Bart Edmiston, a former teammate of Nolan Wells on the Ocean Springs High School football team, is set to pursue defamation claims after alleging that a flurry of unfounded accusations on social media led to a death threat.
Russ Latino, a lawyer and the CEO of the nonprofit news publication Magnolia Tribune, announced that he was representing Edmiston in a Facebook post, alleging that defamatory statements “are putting Bart, his family and friends in harm’s way.” Latino did not say who the initial lawsuit will target, but did note that many individuals on social media have made posts alleging without evidence that Edmiston played a role in Wells’ death.
A U.S. Park Ranger found 18-year-old Wells’ body on Horn Island south of the Mississippi Gulf Coast two days after he traveled there to celebrate the 4th of July with a large friend group who took multiple boats. After the boat he rode out on began taking on water due to a faulty bilge pump, Wells’ friends who were on that boat said he declined to return to shore with them, saying he would return later on another boat. One of the friends, Warren Hudson, called Wells’ mother and the U.S. Coast Guard at around 11 p.m. to report him missing.
Though the circumstances and cause of Wells’ death remain unclear, speculation has spread across social media platforms, with many users accusing multiple of Wells’ friends and their family members of being involved in his death or having racist motives.
Those kinds of accusations, Latino alleged on Wednesday morning, have endangered his client’s safety. Edmiston graduated from Ocean Springs High School in 2023 and is currently a punter at the University of Wyoming. Social media users began spreading speculation about Edmiston after claiming to hear the name “Bart” mentioned in garbled audio at the beginning of a call that one of Wells’ friends placed to Sea Tow to report that the boat was sinking.
The friends on the imperiled boat ultimately cancelled the Sea Tow call after Edmiston arrived on his own boat to assist them.
“Bart received a credible death threat yesterday because of some of the made-up speculation on this and other sites. The FBI, state and local law enforcement have all been activated,” Latino said in his announcement.
The attorney also said in a follow-up post that some social media posts have used a high school photo of Edmiston, who is now 21, claiming it shows him with Katie McCormick, a woman whom Wells was spending time with on Horn Island on the day he died. Latino wrote that some on social media have gone on to falsely claim “that Bart had an intimate relationship with Ms. McCormick and that he killed Nolan Wells because Wells was speaking to her.”
“The person in the circulating photograph with a much younger Bart is not Katie McCormick. … Bart is not now nor has he ever been in a relationship with Katie McCormick. He did not know who she was before this tragedy occurred,” he wrote.
“Let me be abundantly clear, Bart Edmiston Jr. did not kill or in any way contribute to the tragic death of Nolan Wells,” Latino continued. “He had no motive to do so. All he did was help a boat that was in distress. He has fully and freely cooperated with authorities sharing every bit of information he knows; providing access to his boat, his GPS, and his phone; and sharing witness lists with investigators.”
Latino Vows to ‘Identify and Track Individuals Engaged in Defamation’
Authorities have not publicly identified any evidence of foul play in Nolan Wells’ death. An independent autopsy that Wells’ family sought found that the cause of his death was “undetermined” without the results of the official state autopsy and toxicology report. The findings, which family attorney Ben Crump announced on July 22, said that while there was some “red discoloration in the soft tissue of the back of the head,” there were “no lacerations of the overlying skin nor fractures of the underlying skull.”
Jackson County District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath has said that the official autopsy and toxicology report will not be made public until after her office presents its findings to a grand jury, as is standard practice in the county for deaths that are not caused by a non-criminal car wreck or clear natural causes.
Attorney Russ Latino said that Bart Edmiston’s family will put out a statement on Wednesday afternoon to “announce the initiation of its first defamation lawsuit.” But this will not be the only one, he suggested, calling it “a large, potentially nationwide task.”
“We have hired a private investigator firm to identify and track individuals engaged in defamation against the Edmistons,” he said. “That you are young, naive or lack the resources to pay a civil judgment will not deter us from filing a lawsuit against you. This is not about money for my clients. They want to protect their family and they want to curb people who lie recklessly.”
“If you make up something out of thin air or share something you don’t know to be true, adding the word ‘allegedly’ or saying ‘people are reporting’ will not save you from a defamation lawsuit,” the lawyer added. “We will address the falsehoods being presented methodically. But now is not the time for that. Now is the time to make very clear that we intend to be unrelenting against people who are lying online for clicks and likes.”
Other Friends, Family Also Reported Death Threats
Warren Hudson, one Wells’ friends who has faced accusations on social media, told YouTuber Officer Tatum in an interview that he was unable to attend Wells’ funeral due to death threats and a desire not to disrupt the service.
“With everything going on on social media right now and people saying the things that they are saying, I would never want to take the attention off of Nolan and his family—they don’t deserve that—and you know, for personal reasons,” he said. “I’ve gotten thousands of death threats, my family’s gotten thousands of death threats. And for my own safety, I’m not going to put my own health and safety at risk. It breaks my heart that I can’t go, and it hurts me more than anything, because obviously I want to say my last goodbyes to one of my best friends.”
Jackson County Chancery Judge Ashlee Cole, Hudson’s stepmother, said earlier this month that she had received messages threatening her family, including bomb threats and threats to kill her small children.
An Ocean Springs resident who purchased his home from Cole three years ago said in a Facebook post on Tuesday evening that his family fears for their lives after photos of their home spread across social media, with users claiming it is where Cole and her family currently reside.
“I’m usually not one to get involved. However, I feel like my family and the safety of my family is being brought into it,” the resident wrote, noting that images of his home have been shared on Facebook “over 100 times today.”
“People on the internet with NO AFFILIATION are being put into harm’s way and INNOCENT PEOPLE are being accused of something they had no involvement in all for some views and likes,” he added.
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch also said in a statement this week that “efforts to intimidate, disrupt or interfere with the work of our law enforcement and prosecutors and threats to their well-being will be taken seriously and we will hold those who make them accountable.”
Wells’ mother, Christine Wonsley, has said that she and her husband, Elmore Wonsley, have received hate mail in the wake of their son’s death over their pursuit of answers. Since his death, the couple has been targeted with racist vitriol and people have left one-star reviews on her work profile.
“Thank you to all of those who are standing with us and understand the assignment which is to find out what happened to Nolan,” Christine Wonsley wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday. “To those of you who have been spewing hate, I pray you and your family never go through a tragedy like this where there are so many questions with little to no answers.”
Follow the Mississippi Free Press’ coverage of Nolan Wells’ death and read past stories here.
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