Sheriff decries online misinformation about Summer Wells case

The fourth anniversary of the disappearance of Summer Wells from her home in the Beech Creek community near Rogersville came and went Sunday, with a breakthrough in the case seemingly no closer than it has ever been.

The then-5-year-old girl mysteriously disappeared from her home in the 100 block of Ben Hill Road in the late afternoon of June 15, 2021, shortly after reportedly planting flowers with her three brothers at her grandmother’s camper within walking distance of the family home. Summer had returned home when the disappearance occurred.

“She (Summer) told me she wanted to go back over with her brothers, so I literally walked her halfway between the camper and the house,” Candus, her mother, told The Review at the time. “I watched her go in the door and I could see her brothers at the kitchen table. When she went in, I walked over and yelled at the boys, I said, ‘Watch Summer. I’ll be right back. I’ve got to fix Mom’s knee brace.’ I was standing right there (at the camper). I was over there fixing it. Literally, you can see my house from the (camper) door. She did not walk back out that front door.”

Candus said it took “maybe two to five minutes” to help her mother, and when she returned home, Summer was missing.

“When I got done, I come back in,” she said. “I asked the boys, ‘Where’s your sister?’ They said, ‘She went downstairs to play with her toys, Mom.’ I said okay and I went and I hollered down the steps. I always holler for them down there. And she didn’t holler back. I said, ‘Are you sure she’s down there?’ They said, ‘Yeah, she just went down there.’

“So, I went down there and I searched. I looked everywhere I could. Then I went through the house and I kept calling for her, yelling for her, everything. I came out here (outside) yelling for her, everything else, and she was nowhere. So I called Don (Summer’s father) because I was freaking out.”

Summer Wells has not been seen since.

What happened? No one seems to know

Four years of controversy and speculation have followed. Rumors have swirled about her parents, ranging from the expected small-town gossip all the way up to conspiracy theories by professional YouTubers, a number of whom have been run off after trespassing on the property.

The passage of time and the failure to find any information that either the Hawkins County Sheriff’s Office or the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation — both of which remain active on the case — is willing or able to make public have only fueled the fire.

“The Hawkins County Sheriff’s Office continues to actively work on this case each day. We are still receiving tips that must be thoroughly vetted and validated,” said Sheriff Ronnie Lawson in a media release on Friday. “Additionally, we continue to monitor and address the spread of misinformation on social media platforms, including content shared by YouTubers and other sources.”

Despite the inability to solve the case or find Summer, either dead or alive, Lawson promised the case is not forgotten and law enforcement is still dedicated to finding out what happened to her.

“(W)e want to reassure the public that this case has not been forgotten — and it never will be, until some form of closure is found,” he said.

Lawson concluded by thanking the community for its interest and support, but stated that the HCSO would not provide any on-camera interviews on this subject.

The search for Summer

Candus told police she summoned her neighbors in an attempt to find her daughter as soon as she realized Summer was missing. She said she never believed Summer had just wandered off.

“She never went nowhere without me. She’ll ask me to do something before she even goes and does it. And she’s scared to go in the woods herself because we’ve told her time and time (again) because of the bears and snakes,” she said at the time.

Once law enforcement got involved, they actively searched for Summer for 13 days. On June 28, 2021, they stated they were searching for a late-model red 1998-2000 era Toyota Tacoma truck seen in the area at the time of Summer’s disappearance. However, if this lead produced any information, it has never been divulged.

Later developments

The three boys living in the home with Candus and Don Wells were removed by the Department of Children’s Services about a month later, with no public reason given. The Wellses reportedly signed over parental rights to the boys in 2024, but Don Wells has since claimed on multiple occasions that he and Candus were cleared of any allegations of child neglect or abuse. This is not public information and cannot be confirmed.

Don Wells was arrested for DUI on Halloween night in 2021, and the HCSO responded to a domestic violence call at the home on Jan. 19, 2022. Starting in February 2022, he served a five-month jail term related to the DUI charge and violating his probation. He was kept in administrative segregation for his safety.

The TBI and local law enforcement combed the property and about 350 acres, including local bodies of water, late in November 2021, and searched again on Feb. 28, 2022, but found no trace of Summer either time. The HCSO said it had searched the basement, crawl space, vehicles, outbuildings, barrels and other items located on the property all “more than once” and also analyzed all digital communication devices the family possessed. Neighbors and registered sex offenders living nearby were questioned.

The TBI is still not certain if Summer wandered away from her home and became lost, was abducted, or if something else happened to her.

In 2023, Lawson stated that the case was “definitely not a cold case,” but that there was little in the way of new information. In June of that year, an age-progression photo of what Summer Wells might look like now was released.

Anyone with information on the case is asked to contact the Hawkins County Sheriff’s Office at 423-272-4848 or the TBI at 800-TBI-FIND.