MDMR Releases Call Audio from Boat in Nolan Wells Case

Source for the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources’ release of the boat’s radio-call audio. Verbatim: “The dispatcher then said, ‘And is everyone on board and in good health otherwise?’ The caller responded, ‘Yeah, yeah, everyone is on board.’” Also, WLOX’s own paraphrase (not a direct quotation): “The teen said there were about seven people on board the boat.” This is the same boat Wells departed on (“Wells traveled out on that boat with friends for the holiday, but he did not return with them”), on its return-leg distress call, roughly an hour after Wells stayed behind on the island.

Corrected 2026-07-29 (approval-brief round 5 + receipt-gate). The URL slug says 07/26 but the article’s own byline reads “Published: Jul. 25, 2026 at 11:37 PM CDT,” with no separate date stated anywhere in the body for when MDMR itself released the audio. Cite July 25 (WLOX’s report date), not July 26, and attribute the date to WLOX’s reporting rather than asserting it as MDMR’s own release date, which this article never states.

Caution, added 2026-07-28 (approval-brief round 2 + receipt-gate): do not use this record to assert how many people were aboard when the boat actually reached the dock at 6:06pm. The “about seven people” detail is timestamped to the ~4pm distress call, not the return. No primary found states the passenger count at dock return. A separate source (wlox-nolan-wells-timeline-2026) independently confirms a larger flotilla of multiple boats went out that day and consolidated, which is consistent with the count changing between departure and this call. Do not construct a “three went out, three came back” symmetry from this record; it is not supported.