‘Dangerous terrain’ hampers search for missing 5-year-old in Tennessee, officials say
Rough terrain in the remote community where a missing 5-year-old was last seen outside her home the evening of June 15 in east Tennessee has hampered search efforts as investigators struggle to piece together her disappearance.
Summer Moon-Utah Wells was reported missing by her parents at 6:30 pm. June 15, according to Hawkins County Sheriff Ronnie Lawson. About 16 hours later, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation issued an Amber Alert, citing “new information and growing concern about (her) well-being.”
Officials did not say what new information was made available.
“At this time, the circumstances of Summer’s disappearance remain unclear,” TBI said in a news release Wednesday. “Should we develop information that she was abducted and have suspect and vehicle specifics to provide, we will share it with the public immediately.”
Summer was last seen outside her family’s house on Ben Hill Road in rural Hawkins County, about 30 miles from the North Carolina border, wearing gray pants and a pink shirt. She is roughly 3 feet tall and weighs 40 pounds with short blond hair and blue eyes.
At least 19 different agencies, including the Hawkins County Sheriff’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Tennessee Highway Patrol, were searching for Summer as of June 17, officials said at a 1 p.m. news conference.
“We had hoped to have good news to share with you by now but unfortunately, we do not,” Leslie Earhart with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation told reporters. “The search for 5-year-old Summer Wells remains ongoing.”
Earhart said investigators have received about 50 leads since her disappearance — none of which panned out.
“The longer this goes, the more concerned we get,” she said.
Tim Coup, incident commander of ground search operations, said between 80 and 100 people are searching on the ground in addition to aerial aviation, drones and four different K9 units. But he said those efforts have been hindered by “steep and dangerous terrain,” including “dense canopy coverage” and ground cover.
“(The terrain is) causing search efforts to become very difficult, taking extra time to cover these areas adequately, exhausting teams a lot quicker, in turn causing longer for these grounds to be covered,” Coup told reporters.
There’s also poor cell phone service in the area, he said, making it harder for search teams to communicate.
As of afternoon of June 17, Coup said search teams on the ground have covered a one-mile radius around the house. They were hoping to reach two miles by the end of the day.
The sheriff said Summer lives with three older siblings and her biological parents and “finding her is first and foremost.”
“Everybody’s a person of interest until we find Summer,” he told reporters June 17.
TBI is asking anyone who lives in the area to check trail cameras or surveillance cameras for possible footage of Summer.
“We also encourage residents in that area to check out buildings, sheds, or any other possible space where she could have sought shelter,” the agency said.
Anyone with information about her whereabouts is asked to call 1-800-TBI-FIND or the Hawkins County Sheriff’s Office at 423-272-7121. Tips can also be emailed to TipsToTBI@tn.gov.
This story was originally published June 16, 2021 at 1:11 PM.
