The United Cajun Navy is pushing back against online claims surrounding the death of 18-year-old Nolan Wells, saying the available evidence points to an accidental drowning.
What the United Cajun Navy says
The United Cajun Navy shared a series of claims on X while responding to online discussions about the case. The group also reposted a clip of Nancy Grace discussing Wells’ death.
As per the group’s post, nobody opened Nolan’s phone after 2:18pm on the day he disappeared until his mom did later that night. It also says nobody deleted anything from the phone. It claims Ben Crump’s own forensic expert said this under oath.
The group also says the family’s private medical examiner was able to inspect all of Nolan’s organs. It says both the state’s medical examiner and the private one “testified that the death was consistent with drowning.”
The group ended its post with these lines: “No, there was no blunt force trauma on the body, only light bruising. Yes, the original sea tow call was altered and added fake captions to by a fake audio engineer. No, none of Nolan’s friends had anything to do with his death. These are indisputable facts.”
According to TMZ, the United Cajun Navy helped in the first search for Nolan’s body. Despite its name, it is not an official part of law enforcement or the military.
Online fight
People in the comments went after the group and the United Cajun Navy kept replying.
One person wrote, “You guys probably placed his body on the island.” And group replied, “You truly are the clinical definition of retarded”
Another person wrote, “Nothing in your post exonerates anyone. Half are lies.” And group replied, “No lies, and the boys were exonerated by incontrovertible evidence.”
Third person wrote, “Wow you guys are horrible i bet christine she never called yall. The park rangers found her son anyways.” And group replied, “If the tree scares you maybe we should investigate you too.”
Expert says a key part was not checked
According to People, Dr Priya Banerjee, a board-certified forensic pathologist who is not connected to the case, reviewed the state’s autopsy report. “The pathologist did not check the sphenoid sinus. It’s not even mentioned,” she says.
Banerjee explains that these sinuses are at the base of the skull. They don’t usually have fluid in them, but in suspected drowning cases, they can.
“Places you can find water in the body that we look for with drowning are sphenoid sinus, lungs and stomach,” Banerjee says. “That doesn’t mean all three need to be there to make that diagnosis.”
She believes there was likely fluid in the lungs, given their weight. As per People, neither the state’s report nor the family’s pathologist’s report details what was found in the lungs or the sphenoid sinuses, if anything.
“In a case like this … I was shocked to see how limited in scope it is, and then she [the examiner] doesn’t check the sphenoid,” she says.
Banerjee also finds the gaps in the timeline unusual. “It was a party area. No one saw him get in, no one checked on him? Those things are weird,” she says.
