Congressional Black Caucus pushes for federal review in Wells case; grand jury review may be soon

In Atlanta, on Thursday, attorney Eric Hertz told NPR he believes that the case could go before a grand jury in just under 30 days. He said that's based on the timeline of evidence he's seen. He did not indicate who might be the subject of that review, but several of Wells' friends have retained high-profile lawyers in case of wrongful death suits and to potentially file defamation suits.

In the meantime, national congressional leaders are pushing for federal oversight as local law enforcement continues investigating. 

This week, the Congressional Black Caucus issued a letter to the U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel calling for a federal review of the case. 

Chair of the caucus, Representative Yvette D. Clarke of New York, wrote that the scant information from local investigators has her and other members of the caucus concerned. The caucus is urging the FBI and Department of Justice to examine the case to "ensure that every appropriate resource, investigative tool, and avenue of inquiry is being used to establish the truth." 

"The lack of answers thus far continues to fuel speculation and grief," Clarke wrote. "Neither the Wells family nor the public should be left to fill an information vacuum with speculation." 

At the National Association of Black Journalists Conference in Atlanta, at a press conference with the Wells family and their attorneys, Democratic Congresswoman Lucy McBath of Georgia, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, addressed the concerns in the letter. 

"[This] would be considered something of national, federal interest," McBath told reporters. "That is the reason why we're asking for the accountability: to make sure that this is not just swept under the rug."

McBath lost her own son, Jordan Davis, to gun violence in 2012, when he was only 17 years old. 

"Here we are again today, here for the loss of another black young man in our community," McBath said on Thursday. "We find ourselves asking the same questions. How did it happen? Why did it happened?"

"And this family stands here demanding answers. This family deserves answers. I myself sought the same justice for my son Jordan that they're seeking for theirs." 

McBath said they gave Patel and Blanche seven days to respond. 

Wells would have turned 19 next week. Crump is calling for a day of prayer on Wells' birthday, August 19, and a vigil is planned in Biloxi.

"As the days gets closer, and it's definitely getting harder, that realization is really sinking in that we don't have our son physically here anymore," said Wells' mother, Christine Wells-Wonsley, on Thursday. 

"Many parents out there, you still have your children: you still can hug them, you still call them, you still can celebrate their life with them. And we do not have that anymore."

Even with a tentative timeline, from Hertz, though, it's likely that results won't be publicly available until after the grand jury review. 

And, parts of the investigation still remain incomplete. 

A piece of evidence that still has yet to be fully examined is Wells' cell phone. At Thursday's press conference, attorneys for the family discussed progress on examining the phone, which his parents say they recovered at a friend's house, after Wells' body was found on Horn Island on July 6.

Wells' parents have expressed concerns that messages and information may have been deleted from the phone before they found it. They've subpoeaned several tech companies, like Meta and TikTok, for Wells' messages and other data. 

Hertz and Liza Park, an attorney with Ben Crump's office, say that they're waiting on the Jackson County District Attorney's office to agree to a mutual inspection. 

"We are waiting for the DA to determine the time, the place, the date," Park told reporters in Atlanta. "Let us know and we are going to be there with our forensics team and anybody else: but it's done one time, one examination. We're ready for it to happen."

Crump's team shared a letter with MPB News sent to District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath by Ahmad Smith, a Jackson attorney that is representing the family. The letter suggests that the phone has yet to be examined by either Wells' attorneys or law enforcement. 

The letter also indicates that the forensic pathologist Dr. Roger Mitchell, who conducted the initial independent autopsy, has yet to review other materials. Initial findings by Mitchell were inconclusive and Crump has previously claimed that body parts were missing following the state autopsy.

MPB News reached out to both Smith and Myers McIlrath, neither of whom returned requests for comment before publication. 

Crump's legal team shared a press release on August 14, "pushing back on any suggestion that the family has been uncooperative or less than transparent in the District Attorney's investigation." 

In the statement, attorneys write that they met with the district attorney's team on July 15, agreeing to a joint forensic examination at the Digital Forensics Lab at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. In that statement, they claim that on August 12, the district attorney's team sent a letter to Wells' parents requesting that they deliver the phone to her office by the morning of August 14. 

According to Crump's legal team, Wells' parents were not in Mississippi when the letter was sent and were not to return until after the deadline.

“Setting a 48-hour deadline while this family was out of state is not a good-faith path to answers, and it weakens our confidence in the process," attorneys wrote. "Even in their grief and heartbreak, they are still trying to work with the DA, but they want to be able to trust that this is a fair and impartial investigation and that the agreements made will be honored."

"They are focused on one thing, and that is finding out what happened to their son."

The legal team wrote that parties haven't agreed on how the examination will be conducted, access to recovered data, returning the phone and myriad other logistics.