18-year-old football player Nolan Wells was found dead on July 6th after he went missing on a trip to Horn Island. The teen was left behind on the island by his friends, as they revealed to police, so that he could talk to a woman. The woman has now been identified as 19-year-old Katie McCormack. She is a student from Pascagoula. She stated:

“What’s understood don’t have to be said. I love y’all. Just pray for his family and his friends. I’m good, and all I can do is pray for healing over them. This is a terrible situation all in all.”

— Katie McCormack, Dailymail

Wells apparently disappeared from Horn Island after being seen talking with McCormack, who was visiting with a separate group and is among the last people known to have spoken with the teen. She left the island with her brother and his fiancée, and is not a suspect as of yet in the death of Wells.

What has, however, sent alarm bells ringing is the claim that McCormack’s sister, Gracie, 23, has made. While Wells allegedly told his friends that he would be staying back on the island to talk to McCormack, the McCormacks were under the impression that Wells had departed with his friends.

As the Daily Mail reported, Katie’s sister Gracie said, “Katie had a conversation and assumed that Nolan was getting ready to get on the boat he came out on. ‘Katie assumed the ‘friends’ telling him to get on the boat wouldn’t have left him.”

Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump has been hired to represent the Wells’ family’s interests, believes that there might be something amiss in the case.

Crumps noted, ‘She saying he went and got on the boat. They saying he didn’t get on the boat. So which is it? The fact that you have the young lady who said that Nolan said he was going to get back on the boat with the boys, and then the boys said no, Nolan told them that he was going to stay with the girl. Somebody must not be telling the truth.

The McCormack family has also been immensely cooperative with investigators and Wells’ mother, Christine Wonsley. There was also other conflicting data, such as Wells’ Snapchat and Life 360 showing him being at two different locations at the same time.

Public civil rights attorney Ben Crump initially stated that Wells was heard on camera asking for his phone during a heated exchange. However, Wells’ friend, Tracestin Shepherd, has since disputed that claim, clarifying that the voice in the viral footage is his and that Wells does not appear in the video.

“Give me my freaking phone. What are you freaking doing?”

— Person in viral video, identified by Ben Crump as Nolan Wells, Wlox

 

“That’s me yelling.”

— Tracestin Shepherd, longtime friend of Nolan Wells, Abcnews

Authorities have not established an official cause of death. An independent autopsy proved inconclusive, and investigators continue to list drowning as a potential cause.

Disclaimer: Inquisitr could not independently confirm the facts of this incident and is reporting based on the information available.