“Right now everything is so heavy. Everything is so heavy,” she said. “I’m a healthcare provider so I talk about grief a lot. Now to be on the other side of this, it’s a lot. This loss, this pain, this grief hits different. It’s unsurmountable.”
Nolan’s funeral is being held Monday, July 20, at Center Pointe Church in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Visitation was scheduled from 9 to 11 a.m. CT, followed by the funeral service at 11 a.m. CT.
A celebration of life is set to follow at the Jackson County Fairgrounds. Sharpton is officiating the service, and arrangements were entrusted to Lockett Williams Mortuary in Gulfport.
Wonsley has urged those responding publicly to Nolan’s death to remain peaceful, saying her son “would never want any type of violence.”
Nolan, a wide receiver at Southwest Mississippi Community College, disappeared July 4 after traveling by boat with friends to Horn Island off the Mississippi Gulf Coast. His friends returned to the mainland without him, and his body was recovered two days later in waters near the island.
The official cause and manner of his death have not been publicly released. Neither the official autopsy findings nor findings from the family’s independent examination have been made public, and toxicology results remain pending.
Once the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department completes its investigation, the findings will be presented to a grand jury, the Jackson County District Attorney’s Office told ABC News.
The office said the grand-jury review does not, by itself, indicate that criminal activity is suspected and is standard procedure for most unnatural or suspicious deaths in the county.
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