Two Charged Over Threats Amid Nolan Wells Death Investigation

US federal authorities have charged at least two people over alleged threats against public officials in Mississippi as scrutiny continues around the unresolved death of 18-year-old college student Nolan Wells.

Court records cited by The Guardian identify Michelle Francine Edwards of Cincinnati and Joseph Alfredo Vasquez Dumarce of Sacramento as defendants in separate cases. Each is accused of transmitting a threatening communication across state lines. The allegations have not been proven in court.

Edwards is alleged to have repeatedly called government offices in July and made threats that led authorities to lock down a building and conduct a bomb search. Dumarce is accused of sending threatening online messages to a chancery judge whose son had joined the boat trip preceding Wells’s death. A conviction on the federal charge can carry up to five years in prison, according to the court information reported by The Guardian.

Wells, a Black college freshman from Mississippi, was found dead after a July boat trip to Horn Island with three white friends. His death has attracted national attention and speculation about whether race played a role, but no such motive has been established. An independent autopsy described the cause and manner of death as undetermined pending investigation, according to family attorney Ben Crump.

Mississippi’s state medical examiner has completed an official autopsy, but its findings have not been released publicly and are being provided first to a grand jury investigating the death. The criminal cases concern alleged threats made amid the controversy; they do not resolve how Wells died or establish wrongdoing by the people who were with him.