The reward was announced during Wells’ funeral Monday at Center Pointe Church in Ocean Springs Mississippi. Sharpton stated that he would personally offer $50,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction connected to Wells’ death. Moments later, Sharpton said he got a message from movie producer and actor Tyler Perry that he would contribute another $50,000 making the total $100,000.
The matching funds gives hope to the Noland Well’s family as they continue searching for answers.
The reward now places serious money behind the search for information about how the 18-year-old student athlete died after a Fourth of July trip with friends to Mississippi’s Horn Island.
Sharpton told mourners that Perry had texted him and agreed to match the 50,000, immediately doubling the Nolan Wells reward to $100,000.
Sharpton also made an appeal to anyone who was on Horn Island or knows what happened during Wells’ last hours. He said information could be submitted through civil rights attorney Ben Crump’s office or the National Action Network. Wells, an 18-year-old, went out on a boat with three white friends on July 4th before he went missing. His body was found on July 6. Lisa Park an attorney in the Atlanta office of Ben Crump, said “it doesn’t take an attorney, it doesn’t a special investigator, it doesn’t take someone with training to know right off, there’s something wrong here.”