Three young men who were with Nolan Wells on the night he disappeared from a Fourth of July gathering on Horn Island, Mississippi, have filed a federal defamation lawsuit against former NFL wide receiver Terrell Owens.
Warren Hudson, Jax Pitalo and Morgan Seymour say Owens defamed them after he posted on X, “ARREST THEM IMMEDIATELY!!” The post, made Sept. 26 and still online, links to an Instagram reel by content creator Trent Out Loud accusing the three of deleting Snapchat messages from Wells’ phone after his death and suggesting they may have been responsible for his killing.
Because all three young men are under 21, they are considered minors under Mississippi law. Their fathers filed the lawsuit on their behalf Monday.
Wells, 18, traveled by boat to Horn Island with a large group of friends on the Fourth of July. Hudson, Pitalo and Seymour have said Wells stayed behind on the island because he was talking to a girl, an account disputed by Wells’ family. His body was recovered two days later off the island’s coast.
Images of Wells, who was Black, alongside his white friends spread widely online before his death was explained, prompting some social media users to frame the case in racial terms and direct suspicion at the three men.
A digital forensics expert hired by attorney Benjamin Crump, Andrew Garrett, examined Wells’ phone and found that no one accessed it between 2:18 p.m. on July 4, when Wells last unlocked it, and 3:14 a.m. on July 5, when his parents gained access. Garrett also noted that Snapchat messages can vanish from a recipient’s phone if the sender remotely deletes them — undercutting the deletion claim circulating online.
The lawsuit argues Owens had no basis for his post. “The Defamatory X Post also placed Warren, Jax, and Morgan before Owens’ audience in a false light, as murderers and participants in a murder coverup who had escaped justice,” the complaint states. “There was absolutely no evidence to prompt an arrest of the Plaintiffs because they had done nothing wrong, and there was no probable cause to arrest Plaintiffs because they had not committed a crime.”
Fox News Digital sought comment from Owens through his social media accounts and through SMAC Entertainment, which lists him as a client.
Owens’ post came days after a grand jury, on Sept. 22, found Wells’ death “consistent with drowning” and declined to recommend charges against anyone. The grand jury noted that both the state autopsy, which has not been made public, and an independent autopsy commissioned by the family found bruising on the back of Wells’ head.
The family’s own forensic pathologist, Roger A. Mitchell Jr., classified the death as “undetermined,” saying he could not rule out non-accidental causes because Wells did not appear too intoxicated to swim and had “apparent acute blunt force injuries to the head and body prior to his death.”
On Monday, Wells’ family called for a federal investigation into the death. “Our son was found on federal land and we are asking the FBI to step in and do a full investigation,” said Elmore Wonsley, Wells’ father.
Add comment