Body of Missing Football Player Found on Horn Island

The body of 18-year-old Nolan Xavier Wells was discovered on Monday, July 6, ending a multi-day search after the college football player went missing during a Fourth of July outing to Horn Island, Mississippi. Authorities have not yet officially confirmed the identity or determined a cause of death, but the family has identified the body as belonging to Wells.

Wells, a wide receiver for Southwest Mississippi Community College and a former standout athlete at Ocean Springs High School, traveled to the remote barrier island by private boat with a group of friends on Saturday, July 4. According to officials, his friends returned to the mainland that evening without him, having last seen him talking to a girl on the island's north end around 3 or 4 p.m. They reportedly assumed he had taken a different boat home. His mother, Christine Wonsley, reported him missing that night.

A large-scale search operation involving the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Park Service, and volunteer groups like the United Cajun Navy began on Sunday. A U.S. Park Ranger found a body in the water off the island's northwest shore around 8:45 a.m. on Monday. The family later...