Atlanta media mogul Tyler Perry is paying for the funeral of an 18-year-old man who was found dead off of Mississippi Gulf Coast after a July 4th weekend trip.
Perry announced the donation on social media for the family of Nolan Wells, who was found dead July 6 off of Horn Island.
The Associated Press reported Wells would have turned 19 next month. Instead, his family is seeking answers in his death.
Wells travelled by boat to Horn Island on July 4 with a group of friends. He didn’t return with them that afternoon.
“As a son of the South and a person who to this day questions the death of my nephew in a Louisiana prison, and as an advocate who has been fighting for years to get answers for Marcia Williams about what happened to her son Terrance in Florida, I know what it’s like to not have the answers that loved ones so desperately need,” he said.
Perry described the agony as “debilitating.”
"It is my hope that Nolan’s parents and all who knew and loved him get to the truth of what happened in Mississippi,” he said.
Police and Wells’ family are looking into his final hours in an attempt to find out what went wrong.
Law enforcement said so far they have no evidence of a crime, People reported.
Former NFL player Colin Kaepernick is paying for an independent autopsy, civil rights attorney Ben Crump said during a Friday news conference.
Wells attended Southwest Mississippi Community College. He played wide receiver on the football team, the Associated Press reported.
Attorneys said his friends took his keys and his phone when they left him on the island.
Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter told the Associated Press earlier this week it sounded like he chose to stay on the island because he was expecting to ride back with someone else.
But Wells’ family and attorneys say the facts don’t add up.
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