Nolan Wells’ Parents Break Silence in Emotional Interview, Question Why Son Would Have Stayed Behind: ‘We Just Want Answers’

His body was found in the water near the northwest end of Horn Island two days later. While authorities have said they believe Nolan may have drowned, Sheriff John Ledbetter has stressed that investigators are still awaiting the state medical examiner’s autopsy report and continuing to review pH๏τos, videos and other evidence as they work to determine exactly what happened.

The medical examiner’s office has told PEOPLE they cannot yet share details about a cause of death and wouldn’t speculate.

But Nolan’s parents are trying to determine what happened on their own, launching an independent investigation to get answers. Among their biggest questions? Why their son would have voluntarily separated from the group of friends he traveled to the island with, as officials have indicated.

“That we cannot answer,” Christine said, noting it would have been unusual for Nolan to separate from his friends. “I just, I can’t fathom why he would.”

Elmore echoed that sentiment, explaining his son understood the importance of never going off on his own.

“We always taught him that if you go with a group, you stay with a group,” he said. “If you go with five, you come back with five. Do not separate from the group. Because I always said, ‘Safety is in numbers.’ So he knew to stay with this group, so why would he split from the group? I don’t know.”

Christine said that while Nolan typically checked in after returning from outings like this one, she never received a call or text from him that day. Instead, she said, she got a phone call from one of his friends, telling her Nolan was missing.

Nolan had been preparing to report back to college football camp that Monday. Elmore said the holiday weekend was meant to be his son’s “last hurrah” before returning to training.

“The entire summer, he is training,” Elmore said. “He got more serious. He started to understand what I was trying to tell him about football not just being fun but if you get farther in it, it becomes a business. And if you want to excel in it, you have to understand [that].”

Another questions the family hopes to answer through their investigation is what happened to Nolan’s cellphone.

The device was recovered by Christine’s friend after they tracked it using Life360. But Christine claimed the phone’s location history differed from what friends were seeing through Snapchat.

She also said that when she and her sister reviewed Nolan’s two Snapchat accounts, they found no pH๏τos or videos from the trip despite believing he would have documented the outing.

“It isn’t even 24 hours, which is how long videos and pictures stay in Snapchat. And I was just like, ‘That can’t be,’ ” Christine recalled. “I was just like, ‘That can’t be.’ There was absolutely nothing,” she said. “I’ve seen Nolan whenever he snaps. When he goes and he’s having fun, he does videos. There was absolutely nothing.”

Attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing the family, said they are seeking forensic analysis of Nolan’s phone and pointed to what he described as inconsistencies in witness accounts. Among the questions he raised were differing descriptions of whether Nolan intended to return to the boat after speaking with a young woman, with one account saying he planned to rejoin his friends while another claimed he intended to stay behind.

A viral video, in which Nolan can allegedly be heard asking for his phone before it later went missing, was also brought up by Crump.

“I don’t know any teenagers who says, if you believe [his friends’] story, ‘I’m going to stay behind and I’m going to leave my phone?’ ” Crump said. “No young person leaves their cell phone.”

During a separate interview with ABC News that aired on Good Morning America, Ledbetter confirmed investigators are reviewing the viral video, though he said authorities have not yet determined where it originated.

The sheriff stressed investigators have requested Nolan’s cellphone so it can undergo a forensic extraction. “At this time we do not have the cell phone that they speak of and we’ve never had the cell phone, but it’s to my understanding that we’ve requested the cell phone for an extraction,” he said.

Ledbetter also said they’re looking into comments made by the mother of one of Nolan’s friends that he voluntarily stayed behind after the group’s boat experienced mechanical issues.