The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) marked the three-year anniversary of the disappearance of Summer Wells with a video update on the case.
“We don’t have the evidence in this case to know for sure whether Summer was abducted or whether or not she walked away from her home and became lost,” said Josh Melton, the assistant director of TBI’s Criminal Investigation Division, in a video posted to X. “It’s really important for us to not focus all our attention on just one of those two.”
He continued:
Many people have speculated what they think has happened in this case. The difficult part of the speculation is that if we as investigators speculate and focus our efforts in one direction, we’re making a huge mistake. We have to make sure we’re being completely comprehensive as we investigate. We continue to focus on ground search efforts. We continue to focus in interviews with individuals who may have information on vehicles that have traveled through the area or technology that could have been used that could give us an investigative lead. All stones are being turned over. We have some of our most talented agents assigned to this case. We have brought in subject matter experts from within TBI from all across the state to assist in this investigation. We have thrown everything we know to throw at this case, and we haven’t had the answers we need to get. We know we’ll get them, but we don’t have them today.
Later, Melton said that children are a top priority at TBI.
“They are the most vulnerable population that we have,” he said. “They are the most precious things in our world. Our commitment to the public is that we’re not going to allow this case to sit on the shelf. We are committed to bringing summer home, and we will keep working on this case until she is home.
Wells disappeared in 2021 from her Rogersville home. She was five years old at the time.
Last year, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children published an age-progressed photo of Wells, showing what she would look like at age seven.
This year, she would be eight years old.
Child Protective Services reportedly removed Wells’ three brothers from their home after Wells’ disappearance.
The family maintains that she was kidnapped.
Candus Bly is Wells’ mother.
Bly’s sister, Rose Marie Bly, was reported missing in Wisconsin in 2009. She has never been found.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on X/Twitter.
