When a loved one dies unexpectedly, their family shouldn't have to spend weeks or months fighting for basic answers about their death.

The family of 18-year-old Nolan Xavier Wells knows exactly what that feels like. Nolan was a Black college student and athlete from Mississippi. He disappeared during a July 4th trip to Horn Island and his body was recovered two days later. His family has been publicly pushing for answers ever since.

An independent autopsy couldn't determine cause or manner of death and said further investigation was necessary. Mississippi's official autopsy has been completed, but the findings haven't been released while authorities prepare the case for grand jury review. His mother still doesn't know how her son died.

Last September, an 18-year-old named Trey Reed was found hanging from a tree on the campus of Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi. That was ruled a suicide. His family didn't accept it and paid for their own independent autopsy. They're still waiting on the final results.  And in 2026 alone there have been 7 prominent cases of Black individuals found hanging from trees, with absolutely no answers. 

This is a pattern Black families know all too well. A Black person dies under circumstances nobody can explain. The ruling comes back suicide or accident, which closes the file and ends the investigation before it starts. And the family is left having to accept a conclusion they were never given the evidence for. Every day a family waits without answers is a day somebody else gets to decide what the story is.

There's no federal standard for any of this. Only 26 states have laws that even address when autopsy reports get released. Some states treat them as public records. Others treat them as confidential medical files. And nearly every state lets an office withhold findings indefinitely if there's an ongoing investigation, without requiring anyone to explain the delay or set a date to look at it again.

Mississippi law already recognizes that an immediate family member can request a copy of a completed autopsy report but it doesn't set a deadline for when that report has to be released.

We're calling on Congress to establish a nationwide right for a deceased person's next of kin or legal representative to receive a completed autopsy report within 30 days of a valid request. If essential testing makes the report incomplete, families should get written notice explaining the delay and the expected completion date. Any temporary withholding to protect an active criminal investigation should require a specific, documented justification, and it should never become an indefinite barrier to family access.

This type of legislation doesn't compromise a single investigation. Prosecutors can still protect evidence and Grand juries can still do their work. What changes is that families stop being an afterthought in the process of determining how their own child or family member died.

Families shouldn't need money, media attention, political connections, or a nationally known attorney to find out how someone they love died. Nolan Wells' family deserves answers. So does Trey Reed's family. So does every family still waiting.

Sign this petition and demand that Congress establish a 30-day national standard for family access to completed autopsy reports.