OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. — The funeral for Nolan Wells, the teenage football star whose body was found on the shores of Mississippi’s Horn Island days after he went missing July 4, will be held Monday morning.
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The service will be held at Center Pointe Church in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, where Wells is from. The Wells family’s attorney, Ben Crump, is set to deliver the call for justice; civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton will deliver Wells’ eulogy.
Hundreds are expected to attend the funeral Monday.
Last week, Crump, along with Wells’ parents — Elmore Wonsley and Christine Wells-Wonsley — spoke to the media about the pending funeral arrangements.
“What we’re going to do is kind of have a party to celebrate him,” Wells-Wonsley said of her son Wednesday. “We want to celebrate him, and he would not want us to be sitting around crying and eating.”
The “party” will be held at Jackson County Fairgrounds, she said, for friends, family and Wells’ teammates.
Crump also noted last week that Tyler Perry will be paying for the funeral.
Wells and a group of friends went to Horn Island, off the coast of Mississippi, to celebrate July 4. The friends returned to the mainland later that afternoon and told police Wells opted to stay behind, saying he would catch a ride back later with others.
When he didn’t return home that night, his mother reported him missing around midnight. A U.S. park ranger found Wells’ body on the northwest shore of Horn Island on July 6.
It remains unclear how Wells died. Officials have not yet released an autopsy report as the investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death intensified.
Crump and Wells’ parents have said they are leading their own investigation into his death, and performed an independent autopsy on Wells. Crump thanked Colin Kaepernick for paying for the independent autopsy at the news conference Wednesday.
Those who knew Wells remembered him fondly in the weeks following his death.
“Nolan as a person I can say was an amazing human being,” said Daniel Pickens, a friend from high school. “I’ve never heard anyone talk down on him. He truly lit up every room that he walked into. He was a stand-up, genuine and A-1 guy.”
He added, “It’s just so sad to see a gentle soul go out like that.”
