Nolan Wells went to Horn Island with three friends on the Fourth of July. His friends came home. He didn't — and the phone that could explain why sat at the boat owner's house for days before his mother ever laid eyes on it, both Snapchat accounts wiped clean, nobody bothering to call and say they had it. The friends say Nolan chose to stay behind to talk to a girl. The girl says Nolan told her he was heading back to the boat. Somebody's version doesn't hold up, and nobody's under oath yet to sort it out. Nolan's best friend, the one actually standing on that island, says investigators still haven't reached out to him. A sitting Jackson County judge's stepson was on the boat. The Coast Guard fielded a missing person call at 11 PM and decided it "did not require Coast Guard assistance." Two days and one failed multi-agency search later, Nolan's body turned up face down in the water, at the exact spot he was last seen alive. His parents didn't wait around for Mississippi's version of events — they ordered an independent autopsy. Hundreds marched through Ocean Springs demanding answers. The funeral will fill a ten-thousand-seat arena. And through all of it, the one piece of hardware that could settle the timeline for good still hasn't made its way into a detective's evidence bag. This is what it looks like when a group of scared kids circles the wagons and the system lets them get away with it — at least so far. Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #NolanWells #SheriffLedbetter #HiddenKillers #HornIsland #OceanSprings #BenCrump #Mississippi #JusticeForNolan #ElmoreWonsley #TrueCrime