Nolan Wells’ Best Friend Tracestin Shepherd Contradicts Family, Says ‘We Did No Wrong Here’

A teen who was with Nolan Wells on Horn Island before the 18-year-old vanished and later turned up dead is finally telling his side of the story.

Tracestin Shepherd, one of the friends who accompanied Wells on the Fourth of July trip to the Mississippi barrier island, appeared in a segment that aired Monday, July 13, on Good Morning America. However, he chose to keep his voice altered and stay off camera after receiving online threats.

Still, he wanted to set the record straight.

“We did no wrong here, and we don’t understand how we’re getting so much hate behind us,” Shepherd said on the ABC morning show. “We all cared and loved Nolan, and nobody wanted to see Nolan die. Nobody wanted to see his life be taken so short.”

As Globe previously reported, Wells disappeared from Horn Island during the holiday gathering; his body was recovered near the island’s northwest shore two days later. Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter has said investigators suspect drowning and have seen no signs of foul play so far, though autopsy results are still pending and the family is pursuing its own independent examination. Investigators have requested Wells’ cellphone from the family. Attorney Ben Crump, who represents the family, said they intend to turn it over.

Much of the public scrutiny has centered on a clip circulating on Instagram that Wells’ family’s attorney had suggested showed their son in a confrontation. Shepherd disputed that characterization on air, saying the shouting heard in the footage was his own.

“That’s me yelling,” Shepherd said, per Good Morning America.

Shepherd also addressed why Wells stayed behind on the island while the rest of the group headed back to the mainland by boat, explaining that Wells had met a young woman earlier that day.

“They met that day and it’s kind of one of those things,” he said during the interview. “He did come off that day that he really did like her, but that was the only time they ever hung out.”

That account lines up with what Ledbetter has previously relayed from witnesses. But it hasn’t satisfied Wells’ parents, Christine and Elmore Wonsley, who said in their own Good Morning America appearance on July 10, that their son had always been raised to stick with the group and struggled to understand why he would have wandered off alone.

Rolling Stone reported that two others corroborated Shepherd’s account in an article published Sunday, July 12.

“I’m tired of speculation, of not being able to talk, it’s time for somebody to start speaking up,” Shepherd said, per the outlet. “I’m not just hurting because of Nolan, I’m also hurting because I call my friends, and you can hear it in their voice that they’re terrified of what these people will do to them. It’s gone completely way too far.”

Shepherd doesn’t know if the questions surrounding his friend’s death will ever be answered.

“I get that everybody wants justice for Nolan,” he said, according to Rolling Stone. “Everybody wants to know exactly what happened. Will we ever know?”

Still, he urged patience as investigators continue their work.

“I want everybody just to relax, and let everybody mourn the loss of Nolan,” Shepherd said, per Good Morning America. “I think everybody needs to let the investigation continue and let the facts be shown.”