Nolan Wells' friends open up about Christian faith journey after Horn Island death
The death of Mississippi teen Nolan Wells has left his closest friends grieving and searching for answers, but they say the loss has also deepened their faith and brought them closer to God.
"I learned to lean on the Lord," Warren Hudson, one of Wells' friends, told Fox News' Kayleigh McEnany in an exclusive interview. "I know my friends did as well. And I know that's what Nolan would want me to do."
Another friend, Jax Pitalo, described Wells' death as a turning point for the group.
"Right after the first three days or so, I was like, if this did anything, it got us all closer to God," Pitalo said.
Wells, 18, disappeared July 4 after taking a boat trip with a group of friends to Horn Island, a barrier island off Mississippi's Gulf Coast. Search crews combed the area for two days before a National Park Service ranger discovered his body at the island's northwestern tip on July 6.
Months later, a Jackson County, Mississippi, grand jury returned a "no true bill" in Wells' death investigation, declining to indict anyone after finding insufficient evidence of criminal wrongdoing. The grand jury found his death was consistent with drowning.
But for the friends who knew Wells long before his death became the subject of headlines and online speculation, the months since have been about grieving someone they loved while leaning more deeply into their Christian faith.
"We started going to church more," Morgan Seymour, a third friend, told McEnany. "Everything from that moment on was like for God, for Jesus," he continued, prompting Hudson to add, "For Nolan."
McEnany said the young men have faced intense online scrutiny and accusations in the months since Wells' death, even as they attempted to process the loss.
"These young men, unfortunately, were demonized and dragged through a lot, and they loved Nolan," McEnany told "Fox & Friends Weekend," noting that one had been friends with Wells since elementary school.
The scrutiny intensified as theories about Wells' disappearance spread online, including unsubstantiated claims that his friends were responsible for his death and that the incident was racially motivated.
Jackson County District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath said, however, that the grand jury found "absolutely no evidence" to support allegations that Wells' death was motivated by race.
"Nolan's friends loved Nolan and Nolan loved them," McIlrath said following the grand jury's decision. "Nolan chose to stay on the island that day, and there is not a scintilla of evidence to contradict that."
Wells' family and civil rights attorney Ben Crump have challenged the grand jury's decision, pointing to bruising and blunt-force injuries described by the family's independent pathologist and calling for further investigation into how he died, including an independent federal review by the Justice Department.
Fox News' Adam Sabes contributed to this report.