Last updated September 28, 2026. Companion to the in-depth report and the live case tracker. Tap or hover any point on a chart to see its exact value.
1. Case timeline, July 4 to September 27
Each dot is one dated event, placed on its date and colored by the kind of event (see the key under the chart). The five dots stacked on July 4 are that day’s events in order, from the boat leaving the dock at 9:56 a.m. to the missing-person report at about 11 p.m.
Show all 24 events as a list
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Jul 4, 9:56 a.m. | Boat departs the mainland dock. (July 4–6: trip, search and recovery; Report ref. 7) |
| Jul 4, 11:14 a.m. | Boat arrives at Horn Island. (July 4–6: trip, search and recovery; Report ref. 7) |
| Jul 4, ~3:00 p.m. | Last confirmed sighting of Wells on the island. (July 4–6: trip, search and recovery; Report ref. 6) |
| Jul 4, 4:31 p.m. | Boat's own GPS shows it leaving the island without Wells. (July 4–6: trip, search and recovery; Report ref. 7) |
| Jul 4, ~11:00 p.m. | Family reports Wells missing. (July 4–6: trip, search and recovery; Report ref. 6) |
| Jul 6 | Wells' body found on the Horn Island shoreline; identified by dental records. (July 4–6: trip, search and recovery; Report ref. 6) |
| Jul 7 | Family retains civil rights attorney Ben Crump. (Legal and official actions; Report ref. 8) |
| Jul 7 | State Medical Examiner Dr. Staci Turner performs the first autopsy and reports the head bruises to the sheriff's office. (Autopsies and evidence; Report refs. 20, 21) |
| Jul 10 | Dr. Roger A. Mitchell Jr. performs a second, independent autopsy for the family. (Autopsies and evidence; Report ref. 21) |
| Jul 12 | Hundreds march in Ocean Springs demanding transparency. (Public response; Report ref. 9) |
| Jul 17 | Mitchell issues his preliminary findings report. (Autopsies and evidence; Report ref. 21) |
| Jul 20 | Funeral held; Rev. Al Sharpton speaks. (Public response; Report ref. 26) |
| Jul 22 | Crump announces the independent autopsy's preliminary result: cause and manner of death undetermined. (Legal and official actions; Report ref. 8) |
| Aug 12 | Congressional Black Caucus asks the DOJ and FBI to review the case for federal jurisdiction. (Legal and official actions; Report ref. 10) |
| Aug 17 | Dr. Turner signs the state autopsy report: cause and manner of death undetermined. (Autopsies and evidence; Report ref. 20) |
| Aug 17 | NAACP Office of General Counsel joins the family's legal team. (Legal and official actions; Report ref. 11) |
| Aug 31–Sep 1 | Mitchell reviews retained tissue, autopsy photos and ~750 pages of case files, and visits Horn Island. (Autopsies and evidence; Report ref. 21) |
| Sep 14 | Mitchell signs his final report, adding three probable back bruises not recorded by the state. (Autopsies and evidence; Report ref. 21) |
| Sep 14–18 | Grand jury hears the case: 132 subpoenas, 43 witnesses; report filed Sep 18. (Legal and official actions; Report ref. 22) |
| Sep 21 | Grand jury returns a unanimous no true bill; DA Angel Myers McIlrath announces it. (Legal and official actions; Report ref. 12) |
| Sep 22 | Family and Crump hold a press conference and renew the call for federal review. (Legal and official actions; Report ref. 13) |
| Sep 24 | Crump and forensic examiner Andrew Garrett announce cellphone findings; family releases the state autopsy report. (Autopsies and evidence; Report refs. 20, 2) |
| Sep 24 | DA McIlrath disputes the cellphone findings and the bruising dispute in a written statement. (Legal and official actions; Report refs. 1, 23) |
| Sep 27 | Hundreds protest again in Ocean Springs. (Public response; Report ref. 5) |
2. National drowning death rates by race, 2019–2022
Nolan Wells’ death is one case. This chart shows the national pattern around it: how many people in each group died from unintentional drowning for every 100,000 people, each year. The Black rate (thick gold line) was higher than the White rate in every year shown, peaking at 1.9 in 2021.
3. The risk gap by age and by where the drowning happens
This chart compares Black and White young people directly. Each bar shows how many times higher the Black drowning rate was than the White rate for that age group, from 1999 to 2019. A bar at 1.0 (the dashed red line) would mean equal risk. The biggest gap is in swimming pools at ages 10–14: 7.6 times the White rate. Nolan Wells was 18 and died in open water off a barrier island. For his age group (15–19) in natural water, the Black rate was 2.0 times the White rate. That bar is gold.
The same data in 3D
This shows the same numbers as the bar chart above as one surface, so you can see both settings at once. The gold peak is ages 10–14 in pools. Drag to rotate it and pinch or scroll to zoom. On a small phone, the bar chart above is easier to read.
4. Horn Island’s own record
This figure is separate from the national data above. It comes from the Jackson County Coroner’s Office, in answer to an open-records request first reported by PEOPLE and covered by NewsNation and TheGrio (September 9–11, 2026). It does not establish what happened to Wells. It is a dated data point about how unusual a drowning at that location has been, reported here as context, not as proof of any particular cause.
Source: Jackson County Coroner’s Office records, via NewsNation.
Methodology and sources
- CDC, MMWR Vital Signs (May 2024). Progress on Childhood Injury Prevention: Drowning. Table 1: drowning death rates by race and ethnicity, 2019–2022, all ages, age-adjusted. cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7320e1.htm
- CDC, MMWR 70(24) (June 2021). Persistent Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Fatal Unintentional Drowning Rates Among Persons Aged ≤29 Years, United States, 1999–2019. Table 2: rate ratios by age group and setting. cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7024a1.htm
- Jackson County Coroner’s Office, via PEOPLE open-records request; reported by NewsNation and TheGrio (September 9–11, 2026). newsnationnow.com
- Timeline: every event and its reference number comes from the dated table and References in Kemetic Minds’ in-depth report, which links each primary document (autopsy reports, grand jury report, DA statement) and news report.
Investigative methodology: this page is built by scripts/nolan_wells_dashboard.py from the cited government data and dated reporting above, without a language model. Every chart value was checked against the source table named in its caption.