Crime Weekly - S2 Ep90: Summer Wells: June 15, 2021 (Part 1)

Episode Date: August 12, 2022

From the very beginning, the disappearance of five year old Summer Wells has caused confusion and frustration for everyone following it, from people watching it unfold on the news and on the internet and the websleuths who have made this case their personal project, to the law enforcement officials trying to put the pieces together. Due to the widespread attention, the investigation and news coverage of this case has been marked with a great deal of speculation and rumors, which is often what happens when so much is left unknown, and when the official narrative doesn’t really add up. Stephanie covered Summer’s disappearance on YouTube when it initially happened, but since then there have been more updates and more information has come to the light, and we know there were a lot of people who wanted us to talk about this case on Crime Weekly, because Derrick would be able to contribute his unique detective perspective and hopefully it will provide us with some insight of what happened here, and if there is any truth to the multiple rumors that have muddied the waters of this case. Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

She's a happy little girl. Okay. She's the best little girl anybody could imagine. Wells says the last time anyone in the family saw Summer was when she entered the house to play in the basement after gardening with her mother and grandmother. Well, we knew, I knew right away that she was abducted. You know, I knew that right away. Now, authorities have tried everything, searching from the ground and air, using canine units, conducting roadblocks, and even asking the public to search their property. Well whoever has my daughter I pray and hope that they have not harmed her and they bring her back to us safe and sound. This search is taking a mental physical and emotional toll on the department

with many officers having small kids and grandchildren. Every time I look around i see her face Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So as you probably saw from the lead into this episode or heard if you're listening on audio, we're covering the Summer Wells case today. And this has been a highly requested case. I'm gonna get a little bit more into talking about why we're covering Summer Wells today and for the next few episodes,

because we are gonna go pretty deep. But before we dive into that, do you have anything you wanna add at the top of the episode before we get into this case, which I think is going to take a toll a little bit on both of us because we both have young children and it's very sad. Yeah. Positive note, criminal coffee. For those of you who don't know, we're donating a portion of the proceeds from every bag sold directly to organizations designed to fight crime. And I was just looking today we just

passed two thousand six hundred dollars all money that has come directly from you guys as far as buying the coffee and it's going into that fight crime tab that you can see on the website which is www.criminalcoffee.com we're gonna try I think Stephanie and I have talked about it we're gonna try and do a donation every quarter. And so we started end of April, early May. So we're coming up on that first three months. So we're probably going to do a donation at that point.

We're going to take some time. We're going to solicit your help as far as where we're going to donate the money to. So if you want to be in that first donation, now's the time to get some great coffee and make a donation. Again, you can go right on the website and you'll see the ticker on the fight crime tab. So, you know exactly where we're at. I'd like to set a goal of $3,000. I think that'd be a good goal for the first one.

I mean, small little business like that, donating $3,000 to an organization or a family in need, I think can go a long way. I absolutely agree. And we are going to be wanting to have all of your help in deciding where this money goes. So maybe we'll do a live or something and we'll give you options and we'll vote and we'll discuss it. And it'll be something that really, I think, brings us together as a community and something we can feel good about in a time when there just doesn't seem to be a lot to feel good about. So that is a great thing.

And bonus, criminal coffee, very good coffee. Not like you're spending your money on something you're not going to like or use. And the holiday season is coming up. So I think it's fun to give as a gift because I know I am going to. Everybody in my family is getting criminal coffee this year. Yeah, same thing here for sure. That's definitely going to be the gift of the season. So hopefully my family likes coffee because if they don't, they're going to have some good re-gifts. So from the very beginning, the disappearance of five-year-old Summer Wells has caused confusion

and frustration for everyone following it, from people like you and I watching it unfold on the news and on the internet, people like the web sleuths who have made this case their personal project, and also law enforcement officials who themselves are trying to put the pieces together. And you will hear many authorities, police, detectives, sheriffs, TBI officials in this case continually express their frustration because it's just not something that they run into all the time. And they did think that initially Summer was going to be found within a day. Like the day that she went missing, they thought they're going to go out, bring this huge amount of people out to look for her and they were going to find her. And they didn't. Due to the widespread attention, the investigation and news coverage of this case has been marked with a great deal of speculation and rumors, which is often what happens when so much is left unknown and when the official narrative

doesn't really add up. Now, I did cover Summer's disappearance on YouTube when she had initially gone missing, but, you know, so much has happened in the last year. So much more information and more updates have come to the light. And I know there were a lot of people who did want us to talk about this case on Crime Weekly because Derek would be able to contribute. So many people, so many DMs, Patreon, on our other posts, nonstop Summer Wells. And personally, I wanted to present it to you as well, because I want to get your unique detective perspective, which, you know, there's going to be a lot of things that you see, a lot of interviews, things where I'm going to look to you as the, you know,

quote unquote, expert in this arena to see what your opinion is on it, because I'm sure it's going to be different than mine, or it might be different, or it might be the same, which will just then validate how I already feel about it. Yeah. No, I'm looking forward to it. These cases are always great because as you said, I'm going to have a different perspective on it. It may turn out that we have the same overall opinion, but everybody, whether they have a former investigative background or just different life experiences, they could look at the videos, the exact same video and feel differently about it. Yes. And I'm also hoping that regardless of, you know, whether we feel the same or differently, this is still a case that's unsolved. This little girl's been missing for over a year now. So

with our two heads put together and with the hive mind of our community, you know, we might see something in the comments that also triggers us to go down a different path and start thinking about it differently. That always happens. And we really appreciate that this community brings us that sort of hive mind where we can get different ideas and look at things differently than we would have otherwise.

But, you know, as a warning, there are multiple rumors that have muddied the waters of this case. And if you're familiar with this case, you know how crazy it's gotten. And I want to kind of use us talking about it here to sort of like hopefully separate what's true, what could be true, and what's absolutely not true. And in that way, hopefully get closer to figuring out what actually happened. Let's do it. Summer Wells is the only daughter of Don Wells and Candace Bly. And she lived with her parents and her three older brothers, ages 7, 9, and 12, in a 750-square-foot home near the center of an

11-acre wooded area located at 110 Ben Hill Road in the Beach Creek community of Rogersville, Tennessee. Rogersville is a small town in the Appalachian Mountains with a population of under 5,000 people, and it's situated at the northeastern tip of Tennessee near the Virginia border. Rogersville, and the area where Summer lived specifically, it's pretty rural and isolated, and the Wells family's closest neighbor seemed to live across the street on another hill. Also living on the property in a small trailer was Summer's maternal grandmother, Candace. And this is going to get confusing because Summer's mother is also named Candace, and then Summer's grandmother is named Candace.

So we're just going to try to keep it simple and, you know, cut down on the confusion. And we're going to refer to the grandmother Candace just as grandma or the grandmother so that we can keep track of who was doing what and who said what. Because especially in this timeline that we're going to go through today, we have Candace and Grandma together a lot. So it'll hopefully make it easier. On Tuesday, June 15, 2021, Summer was at home with her mother, her grandmother, and her three older brothers. Summer's father, Don, was at work that day. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigations reported that Summer went missing from the area of her home around 6.30 that evening. And when her mother last saw her, she had been possibly barefoot.

She was wearing a pink T-shirt and gray sweatpants. Now, this is something that also gets kind of messed up because in a lot of the initial reports, it says she's wearing gray shorts. And then in the later reports, it says she's wearing gray sweatpants. And what Summer's wearing on this day is going to constantly come up and be put in question. Initially, Summer's mother, Candace Bly, had claimed that she and her mother were planting flowers and Summer had been outside with them helping. But Summer had wanted to go inside and play with her brothers. So Candace walked her to the front door, and she called inside to let the boys know to keep an eye on Summer. Candace then walked back to Grandma's

trailer to help her adjust her knee brace, and she returned to her own house just two to five minutes later. But when she went inside, she saw her three sons watching television, but Summer was not there. She asked the boys where Summer was, and they told her that Summer had gone into the basement to play with her toys. So Candace went down into the basement, but Summer wasn't there either. Now, there is a door in the basement that leads to the outside, and Candace said that sometimes Summer would exit that door and circle around to the front of the house where there was a swing that all the kids like to play on. Candace began looking for Summer and calling her name inside and outside of the

house, but there was no sign of the five-year-old girl, and she has not been seen since. Now, for some context, I want to show you some video footage of the home and the basement where Summer allegedly was when she disappeared. What you need to know is the basement was also a bedroom that Summer shared with her parents, Don and Candace. And you don't get to this basement room by walking down a flight of stairs. You get there by kind of going into a crawl space that's located under a desk. Chris McDonough is a retired Oceanside, California Police Department homicide detective who is also a nationally recognized criminal behavior expert, and he's assisted and consulted on some of the country's highest profile child homicide cases including john benny ramsey elizabeth smart

and the west memphis three he also has a youtube channel called the interview room where he does his own investigations into current and ongoing cases so i already said this there's a lot of noise on youtube and in the internet space about the summer wells case and i will say that there's a lot of people out there doing a lot of good work on this case. And then there's some people who I will say are not, that they are profiting from this by getting like super chats and donations. They are making wild speculations, wild accusations, and it's just kind of really muddying the waters. But Chris's work stands out as the best and the most thorough, in my opinion. And he's interviewed many people involved with

this case, including Summer's mother. And this footage that we're going to play for you was actually from his interview with her. And he's been kind enough to give us permission to use this for what we're doing with Summer's case today. You walked into the house? I walked into here. Get up. Get up. I walked in here, and then three were sitting right here at the row with their eyes glued to the TV.

And I said, boys boys where's your sister at well she just went downstairs and went home to play so I went over here like this so this is where the stairs are okay intentionally down under there oh oh down into her down into our bedroom and then hers is on the other side oh okay in the basement yeah in the basement well this makes sense now see and then i yelled i said summer summer and she didn't i listened for a minute i didn't hear nothing so i went like this because this is how i always get down here yep i don't know if you want to come down here or not do i got to be uh tiny to get in there can we come in from the other side well we can but it makes more sense if you went this way okay i'll follow you oh man good great come in from the other side okay okay My husband's room. Okay. And over here, well, it's a mess again.

That's all right. But this is where Summer and little Waylon was, because Waylon's only nine. Okay. And they stay down here. And these are all her toys, all her paw patrols, all her... All her movies? She's got a movie about the saver? The boys I brought back down here after she went missing because I didn't want them upstairs

by themselves anymore. And this is all her toys? All these toys that are down here are dang all hers. Except for like the trucks and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the game system. That's the boys'. Okay. But then we're all her all her toys. And she's really into Paw Patrol I see. Yeah, I've been collecting from day one.

I don't remember. I don't recall if this was locked or not. I don't recall that. Okay. But I know, it's hard to remember. But I know I did come out and I said, Summer, because sometimes she'll sit right here and just sit here and play just for, you know. And usually when she comes out,

she comes out and she goes directly that way up to the swing. Okay, so this is like her. Yeah, she just walks. She'd come running out. Oh, yeah, you can see the path here. She'd just go right to the swing. Right, you can see where she could have run right up to here.

Right, and this is all the further she would go. She wouldn't leave. Okay. She wouldn't go nowhere else. Okay, so you saw the clip. You heard what was being said. First impressions. God, so many first impressions.

And I don't want to, I don't want to get too far ahead. Just to kind of recap what you're saying so far, we're talking a very small window, very small window in which she was there and then she wasn't. And from what you've told me so far, I'm assuming there's been some corroboration between the boys and the mom as far as her bringing summer into the house or sending her into the home going to help grandma out for three to five minutes coming back and then asking the boys hey where's summer right you know i'm assuming with investigators there were some interviews with the boys that confirmed yeah mom did come

back only three or five minutes later. And there's two things we can confirm for you, Mr. Police Officer. We can confirm that Summer did come into the house. So there was someone who saw her come into the house and we saw her go down to the basement by herself. And mom did come in three to five minutes later and ask where summer. That's one thing. Now to get to this video, which is. Actually, there really isn't. I mean, law enforcement might have that, but like. We don't know.

But 99% of the other things that law enforcement might have, we don't know. And there's one thing that I want to sort of touch on before you continue to weigh in. Okay. thing that I want to sort of touch on before you continue to weigh in. So in a later interview, Chris McDonough, he mentioned that when he'd first gone down there with Candace, which is what we're seeing in this video, there'd been inappropriate material playing on the television in the basement. And I didn't know if you had picked up on that when you first saw the clip. So I went through the clip because I didn't pick up on it the first time I went through. I was kind of looking at the Savior. Well, no, it was I was kind of looking at the basement right when I first was looking. And then I went back. It's it looks like Girls Gone Wild

or something similar like that was playing on TV. Like you can see as soon as they go down the stairs, there's like a young lady like lifting up her top. So, you know, some people online were like, oh, that probably was a commercial for Girls Gone Wild. But I don't think that they air those commercials anymore because I'm pretty sure Girls Gone Wild is like bankrupt and Joe Francis went to prison. So I don't think that they they play those commercials on TV anymore. So I do think it must have been a videotape in the VCR that was playing down there. And I don't know what that means, but it does provide some context maybe to what life was like for Summer and the other kids in this house. Yeah, that's interesting. And it could be,

it could mean something. It could just be poor parenting, or it could be something that it was a recorded video that had that commercial in it. There's a million explanations for it, but it's still important what you said at the beginning there, because what I'm trying to do is narrow down a window, a window that's identifiable, a window that can be confirmed where we know the timeframe in which Summer went missing based on numerous testimony from multiple people and having them all line up. But from what you're saying, it's basically an assumption on my part. That's not confirmed, which is a big deal. If you're interested in narrowing down a timeline for this case, it's going to drive you crazy because you'll hear multiple times that all these people

involved, they'll be like, I think it was around this time. I'm not good with time. All these people keep saying, I'm not good with time. So it will drive you crazy and we're going to go there. Yeah. And so that's a big problem, right? That's a big problem because everything has to be considered at this point. So if it's a collaborative effort amongst the family members, then obviously she could have been missing for hours at that point. Something could have happened to her and she may never have went missing. So that's, that's obvious. I got to put that on the table. But just operating under the assumption that, that what they're saying is the truth at this point, it's a very small window because the boys see her go downstairs. And then within, according to mom, three to five minutes, she's already gone because as she's yelling for summer and looking at the outside area, she wouldn't have gotten very far if she wasn't in trouble, where she wouldn't have been able to hear mom yelling for her. And also, I wanted to get an idea of the layout of the outside and see how many houses were in the immediate area where someone

could have seen Summer outside by herself. And just from that short video, it doesn't look like there's anything immediately in the vicinity where someone from a distance could see her alone and take advantage of that opportunity. She would have had to wander, which right from her mom's mouth wasn't something she did. So that's a big point of contention in this case, because initially law enforcement is going to say, and for quite a while, they're going to say, we believe she she wandered off we don't believe there was an abduction we we haven't ruled out foul play and we haven't ruled these things out but we don't believe that that's what happened but from the get-go summer's parents were saying she was abducted so then obviously you do look at this house and where it's situated it's up on a hill it is very rural it's surrounded by woods's up on a hill. It is very rural. It's surrounded by woods. There are neighbors

around. The nearest street, which would be the street that they live on, is kind of like down the hill. And then that connects to a larger street or a more main street. But you would have to know where you were going. You'd have to climb up the hill through the woods. You'd have to be watching. You'd have to be familiar with the layout. You'd have to sort of go there knowing you were going there to take Summer Wells if this was an abduction. Right. And that's what doesn't really line up because there wasn't a big window there for that. And how would they know that she was going to be alone outside at that specific moment for that very small window of time? That doesn't add up, which I can see how law enforcement has come to that conclusion that it's very difficult based on what the witnesses have told them that this

could have been an abduction. It would have had to have been, for lack of a better term, an inside job. Or her wandering off, right? But her parents insist she did not wander off and we're going to get into that. I mean, she's probably barefoot. She's very well aware that she can't sort of wander off and she's never done it before. So, you know, there are these factors that make the whole wandering off thing not very likely. As you said, factors that make the stranger abduction thing not super likely, although possible. And it kind of turns around to what's left. And statistics tell us that most times that kids are taken or something happens or they're abducted, it is a family member or a custody issue or somebody who knows the child and the family. Yeah, I agree.

I definitely think that's where your head goes initially and and just from mom's own words what was summer's reason for wanting to go inside she wanted to play with her brothers and she would have immediately saw them when she entered the house right they were sitting right there so it's not impossible i have kids where they tell you they're going to do one thing and then immediately in the next second, they're doing something different. But she went into the house to go hang out with her brothers. And yet, according to the brothers, she walked in and immediately went down to the basement to play on her own. So that's a little contradicting. I mean, it's possible, but something just at this point isn't lining up. I don't know why. I may never know why, but that's just my initial impressions. Yeah. It's everyone's initial reaction that something doesn't line up and things don't make sense. The timeframe doesn't make sense. And it's possible she went in and she was like, hey guys, and she wanted to play with them. And they were like, go away. She's their little sister and like, we're watching TV, leave us alone. And she was like, oh, I'll just go in the basement and play with my toys. But then she immediately goes into the

basement, doesn't play with her toys, and exits through that basement door to go outside where reportedly her grandmother and her mother are. But instead of going around to find her grandmother and mother, she wanders off into the woods for no apparent reason. That's a tough one. That's a tough one to swallow. All right, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. So let me tell you a little bit about Summer. Her parents said that she was obsessed

with Paw Patrol and Frozen. She was also a little bit of a tomboy having grown up with three older brothers. She loved being outside and swimming and playing in the mud and dirt. And in some pictures of Summer, you'll see she has a very short haircut, almost a shaved head. And Summer's parents have stated that this was because Summer wanted to look like her three brothers, who also had close cropped haircuts. But once again, they gave different reasons for Summer's haircut.

One interview, Summer's mother, Candace, said, oh, I have short hair, so she wanted to look like me. And then when there was an interview with Don and Candace, who are Summer's parents, they said the story about her wanting to look like her older brothers. And this is very consistently bothered people because when you look at the missing person posters for Summer, she has longer blonde hair, but when she went missing, she had a very, you know, close cropped short haircut. So people were wondering why did her parents choose this picture that doesn't look exactly like she would look when she went missing to use for a missing person's poster. But that's just something that people have said. I just want to put it out there and you guys can pick it up if you want to pick it up. But here are Candace and Don kind of explaining the haircut thing.

She was a tomboy. I shaved my head. She wanted to have her head shaved like me and the boys did. She tried to shave her head in the back and make it. I think you can see it in some of the pictures, and it was getting out of control. So we decided to shave her head off and let it grow back long. And she shaved her head so she wouldn't feel bad. But it didn't bother her at this point. The day of Summer's disappearance has created quite a puzzle for everyone,

because there's a lot of things that don't make sense. Candace claims that Summer went missing after just a few minutes of not having eyes on her. She then called her husband, Don Wells, who was working in Jonesboro at the time, which is about a 40-minute drive from his home. He claims he told Candace to call the police. He then hopped in his truck and began driving home, at which point he also called the police. Now, the 911 calls have not been released, but the dispatcher communication from that time has been. So the dispatcher said that the mother had went for a walk, came home, now they can't find her, they've been yelling for her, she's been gone for about 10 minutes now. So the dispatcher said that

Candace claimed she had gone for a walk and then when she came home she couldn't find Summer and Don Wells has claimed that he made it back to his house before the police arrived but the dispatcher says that Summer has only been missing for about 10 minutes and the police responded right away. So it's very hard to understand how Don could have made it to the Ben Hill area before law enforcement did when he was working 40 minutes away. And in a later interview, Candace mentions nothing about going for a walk. Instead, she says this. I don't go on walks around here or runs because I'm scared of the bears and snakes and even the coyotes that are around here. And this was not in response to her, you know, the dispatcher thing. She wasn't saying this is like, no, I wasn't going on a walk. She was just

mentioning that there's a lot of wild animals out in the woods. And that's why they kind of told Summer to not wander off because of these wild animals. And so she's stating that she doesn't go for walks kind of unprompted from the dispatcher footage because that hadn't been released by that point. So, you know, maybe the dispatcher misunderstood or Don Wells gave the dispatcher inaccurate information because both Don and Candace called the police. But in Candace's version of events, there was no walk. And she says she never goes on walks because of all the wild animals in the area. All right. So just to have a better understanding of the layout is grandma's trailer. It's a trailer, right? How close in proximity is

it to the main house? You'll see a little bit better in different interviews that are coming up, but it's pretty close. The front door that you kind of saw her walk in where she was in that room with the TV and everything, it's straight ahead. Grandma's trailer is right there. If you walked out that front door, you would see it right across the driveway. So it's in a line of sight and you don't have to cross any other houses or anything like that to get to grandma's trailer. Okay. That's important.

And in case Summer had came out the house and walked back to grandma's trailer because there's really no path where she could have crossed someone with malicious intentions on that way unless they're on the actual property. The other thing is, and this may just be the dispatcher relaying it, I don't really classify walking from the house to the trailer as a walk. That's kind of just staying on the property for me. Now, that could be, like I said, the relaying of the information to law enforcement officers responding that, oh, mom went on a walk. She just got an initial reaction from mom. So she may have assumed she went on a walk when in reality, she was just walking from

the trailer to the house. So that's not a walk. The other question I have for you, as far as dad, as far as Don Jonesboro, you said it's about 40 minutes away. I kind of assumed that there was an interview conducted with the brothers. I'm sure there was, we don't know what was said. Do we know if anybody confirmed that Don was at a work site or wherever he was supposed to be during the time or any point during that day by anybody else other than a family member? So law enforcement has not released that information. And as far as I know, nobody else has been able to get that either because sometimes YouTubers will, you know, take it into their own hands and they'll start calling around and they'll check like, hey,

it was Don at work that day, but maybe his boss has been instructed not to talk to anybody by police. I'm not sure. I'm sure the police checked that to see if he was at work, what time he left, but also what you have to understand is Don Wells works in construction, so he works at different sites. So he'll basically drive to a site and he seems to be, I think, a manager or a supervisor of some kind. So his boss wouldn't be there with him all the time. And there is going to be a lot of question about if Don was at work or at home that day. And that's also going to come into play. And we're going to talk about that because it does get very muddy. And there are allegations made from Candace

later in text messages that she sent to a friend, allegedly, where she says, oh, he was home earlier than we thought or earlier than we said he was and and that's kind of adding to this this intrigue and this mystery of like what the heck is going on here yeah there's a lot of things that can be taken from that i don't i don't want to accuse anybody of anything but first and foremost let's go back to the fact that this is 2021 when this occurs so we talked about this in previous cases it would take maybe an hour to confirm based on cell phone coordinates where Don was. It wouldn't take long at all. So I can promise you this, law enforcement has that information. They know exactly where Don's phone was when he received a call from

Candace. No doubt about it. 100% certainty. That's one thing. So they know whether he's lying or not or where he exactly was. Let's assume he wasn't at a job site. Is it a scenario where Don's in the driveway when Summer comes out and Don takes Summer somewhere? Of course. I'm sure that's what people are speculating. That's why I'm bringing it up. He could have taken her off somewhere and then returned home shortly after. So that's possible. But yeah, I can promise you it's unfortunate we don't have that information and that law enforcement hasn't shared it yet, but it is only 2021. But if they had that information, they could easily charge him with obstruction of justice or something along those lines to get him tied up,

get him into the station, get him interrogated. But they haven't done that yet from what I understand. So- Don Wells is in prison for an unrelated charge right now. So that'd be an opportunity to bring him in and question him, too. What was the charge? Driving under the influence and a couple of other things. And in the next episode, in the next part, we're going to get deep into Don's background, Candace's background, because they've all got a very long history of criminal offenses. And there is one thing that Don did in his past that is incredibly disturbing when thinking about Summerwell's going missing. I can't wait to hear that. But yeah, for everyone

out there, I would love to be a fly on the wall in the conference room when the local police are talking about this, but they know 100% where at least Don's phone was when he received the call from Candace, which is important because whether it's GPS coordinates, because he has an iPhone or even just has a basic phone, that phone has to bounce off a cell phone tower and they can triangulate it based off multiple cell phone towers that it's hitting. So there's no doubt they would have a general vicinity at minimum of where he was when he received that call from Candace. So here's the thing. I'm kind of skipping ahead and I don't have my notes for part two in front of me, so I'm not going to have exactly what, but they had three vehicles basically on this property. Okay. You've got grandma's truck, you have Don's work truck, and then you have Candace's car, which I can't remember what it is, maybe a Subaru, but it's a brand new vehicle.

And it has this GPS tracking system in it. I forget what it's called. OnStar. Something like that, OnStar. It's called something different, like TrackStar or something something but very similar exactly so Don decided to take Candace's new car to work that day instead of his work truck and when he was asked about this he said well you know I'm paying $600 a month for it it's just sitting there not getting used so I thought I would use it

and he even said that when he got to work some of the guys he was working with made fun of him because they were like why are you you know we're doing mudding and stuff and dry wall today like why are you bringing this new vehicle here and he just kind of like brushed it off but then later he's interviewed by a youtuber I forget who and he's he seems to be under the influence of something when he's talking to this youtuber but he makes a statement along the lines of, I have about seven alibis, including that GPS. Candace has none. He says that to this YouTuber for whatever reason. Some people think that Candace and Don were like trolling people, but you have to understand this is in the aftermath of their five-year-old daughter being missing and nobody knows where she

is. So to even think that they would be doing that wouldn't make a lot of sense for grieving parents who are worried about where their daughter is. So either he means that, which I'm leaning towards that, or they're just very messed up people who would spend their time when their daughter's missing going on different YouTube channels and making things up and trolling each other and trolling people. Yeah, I don't think it's that. And I'll even go out on a limb here, not knowing the specifics of where we're going to go and the fact that you even foreshadowed it and said, there's some things in Don's past that are extremely disturbing. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, regardless of that, it would be pretty stupid

to say you're at a work site where more than likely at a construction site, there's going to be multiple people there, as he said, who can discredit you. If you were just involved in something, you would probably want to come up with a better excuse than I was at a job site 40 minutes away when clearly he knew that his new vehicle had this tracking system. He had a phone on him. It's 2021. And the fact that there would be other people at the job site who would say he never showed up here for work. And if that were the case, I think law enforcement would come at him with everything they have because they would have tangible proof to say, you're lying to us, Don.

Where were you? Because you weren't there. And the fact that they haven't makes me think that there might be something that confirmed he was, in fact, at this job site in Jonesboro. So I think the question is more about how long was he at the job site. And there are some people who think he purposely took that vehicle that day, even though it makes no sense to take that vehicle because it's not your work truck and you are going to get it dirty and things like that. He purposely took that vehicle knowing about that GPS system in there, knowing that it would provide what he basically feels is a rock solid alibi.

That makes sense. And that even confirms the phone pinging even more because when that phone, it's constantly pinging off the towers, but when a phone call is made, it's definitely pinging off those towers. So let's say the time was 6 42 PM around the time the call was made. Basically right when that happens, law enforcement would be able to see through the cell phone provider where that phone was pinging off of at the time the call was made. And because it's 40 minutes away, that's great because it's far enough away where it's not going to bounce off the same tower that it would bounce off of if he was in the general

vicinity of the home. So that's extremely important that a call was made at that exact time because according to him, from what you're telling me, he was at work when he received that call. So if he's in the general vicinity of the home at the time when the call is made, he's got problems. Yep. So we're going to come back to that. Let's move on. Basically, we don't know everything law enforcement knows. There is a lot of wondering, like, do they know who did it, but they just don't have enough or they're waiting to kind of see if these people get more information.

We see something similar with the Megan Boswell case. Her daughter went missing. You know, it took a long time to arrest her and kind of the police knew from the beginning, but they needed to, like, build a case and compile a case. And law enforcement's been very, very tight lipped about everything, like all of these confirming things, like what did the boys say and the GPS, and they took all the phones and they took all the electronics, they did all of that. So they know this timeline, like the back of their hands, whereas we are just guessing. And usually in a case where I believe in a case where people are innocent, you know,

somebody could come out, the police could come out and say, hey, you know, actually, we did confirm that Don was at work and we did confirm that he made the call when he was in Jonesboro. So, you know, everybody can chill out with that. But that's not really happening. They're not giving us anything to like make us feel less suspicious of the parents, I guess. So what you're saying is law enforcement has never came out and said, just so you guys know, court of public opinion, the parents are not being considered persons of interest and or suspects. No, they initially said they were cooperating. And then a year later, they said they weren't cooperating, but they've never come out and said anybody is a suspect or a person of interest. They've only said we're exploring all avenues. Okay. Very important. We always say it's not always what the law enforcement officials are saying. It's what they're not saying. Yes. And when law enforcement arrived that day, they immediately began to look for Summer from land and air. The initial land search included around 60 to 80 people, and the Tennessee Highway Patrol's aviation unit and Ballard Health's HEART Air Service provided aerial support. The search went on throughout the night, and they even used

FLIR in the aerial searches, which is a thermal imaging technology that would detect body heat at night. But there was no sign of the little girl, which led many to wonder how she had gotten so far away on foot. If Summer had only been gone for about 10 minutes by the time her parents called and the police were dispatched out and the authorities rushed right to the scene and started looking for her, she should have been found. Both Summer's parents insisted that Summer would not have wandered off on her own, that she had never gone off the property before, and they had warned her about the many dangers out in the woods and hills that surrounded their property, so she knew to stay close to the house. From the very first few days

of this missing persons investigation, Don Wells and Candace Bly were insisting that their child had not gotten lost, she had been taken. By Wednesday, the TBI had issued a statewide Amber Alert, and 106 agencies from across Tennessee, Ohio, Virginia, Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina had come in to assist with the search. Churchill Rescue Squad Captain Tim Koop, who was overseeing the search and rescue operation, told searchers and residents of the area to keep in mind that they were looking for a small child who could be hiding in small spaces, saying, quote, I've been telling these searchers for the past several days, when you're looking through this property, you're not looking for an adult lying there. We're looking for a five-year-old girl that weighed approximately 40

pounds. Someone that size could wad up and hide in an area the size of a legal pad or a folded-up laptop." He told people to check their outbuildings, barns, sheds, and hayfields. By the following week, the search had covered 4.6 square miles and more than 3,000 acres, and many of the areas had been searched more than once. Initially, law enforcement said it was too early to determine if foul play was involved, but everything was on the table, and TBI spokesperson Leslie Earhart announced that if investigators did develop information that Summer had been abducted and they were in possession of a suspect and or a vehicle description, that information would immediately be shared with the public. But as the days and weeks passed, and it became clear

that Summer was no longer in the area, Leslie Earhart had a different message. Do you believe Summer Wells is still alive? We hope so, but honestly, we just don't know. I mean, we're holding out hope, doing everything we can. Obviously, we typically would have found a child at this stage in the investigation. So honestly, we just don't know. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. So let's go back and find out what Summer was doing during the day before she disappeared. And this timeline is put together from interviews with Candace Bly, Don Wells, Grandma Bly, and a 15-year-old boy named Hunter, who was with Summer that day,

as well as Hunter's mother, Allison Harris. Almost all of the people involved in this timeline will consistently say they don't know exactly what time things happened throughout the day. They're only able to give approximate times. Don Wells claimed that he left for work early that morning around 7 a.m. and the last time he saw his daughter, she was sleeping next to him in bed. Candace claimed that she woke Summer up early on that morning because they needed to drive Grandama to the Holston Valley Medical Center in Kingsport, which was about 25 to 30 minutes away from their Ben Hill address. Donwells claims that he left for work that morning around 7 or 7.30. He couldn't really remember. And the last time he saw Summer, she was asleep in bed with him.

So when did you leave your house? When did I leave my house that morning? I'm not sure. It might've been about seven, 7.30, 8 even. Okay. I'm not sure. And this, I'm gonna ask you a few questions. Like I said, I need you to, I know they might be pushy and painful at times.

So just take it for what they are. When was the last time you saw Summer? That morning when I woke up Because she was sleeping in between me and her mother Okay, did she when I was kind of laying on her foot a little bit of stuff and I was like Did she wake up did she wake up no, no I was wondering what she said to you last the last thing she said. What are the last words she ever said to you? You remember. I'm not sure if it was that night or not, but I remember, you know, clearly, like summer, you got to sleep in your own bed.

Then she come back with big old crocodile tears in her eyes, and she said, Daddy, I want to be with you. So I don't know why this bothers me, and it could just be the cadence of his speech, but I hate when somebody's asked a question and then they repeat the question before answering. It feels like you don't know the answer and you're buying time. My kids do that all the time when they're caught doing something. I'm like, Aiden, what are you doing? He's like, what am I doing?

And then he pauses for a minute before answering. So it always just feels wrong to me. But this also could be the way he just speaks in general. I don't know. Yeah. We're trained that that could be a sign of deception. They're taking time to gather their thoughts to make sure they say it. It also could be when he said, when did you leave? Was he referring to when he left in the morning or when he left work? I'm going to say something. This may offend some people. It's not meant to be offensive. I'm just pointing out the obvious to me. It doesn't appear that Don or even Candace, for that matter, are highly educated. I think that sometimes they may get a little intimidated by questioning and that's okay. That's okay. There's nothing wrong with it. So I do think it's important to point that out because not everyone's on the same playing field and it can

be intimidating for someone who has someone who's talking to them. That's a fast talker from the city, whatever it might be. And that can be intimidating. So it could be a lot of different things and it doesn't necessarily automatically mean they're being deceptive, but you're not wrong. That could be a sign of deception and them trying to process what they're going to say before saying it. Yeah. It was more when he said, what's the last thing Summer said to you? And he was like, what's the last thing she said to me? It was kind of that one that got me. But yeah, I do notice that he does this a lot, though, in interviews. And I will say, like, I agree. I don't know about his education level. He actually does appear to me to be pretty with it.

But for if somebody is not comfortable answering questions and getting interviewed, Don and Candace sure give a lot of interviews. I mean, to everybody and their mother. And I have to feel that the police probably told them to not do that at some point because this was causing so many rumors and people were speculating so much and it was all over YouTube. But it seemed like they were very interested in getting out front of this because within just a couple of days, people were suspecting them. People were talking about it, seeing they really wanted to get out in front of it and kind of tell their stories over and over again, which I feel did end up kind of backfiring on them because they told so many different versions of the same story that even the untrained sleuth is going to be like, hey,

what's going on here? You know, we've heard several different versions of this. What's happening? What case does this case remind you of? Oh, I forget his name. The little boy who went missing when they were camping. Dior Coons. Dior Coons. Yeah.

Parents giving interviews, things like that. So it's interesting. Yeah, but they've given way more interviews than Dior's parents. And you know, I'm suspicious of Dior's parents all day, all night. But Candace and Don have given way more interviews to everybody than Dior's parents ever did. I can see that. So Don Wells leaves for work that morning. Candace had to bring her mother to the hospital because grandma was having some knee pain the way that she got this knee pain is also on the table because she claims or at least candace claims that

it was because her sons were like kicking their grandmother when they were at some gem mine or something i believe the week before once again this is more in part two and i have my notes upstairs but we'll get back to that specifically. Candace thought they had to be at the medical center by 8 a.m., which means they would have to leave their house around 7.30 at the latest. So Candace had to wake Summer up early that morning because, according to Candace, if she let her, Summer would sleep until noon. So Summer, Candace, and Grandma, they all get into Grandma's vehicle. It's a truck. And they drove to the Holston Valley Medical Center where Grandma went inside to get treated. And Candace and Summer stayed in the car. Now, according to Hunter, the 15-year-old boy who ended up being with them for,

you know, several hours that day, this is when Candace texted him and said they were near his house waiting for Grandma, who is in the hospital i was gonna say that she texted me saying that her grandma was in the hospital do you have those texts no they have the tbi has my phone got it i'm just using her dad's phone okay well your grandfather passed away okay got it so that day that she tasted and she said, my grandma's in the hospital. Well, her mom's in the hospital, but we called her grandma at the time like we used to. So I called her up. I said, y'all want to come over here for a bit?

Because she's going to be in the hospital for a while. Because she messed up her knee or whatever. Okay, so I might have missed this because i am i am writing notes as you're talking so this does happen from time to time so i apologize if you already have but when i wrote my initial notes the brothers were seven nine and twelve now you're mentioning this 15 year old boy hunter how did he come into the equation it's very weird right i mean it's confusing even knowing who he is so hunter Hunter's a 15-year-old boy, and I'm going to kind of get into the relationship that he has with Candace and Summer in a minute. But he's basically a 15-year-old boy that Candace knows, a family friend, if you will.

And when she's sitting and waiting for her mother in the hospital, she ended up texting him and being like, oh, hey, we're by your house, blah, blah, blah. And then he was like, oh, you should come over. And Hunter says in this interview that he was told by Candace the other kids, Summer's brothers, had gone to work with their father, Don, that day. So however, according to Candace and Don, this was not true. The boys had been left at home that morning while Summer, Candace, and Grandma went to the hospital. So this 15-year-old boy, Hunter, he asks Candace, you know, do you and Summer want to come over to my place while you wait for Grandma to be done with the doctors? And Candace said she would as long as Hunter's mother, Allison, was okay with it. Now, Hunter's mother, Allison, she believed that Candace and

Summer arrived at her house between 10 and 10.30 in the morning. Hunter said he thought it was closer to 11 a.m., but once again, he says he isn't good with time. According to Hunter, Candace said that she was bringing Summer fishing, and Hunter asked if he could go along. Candace said that would be fine as long as it was okay with his mother. And his mother, Allison, said it was fine as long as he wasn't gone too long because his grandmother, his own grandmother, was visiting later that day. So the dynamics between Summer's family and Hunter's family, according to Hunter and Allison, they were very close. They treated each other like they were family members. Hunter said he viewed Summer as a little sister, and she loved him because her own brothers weren't always so nice to her. And Hunter paid her a lot of attention, and he would give her piggyback rides, and he wanted to show Summer how a real big brother would treat her.

Apparently, these two families were very close until something happened that had caused a rift. And Hunter had actually not seen Summer or Candace for a while until that day, June 15th, when they came to his house. Now, Allison, Hunter's mother, she claimed that she and Candace had been friends for roughly a year and a half. She actually said they were like sisters. And her first impression was that Candace was a good person who was just looking for a friendship. So they got very close. And in this interview, you've got Hunter, you've got Allison, and you have another woman sitting next to Allison, who I believe is Allison's grandmother or Hunter's grandmother. But they never really verify like who all of these people are. But this older woman that's sitting next to Allison, she kind of pipes in because apparently this woman, who I believe is Hunter's grandmother, she says that she met Candace and Summer and the boys at a local community area. And she was kind of the one who had introduced them to Allison. And this woman says, you know, she felt from the beginning that Candace was kind of dirty, unwashed, and she let her kids run all over the place.

And then Allison starts talking about how she would always buy food for Candace and for her family, and she gave her money. And then Allison starts talking about she believes Candace wanted to buy drugs because Candace had told her that she was a recovering meth addict and she also drank a lot of alcohol and smoked weed. Now, eventually, Allison said that she realized Candace was just using her and this kind of caused the rift. And then a woman who was also there named Leslie, who worked with Allison, she saw something one day that shocked her. I met Candace on her birthday. See, me and her worked together. Okay. So I brought, I came over for her birthday party and they had a swimming pool up out back as a little swimming pool

and her kids and Candace's kids was playing in the pool. And some of the kids had got out and was eating a snack while we was cooking hamburgers and stuff. And two of her boys was in the pool, and they was horse playing. And this really, what she done really got to me. Okay. I mean, their kids, they're kids. They're going to play in the pool. Right.

They're going to get rough. You know, they're boys. Right. And because they got rough, horse playing in the pool. She made them get out. And back here behind the house, there's a driveway.

And she made the two boys get out of the pool, wet and lay down, stomach down on black tar. It was hot, really hot. That left an impression with you. It left an impression with you. It left an impression so bad, I looked at her and Allison's mom, Sherry, I said, I do not like this bitch. Straight up. And I told Allison, I said, this swimming pool is going down. I said, those kids did not deserve that.

I walked out, picked a swimming pool up and dumped it. Turned around and walked back in the house. I did not wanna be around her the rest of the evening. I didn't because if I would have been, honestly, I would have went to jail. Right. And you wanna ask me how I felt about that? That is abuse. Those children could have got seriously burnt.

Right. No, I agree. I agree. That ground is just unbelievably hot. And with them being wet. Right. Yeah, it's just like oil and water and grease. It just fries them up how did she how did she react she just like she doesn't care she doesn't care she doesn't care her and her mom both just laughed

huh well that's terrible and and enlightening because i believe that woman i believe that woman wholeheartedly without even really seeing her face no incentive to lie and it's too descriptive too detailed and it does speak to the idea that when we're kind of exploring all options from this incident it appears candace was uh pretty extreme when it came to disciplinary actions and you it makes you wonder what other things she could have done to both the boys and to to. And could she had maybe gone too far? And I'm sure that's why this is important. It absolutely is important because it gives you a little bit of an insight into the type of disciplinary tactics that Candace may have

implemented with her children, which I agree with her. I'm sure you do too. I think I know you well enough to know that isn't a form of child abuse without a doubt. So yeah, not good, but good for us to know. Yeah. I don't believe 100% of everything that all the people involved in this case say. I think some of it might be personal issues and things like that. But this woman's story, I do believe there's emotion in her voice. seems genuinely upset about it like you said far too detailed um she she seems even now at this point when she's telling it like you can tell her hands are clenching around her coffee cup she's very agitated and upset and this memory of it bothers her i agree and to go forward the relationship between candace and the teenage

boy hunter it also seemed just a little bit odd, maybe a little bit too close considering their age differences, and some might say inappropriate. On May 27, 2020, so about a year before Summer Goes Missing, a then 14-year-old Hunter posted on Facebook that he was in a relationship, and Candace responded, quote, with who? Your hand? End quote. Hunter wrote back saying, quote, yep, Rosie Palm and her five sisters. End quote. And Candace responded saying, quote, and her brothers. End quote. To this, Hunter told Candace, quote, fuck you too. End quote. And Candace replied back, quote, no, bro, I don't fuck my homies, end quote. So keep in mind, this is a 30-something-year-old woman and a 14-year-old boy. I personally probably wouldn't have an interaction with a 14-year-old boy like this. I wouldn't have even come into it and been like, with who, your hand? Because he's a child, he's a minor. And I certainly, if he had said, fuck you, too, I certainly would have said, no, I don't fuck my homies, I would have said,

you're a 14 year old boy, I probably wouldn't have responded to that at all. That would have been the reason that I'd be like, no, I'm not going to do that, because you are an underage child. But instead, the reason she wasn't going to do that was because they they were homies. And also, I think it's a little weird for a 30-something-year-old woman to consider a 14-year-old boy her homie. Yeah. I think this goes back to a couple of things. There could be something there. I think it's definitely something that should be considered, especially the fact that she texted him to see if they could come over, like that and make sure it's okay with you

Gotta make sure it's okay with your mom You know, so it wasn't like she had a close relationship with mom was more like hey like you would see Two friends texting to each other when they're on the same level like hey Just make sure it's okay with your mom that I come and visit you That's how I kind of took that well, they they needed consent from her He had been close friends with his mom, but remember they had like a falling out and they hadn't seen each other. So that may have been why she's asking, make sure it's okay with your mom. Maybe.

But still. Yeah, maybe. But yeah. And so I agree with all that, but it also, I hate to keep saying this, but I got to, I'll say it. I mean, it's how I feel. Like you're going to refer to her mental age, right? Her mental capacity.

And although she may be in her 30s her mental capacity may be more of a 20 year old or even a teenager and so she may relate to someone of hunter's age more than another adult this isn't an insult by any means by the way we just got to be real here we got to be honest and i'm not saying it because she has a southern draw i'm saying it because of the interviews i've already seen with her it doesn't seem like she's of a high mental capacity in my opinion. So I know I'm going to get killed. I could see your face. It's funny you had to qualify that.

It's not because she has a Southern accent. Like it wouldn't even have occurred to me that you would have thought that. Oh my God. I'm going to say something real quick. And this, this is a shout out to my big brother people. Cause I know there's some of you that watch For those of you who don't know I was on big brother and I was in the house with this guy Who's a sweetheart his name is donnie thompson super intelligent guy had a southern draw him and I

Really didn't see eye to eye and the only reason I bring this up is because he he didn't he didn't like me from the start He he had something about me. He didn't like and we became close after the show. And he told me why. And he said, Derek, it was the way you spoke. I'm very slow and methodical the way I think. And you were a fast talker. You had that Yankee accent. And I just didn't like you. I just didn't like you because just the way you spoke. And that was interesting to me because it wasn't based off anything he knew about me or my education. I was lying about who I was the whole time. It was just the way I spoke. And I said, well, that's interesting because I didn't judge you because you had a Southern accent. I actually thought you were extremely intelligent.

So it's just interesting how sometimes the way someone speaks, you can make an initial judgment about them. So yeah, I'm probably over-qualifying here. I know they're going to call me out on it. It is funny because listen, Donnie was one of my favorites on your season, actually. I know, you've told me. And I wonder if your fast-talking Yankee ways was kind of an indication to him that you were a liar. Well, we all thought he was a liar too. That's a whole different story for a different day, but that's kind of what made me think of it. It's something where just seeing the small amount of interviews I've seen, it's something where she may relate more to someone who's a younger age than people of her own age. That's all I was getting at, although it took way too long to get there.

No, I agree. And I do know some adults like this, but it still makes me feel weird. Even though I know adults like this who are kind of, you know, forever young and they never want to grow up and they like hanging out with people who are younger than them. It still makes me feel icky. You know what I mean? No, I'm with you, especially because we can't relate to that. That's not how we operate. So it even becomes something more that raises an eyebrow. Yeah. And get this, on that same day that Hunter had changed his relationship status to saying he was in a relationship, he also changed his cover photo to a picture of himself with Candace Bly. Oh, that is interesting.

It's something. Well, this does give you some context into the relationship between Hunter and his family and Candace and her family. I think it's important to keep that in mind as we go through the timeline of this day. I mean, I suppose it gives you some context. To me, it still doesn't make a ton of sense. I think there's a lot going on here that hasn't been said. I think there's a lot happening that really nobody's talked about, but it gives you an indication, I guess, of why she was with him that day, why she maybe, you know, wanted to make off at is there was a possible meet up later for fishing. So I'm interested to see where you go there. But before we get into it, because we're getting into the good stuff now, let's take our final break. We'll be right back. So there's a big discrepancy about what Summer was wearing that day and when she was wearing it,

which adds a foggy element to the timeline when combined with the fact that no one could really remember what time anything happened that day. Candace told Chris McDonough that she had dressed Summer in her bathing suit before they had left the house that day, saying, quote, I actually put her bathing suit on before we left home because it was really hot out that day. It was just something small and thin, not so hot because I know she gets too hot, end quote. But Hunter claims that Summer changed into her bathing suit at his house and she had put on a pair of shorts and a pink or purple tank top over the bathing suit. So Candace, Summer, and Hunter get into Grandma's truck to go fishing,

but before they even left the driveway, Grandma called and she said she needed to get picked up. At this point, Hunter claims Candace was in the driver's seat, he was in the passenger seat, and Summer was sitting in the back seat behind the driver's seat. According to Hunter, they left and went to the hospital to pick up grandma, and from there they went to Walgreens to drop off a prescription for pain medicine that grandma had gotten from the hospital. Hunter said the line at the drive-thru

pharmacy was long, and when they dropped the prescription off, they were told it was going to take about 30 to 35 minutes to fill. While they were sitting in the line at the drive-thru, Hunter claims that Summer's father, Don Wells, called his wife, Candace, and he told her that there was a man on their property who had been there for about a week or so, watching and stalking the kids. Now, this call was confirmed by Don Wells

when he was on the Dr. Phil show. He said he had called Candace from work because he was thinking about leaving early, but when he found out that she was not home and they were out running errands, Phil show. He said he had called Candace from work because he was thinking about leaving early, but when he found out that she was not home and they were out running errands, he decided to just stay at work. What Don allegedly said during the call was about a guy named Andy or Andrew or Anthony who was hanging around the property and watching the kids. Now, that's what Hunter said. He said it was an A name. He thinks it was Andy or Andrew or Anthony. Couldn't remember.

But, you know, he claims that this is the conversation that happened because he asked Candace what Don said when Candace got off the phone. Now, this has not been confirmed by Don or Candace. They claim it's nonsense that Don never said that. And Candace said that Don just called to see how soon they would be home. And he did not mention anything about a suspicious guy hanging around their property. Now, moving on with Hunter's timeline, they left the farm seat with a plan to go back when the prescription was filled, and Candace said they needed cigarettes, so they went to a discount tobacco store near Long John Silver's.

At this point, Grandma was in the passenger seat, Summer had been moved to the middle seat, Hunter was sitting behind the driver's seat, and there was a box in the seat behind the passenger seat. And this box is going to stay there for the majority of the time. When Hunter initially got in the car, there was a bunch of boxes in the back seat. He said he moved one to the back of the truck, and he moved one over to the side, and so that him and Summer had two available seats to sit in. At the store, Candace purchased cigarettes, a can of twisted tea, and two puff bars, which are nicotine vapes. They then headed to Warriors Path State Park. Grandma stayed in the car to add minutes to her cell phone, and Summer, Candace, and Hunter got out and walked to, I guess you, I wouldn't call it a lake. They don't call it a

lake. They call it like a swimming hole, but it's a pretty big body of water. And they went there because Summer wanted to swim. So Summer started swimming while Hunter and Candace watched from the shore. According to Hunter, Candace gave him the twisted tea she had purchased and they shared the vapes while they watched TikTok videos on Candace's phone and Summer played and swam in the swimming hole. Now there is a video of Summer swimming on this day that Candace posted to her TikTok account, which if you're watching on YouTube, you'll be seeing right now. And this video, according to the timestamp, was posted at 1221 p.m. Hunter said that while Summer was was swimming grandma got out of the car and she came

down to the swimming hole and she began hanging out with himself and candace but then at one point while candace and grandma were distracted apparently they were looking for flowers to pick and grandma had seen some flowers there at the park when they'd been there for an earlier visit that she had wanted to pick so they weren't paying attention hunter says that summer went under the water and hunter had to jump in to see if she was okay let's let's go from the moment you see her and what did you do i just throw my shirt down and just bring myself into that water just if she's okay okay so you got scared a little bit yeah okay walk me through those emotions. I was just like, I don't really get scared or nothing,

to be honest, I just get a little bit like spooked. Got it. Spooked, like how do I put that, like spooked. Like I get a little bit like shook for a second, and that's it. Okay, so you got nervous? Yeah, a little bit, yeah. And did you call her yeah

i was like somewhere but i don't know if you can hear underwater like that so can you see her underwater no yeah you get serious i could see her it's just that i always wanted to make sure that she was okay got it straight up and what happened yeah i just pull her up bring her over my shoulders i say are you okay she goes yeah did she spit up water or anything she did spit up water was she laughing she was just laughing yeah okay I was just saying because after the effect of that the what if because it was a short period of time right before they dropped me off that she said that she was missing got it straight up so in that moment where she's in the water how much time do you think just a guesstimate between the moment you saw her underwater and the

moment you got her up out of the water at least like four seconds okay four or five seconds so what was Candace doing when Summer was under the water? Talking to her mom. And what was the grandma doing? Talking back, looking for flowers. What do you mean? She always picks flowers everywhere she goes, or rocks. So are they looking for flowers? No, she was talking about,

there was, there were flowers one day that she wanted, that they were there. I guess they go there every time now, I don't know. Okay. But them flowers, she said that they were very pretty flowers and that she wished she could pick some of them. Okay. I guess that was what they were talking about before I went to go grab them.

Okay, but then you noticed Summer. Yeah. Were you concentrating on Summer while drinking the tea? Yeah, I was staying focused on her mainly. So you're kind of like the noticed Summer. Yeah. Were you concentrating on Summer while drinking the tea? Yeah, I was staying focused on her mainly. So you're kind of like the lifeguard. Yeah. Am I wrong or, I mean, correct that? No, you're correct. You're correct.

Okay. Just 15 minutes after this, they all got back into the car to go pick up Grandma's prescription, which was ready, but they didn't go right to Walgreens. They went to a place called the Hippie House, which was another tobacco store that had recently opened, and Candace and grandma wanted to go in and check it out to see what they had in there. While those two were in the store for roughly five minutes, Hunter and Summer stayed in the car and watched TikToks. When Candace came out, she had two more nicotine vapes, one of which she gave to Hunter, and then they drove to Walgreens to get the prescription. But at this point, Hunter was sitting in the middle.

There was boxes taking up one side of the car, and Summer was apparently sitting on a pillow on the other side of Hunter because she was wet from swimming. Both Hunter and Candace claim that Summer sat on this pillow because she was wet. What about the pillow? The pillow? What pillow? Oh, she's sitting on a pillow. Oh, mom gets mad because the kids get in their wet bathing suit and stuff. So I just put pillow underneath it so mom wasn't complaining. Got it. Okay. Okay. But in a later interview with Chris McDonough, Candace mentions changing Summer out of her bathing suit and into clothes at the swimming hole. A set of clothes that were brand new because they had just bought these clothes, and Summer was planning to wear them on her first day of school the following September. She changed clothes?

Yeah, I changed her clothes because when I have the windows down, it can be 100 degrees. I don't have all the windows up. I look out the window, mommy, I'm cold. And she she not be cold but she I still do it is that part of summer that's just summer now remember earlier Candace had said she had put summer in her bathing suit before they'd even left the house that day because she knows summer always gets hot but in this clip she kind of makes it seem like summer says she's cold all the time. And these clothes that she was wearing in the car were a long-sleeved shirt and long pants. So pants and a shirt. But we're going to return to that point in a minute. So Hunter claims that after they left Walgreens, they went to Sonic and

everyone got slushies. And from there, they went to Priceless, which is a grocery store, and Candace and Grandma went inside while Hunter and Summer stayed in the car. Hunter claims that the two women were in the store for about an hour. Candace claims she was the only one who went into the store because she only had to run in for a couple of things like milk and cheese, and she was inside for only about five minutes. When Candace came out of the store, they put the groceries into the bed of the truck, and Hunter says that Summer was sitting behind the passenger seat, he was in the middle, and they handed him a few milk jugs to keep in the back seat with himself and Summer.

He said he put the milk jugs in the middle because there was no room on the other side of him. After this, they went back to Hunter's house to drop him off, and Hunter's mother said that him off. And Hunter's mother said that when they got there, she thinks it was around 2.30 p.m. and Summer was sitting in the middle seat and she was asleep. Now, Candace said that Allison, Hunter's mother, never came out to the car and never saw Summer and that Summer was not asleep when they got to Hunter's house. Summer only fell asleep when they were a few minutes away from their own home on Ben Hill Road. Now, Hunter said that he had the milk jugs, he got out of the car, and he put the milk jugs down in the seat that he had just vacated. And that brings us to the next footage

of Summer from that day. A couple seconds of video that was taken of Summer after Hunter was dropped off and before they got home that day. And in this video, Summer is asleep and she appears to be slumped over some gallons of milk. And here's Candace explaining how this video came to be. back like this, she had her arms up like this, like her daddy sleeps all the time. Okay. So I wanted to catch that moment. Okay. You know, it's just things I do. Right. And I was like, here mom, hurry up, take that picture. And then she accidentally hit the video recorder. Okay. That's the other picture part. Okay. So like, did you catch it? She was like, no, I accidentally hit the video part. That's what you get for handing Grandma the camera yeah well i was driving though okay and i was like did you put her arm back down she's like yeah i was like dang and then she got a picture of her but by that time her arm was down but her arm was up most of the time like this

right and we were like two minutes from the house when she took her arm down okay and then when we got to the house we unlocked the gate went, went up, and I woke her up. So the video was supposed to be a picture, according to Candace, but Grandma accidentally hit the video button. And Candace said, remember, they were two minutes from the house when this video was taken. And here is that video. It's interesting about that clip because they're saying in a few minutes, everything that she said in the interview beforehand makes sense with that. The fact that she's saying, oh, is her arm still up?

So that all lines up. That's good. And also that metadata from that video, regardless of the phone she had, law enforcement would be able to extract that and see exactly what time that video was taken from the phone's metadata if it's not completely obvious when they download it. So that's good. That would be definitive evidence that whatever time that video was taken, which is I'm assuming between 2.30 and 3 p.m., that Summer was still alive and in good condition. So here's the thing with that picture.

And I'm going to have John put the picture on the screen, the actual full color still shot of this picture of summer sleeping in the back, leaning and sort of slumped against the milk jugs. A lot of people think that she is not alive in this picture, that summer is already dead. And this was sort of like, you know, to build an alibi. Now, I'm on board for a lot of things. I don't really, I'm not on board for this. I don't think that she was not alive. I think she was probably exhausted. And I mean, if you think

about it, she woke up earlier than she normally wakes up, right? And there's no mention of food being served to this child all day long she leaves the house at 7 7 30 they go to sonic they get slushies and it was clarified that they didn't get any food at sonic just slushies and this video was taken at 3 09 pm that's what candace says the the video timestamp is so this is like all day long and this girl hasn't had any food. She was up early. She's probably exhausted. I do believe that she was sleeping. But the position of where Hunter was sitting and where Summer was sitting and was she in her bathing suit? Because in this video, she's wearing her sweatpants and her long-sleeved shirt.

She's not wearing a bathing suit. So she was changed at some point and she wasn't in her bathing suit any longer and she was kind of moved around in the car a bunch. So this becomes a point of contention and we're going to kind of get a little bit more into that later. The milk jugs and their position and where Hunter was sitting and where Summer was sitting, it's like super important to a lot of people when trying to figure out what happened in this case. And also, I think, trying to nail down that timeline, which I'm going to talk about in a second, because the timeline doesn't make sense. Yeah. So just to go back to the video, I have it up right now. I just froze it on a good spot of her. And I know you're going to put up the image as well. Appears to be sleeping. There's coloration in her face. She's obviously a little pale, but her lips are red. With asphyxiation, you'll usually see some bluish tint to the lips,

even in the cheek area, sometimes in the skin at this point. We're talking maybe a half hour later. Her hair appears to be dry. I don't know if you would see rigor mortis at this point with the hands where you'd see some curling in the fingers if she's already deceased. I'm not seeing that. Her left hand is clearly relaxed. Her right hand is relaxed as well and pointing upwards. So I'm on board with you. That isn't my area of expertise, but to me, not only as former law enforcement, but as a dad, seeing my children sleep many occasions, it does appear that she is not in any type of rigor mortis. Complexion appears to be appropriate for someone who's still alive. And take that all aside, it would be a pretty demonic and crazy scheme to think that they would go to this extreme to prove that she was alive at that point.

I don't think, to go back to what I've said numerous times throughout this episode, they're at that capacity where they would be doing something of this nature at that point. And you'd have multiple people who are involved with it, including people who are not immediate family members like Hunter, the grandmother, the mom, and I'm not seeing it. I feel pretty confident in saying that she's still alive at that point in the video. Dude, I thought the same thing. When they said, oh, she's... Because people were saying, how could you be sleeping on milk gallons? They're cold. They're hard. Kids will sleep on anything, man. They feel nothing, nothing. And they won't wake up sore either because they're young and flexible. They feel nothing. And she's exhausted and hasn't been fed in like eight hours. So, no, I don't think she

was dead. And I also thought I was like, that would be real low, like that would be the lowest of the low to, you know, maybe she drowned at the swimming hole because that's what people are saying. She drowned at the swimming hole and they were just trying to cover it up, like to have that upbeat tone and play along with this whole thing and take this video specifically so you don't get in trouble for for killing your child or having her drown accidentally, that's next level. And I'm not saying that some people wouldn't do it. We've seen some pretty horrendous things as we've covered these cases and we've heard some horrendous stories, but I would hope that even they wouldn't go that low. And on top of all that, if it's at the swimming hole and they pull her out of the water, they dry her off. They change her clothes. And they don't go immediately home. They go to different locations where they could be picked up on camera. Again, 2021, although summer doesn't leave the vehicle, some cameras are better than others where they're high quality enough where they can still see through the windows of a vehicle that's parked in a parking lot.

So it's one of those things where if I'm law enforcement, I'm assuming they've done all that. They've tracked them down. They've looked at the security footage at these different locations, maybe saw that Summer was still moving in the back of the vehicle, although maybe not clear as day what's going on. You can still see some movement from the smaller individual in the back of the vehicle. Not as something we have access to, but something I would think law enforcement would have gathered and been able to see whether or not Summer was moving in the back of the vehicle while it was stationary in one of these parking lots. Yeah, and the main reason for

going over this timeline is so we can get an indication of exactly when Candace, Summer, and Grandma got home, and thus we can narrow down the time of when summer actually went missing but law enforcement they haven't revealed the timestamp of this video so it's not been officially confirmed but once again Candace did say that the video was taken at 3 o 9 p.m. and that this was taken about two minutes before they got home and once we do an overview of their movements on this day it does seem like there's a huge gap of time missing. We're going to talk about that in a minute. So Candace claims that Hunter was not correct about what they did and when they did it that day. And he lied about her

giving him the twisted tea and the vape pen. Now, when I was on the phone with you yesterday, briefly, you said he got the story out of order okay but it sounded like he was kind of telling the truth there he was kind of telling the truth but the way he was telling where we went and how we did it was all twisted up what's different that you want to clear up well because when we left from the emergency room we went straight to the smoke shop and that's when I got the cigarettes and stuff like that there and then we stopped at the hippie house and I got those cheap vapes because they're cheap there and then we went and put my mom's prescription in and then we went to warriors and then we come back to Walgreens got mom's prescription went to song thenons, then to Priceless, then to his house. And that's exactly in that order.

So he had it different from what you remember. Right. Okay. That's not what I remember. It's how it was. Okay, because you're driving. It's the truth. Yeah, you're driving.

I was driving. I knew where I was going. Okay. And what about he said that he asked you for the tea and that you gave him a tea. He didn't ask me for nothing. Okay. And what about, he said that he asked you for the tea and that you gave him a tea. He didn't ask me for nothing. Okay. I'm just. He asked me for a Mountain Dew. Okay.

I got him a Mountain Dew. Okay. So Candace claims they got home, Summer was asleep, but she told Summer they were back. The five-year-old jumped right out of the car. And Candace said that she had her three sons come out of the house to help her unload the groceries. And they brought some of the groceries to Grandma's trailer and then the rest into Candace's house. You get home, you take the groceries inside. Is Don home, by the way? No, he's not.

Actually, I parked the truck, and I opened both doors. It's really hard because it's a lawnmower, it is. But I opened the doors up, and I shook some arms and said, wake up, we're at home. She jumped right up. Okay. Like nothing. I unbuckled her and I said, come on. I said, mom, I'll be right back. Went in there and got the boys and they were sitting at the table.

And I said, come on, let's get the groceries out. And we brought them all in the house, went through them all. What happens when she comes in? The boys are playing where? No, the boys are actually sitting here. Okay. And they're actually sitting right here at the table watching TV. okay okay so they're at the table watching TV okay okay watching TV where summer okay so walk me through that right you put the groceries down Yeah. Alright, well, we walked up in here and we got Josie, Wad, and Waylon, the boys.

Right, you put the groceries down, right? Yeah, well, we went back out and then we brought the groceries in and put them down. And then Mom, she took her stuff to her house and put her stuff away. Okay. And then, of course, me and Summer went back over and put our stuff away. Okay. You went back in. Yeah, me and Summer went back in the house. And then we were just doing normal stuff.

Okay. Around the house like we normally do. And I come out, Mom was sitting there at the time I come out and I'm standing here. I was like, what are you doing? What are you staring at? She's like, these plants, I gotta get them transplanted. I was like, well, Summer will help us. So I went back in.

By that time, she was sitting on the floor playing with her toys. Right here? No, in the kitchen where we were just at. Okay. She she was sitting on the floor playing with her toys. Right here? No, in the kitchen where we were just at. She was actually sitting on the floor playing with her toys at that time. I said, Summer, do you want to help plant flowers? And she jumped out and left her toys in the house. That's what kids do. It's their job. What? We transplanted these cactuses from the little pots that they were in.

And transplanted these ones here into this bigger pot and that one into that bigger pot. And then she took the rocks that we've gotten from different gem mines when we went up to Gatlinburg and stuff. And she was the one that spreaded all the rocks around in here. And then she put her puppies in here she wanted to chase them there you know okay that's cool where are those puppies now what do you mean oh the little puppies oh yeah those little guys oh that's uh uh paw patrol yep yeah that's the police one yep that's chase he's always on the case. Okay. Okay. Oh, I see another one over here. She put them in there. Yep, you're on the cactus.

Okay, don't take those out, okay? No, I leave them right there. I know. The little one in my mom's, we can't get in there. Yeah, that's fine. Went in there. We went in there and got some candy and stuff. She gets it from Grandma.

Okay. And I said, well, I'm going to go back over to the house. She wanted to go back, so I said I'd go back, you grandma. Okay, and I said well, I'm gonna go back over to the house She wanted to go back so I say I go back, you know, okay, and I brought her how I literally walked over to here Where I could see the boys and on the kitchen table got him and I watched her walk in there Watch this yeah, I'll be right back and that's when I walked over and said, why? And he looked at me and I said, watch this. I'll be right back. And that's when I walked back over to my mom's. Okay.

And I was fixing her brace and stuff like that. And I said, well, mom, I got to go back over with the kids. And that's when I come back up into the house. Okay. With the boys. Okay. I'm not sorry. You walked into the house?

I walked into here. Get up. Get up. Get up. I walked in here and the three were sitting right here at the row with their eyes glued to the TV like always. And I said, boys, where's your sister at?

Well, she just went downstairs and went home to play. God, these videos are so valuable. So valuable. I wish we had them on every case we do. So much I can that well she just went downstairs mom the place god these videos are so valuable so valuable i wish we had them on every case we do so much i can take from it quick points for anybody watching the video and wondering why this investigator is kind of talking about paw patrol again it's a tactic he's 100 imploring a tactic he's trying to befriend her he's trying to open her up he he might have an opinion on certain things he's trying to put her in a where she feels comfortable so it seems a little weird sometimes the way he's talking and there's a tactic behind.

I can tell he's, he's done a lot of interrogation. So he's doing exactly what we're trained to do. The video gave some context to the, to the layout. As you had said earlier, trailer super close. Like you can see one, you know, one residence from the other. It just kind of, I can see why people would think that this is someone who lives there because it doesn't appear, it's very protected. If I'm getting the layout, if you go out the side door, not the front door that she keeps

going in through, the door that Summer could have gone out where she wouldn't have seen her, it almost looks like you have to go left to get out to the main road. And there would be no reason for Summer to go out that door and go left. She would go right back around the house to the trailer to see where mom and grandma are, or she would go right in front of the house. So that doesn't make any sense that she would go out and go left. And if a vehicle with someone in it, or even someone walking down the, I feel like they would know, they would know that someone else was there on their property. It would be very hard for that person to get onto the property undetected. And not only undetected, but it would be hard for someone who has some type of malicious intention to know that there's no one

on that side of the property that would see them as they're walking onto the property itself. A lot of things that would have to be perfect for the offender to carry out this abduction without being detected or seen by someone. Tons and tons of dogs. And Chris asked her at one point because he shows you when he's pulling in all these dogs running up to his car. And then he says something to her like, wow, you got a lot of dogs here. And she's like, yeah, they're not ours. People just bring them here and leave them. So they got a ton of dogs that I guess are like stray dogs, but also they find that property to be their home. They're always around there. So there's a ton of dogs all the time.

And you'd think if somebody's creeping around, creeping up on the property, at least one of those 28 dogs is going to bark or make some sort of noise. And if you think about the time, she's like, I walked over and said, watch sissy. And I walked back, helped her with her brace and then said, OK, I got to get back to the kids. It's literally two minutes, two minutes. How did anything happen? How was Summer so far away that by two minutes she couldn't hear you calling her? Or how did somebody snatch her in two minutes without you seeing, without her screaming, without any indication that they would have had to have pounced at the exact right minute. Yeah. Something is absolutely not adding up there. And even to go back further,

because you just kind of jogged my memory, I think this is something fair to say as a parent, as an investigator. There's no doubt in my mind, Candace is very loose at, and that's being nice, um, with her supervision of her children. We're going back to the swimming hole. If that's all true, that she didn't even notice her daughter went under. And then if you want to make it even go, go even more extreme, she has a seven to nine and a 12 year old at home, the 12 year olds in charge. And according to her statement, she left around eight o'clock in the morning and didn't return home until three. So essentially a 12 year old was in charge of a seven and nine year old for the majority of the day.

That's not acceptable. And you could have your kids taken from you by social services if that was put out there. So even when she's explaining it to this investigator, she doesn't see it as a problem. So there's this very loose parenting where the kids kind of have a lot of freedom, which creates opportunities for bad things to happen. And I'm not even talking about criminal activities, just accidents where the kids could hurt themselves and nobody would really know for an extended period of time because there's no adult supervision. So I'm so glad you picked up on that. Those boys being home alone all day, because it's not as if she was running out for a quick errand, like I'll be back in 30 minutes or I'll be back in 45 minutes. That I could understand. But to leave them alone for that long without any supervision. she kind of made it seem like from from the whole beginning of the day to the end they were just sitting in that position watching tv and do you hear what she said in that one interview

yep they were here all day the whole house was locked up no one in no one out what does that even mean no one out what are they locked in they can't leave they can't open the door and leave if they wanted how did you lock them in? So that I always, it stood out to me when she said, no one in, no one out. No one in, I can understand. No one out. Maybe she just meant they knew better than to leave the house. But you expect these kids to be cooped up in this like tiny room, this cluttered tiny room watching TV for like seven, eight hours. Yeah, no, I completely agree with everything you said. And this, sometimes things that don't make a lot of sense or seem like they're not relevant

or important at the time when you say them become relevant as you learn more. And to go back to something you said earlier that I didn't think was very relevant, it just felt like she was covering herself. The idea that she was so concerned about correcting Hunter when it came to providing alcohol for him, it shows, though, an awareness of how that looks optically to be providing something as an adult to a juvenile. And it seems like she's trying to protect, to some degree, her decision-making abilities and as far as knowing right from wrong and doing things that are not acceptable to most people. And I do wonder if that is something that she's conscious of this entire interview, as far as trying to paint a picture of being a good parent, as being a good adult. And then you ask yourself, why would she be concerned about that? Well, if we're speculating

here, it could be a concern of hers because something that could have happened may have been a result of her neglect may have been a result of her decision making process of being present and and being around and creating an environment where summer may have been hurt so that is it is interesting that she chose that as a thing to correct hunter on because it would speak to her judgment and some of the things she did. And again, to the parent, to the boys, no, you know, I left them home, but no one in, no one out.

Quick to point that out there that it was safe. You have to wonder these little things that may not seem important at the time, why she's making sure to point out that she didn't do anything wrong and that the kids were safer and she didn't do anything that wouldn't be acceptable to most adults. Maybe nothing, but could also be an underlying issue where she's really self-conscious about it. Yeah. And to me, cases like this are hard sometimes because people live differently. We are very much victims of our own subjective experience where we see something like this and we're like, oh, this is odd. This is out of place. This doesn't seem right when this could be how they live every single day. Like she could often leave those boys alone for hours at a time all day. And that may just be

common for them to you and I, we would say we wouldn't do that. That may be the way that they function. So it's hard to see if this is like a suspicious thing or if this is just a habitual kind of behavior either way I think it goes down down a bad path right because I think we can all agree you know different strokes for different folks but I think we can all agree that it's it's irresponsible to leave your three young children home alone like that not just because because, you know, someone could come in and take them, but anything could happen. They could cut themselves. They could burn themselves. You know, they could fall down and hit their heads. They could go down in the freaking

under the desk in the crawl space and just tumble down the stairs because it's completely pitch black and you can't see there's so much clutter. So it's like anything could happen and she doesn't seem concerned about that. So yes, maybe she is a little bit loose with her parenting when it comes to watching them, but also we've kind of gotten the indication that she might be a strict disciplinarian. So those two things together, not a great recipe. No. And I'm probably going to come back to it later. The drinking, I don't see Hunter having any reason to lie about him drinking a twisted tea, smoking on a vape. And there's a, I'm assuming there's video evidence of her buying the twisted tea. So the fact that she chose that to say, oh,

he was mostly right, but I, you know, I didn't give him a drink. It doesn't seem when your daughter's missing, it seems kind of irrelevant. If it's me and I had done something like that, I'd say, yeah, I was sitting at the, you know, the lake or or the swimming hole and i gave him a sip of the twisted tea we shared it or whatever who cares sue me i know it wasn't the best decision i was sitting right there he's a teenager i shouldn't have done it but i did he's my homie my daughter's missing that's yeah that's that's what i was really concerned about but the fact that she was concerned about it and i tend to believe i don't know why hunter would throw that in there It doesn't seem like something that he would need to add for the sake of the story to say, hey, I had a sip of the tea or I was drinking the tea. Something we may come back to. I don't know. Right. play it up. Who knows? However, I will say the way that Candace spoke to Hunter on Facebook, like, oh, my homie and kind of the way, the casual way she talked to him. It's not out of the

question that she would give him a twisted T when she considers him to be her homie. She's treating him like an equal for sure. Oh, and I do want to talk about the whole like succulents thing, right? Because this is another thing. Initially, when Summer went missing, the whole story was, and in the interview, and Don Wells had said, my wife and her mother and Summer were planting flowers. And then everybody got in and they were doing like aerial views over and looking at the news footage. And there was like, there's no flower beds there. And it turns out they weren't planting flowers. They were transplanting succulents from smaller pots into like a bigger pot, I guess. And then Summer was putting like little decorative rocks and stuff around it. But you once again have to ask yourself, which we're

going to ask when we go back over the timeline to see if it makes sense, how long would that take? It was like five succulents, right? How long would it take to take five little succulents out of little pots and put them into a bigger pot? Like 10 minutes? If that. Yeah. Especially with multiple people doing it. Yeah. Three people, allegedly. So let's go over the timeline of the day and see if it makes more sense as we're like putting it side by side. Don Wells leaves for work. Candace gets Summer up early so they can bring Grandma to the medical center because her knee was bothering her. They had to be there by 8, so they would have had to left around 7.30 a.m. And Candace leaves Summer's older brothers at home. She claims they were half watching television and half asleep when she left. And she's locked the house up tight so no one

could get in or out. Candace and Summer bring Grandma grandma to the medical center they wait in the car while she's being treated while in the car candace speaks to hunter on the phone decides to go over to his place which is just a five minute drive from the medical center candace and summer arrive at hunters between 10 and 10 30 a.m now we don't know if grandma had an appointment at the medical center or if she just showed up because her knee was bothering her. And that's going to be important because if she had an appointment at 8 a.m., you wouldn't think she'd still be with the doctor two and a half hours later when Summer and Candace show up at Hunter's house without Grandma. But if she just showed up, she might have had to sit and wait, you know, for a while to be seen. I will say that grandma has taken part in only one on-camera interview,

and this took place on March 1st, 2022, right after Hawkins County Sheriff Ronnie Lawson told News Channel 11 that the family had stopped cooperating with law enforcement and they had retained lawyers. Grandma said, quote, Candace and I got up that morning and she came out and took me to the ER because my leg was messing up on me, end quote. So it does seem that if what grandma's saying is true, it was an ER visit and that would be a longer visit, especially in the first few months of 2021 when COVID was still causing medical staffing shortages and longer emergency room wait times. We do know that grandma was picked up from the hospital before noon because that TikTok video of Summer in the swimming hole was taken around 12 21 p.m. and at that point

grandma was with them again. According to Chris McDonough, he was able to verify that they were at Walgreens at 1 33 p.m. but he doesn't know if this was the time they dropped the prescription off or the time they picked it up. We have Hunter being dropped off around 2 or 2.30, the short video of the milk jugs being taken around 3.09, and them arriving back home around 3.16 p.m. That's about eight hours that Candace and Summer were gone. Eight hours that Summer's three brothers were alone at the house, locked in, no one in or out, as Candace said. And the 911 call reporting summer missing happened at around 6 23 p.m so that's about a three hour window from when they got home to when candace called the police now people have asked what were they doing in that

eight hours a trip to the doctor a few quick stops at some tobacco and vape shops 15 to 20 minutes at the swimming hole two trips to the walgreens pharmacy drive-thru, a trip through the Sonic drive-thru, a trip to the grocery store that Candace said took only five minutes but Hunter said took an hour, dropping Hunter off at home. That's not a lot to fill eight hours worth of time. You know, even if you have a long line at Walgreens, you're not sitting in there for over 20 minutes. That's just not a lot to fill eight hours with. Yeah. I mean, it's something, how long were they at the watering hole? How long were they at the hospital? 15 to 20 minutes at the watering hole. Yeah. That's what they're saying, but it seems like their times are off on everything. So I

really wonder if it was longer. It could have been, it might not have been, that might be accurate. They haven't been very accurate on a lot and that could be intentional or it could be accidental. But keep in mind, they're waiting for the prescription to be done. So they're only going to be their tops 30 minutes, which is how long the prescription was going to take. And this is something again, that we could, we could figure out immediately as I'm going there, I'm talking to Walgreens. I'm sure there's a, there's a filing system with medications. What time the prescription was dropped off, what time it was filled, what time it was picked up. That's that there's a record of that. So law enforcement knows the window to the second. And that's, that's information we don't have, which sucks because we're trying to fill

in the blanks and we have puzzle pieces that may not even be the right puzzle piece. So it's, it's, it's tough. But the good news is law enforcement knows. That's for damn sure. They sure do because they took all their phones and they went through all their messages and everything. Oh, yeah. They have it all.

Yeah. And people also wonder what did they do in that three-hour time period after getting home before Candace called 911? If Candace was only in the grocery store for five minutes, which she insists, by the way, Hunter said an hour. She said, no, it was five minutes. I only got a couple of things. She was only in there for five minutes. It wouldn't have taken long to put away the groceries that she got. She would have only had a couple of items and she probably wouldn't have needed to have her three sons and Summer help her get the groceries from the truck to the house.

This bugs me. Why lie about the amount of time you were at the grocery store? Why say it was five minutes when clearly if you only got five minutes worth of groceries, you don't need to call your three kids out of the house and have them help you bring the groceries inside, right? You probably could do that by yourself. It's not more than two bags. What did we talk about a few minutes ago? She's really concerned about her decision-making process when it comes to the children. She's super self-conscious about it, super self-aware. I think that when she's talking to the investigator and she says, oh, they were here, but no one in and out all day, she couldn't get around that. There's no way to dispute it. So she has to take that one on the chin, but she's quick to say, oh, nobody in or out.

It was locked up. But everything else, whenever there's an opportunity to soften the situation, how bad it may look from the outside looking in, she's always trying to make it better. Oh, it was only five minutes they were in the car. He didn't drink any twisted tea. She's always trying to find opportunities to make herself look like she's a responsible adult, a responsible parent. And my big question is why? Why is she so concerned about it where it doesn't seem like she's concerned about a lot of things? And there may be a deeper reason there.

So I get it, but that's a big time gap. If you were in the store for an hour, just say like 20 minutes. Oh, it was quick. I grabbed a couple of things, 20 minutes. Why would you go from an hour to five minutes? That's like- And five minutes isn't practical. No. It takes longer to check out than that. I'm saying. So she's wrong. Sorry, you're wrong. I don't know how long it was. You would be the fastest shopper alive if you were able to get in and out of that store within five minutes even if it even just went in there for a carton of milk or a jug of milk in this case that's going to take at least

10 minutes so she's wrong there's no doubt about it i don't know how long they were in there but she's definitely wrong which goes back to why is she so insistent on these things that appear to be trivial in the in this in the overall scheme of everything she's concerned about how long she was in this this plaza this grocery store and yet she was while doing this her her three little boys are at home alone yep so she's she's trying to soften the blow where she can and trying to also soften the blow as far as the boys being home they were they were safe, Stephanie. They were safe.

No one in, no one out. No one in, no one out. They were safe. They are locked up tight like it's prison, man. Yeah. We didn't even crack a window for them. We didn't even want to fly to get in. I know.

I agree. No. All kidding aside, something is not sitting right with how self-conscious she is about some of the things she did as far as it relates to the children. Yeah. And she's very dismissive, too. You know, when when she's asked, like, oh, did you do this or what about this? She's like, no, no, no, no. And it bothers me. I know this is something little, but she's talking about how Summer loves Paw Patrol and this. And then she's wearing the shirt this whole time. This Mom Patrol, right? It's like a Paw Patrol-themed t-shirt because Summer loves Paw Patrol. And it's kind of a contradiction considering Mom isn't doing much patrolling that day. You somehow manage to lose sight of your daughter and she's gone and your three other kids are home alone all day long. So it's kind of like you definitely put that shirt on for a reason, you know, because you want to put forward this image of being this like really good and really attentive mom.

Like, obviously, I don't have a million hands and I can't be everywhere at once, but I love my kids and I'm here and look at my shirt. But at the same time, everything around her is sort of speaking to the contrary. I agree. Something's not adding up. So Candace said they got the groceries. Everybody comes out. They bring some of the groceries to Grandma's trailer. They bring some to the house.

They put the groceries away. Candace also said she was doing laundry. They were planting a handful of succulents. And Candace claims that Summer was only out of her sight for two to five minutes, and then she was gone. Now, something I also want to mention going back in the timeline is that Don claims he called his wife Candace around 3 p.m. that day. Remember when she got that call from him and Hunter said they were in the car in the pharmacy line? And he said when he did call, she was in the

Walgreens drive-thru line and she told him they were running some errands and going swimming. Based on this call, Don decided to stay at work since no one would be home. There's a couple things wrong with this. Firstly, there was someone home, his three young sons. He literally says in one interview, like, well, what am I just going to go home and like hang out alone? There was three people home. Your kids are home. Secondly, the call being made at 3 p.m. doesn't work with the timeline at all, especially because we know that Hunter got home around 2 to 2.30. And we'll get more into this in the next episode. But a neighbor recalls Candace calling Summer's name and looking for her at 6 p.m.

And the call to 911 to report Summer missing came a half an hour later. So what was she doing? What was Summer doing in this three-hour period from when they got home, put the groceries away, did some laundry, did the succulents, Summer's playing on the floor with her toys, three hours. What were they doing? All of that stuff doesn't add up to three hours.

So there's some people that believe Summer went missing a lot earlier and Candace didn't just didn't realize because she wasn't paying attention. And I do know when I did this video a year ago before all of this other stuff in this timeline and this convoluted stuff came out, that was kind of my perception of it that, you know, I think Candace does like to drink a little bit. And I think Candace does like to get high. She talked about it on her Facebook page. She was constantly making posts and like memes and stuff like that about getting high. So definitely, without a doubt, I don't know about the meth stuff, but without a doubt, I think Candace liked to drink and Candace liked to smoke a little weed. So, you know, she could have just gone in, maybe imbibed a little bit, maybe kind of lost track of time. Maybe she was chatting with her mother by the trailer. And when she looked up, she said, where's Summer and when is the last time I saw her? And she couldn't really remember that. Now, obviously, she can't call the police and be like, oh, yeah, I haven't seen my daughter in an hour, you know, or I can't remember when the last time I saw her was. So she sort of has to do this two to five minute thing, which

like the grocery store timeline doesn't make sense. Right. So was it really an hour? But you said five minutes in the grocery store. Was it really an hour that you didn't see summer? And you said five minutes. Is that your perception of time? Is that your kind of code that you use when you say an hour? You mean when you say of code that you use when you say an hour? You mean when you say five minutes or two minutes, you mean an hour? That's kind of where I was going with it initially. But then we'd still have to acknowledge that Summer would have for some reason left the basement room, turned left, like you said, gone into the forest and headed toward the road.

Yeah. So for me, I've been making notes this whole episode. So I apologize if I'm not looking at the camera, looking at you guys, if you're just listening, but let's try to stick with me here. So the boys are critical in this case. They're absolutely critical. I'm sure they were interviewed by specialists who deal with interviewing children, but that's absolutely critical.

But for the sake of this conversation, let's say that they confirmed to law enforcement that Summer went into the house, went into the basement almost immediately after. Mom comes in and asks, where's Summer? Okay. Are we to believe that the succulent at that time, or not the succulents, but when she went to change grandma's brace, was that right around the time when they got home within the hour of getting home around 3.16? Is that what we're being led to believe? She doesn't say. She pretty much says they get home, unload the groceries. She was doing some stuff in the kitchen, doing laundry. And then she kind of just fast forwards in time to where she's watching and she sees her mother sitting outside her trailer and looking down at the ground. And then Candace says,

what are you looking at? And grandma says, oh, I got to really get these, these succulents transplanted. And then she says, well, summer will help. So we don't know. That's the point. Like when did that happen? Right. I mean, I would think it happened around the time when they got home, but I guess that there's nothing to substantiate that. But whenever that happened, then after that's done, that's when the brace needs adjusting and Summer goes in. But I wanted to pose this to you. Let's assume that the children, the three boys say, yep, Mom, you know, Summer ran in the house, she went in the basement, and then Mom came in moments

later and said, where's Summer? Okay. Sometimes when someone's trying to convince you of something, they will mix in fact with fiction, right? Because they want to be able to substantiate parts of what they're saying so that it gives them more credibility. So for the sake of this conversation, let's say that everything that we were told tonight is all true. Timeline's a little bit off, durations are off for whatever reason, some of which you just mentioned probably accurate. But then we get back to the house and succulents happen. The brace fixing happens. Mom goes into the house, ask where summer is. And sure enough, summer is in the basement. Let's work onto the assumption that that happened within the hour of them getting home.

That would put it only around four 35 o'clock. Everything you just said five minutes ago, as far as what we've learned about Candace tonight, as far as not being always present, not being always aware of where her children are. That's a big window where let's, for the sake of this right now, we're trying to be, we're trying to be led down the path that whatever happened to summer happened within that five minute window of her fixing her, her mom's brace, grandma's brace to her going downstairs. And then they never see summer again. Well, what if that is all true? Because the boys can confirm that, but summer was seen again, but it was only maybe by Candace. And at that point, it could have been that Candace goes into the basement. She sees her, but the boys at that point, never see summer

again. Could Candace have walked off with summer into the woods or somewhere outside of the property? Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot that could happen in an hour, a lot that can happen in a half hour. So if we're to believe everything up to the point that mom's asking boys, where's your sister? That still leaves a big window. And I would love to know the time of sunset that day because they're outside. I don't know what time the sun would have set on that day. I'm sure we can find it out really, really quickly. I see you typing right now, but June 15th, 2021 in that area, Tennessee, Rogersville, Tennessee, we'll punch it in here if you're looking it up right now.

So time of sunset on June 15th, 2021 in Rogersville, Tennessee was 8.52 PM. So late. So plenty, still plenty of daylight out there where they could have been outside. Really, really interesting. I don't want to get too far down one road because if you get focused on tunnel vision on one thing, like, oh, the obvious answer, it's the parents or it's the siblings. That's a dangerous path. But I will say to think that whatever happened this summer happened in a

two or three minute window on a pretty secluded property, not impossible, but highly unlikely. I agree. And I was almost thinking of like, maybe the way the timeline could have been extended is maybe Candace does go in and she asked the boys, where's your sister? And they say, oh, she's playing with her toys in the basement. And Candace says, okay. And then walks away and doesn't check the basement right then. Right. Because if you, you know, I've done it before, like I'll walk in to Bella and I'll be like, where's Aiden? And she'll be like, he's playing video games in the basement. And I'll be like, okay. And I'm not like going down and being like, Aiden, are you down here? I mean, I have to fact check right now because there's no door to get

out of my basement. So I guess I wouldn't have to do that. But she doesn't seem like the type of person who would necessarily follow up to make sure. She just find out Summer was safe. Summer was in the house playing. She's being quiet. I've been with this girl all day. We went swimming. We got freaking slushies. I've done my mom stuff for the day. Now it's time for me to chill, maybe smoke a little weed, maybe sit out here and have some twisted tea. And when she's ready to come up and eat for the first time today, I'll see what she wants for dinner. And that seems to me maybe something that could have extended. It wasn't two to five minutes. It was two to five minutes maybe when you asked the boys, but was it two to five minutes of you going and checking and knowing she was gone and exactly when that happened.

And Summer could have, anything could happen. Maybe somebody did come up then, or maybe Summer did wander out, but then it gives you a bigger timeline and a bigger window where something could have happened. And if Summer wandered off, it gives her the time to get further away. That's right. And it's kind of the theme of this episode where if she doesn't know where her daughter is, most of us would probably go downstairs and check, right? But she maybe chose not to. So she may have some internal demons where she's very self-conscious and regretful that if she's not involved, that she didn't go downstairs and check on her daughter. So with that in mind, what would be some of the things that she would be really specific about when she's interviewing people?

The decisions she makes involving her children, the decisions she makes involving other juveniles. That is something that would strike a nerf. That would be something that she'd want to be very clear on for the public. And so I think you're nailing it. I think there's a lot of substance to what you're saying. And that would explain my question, which is why is she so adamant about certain things and not others? And it always seems to come back to her presence, her being around. Something to think about.

We're not saying that this is intentional, whatever happened. It could be purely accidental, but that accident could be based on a level of negligence around supervision of your children. I agree. And we've talked a lot about Candace Bly, Summer's mother, in this episode. That was the main focus because, I mean, of course, Summer was with Candace all day. Now, next week, we're going to talk a lot about Don Wells things that he's said things that he's done in the past um and and there's a there's a big there's a lot of stuff going on with don wells

i'll just say and there are a couple interviews that i do want to play for you that that he gave very early on i believe it's his first interview where he says a couple of things that struck the wrong chord with me immediately and i want to see if you pick up on the same things that struck the wrong chord with me immediately. And I want to see if you pick up on the same things that I'm picking up on in these interviews, because there's a lot of stuff going on here. And do you think it's weird that he said he didn't want to go home because nobody was going to be there and he was going to be alone when his three kids were home? Maybe he assumed that the boys were with her as well. All in grandma's truck?

There wouldn't even be enough room for them. I don't think that would be the first time that they all piled into one. It's possible. Maybe, but I mean, these boys seem- Nothing's surprising me at this point. These boys seem to be wild. I'm gonna say that, okay?

From videos I've seen of them, from things people have said about them, they seem to be kind of wild. So I don't think that Candace probably took them out running errands often. And, you know, you'd think he would have like asked like, oh, are all the kids with you? I don't know. I don't know. But to just assume nobody was home, it's just it's odd. Yeah. But there there's a lot of there's a lot of stuff out there that kind of does support. He maybe left work earlier than he said. And once again, like you said, the police would know that unless he figured out a way because he does such a big job of like talking up the GPS unit in the car.

And, you know, he had specifically taken that car. And, oh, I have seven alibis, he said once. I wonder if he maybe found a way to like mess with that GPS unit or maybe he gave it to like somebody else. I don't know. But he even says a couple of things like him getting home before the police got home. And then later he was like him getting home before the police got there after, you know, they called 911. And then later he, after everybody mentioned it and kept saying like, that doesn't make sense. He was like, oh yeah, yeah. Actually, when I got there, there were a couple of cops there already. But like him just saying things and he constantly says like, oh yeah, when I was there, you know, she went that way. And then he's like, I mean, I went that way.

And he says things and it's just this, these things that he says constantly in these interviews because he talks so much and he gives so many interviews that make it seem like maybe he knew something was going to happen or something had already happened or there was a plan for something to happen. And he wanted to make sure that he was not there during that time window. And he would have proof that he wasn't. Yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing it because I definitely want to hear his side

because that's how you catch people. It's when you start comparing statements and narratives and they don't match up when they should because they're pretty simple questions that you're asking. I'm also interested, we could talk about it next week as far as the neighborhood, just playing out the scenario where maybe Summer was alone for an extended period of time. What reason would she go left? How that how close are the houses up that road? Are there, are there friends that she would maybe walk to in the past that she would know, Hey, they might be home. I'm going to go up there and see if so-and-so's around. And if that were the case, were neighbors interviewed and seen, you know, I would like to think that if she,

if someone was walking in that area, young girl, shaved head, going to be someone who stands out to you and probably known by the community. Someone would have seen her walking around that day. And it doesn't appear based on what you've told me so far. Anybody saw her in that area. So I'd love to know more about the houses in that area. Were they close by? Would she even think that she could walk to a neighboring home? We are going to talk about the neighbors.

They weren't interviewed. One neighbor says she heard something. A couple other people claim they saw a vehicle in the area that the cops ended up looking at. Or four were going to talk about that. But in general, no, they weren't really close enough to neighbors where Summer would walk to one of their houses. And Don tells a story in one of his many interviews where he says, you know, Summer knew. She knew not to leave that property. She knew the dangers that lurked out there for her.

And I remember one time somebody pulled into the driveway. And as soon as Summer saw this car pulling into the driveway, she just turned and ran into the house and closed the door. This is the way that Don Wells is describing his daughter's behavior when she sees a stranger or a car pull onto the property. And he keeps stressing from day one, this child did not wander off. She did not wander off. She was taken. And yeah, we'll get to that. Looking forward to it. Appreciate you guys joining us. I know I mentioned in the beginning, I'll mention the end, follow us on social media, Crime Weekly Pod, all our socials. If you want to check out the coffee website, it's at drinkcriminalcoffee. It's at drinkcriminal, I screw this up every time, drinkcriminal on Twitter,

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