Three individuals charged with threats against officials in Nolan Wells death probe

Federal prosecutors have charged three separate individuals with making threats against persons connected to the investigation of Nolan Xavier Wells, an 18-year-old who was found dead after a July 4 boat trip off Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. The defendants, who have no known personal connection to Wells or his family, allegedly threatened a judge, a potential witness and local officials.

Edward James Porter of Illinois was indicted on July 31 for allegedly calling an unnamed witness and threatening to kill the witness and their family, and for telling another person in Mississippi that he would “cut them up and put them into a suitcase.” Porter also threatened two members of the family of Bart Edminston Jr., who had assisted the group’s boat.

Michelle Francine Edwards, a resident of Ohio, was charged for allegedly making 21 bomb-threat calls to the George County Chancery Clerk’s Office on July 23, telling the clerk “the clock is ticking.”

Joseph Alfredo Vasquez Dumarce, a California resident, faced charges on July 14 for sending a Facebook message that prosecutors say threatened to mail a bomb to a Jackson County Chancery Court judge involved in the case. Judge Ashlee Cole posted a screenshot of the message on social media and said she deactivated her account out of safety concerns for her children.

Attempts to contact the defendants for comment were unsuccessful, and the affidavits listed phone numbers and email addresses that were either inactive or unanswered. The investigation into Wells’ death remains ongoing, with an independent autopsy commissioned by his family listing the cause of death as “undetermined.”

"No one in our family is trying in any way to impede the investigation or hamper the family and law enforcement’s quest for answers," Judge Cole wrote in a Facebook post.

The charges were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.