Identity of woman Nolan Wells was speaking with before his disappearance revealed
Nolan Wells, an 18-year-old college football player who vanished on Horn Island, was last seen talking to 19-year-old Katie McCormack, though witnesses give differing accounts of whether he stayed behind or planned to rejoin his friends.
Nolan Wells, 18, disappeared on July 4 while on a Fourth of July outing on Horn Island, a barrier island off Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. He was later found dead in the water surrounding the island. Recent reporting identified the young woman he was speaking with as Katie McCormack, 19, a resident of nearby towns east of Ocean Springs.
According to some of Wells’s friends, the group’s boat began taking on water and they returned to the mainland, leaving Wells behind because he was engaged in conversation with McCormack. Ashlee Cole, mother of Wells’s friend Warren Hudson, said the friends left after a bilge-pump failure, while Wells remained on the island.
McCormack’s 23-year-old sister, Gracie, contested that version, stating that McCormack believed Wells would rejoin the boat with his friends. She said McCormack assumed the friends would not abandon him and that he intended to board the vessel.
McCormack, who has not spoken publicly about the incident, posted a brief message on social media expressing sympathy for Wells’s family and asking for prayers.
Civil-rights attorney Ben Crump, representing Wells’s family, highlighted the contradictory statements, noting that “somebody must not be telling the truth.” The case remains under investigation as authorities continue to review the circumstances surrounding Wells’s death.