:53
in his report that he did not know the specific
26:55
reasons the first pathologists retained them. In this particular instance,
26:59
he just derived to examine a body that was essentially
27:02
a compromise canvas.
27:03
Speaker 1: And because he didn't have those organs, he wrote a
27:06
sentence in his report that essentially broke the internet.
27:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had to.
27:10
Speaker 1: He wrote that because these structures were missing, he quote
27:13
cannot rule out injury to the neck as a contributor
27:16
or a cause of death. He also stated he quote
27:19
cannot rule out that any intervening, non accidental factors contributed
27:23
to or caused the death end quote.
27:26
Speaker 2: Yes, And we need to be incredibly precise about how
27:30
we interpret those sentences because human psychology tends to twist
27:34
them instantly.
27:35
Speaker 1: Because the moment, Ben Crump read cannot rule out injury
27:38
to the neck and cannot rule out non accidental factors.
27:42
Millions of people heard that as he was murdered. Absolutely,
27:46
they hear a famous doctor say I can't rule it out,
27:48
and confirmation bias just kicks in and they interpret it
27:51
as it probably happens exactly.
27:53
Speaker 2: But from a purely scientific standpoint, doctor Mitchell saying he
27:56
cannot rule out non accidental factors does not equal affirm
28:00
proof of foul play. It is simply a declaration of
28:03
his physical limitations. The absence of proof is not proof
28:06
of absence.
28:07
Speaker 1: So just because he couldn't examine the hyoid bone to
28:10
prove it wasn't broken doesn't mean.
28:11
Speaker 2: It was broken exactly. It just means the evidence required
28:15
to answer the question was sitting in a jar in
28:18
a laboratory in Mississippi, not on his table in Washington, DC.
28:22
Speaker 1: So this highly anticipated, heavily funded second autopsy basically resulted
28:27
in a very expensive, highly publicized document that meticulously outlined
28:32
exactly what we don't know.
28:33
Speaker 2: It is a document of boundaries. It defines the edge
28:36
of the known universe in this specific investigation, at this
28:40
specific moment in time.
28:41
Speaker 1: But this medical ambiguity, the scientific vacuum, it doesn't exist
28:45
in a sterile laboratory. It exists in America when science
28:49
cannot provide an immediate, definitive answer. Societal context and historical trauma.
28:53
Russian with incredible force and listener, I want to be
28:57
very clear about how we are approaching this next part
28:59
very important, taking a political stance. We are looking at
29:02
the mechanics of how a society process is a mystery.
29:05
We are examining how the raw facts of this case
29:07
collided with the deep historical realities of the environment had.
29:10
Speaker 2: Happened in because you cannot separate the public reaction from
29:14
the geography and the demographics. They are inextricably linked.
29:17
Speaker 1: We have Nolan, a young black man. He was with
29:20
a group of friends described in multiple reports as predominantly white. Yes,
29:24
and this took place in Mississippi. Reverend Al Sharpton actually
29:28
spoke at Nolan's funeral in Ocean Springs, and he specifically
29:32
pointed to the historical backdrop of Mississippi's racial tensions. He
29:35
did he explicitly stated that the history of the state
29:39
is a primary reason why this case requires and is
29:42
receiving such intense national scrutiny. When you take a timeline
29:47
full of bizarre illogical behavior, you know, taking the keys,
29:51
taking the phone, and you drop it into a geography
29:53
of the deep history of racial violence and systemic mistrust,
29:56
you get an explosive level of public interest.
29:59
Speaker 2: You do because when official narratives fail to make logical sense,
30:03
like leaving a friend stranded without their keys, people will
30:06
rely on historical precedent to film the blanks. Yeah, we're
30:09
watching a fascinating psychological phenomena where two very distinct, deeply entrenched,
30:14
dueling realities are emerging from the exact same set of
30:17
incomplete facts.
30:18
Speaker 1: Let's lay those two realities out impartially. Let's look at
30:22
perspective A, which is the viewpoint held by the advocates
30:25
and Nolan's grieving family. Okay, for them, these unanswered questions
30:29
aren't just minor logistical hiccups. They are massive red sirens
30:35
justifying profound suspicion.
30:37
Speaker 2: Right.
30:37
Speaker 1: You have the phone and the keys being taken. You
30:40
have the delay and calling the police. You have the
30:43
sheriff's office basically going dark on the family after two days.
30:47
You have the missing Organs during the independent autopsy, I
30:50
lot of smoke. Elmer Wansley, Nolan's father, has spoken so
30:54
movingly about the daily agonizing torture of grief and their
30:58
desperate need for simple on it. To this perspective, the
31:02
fact that doctor Mitchell said foul play can't be ruled
31:05
out is all the mandate they need to demand a rigorous,
31:07
unyielding criminal investigation. They see a cover up, and.
31:10
Speaker 2: That is the perspective fueled by the behavioral anomalies and
31:13
the historical distrust. Now look at perspective B, which is
31:16
maintained by local authorities and some local commentators. What are
31:19
they seem They are looking at the exact same timeline,
31:22
the exact same report, and emphasizing completely different data points.
31:26
Speaker 1: Okay.
31:27
Speaker 2: They point out that investigators have conducted dozens of witness interviews,
31:31
and they maintain that none of these interviews point to criminal.
31:34
Speaker 1: Activity, so no one broke rank, right.
31:36
Speaker 2: They emphasize that the friends have been cooperating. They look
31:40
at the autopsy and point to the fact that there
31:42
is no immediate, glaring physical evidence of violence, no fractures,
31:47
no defensive wounds, no undeniable.
31:50
Speaker 1: Trauma, just the undetermined mark. Right.
31:52
Speaker 2: From this perspective, the lack of arrests isn't a cover up.
31:56
It is simply indicative of a tragic, chaotic hub accident.
32:00
Speaker 1: It's incredible, two completely different universes built from the same
32:04
limited set of facts. Advocates look at the report and
32:07
see foul play can't be ruled out the police. Look
32:09
at the reportancy no evidence of murder. Yeah, And if
32:12
we connect this to the bigger picture, the very existence
32:15
of this second autopsy highlights a massive cultural shift in
32:19
how we interact with institutions.
32:21
Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, it really
32:23
is a profound shift. Decades ago, the word of the
32:27
local corner or the local sheriff was accepted as the
32:30
final unquestioned truth by the broader public.
32:33
Speaker 1: You just didn't question it.
32:34
Speaker 2: But today, in an era of heightened skepticism, viral information sharing,
32:39
and acute awareness of systemic institutional failures, families no longer
32:44
accept the first answer if it doesn't make logical sense.
32:46
Speaker 1: To them, especially with the keys and the phone exactly.
32:50
Speaker 2: The rise of the independent, high profile second autopsy is
32:54
a direct symptom of deep seated public distrust, and you.
32:57
Speaker 1: Have prominent figures facilitating it. Lan Kaepernick's organization providing funding
33:02
nationally recognized experts like doctor Mitchell stepping in. It gives
33:05
a local family a massive megaphone and a level of
33:08
expertise they could never afford otherwise.
33:10
Speaker 2: It democratizes access to expert analysis, which is vital. Yet,
33:14
as we've just discussed in detail. These second autopsies are inherently.
33:18
Speaker 1: Constrained because the body is already altered.
33:20
Speaker 2: The first pathologist always alters the evidence. Doctor Mitchell was
33:25
working with a compromise canvas, and to his credit, his
33:29
report was rigorously honest about those constraints. That is the
33:34
mark of true scientific integrity, admitting exactly what you cannot prove.
33:38
Speaker 1: But where does that leave everyone else? Because reading the
33:41
news is maddening. You open your phone and one headline screams,
33:46
autopsy shows foul play possible in Mississippi teen's death. Right
33:50
then you scroll down and another headline says, independent autopsy
33:54
finds no trauma in Nolan Well's case. How is the
33:57
public supposed to hold these two conflicting narratives in their
33:59
minds when both are technically quoting the exact same document.
34:03
Speaker 2: It requires an incredible discipline of suspended judgment, which is
34:06
something human beings are biologically wired to hate. We hate it,
34:08
We hate uncertainty, but you have to recognize that it
34:11
cannot be ruled out. Is a statement of scientific limitation,
34:14
not an accusation of murder. Simultaneously, you must recognize that
34:18
no immediate evidence of violence does not mean a crime
34:21
didn't occur. It just means the violence might be hidden
34:24
in the microscopic tissues of those retained organs, or buried
34:29
in the shifting narratives of the witnesses.
34:31
Speaker 1: You have to learn to sit in the tension of undetermined.
34:35
Speaker 2: It is a waiting room. The truth simply has not
34:37
arrived yet.
34:38
Speaker 1: But being in that waiting room is agonizing, especially for
34:41
a family morning an eighteen year old kid. We can't
34:44
stay in the waiting room forever. We have to look
34:46
at what's next. What are the tangible, concrete steps that
34:49
could actually break this case open well.
34:52
Speaker 2: Doctor Mitchell's report, while it didn't solve the case, provided
34:54
a very clear roadmap. He outlined approximately seven outstanding questions
35:00
data points that are absolutely essential for moving this from
35:03
undetermined to a definitive conclusion.
35:06
Speaker 1: First, and foremost, the missing data from Mississippi. We are
35:08
still waiting on the official autopsy and toxicology results from
35:11
the Mississippi State Medical Examiner's Office, the original autopsy from
35:15
July seven. Yes, those results are still locked away, not
35:19
released to the public.
35:20
Speaker 2: And that official report is the biological key to the
35:24
entire case. Really, specifically, the toxicology report. They will use
35:28
techniques like gas chromatography and mass spectrometry to analyze blood
35:33
or vitreous fluid from the eye, vitreous fluid, the fluid
35:37
inside the eyeball. It's excellent for TOK screens. This will
35:40
clarify definitively the presence or absence of alcohol, illicit drugs,
35:44
or prescription medications in Nolan's system.
35:47
Speaker 1: Okay, so that handles the impairment question.
35:49
Speaker 2: You will also identify any undiagnosed natural diseases, and most importantly,
35:54
it will contain the microscopic analysis of those retained.
35:56
Speaker 1: Tissues, the lungs, the stomach, the neck.
35:59
Speaker 2: The air way, the internal neck structures. That report has
36:03
all the data. Doctor Mitchell was denied.
36:05
Speaker 1: Beyond the toxicology, we need the scene documentation. Doctor Mitchell
36:09
noted he didn't even have access to photographs of the
36:11
body in situ, meaning exactly how Nolan was positioned when
36:14
he was found in the water.
36:15
Speaker 2: And scene documentation is everything for a forensic reconstruction.
36:19
Speaker 1: Really just photos.
36:20
Speaker 2: Not just photos. An expert needs to know the exact
36:24
water conditions that morning. They need the title charts, They
36:27
need the precise GPS location and orientation of the remains
36:31
relative to the shoreline and the known.
36:34
Speaker 1: Currents, because the water moves the body exactly.
36:37
Speaker 2: Without that data, you cannot separate what happened to the
36:41
body before death from how the body interacted with the
36:44
ocean after death.
36:45
Speaker 1: But science can only tell us so much about the body.
36:47
We also have the human element the investigative next steps.
36:50
Law enforcement has to resolve the massive behavioral contradiction.
36:54
Speaker 2: It absolutely did to have to.
36:55
Speaker 1: Reinterview everyone, and there is a glaring loose end here,
36:59
identify by the quote unidentified girl that the friends claim
37:03
Nolan stayed behind to talk to.
37:05
Speaker 2: From an investigative standpoint, if that girl exists, her testimony
37:10
is arguably the most critical piece of civilian evidence in
37:13
this entire.
37:13
Speaker 1: Timeline, because she's the last one to see.
37:16
Speaker 2: Him outside of his immediate friend group. She would be
37:18
the very last person to interact with him. She could
37:21
confirm his state of mind. She could confirm if he
37:23
actually planned to catch another ride. Her existence or lack thereof,
37:27
could either validate the friend's narrative or completely shatter it.
37:31
Speaker 1: Ben Crump and the family's legal team are not just
37:34
sitting back waiting, though they have very specific demands right now.
37:38
They want the Mississippi authorities to share the original scene photographs,
37:42
their initial observations, and crucially, they want those retained neck
37:46
structures handed over to doctor Mitchell so he can do
37:49
an integrated analysis.
37:51
Speaker 2: And scientifically, cooperation between the independent pathologist and the State
37:55
Medical Examiner's office is the most sound.
37:57
Speaker 1: Path forward, so they should work together.
38:01
Speaker 2: It removes the limitations that hampered doctor Mitchell's initial report
38:04
and allows a collaborative review of the complete, uncompromised data set.
38:09
Speaker 1: And there is a legal trajectory developing here. The local
38:12
district attorney has indicated that this case could potentially go
38:15
before a grand jury if the evidence warrants it. Yeah,
38:18
Ben comp is pushing hard for this, and he wants
38:20
doctor Mitchell to present his independent findings to that grand
38:23
jury right alongside the state's official results.
38:26
Speaker 2: A grand jury presentation of both reports would force a
38:29
vital level of transparency.
38:31
Speaker 1: It would bring it all into the light.
38:33
Speaker 2: It would allow a panel of citizens to weigh the
38:35
state's definitive conclusions against the independent experts highlighted limitations and
38:41
unanswered questions. It brings the science out of the laboratory
38:45
and into the public record.
38:46
Speaker 1: But I want to throw a hypothetical at you, because
38:48
this is the absolute nightmare scenario for the family. Okay,
38:51
what happens if the Mississippi toxicology report comes back completely clean,
38:57
no drugs, no alcohol.
38:58
Speaker 2: Right.
38:59
Speaker 1: What happens if they with those retained neck structures under
39:02
a microscope and find absolutely zero evidence of trauma, compression
39:06
or microfractures. What if all the physical evidence officially confirms
39:11
a tragic accidental drowning, but the family is still staring
39:14
at a group of friends who took his phone, took
39:17
his keys, left him on a deserted island, and delayed
39:20
calling the police.
39:22
Speaker 2: This raises an important question, and it is the ultimate
39:25
limitation of science itself. Yeah, if the retained organs do
39:28
not yield any conclusive physical evidence of foul play, then
39:32
the microscope has done all it can do. It has
39:34
reached the end of its utility.
39:36
Speaker 1: That's devastating.
39:37
Speaker 2: At that point, the truth of what happened in those
39:39
final hours on Horn Island won't be found in a lab.
39:43
It will rely entirely on traditional, old fashioned.
39:46
Speaker 1: Detective work, boots on the ground.
39:47
Speaker 2: It will come down to scrutinizing cellular data, pulling communication records,
39:52
reinterviewing everyone present and looking for microscopic fractures not in bone,
39:57
but in the witness narratives.
39:58
Speaker 1: Wow.
39:58
Speaker 2: Forensics can tell you the biological mechanism of how a
40:01
body died, but it often cannot tell you the social
40:04
and interpersonal dynamics that put the body in the water
40:07
in the first place.
40:08
Speaker 1: So we end up right back in the narrative vacuum.
40:11
If the science says drowning, but human behavior screams suspicious,
40:15
we are left with an incredibly painful, unresolved human mystery.
40:20
Speaker 2: The science can only take us to the water's edge.
40:22
Human testimony has to explain why he went in.
40:25
Speaker 1: Today we took a deep dive into the independent autopsy
40:29
of Nolan Xavier Wells. We learned that doctor Mitchell's examination
40:32
did not declare a homicide, and it did not confirm
40:35
a drowning.
40:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, it didn't.
40:37
Speaker 1: What it did was clarify, with absolute, rigorous scientific honesty,
40:42
the boundaries of what can currently be known from a
40:45
body that has already been examined, dissected, and subjected to
40:48
the harsh decomposing elements of warm water Barrier Island.
40:52
Speaker 2: His report is a stark reminder that Forensic pathology is
40:56
not magic. It is a strict discipline, bound entirely by
41:01
the physical evidence available on the table at that exact moment.
41:04
Speaker 1: Everything in this tragic case now hinges on two things,
41:07
the official medical findings that are locked in a lab
41:09
in Mississippi and the rigor of the ongoing investigative inquiry
41:13
by law enforcement.
41:14
Speaker 2: The answers are still out there, buried in toxicology reports
41:17
in human memory.
41:18
Speaker 1: And until those reports are released and those memories are
41:20
fully examined, the cause and manner of Nolan's death remain
41:24
exactly as doctor Mitchell recorded them, undetermined. Yeah, as we
41:28
wrap up this deep dive, I want to leave you
41:30
with a final thought to mole over. We live in
41:33
an era where we demand instant gratification. You can pull
41:36
out your phone right now, tap a screen and track
41:38
your food delivery by the second. Oh yeah, you can
41:40
watch a dot moving on a map telling you exactly
41:43
when your pizza will arrive. We have been conditioned by
41:46
technology to expect that same immediacy, that same frictionless instant
41:51
delivery of data from every single aspect of our lives.
41:54
Speaker 2: We want everything right now.
41:56
Speaker 1: And that includes investigations into human mortality. We want the
41:59
twenty four for our news cycle to give us a neat,
42:01
clean headline that wraps up a tragedy in a bow.
42:05
But human bodies, unpredictable ocean currents, the microscopic breakdown of
42:10
cellular tissue, and the slow, agonizing grind of the legal
42:14
system do not operate on an app's algorithm.
42:17
Speaker 2: Absolutely do not.
42:18
Speaker 1: They do not care about our demand for a quick resolution.
42:21
So ask yourself, how does our societal impatience for immediate justice,
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our desperate need to know the answer right now, potentially
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compromise the meticulous, painstakingly slow search for the actual truth.
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Speaker 2: That friction is at the very heart of this case.
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Real truth takes time, and we are no longer a
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patient society.
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Speaker 1: We want the X ray to just show the broken
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bones so we can assign blame and move on. But
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sometimes the landscape is just muddy waters. Thank you for
42:45
joining us on this deep dive. Keep asking questions, keep
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looking beyond the headlines, and remember that sometimes undetermined isn't
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the end of the story, It's just the beginning of
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a much harder search for the truth.