When Mississippi teenager Nolan Wells disappeared after a July Fourth boat trip, questions immediately began to swirl about what happened to him and why.
Nearly three weeks after his body was found, many of those questions remain unanswered.
Parallel investigations into his death have revealed little publicly so far. Wells' family fears his death will be written off as an accidental drowning, citing conflicting witness accounts and unusual cell phone activity. The mysterious death has attracted speculation from the public nationwide and attention from major true-crime figures like Nancy Grace.
But the death of a young Black man after an outing with a predominantly White group of friends has also dredged up fears among Black Americans that they aren't safe in such environments and that the justice system won't handle their cases properly if something goes wrong, according to Nadine Smith, president and CEO of online civil rights organization Color of Change.