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(NewsNation) — Sunday marks four years since five-year-old Summer Wells disappeared from her home in Tennessee. Wells was reported missing on June 15, 2021, and there has been an active Amber Alert ever since.

update:Fri, June 13, 2025

Sunday marks four years since five-year-old Summer Wells disappeared from her home in Tennessee.

Wells was reported missing on June 15, 2021, and there has been an active Amber Alert ever since. Her parents said that she was helping her mother and grandmother plant flowers before she went inside to play with her toys. Then, she was never seen again.

Wells’ mother, Candus Wells, said, “I yelled downstairs for her a couple of times, and I didn’t get an answer. Which was unusual because usually she always answers me, so I went down there to check and she was nowhere inside, she was just gone.”

Summer Wells’ disappearance: Police still searching for answers.

Four years later, police are still searching for answers in Summer Wells’ disappearance. Police had been told about a pickup truck that was reportedly seen in the area around when the five-year-old vanished. However, they only know that it is either a red or maroon Toyota truck with ladders on the back.

Since there aren’t many clues, if police do end up finding the truck, they still aren’t sure if it is connected to her disappearance. But Wells’ father said he won’t stop praying that Summer Wells is found.

Police also had a tip from a neighbor in 2021, who claimed she and her children heard a scream about one hour before Summer Wells vanished. The witness said, “Wish every day that when I heard that scream, I didn’t try to dismiss it.”

Unfortunately, this tip didn’t lead police any closer to finding the five-year-old.

“We have hope, always. But there’s not much hope in this world. We have to trust God that there’s hope in eternal life in heaven,” he said. Summer’s parents were never named as suspects in the case, and they both passed a polygraph test. However, Hawkins County Sheriff Ronnie Lawson had said that everyone was a person of interest.

‘We were stripped away from all our kids’: Don Wells

Wells’ parents told NewsNation affiliate WJHL that they were frustrated with the investigation. Candus Wells and her husband, Don Wells, believe their daughter was kidnapped and didn’t just walk away.

“We know that she was taken off our property. We know that she was taken away in a vehicle or they would’ve found her in the area if she was somewhere in the area,” Don Wells said. He also criticized the Department of Children’s Services for taking Summer Wells’ siblings away when she vanished.

“We were stripped away from all our kids. All our kids have been kidnapped from us by DCS, and we’re not sure about Summer, but we know about where our boys are at,” her father said.

No one has been arrested or named a person of interest in the five-year-old’s disappearance. Her family has said they have dealt with harassment online.

“Before you know it, you’re getting a mob going. My wife could go to the store, and somebody would scream at her, ‘Baby killer,’” Don Wells explained. He claimed that the harassment was so bad that he had to leave the state in order to find work.

What happened to Summer Wells?

Summer Wells lived with her parents before her disappearance in Rogersville, Tennessee, a small town in Hawkins County. She reportedly went missing after going inside her home to play with her toys.

Her family thinks she could’ve been taken down the hill behind their home, possibly to a car.

Don Wells spoke with NewsNation about his daughter’s disappearance, saying, “I know in my heart and in my mind she was abducted. Someone snuck up there… and we don’t know if they came in the basement and grabbed her or if she stepped outside the basement and was walking to her swing…”

At the time, police had issued an endangered child alert and searched the woods and other areas near their home. Police have received many tips since Summer Wells went missing, but none of them have led to any concrete answers.

 

Investigators said the case is active, and they have completed many searches as well as created age-progression photos. But they haven’t found any clues as to where she went.

“The case is one that we’ve just not been able to overcome. And it’s troubling,” Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Assistant Director Josh Melton said. “We don’t have the evidence in this case to know for sure whether or not Summer was abducted or whether or not she walked away from her home and became lost.”

When she disappeared, she was described as three feet tall and around 40 pounds. She has blue eyes, blonde hair and was last seen wearing a pink shirt with gray pants. Anyone who has information on her case should contact TBI at 1-800-TBI-FIND.