Three friends of Nolan Wells are suing NFL Hall of Famer Terrell Owens for defamation.
The fathers of the three friends, who are under 21 and considered minors under Mississippi law, filed the lawsuit in federal court on Monday. The lawsuit follows a post Owens made on social media in the aftermath of Wells’ death.
Wells, a Black student at Southwest Mississippi Community College, disappeared on Horn Island after traveling there with a group of white friends on July 4. He was found deceased by a park ranger two days later, and since then, his death has sparked widespread controversy and allegations of racially motivated foul play.
One of these allegations came from Owens, who shared a video on his X platform on Sept. 26 theorizing that the three friends killed Wells and tampered with his cellphone. The post’s caption read, “ARREST THEM IMMEDIATELY!! LIKE YESTERDAY!!” Meanwhile, a grand jury had found days earlier, on Sept. 21, that there was no evidence to pursue criminal charges against Wells’ friends.
“Ever since the weekend of July 4, they have been targeted, harassed, doxxed, and accosted in public because of online speculation that they were involved in their friend Nolan Wells’ death,” Tyler Cox, an attorney representing the three friends, said on Mornings with Richard Cross. “There was never a criminal investigation that took place. It was only just a death investigation, which is a common occurrence here in Jackson County.”
Owens has more than 1 million followers on X and pledged a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in Wells’ case. Civil rights activist Al Sharpton and prominent Black filmmaker Tyler Perry also offered hefty rewards for the same information.
As for the investigation into Wells’ death, two autopsies did not give a definitive cause of death, and the grand jury ruled that the college student’s passing was consistent with drowning. Wells’ family and attorney Ben Crump did not accept that determination, and instead, argued that there was evidence to the contrary of a drowning and suspicious marks on the back of Wells’ head.
Wells’ friends said that Wells elected to remain on Horn Island and continue talking to a female with whom he had struck up a conversation when the group decided to leave on July 4. The deceased’s family refuted that claim and argued that Wells would not have done so. The family also alleged that messages were deleted from Wells’ phone by the time they had retrieved it from the friend group.
A forensic expert seemingly backed that assertion, though Jackson County District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath noted that Crump and company refused to turn the phone over for the grand jury to review. Instead, her office was provided 282 pages of Snapchat messages for the grand jury to review. McIlrath has maintained that the grand jury was given a thorough and evidence-based review of what happened to Wells in July and that its ruling ought to be respected.
In the meantime, more lawsuits are expected against prominent cultural figures, including Sharpton, for alleged defamatory statements made about Wells’ friends.
“Lawsuits are coming,” Cox said. “We’re talking about the big fish here. We’re talking about members of the media. We’re talking about public figures coming and sowing seeds of hate and distrust down here in south Mississippi.”
