A park ranger found a body on Horn Island off the Mississippi Gulf Coast on Monday morning amid the search for 18-year-old Nolan Xavier Wells, an Ocean Springs resident who went missing on Saturday, July 4. WLOX reported that the body has not yet been identified.
Wells, who is around 6 feet 1 inch tall and weighs 180 pounds, was last seen around 3 p.m. Saturday on Horn Island, a barrier island 10 miles south of Pascagoula, Mississippi. He went out to the island with a group of friends on the holiday.
The New York Post reported on Monday morning that Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter said the body “was found in the water, just offshore off the west end of Horn Island” at 8:45 a.m. and that it “does match the description” of Wells.
The Jackson County Sheriff’s Department set up a command post on the coastline after Wells disappeared. Since the weekend, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources and the Gulf Islands National Seashore authorities have also been searching Horn Island.
Wells’ mother, Christine Wonsley, wrote in a Monday morning Facebook post that she and Wells’ father, Elmore Wonsley, “are not ok.”
“We have so many questions. Our hearts are breaking, we keep waiting for Nolan to walk through that door with his beautiful smile and a joke of course,” she wrote.
The rising sophomore is a wide receiver at Southwest Mississippi Community College.
“The SMCC family is praying for beloved football player Nolan Wells, his loved ones, and everyone involved in the search,” the school’s athletic department said in a Facebook post Sunday night.
Wells was last seen wearing blue swim trunks and sunglasses, said the Jackson Sheriff’s Department, which is urging anyone who spoke with the teenager on Saturday to contact authorities with information.
The United Cajun Navy, a volunteer emergency-response organization, said it is also helping with search efforts. Incident Commander Josh Gill said in a video posted to Facebook that Wells “went out to Horn Island with some buddies yesterday out on a boat” and was last seen “talking to a girl on that north end.”
Photos posted on Facebook by Wonsley show Wells on a boat with three other young men. The 18-year-old Ocean Springs resident was at some point separated from his phone, which Wonsley said had been returned to her.
Follow the Mississippi Free Press’ coverage of the Gulf Coast and read past stories here.
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