A retired FBI agent says that new audio released following Nolan Wells’ disappearance and death doesn’t show “anything nefarious.”
Wells, 18, went missing July 4 after a boat trip with friends to Horn Island, a barrier island off Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. Crews searched the area for two days before a National Parks Service ranger found his remains on the island’s northwestern tip on July 6.
Wells’ friends returned to the mainland that afternoon without him. Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter has said investigators believe Wells chose to remain on the island, and it wasn’t until later that night that his mother learned from one of his friends he was missing, prompting her to report it to authorities.
Fox News Digital obtained a recording of a call made to Sea Tow on the evening of July 4 by someone aboard the boat, who said the vessel was taking on water as it prepared to return to the mainland. The individual said there were seven people onboard.
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“Hey, we’re at the west tip of Horn, and our bilge pump stopped working. We’re sinking. Can y’all please come?” an individual can be heard saying to the Sea Tow dispatcher.
When the dispatcher asked how far the water is coming inside the boat, the individual replied, “It’s coming up… we’re just sinking. I don’t know. We’re going down though.”
“And is everyone on board and in good health otherwise?” the dispatcher asked.
“Yeah, everyone is on board,” the individual on the boat responded.
The man heard talking to the Sea Tow dispatcher requested someone to come help un-sink the boat and get it towed back to the Fort Bayou launch in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
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The Sea Tow dispatcher spoke with a separate boat captain, who said he was on the phone with the boat’s owner.
“It sounds like a bunch of kids on board on Horn Island,” the dispatcher said. “He’s saying the boat is sinking and he’s on Horn Island… It’s just unfortunate, he’s just a kid… there’s a lot going on… I’m guessing they’re all under 18… He wants you guys to go out there and un-pump the boat and then tow it in?”
The dispatcher then spoke with a captain, who said he was already on the phone with a man who owned the boat, a relative of the teen who called, and said those on the boat were in a “panic” because the boat wouldn’t crank.
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“It sounds like a bunch of kids on board on Horn Island,” the dispatcher told the captain. “He’s saying the boat is sinking and he’s on Horn Island. It’s just unfortunate, he’s just a kid. It’s a lot going on.
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“He wants you guys to go out there and un-pump the boat and then tow it in,” the dispatcher said.
The captain said the boat’s owner told him the teens didn’t “need any help right now, but if something changes, he’ll call me back.”
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Sea Tow didn’t end up towing the boat.
Former FBI agent Jonathan Gilliam told Fox News Digital he doesn’t believe the Sea Tow audio points to any signs of foul play, as some people on social media have claimed.
WATCH: Retired FBI agent says nothing ‘nefarious’ in newly released Nolan Wells boat audio
“I don’t hear anything nefarious… it just sounded like there was a lot of stuff going on, that they were taking on water — not panic as much as this young person was trying to resolve a situation in a party atmosphere.”
Gilliam also pointed out that the call itself undercuts the idea of a cover-up.
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“By the way, they’re taking on water. They’re going to be calling for assistance, which could lead to authorities. If they had done something, that’d be a very bad time for a person who’d done something nefarious to call out people and for them to get away with something. So I don’t think it added anything to the conspiracies of something having occurred knowingly in a nefarious manner.”
Several of Wells’ friends told authorities he “chose to remain at the island” with an unidentified female rather than return to the mainland with the group he arrived with, according to a Mississippi Department of Marine Resources police report obtained by Fox News Digital.
According to the police report, authorities “did not have reason to believe there were any water related exigencies or emergencies and he believed the most likely scenario was Nolan rode in on another vessel but did not have his phone in his possession to make contact with family.”
During a July 22 news conference, attorney Ben Crump revealed that an area of “red discoloration” was found on Wells’ head, but said Dr. Roger Mitchell, who performed an independent autopsy, couldn’t come to a conclusion on a cause or manner of death “pending further investigation.” An official autopsy into Wells’ death hasn’t been completed.
Wells was a wide receiver at Southwest Mississippi Community College and had hopes to play at the Division 1 level, according to Crump, an attorney for his family.
