Nolan Wells' family marks his 19th birthday with national day of prayer
"Only thing we want to know is what happened," the Mississippi teen's mom said.
Nolan Wells' family is marking what would have been the Mississippi teenager's 19th birthday with a national day of prayer on Wednesday.
The first event will be a prayer vigil at 12 p.m. ET, followed by a prayer rally at 8 p.m. ET.
"As the days gets closer [to his birthday,] it's definitely getting harder -- that realization is really sinking in that we don't have our son physically here anymore," Wells' mother, Christine Wonsley, told reporters last week.
"Only thing we want to know is what happened," she said.
"Can we pray together in unity to say, 'Let's get to the truth of what happened to Nolan Wells,'" civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents the family, said last week. "... And try to have love in our hearts for this family, for this broken-hearted mother and father, his sisters and brothers."
Wells went missing after going on a Fourth of July boat trip with friends to Horn Island, just off the Gulf Coast, authorities said.
His body was recovered two days later and his cause of death remains unknown. Authorities said they suspect Wells drowned and Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter said there was no initial indication of a crime, but he stressed that investigators are "working diligently to determine exactly what occurred."
In a preliminary report from a private autopsy commissioned by Wells' family, his cause and manner of death were listed as "undetermined pending investigation," with the independent pathologist acknowledging multiple limitations in the report.
The results of the autopsy from the State Medical Examiner's office have not yet been made public and the investigation is ongoing.
Jackson County District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath promised again on Tuesday that she will "present the Grand Jury with a thorough, complete, and fair investigation into the death of Nolan Wells."
The DA's office has said convening a grand jury does not mean there is any criminality and is standard procedure for most unnatural or suspicious deaths in the county.
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