By Andrew Hay
July 24 (Reuters) – A grand jury in Mississippi will review the circumstances around the death of Nolan Wells before the evidence is made public in the case of the Black teenager whose body was found in the water off an island he had visited with white friends, a local prosecutor said this week, but as of Friday had not said when jurors would take up the matter.
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This week, an attorney for the teenager’s family said a private autopsy could not rule out foul play. The family’s calls for answers have been amplified by civil rights leaders and social media, feeding a debate about the safety of young Black Americans in predominantly white environments.
The district attorney for Jackson County said that, as a matter of routine, case information would be withheld from the public to protect the “integrity” of the grand jury which will decide if there is evidence a crime may have taken place and someone should be charged.
“Every death in the county — except those of natural causes and non-criminal car wrecks — is presented to your grand jury,” Jackson County District Attorney Angel Myers Mcllrath said in a video message on Thursday. “Nolan’s case is being handled the same way.”
The prosecutor did not respond to questions from Reuters about when jurors would be convened and what kinds of evidence they would consider.
She promised a thorough, careful and uncompromised investigation into a case that has become a flashpoint for race relations in America.
Wells, 18, died after he went to a Fourth of July party on Horn Island with three white friends he had known since high school in nearby Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
The three friends returned to the mainland without him and were in possession of his mobile phone, according to the family’s lawyer Ben Crump.
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A pathologist who conducted an independent autopsy of Wells on behalf of his family could not draw conclusions and requested further information from the state medical examiner’s initial autopsy, Crump told a press conference earlier this week.
Wells’ mother, Christine Wonsley, said Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter told her less than an hour after her son’s body was recovered on July 6 that he believed the death was accidental and he did not see foul play.
Ledbetter did not respond to requests for comment.
Crump, civil rights leader Al Sharpton and some Democratic lawmakers have said the case highlights the lack of scrutiny given to deaths of young Black men.
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves, a Republican, said in a statement on Friday that authorities were conducting a thorough investigation and Crump and Sharpton were “stoking division for political gain.”
Crump’s office, and Sharpton, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. There was no one available for comment at Myers Mcllrath’s office.
(Reporting by Andrew Hay in New Mexico; editing by Donna Bryson and David Gregorio)
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