India, Aug. 2 -- Friends of Nolan Wells, the 18-year-old student-athlete who died after attending a Fourth of July party in Mississippi, have launched a GiveSendGo fundraiser stating they have faced "an unprecedented online campaign of accusations, harassment, threats, and defamation" since his death.

The fundraiser page states that since Wells' death, Warren Hudson, Jax Pitalo, and others "have been inundated with death threats, threats of violence, and defamation," adding that they have been "falsely and wrongly blamed by individuals online and in the media of either directly or indirectly having a hand in Nolan's death." The post says "most of them could not even attend their own best friend's funeral."

The fundraiser states the frie...