JACKSON, Miss. (August 14, 2026) – Nationally renowned civil rights and personal injury attorney Ben Crump and the legal team for the family of 18-year-old Nolan Wells are pushing back on any suggestion that the family has been uncooperative or less than transparent in the District Attorney’s investigation into Nolan’s death. In correspondence sent to District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath on August 13, the legal team confirmed that Nolan’s parents remain willing to facilitate a forensic examination of Nolan’s phone, consistent with what the parties agreed to on July 15.
At that July 15 meeting, the parties agreed to a jointly coordinated forensic examination of the phone using the Digital Forensics Lab at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, with possible FBI involvement. According to the legal team’s correspondence, no date or time for that examination was ever set. Instead, on August 12 at 12:51 p.m. ET, the District Attorney’s office sent a letter directing the family to deliver the phone to her office by 9 a.m. on August 14, less than 48 hours later. Nolan’s parents were outside Mississippi when that letter was sent and were not scheduled to return before the deadline. The parties have also not agreed on a forensic protocol governing the scope and method of the examination, chain of custody, preservation of the extraction, access to the resulting data, and return of the device. The legal team has asked the District Attorney’s office to send its proposed protocol and has said the examination can be scheduled immediately once it is agreed upon.
The legal team issued the following statement:
“Nolan’s family has not refused to cooperate, and the correspondence with the District Attorney’s Office is proof of that. We agreed on July 15 to examine this phone together, with their experts, our experts, and possibly the FBI. We have continued to expect that the forensic examination of Nolan’s phone would happen exactly as agreed on July 15. In order to preserve the evidence, we asked for a protocol, a chain of custody, and an agreement on what happens to the data. We have yet to receive these details.
“Setting a 48-hour deadline while this family was out of state is not a good-faith path to answers, and it weakens our confidence in the process. Nolan’s parents will not be pulled into a fight over deadlines and logistics. Even in their grief and heartbreak, they are still trying to work with the DA, but they want to be able to trust that this is a fair and impartial investigation and that the agreements made will be honored. They are focused on one thing, and that is finding out what happened to their son.”
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ABOUT BEN CRUMP LAW
Through his work, nationally renowned civil rights and personal injury attorney Ben Crump has spearheaded a legal movement to better protect the rights of marginalized citizens. He has led landscape-changing civil rights cases and represented clients in a wide range of areas including civil rights, personal injury, labor and employment, class actions, and more. Ben Crump Law is dedicated to holding the powerful accountable. For more information, visit bencrump.com.
