Going West: True Crime - Summer Wells // 165

Episode Date: January 12, 2022

In June of 2021, a 5-year-old girl living in rural Tennessee disappeared one afternoon while allegedly playing with her toys in the basement of her family home. Her parents believe that she was abducted in broad daylight, but after an extensive investigation, no evidence suggested she had been taken. There was, however, suspicion that pointed closer to home. This is the story of Summer Wells.  BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans, I'm your host Tee and I'm your host Daphne and you're listening to Going West. Howdy folks, thank you so much for tuning in today to get another episode of Going West. Howdy folks, thank you so much for tuning in today to get another episode of Going West. Today we have another new case for you guys, and this one you're gonna wanna share as well. Yeah, absolutely, and you know, a lot of people suggested this case to us, so finally we're doing it. But thank you for everybody who has suggested this case. Yes, we've been wanting to cover it for months and really appreciate everybody. We don't have specific names because so many people requested it. So thank you guys so much. This case is super important, super important to be told to share. So thanks for

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All right guys this is episode 165 of Going West, so let's get into it. For more than six months, the case of missing five-year-old summer wells has dominated headlines in our region and caught the attention to people across the country. And now more than six months later, the Amber Alert is still active in recent months people have met to search for summer and to pray for her return. Five-year-old don't just vanish. Well, whoever has my daughter, I pray in hope that they have not harmed her in the bring her back to a safe and sound.

That plea from summer's mom echoed by her father months later. Meantan just know for a fact that summer was abducted. At this time there is no evidence that she was abducted. However, all avenues continue to be explored. No, I'm being interrogated again and I don't want to do this or what. Yes I, yeah. Oh, did I want to do more? Summer Moon Utah Wells was born on February 4, 2016 to parents Candice Blie and Don Wells in Hawkins County, Tennessee in the Beach Creek community. She lived with her parents and her three older brothers, 12-year-old Jose, 11-year-old Wyatt and 9-year-old Waylin, as well as summer's grandmother, who was also named Candice,

who lives on the Wells property in a trailer located at 110 Ben Hill Road. Beach Creek is a rural area outside of the town of Rogersville in North East Tennessee, which today has a population of just under 5,000 people. Don Wells, Somersfather, works as a drywaller in the town of limestone Tennessee for a company called Tucker Drywall, and the family lives on an 11-acre wooded lot in Beach Creek in a 780 square foot home. Summer is described by her family as the boss of the family, who loves to play princess, but also is every bit of a tomboy.

Summer has blonde hair, blue eyes, and she's three feet tall weighing about 40 pounds. She loves the movie Frozen and always pretended that she was the character Elsa. She loves to dance and her favorite song, as her parents explained, was Godzilla. Living in a rural area, Summer also loves to get dirty and play in the mud, and her mother explained that she could give any one of her brothers a run for their money. On June 15, 2021, at around 7.30 a.m., Don Wells left for work at a job site in Jonesboro, Tennessee, which is about a half hour east of Rogersville. Candace was home that morning with her four children when she decided to take five-year-old

summer swimming. The temperatures that day were pretty hot and also muggy, you know reaching around 90 degrees. But before they could go swimming, they needed to take summer's grandmother to the Holston Valley Medical Center and nearby Kingsport because she was having a little bit of trouble with one of her knees. This was at 8 a.m. by the way. So Summer and her mother Candace waited for her grandmother in the parking lot of the hospital, and while they waited, the son of a family friend, a 15-year-old boy named Hunter, called Candace and asked if she and Summer could come over while they waited for Summer's grandmother to finish up with her medical appointment.

So according to Hunter, Candace arrived at his home sometime between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. that morning. While at the family friend's home, Summer apparently changed into her bathing suit, and she, her mother Candace, and 15-year-old Hunter, left the home and Candace's vehicle headed back towards the hospital to pick up Summer's grandmother. Now, along the way, Candace stopped at a smoke shop called the hippie house, where she purchased some vape pen cartridges, and a twisted T for her mother, and by the way, a twisted T is essentially like an alcoholic T beverage. So after this, she picked her mother

up, and they drove to a local Walgreens to place Candace's mother's prescription. During this time, Hunter remembers that Don Wells, who again is Summer's father, called Candace's mother's prescription. During this time, Hunter remembers that Don Wells, who again, his summer's father, called Candace and explained that a person whose name has not been revealed and who had also been camping on the Wells property for about a week had been stalking, staring, and touching the little kids. So this is really interesting right off the bat.

And like super alarming and not cool at all. Yeah, but, you know, it's kind of weird to me, given the circumstances that we'll get into later, this almost feels like some sort of alibi that's being set up, but I don't want to go there quite yet, but we will talk about this. And by the way, there are a few discrepancies here that I want to address. So that day, one report I found states that Jose, Wyatt and Whalen, who again are summer's brothers, had been in the Wells house while Candace went to run the errands, and that she apparently told them to lock the door and no one in, no one out. But Hunter, the 15-year-old family friend, explains that the boys went to work that day

with Don. So if Don was at work and the boys were at home, how would he know that someone was creeping on his boys? Or was this something that happened previously and the boys had just told Don about it, you know, over the phone? We can't really be sure, but anyway, let's get back to the timeline on June 15th, 2021.

So while five-year-old Summer, her grandmother Candace, her mom Candace, and Hunter were at Walgreens, the pharmacy told them that the prescription was going to take about 30 to 45 minutes to fill. So Candace decided Candace Summer's mom decided to take the four of them to a swimming hole located in the Warrior's Path State Park. While at this swimming spot, Candace gave Hunter the twisted T, after he had asked if he could have it, and she also let him smoke off of her vape.

So let's stop real quick there. Obviously, really not cool to be giving a 15-year-old an alcoholic beverage. Like, obviously he's going to ask for it, but you probably shouldn't give it to him, especially because it's not your kid, like. True, yeah, I just think that's really bad. It's just really a bad choice. Right. So anyway, so Candice sat watching TikTok videos while summer was in the water and while Hunter was drinking and according to Hunter Five-year-old summer slipped under the water for approximately 10 to 15 seconds. So he ran into the water to rescue her Now, I don't know what Candace was doing at this time,

maybe watching TikTok videos, but Hunter was the one, supposedly to help her out here. So this part of the story at the swimming hole checks out, because Candace posted a TikTok at approximately 12.21pm that day of summer swimming. In the video, you can see summer splashing around and swimming, and then the camera pans over to Hunter who is standing on the shore and he flashes like a west side hand sign at the camera.

And then the next clip shows Hunter moving towards summer in the water, kind of just splashing her very lightly in a playful way. So we did post these videos on our socials. If you guys want to check them out, it's just like an overhead shot of summer swimming. But it proves that they were there that day. Now according to Candace, she told Summer and Hunter that they had to go back to the Walgreens to pick up the prescription and that the group was only at the swim spot for about 20 minutes. So they allegedly then stopped back by the hippie house to retrieve a few more vape cartridges before finally making their way over to the wall greens.

Hunter then explains that the group stopped by Sonic to grab a few slushies, and after that, Candace and her mother went into a priceless store to grocery shop while Hunter and Summer stayed in the car and watched TikTok videos. Hunter explains that Candace was in the store for about an hour, and Candace says that she was only in the store for about 5 minutes to grab milk and cheese, so the timelines really don't add up here. I just don't really get why they would be in the store for an hour and why they would lie about being in the store longer than they were there for.

Yeah, I don't know. And it's possible that Hunter got the time frame mixed up. Maybe he didn't realize how long it was or who knows. But then after the grocery trip at around 2 p.m., Candice told Hunter that he could not come back with them to the Wells household, so she then dropped him off at his house. So a very short video was taken while Candice, her mother, and summer were on their way home,

and it shows Summer in the backseat of the car leaning against a few stacked gallons of milk, and she appears to be sleeping. The strange thing here is that five-year-old Summer is not strapped into a car seat, and you can hear Candace say, does she still have her arm up? And the grandmother replies, no. And Candice then says, oh that's what I was trying to catch before the phone swivels around to the front of the car and the video ends. Here's the audio from that video. So we're going to talk a little bit more about this later, but for now let's move on. Yeah, and also we are going to post this video on our socials as well. So Candace later said that they arrived back home at 3.15 pm, which would have been about

three hours after they went swimming. And she then woke summer up, unbuckled her, and summer got out of the car. She then said that she went inside the house to sort out the groceries and that her mother went to her trailer to watch TV. According to Candace, she did a bit of laundry, but at 4.15 pm, so about an hour after they supposedly got home, she stepped outside and noticed that her mother needed assistance transferring some plants into some bigger pots, so she offered to and supposedly got home, she stepped outside and noticed that her mother needed assistance transferring some plants into some bigger pots so she offered to help.

That's when Summer came outside and asked if she could help as well. And Summer then allegedly spent about 30 to 50 minutes helping her mom and grandma repot these plants. A short time after this Summer received a piece of candy from her grandmother, and she asked if she could go back inside the house and her mother agreed. Candice then said that she saw Summer walk inside the kitchen, and she walked over to her mother to help her fix her knee brace. Candice said that this took about 5 minutes to do, that it was between 2-5 minutes that

she was helping her mother with her knee brace. She then walked back inside her home at about 5pm where she yelled for summer, but she received no answer. Summer's room was downstairs in the basement, so Candice figured that she was probably down there playing with her toys, but when she reached Summer's bedroom, she was nowhere to be found. Now Candice then asked her boys to go down to a creek located on the property to see if summer was there, but she wasn't.

So Candace called her husband Dawn to inform him of the situation, and then she called 911 from her mother cell phone. Candace then said that she drove her mother's truck down to a local church to look for summer, but she didn't see anything, and when she arrived back to her property, the said that she drove her mother's truck down to a local church to look for summer, but she didn't see anything. When she arrived back to her property, the police were coming up the driveway, and this was apparently around 6.26 pm that day. According to Don Wells, he called the Hawkins County Sheriff's Department from work as

drywaller, and summer was officially reported missing at 6.30pm that day. When Don made it home, he explained that neighbors were already looking for Summer, and a search-and-rescue team was being organized. But despite the efforts that evening, sadly nothing was found, including Summer. Now, according to Candace, she called Hunter that night to let him know

that Summer was missing at around 7.30pm. At 12.07am on June 16, so that night, the Tennessee State Bureau of Investigation released an alert for an endangered child, but when no clues were found by the next morning, they up their alert to an official amber alert. So also that morning, the TBI, the Tennessee State Bureau of Investigation held their first press conference, updating the public on the progress of the search, which at this point was really not looking good. 15-year-old Hunter was also questioned that day about the events that occurred the previous day when Summer went missing, which is important of course

because he was with them almost the entire day. Yeah, or at least the first half of the day. Now, before we move forward, I want to give you guys a little background about Summer's home life and also her parents, because heavy suspicion fell on them essentially from the get go. And of course, we're not here to accuse anyone of anything, but this information is definitely relevant in order to understand what may or may not have occurred. So first, let's talk about Don Wells, Summer's father. From what we were able to find,

Don has a fairly lengthy criminal history that includes multiple felonies that stretch throughout Utah, Arkansas, and Texas, of course, as well as Tennessee. And he served time for charges, including aggravated assault, interfering with the public servant, forgery, burglary, and theft. But one of the most alarming arrests came on October 14th, 2020,

when Don Wells was arrested and charged with domestic assault. So that was what, like, eight months before someone went missing? Right. So when authorities arrived at his property that day on Ben Hill Road, Don was intoxicated and behind the wheel of a vehicle. Now please note that upon detaining him, he was almost nearly too intoxicated to stand. Apparently, Don had come home drunk that day to find another man in his house with his wife

Candace, and obviously I don't know what was going on between Candace and this other man, but an altercation ensued. Dawn then pushed Candace to the ground, causing significant damage to her knee before trying to flee the scene, and then he was subsequently caught. Police also found a black powder pistol in his possession at the time of his arrest,

and here's what Candace had to say about this incident. Wait, really quick, before we go into that, I just want to point out that Candace's mom had an issue with her knee, and this knee thing with this Candace, this is a different Candace with a different knee issue. Well, there's some really weird coincidences in this story, like the mom and the grandmother are both named Candace.

Right. Dawn actually has a son named Dawn who we're gonna talk about. And then there's like this knee thing. It's just very strange. It is very strange. Okay, so here is what Candace said about this incident. He drinks and he throws things.

I'm afraid of being hurt. He is abusive physically and mentally towards me. I'm afraid for my children and myself. My mother fears she's going to hurt her because she's staying in her camper on the property." But Candice isn't so innocent herself, you know, obviously it's not cool at all to be abusive towards her spouse. I'm not like letting this off at all. But I will add that an arrest record shows that she was charged with domestic abuse as well, actually in the state of Wisconsin in 2003.

So it seems that both of them are abusive in some sort of way. Right. So we also want to give you guys an idea of the home that some were lived in. So as we mentioned, the house was located in a very rural area, and the house itself is 780 square feet on an 11 acre property, so very small home. And this home is shared between six people. So outside the home and on the property in general, there's a good amount of junk and trash scattered around. And when you go into their home, you'll notice the same thing.

In the living room, there's a sort of like table or desk. And underneath of that, there is a small crawl space that leads down into the basement where summer and her parents both share a room. So we bring this up because many people suggest that neglect was taking place in the home due to these poor living conditions for children and we'll touch base on this later. There's also no windows down in the basement and the only way to exit that room is to either climb back up the crawl space into the living room, or exit out a side basement door that leads to the side yard.

And also really quick, so we want to mention that Don Wells does have a 34 year old son like Heath's just briefly mentioned, named Donald Wesley Wells. A lot of people in this story have the same name like we said to it. It gets confusing, but this will call him Donald. Donald was arrested in 2007 in Arkansas for sexual indecency with a child. Now Don senior claims that his son's charge would have been statutory rape if it had occurred in Tennessee because his son was 19 and his girlfriend who was the victim was 18. And we bring this up because many people speculate on this, but it appears that Don Jr.

was not in the state of Tennessee when Summer went missing. Right, so yeah, I know a lot of people were like, oh, well, this son was arrested for, you know, sexual charges with a child. So maybe he had something to do with summer's disappearance, but it appears, you know, he was not in Tennessee. He was actually in Arkansas. And this child was 18. So we're not excusing what he did at all. We don't know the details of this, but, you know, it also kind of makes it confusing when you say a child, but the victim was 18. Yeah, so it appears it does not tie in two summers case at all. Now, let's get back to the timeline.

So, at 1 p.m. on June 17th, so nearly 48 hours after summer's disappearance, the Sheriff's Department held yet another press conference explaining that the train was making the search difficult as well as poor cell phone service to communicate. Over 50 leads had been followed up on, but none of them proved to be helpful. The Sheriff's Department also encouraged neighbors in the area with access to trail cams or

surveillance footage to check their tapes for any signs of summer. When I say trail cams, what I mean is a lot of hunters will put out trail cams on their property to see if any predators come around or any deer or anything like that. So the Sheriff's Department is asking them to check those cameras. So at 8.40pm that same day, Candace stopped by Hunter's house to speak with him, but we're really not sure about the subject matter here. Now the next day, Dawn finally spoke to the press, and this is what he had to say. When I got home, I drove to the bottom of the property, and I realized that all my neighbors and stuff were combing the woods looking for her. And I realized right then and there that she was not there.

I knew right then and there that she was gone, because she would never leave on her own. Somebody had taken her. We know that there's people praying all over the world, praying for her safe return. So many people love her. She would never leave our hell. I think that someone snuck up on her and grabbed her. I don't think she's in the area because the dog goes down to the road and that's the end of the trail, but I don't know that for a fact. The way that she just disappeared, she would never do that. She was planning flowers with her mother and her grandmother, and she wanted to go into the house.

So, my wife watched her go into the door, and she went into the house. And the boys were on the internet, of course, and she wanted to go downstairs and play with her toys. So, when her mother came in, and she says summer, and she went down into the basement, and she didn't answer. So she went down there, and she says summer and she went down into the basement and she didn't answer. So she went down there and she was gone. So she went out the basement door which was unlocked and we haven't seen her since. So, Dawn believes that someone snatched summer from the property and more specifically from the side basement door.

On June 22nd, the TBI announced that over the course of a few days, they had searched 4.6 square miles, which is the equivalent of 3,000 acres, and that over 82 different agencies were involved in the search for summer wells. That same day, Candace took a polygraph test, and she passed, which we know doesn't necessarily mean that she's innocent, but it is worth mentioning. The first real lead, or what police feel, feel is a lead came when they announced that they were looking for a 1998-2000 Red or Maroon Toyota Tacoma pickup truck with a full

bed ladder rack with white buckets in the truck bed that may have been seen in the beach creek area the day that summer went missing. Now we have absolutely no idea who relayed this information to police. Or if it's even credible. But please say that no one has come forward regarding this truck since. So I don't really know the relevance here. Maybe a neighbor said that they saw a truck in the area or something like that. I don't know. Sheriff Ronnie Lawson explained in the news that quote,

You'd have to work very hard to find somebody we haven't talked to. He also explained that the family of summer have been very cooperative with law enforcement during the search effort. And I also wanted to mention that Don Wells said in an interview that Candace had dropped the domestic assault charges pertaining to the October 14th, 2020 incident, and that Candace, quote, apologized and told the DA that she had made a huge mistake. This is just really suspicious to me. I don't really know why, but it's just weird that she just all of a sudden dropped this.

I mean, let's just talk about this. So remember, this assault occurred about eight months before Summer went missing because she went missing in June of 2021 and this happened in October of 2020. So if her parents are involved, then one would maybe think that she dropped the charges because maybe Don had threatened to tell police that she had killed summer if she didn't drop the charges. You know, I'm saying like that could be the possibility.

I'm not saying they did anything, but they, that is what could have happened. Yeah, I mean, that's where my mind went. When I first read that, I was like, me, that sounds so suspicious. Like, maybe, yeah, like she's dropping it because Dawn is like, well, I know what you did. Kind of thing. I don't know if this is true. This is pure speculation. Pure speculation. But the fact that she said, let's she apologize

and told the DA she made a huge mistake. I don't know, just kind of weird. So we don't know the details of that either, but you can look at it either way. It's also possible that they, you know, they fix the situation and their relationship and everything was good. And she didn't want Don to go to jail for these charges.

So I don't know. Absolutely, absolutely. So sadly don't know. Absolutely. Absolutely. So sadly within one week of summer's disappearance on June 27th, police officials agreed to scale back their search efforts due to the lack of any findings. Over 1,150 searches have taken place and over 13,800 hours have been logged, which included 21.2 hours of fixed-wing aircraft flights and 30 hours of helicopter flights. When Summer went missing, she had a shaved head, she was wearing a pink shirt and gray pants, and she was likely barefoot. Now, I do want to just briefly touch on the whole shaved head thing because I thought

that was kind of weird when I read that. It was not weird. I mean, anybody can have a shaved head, but I was wondering why she had a shaved head. So I looked it up and it seems like a lot of other people are curious about this as well. In an interview with WKRN, both Candice and Dawn spoke on this matter. So Candice said, Summer was a tomboy. I shaved my head, she wanted to shave her head like me,

and the boys did. But Don told a kind of different story here. He said, she tried to shave her head. I think you can see it in some of the pictures and it was getting out of control. And we decided to shave her head off. That's why he said to shave her head off.

I think he met hair, yeah. I know, which sounds weird. We decided to shave her head off. That's why he said to shave her head off. I think he meant hair, yeah. I know, just sounds weird. We decided to shave her head off and let her grow back long. And her mom shaved her head too, so summer wouldn't feel bad. But it didn't bother her. So apparently this was Summer's idea. She just wanted to have a shaved head. She looked adorable with it, so that's the story on that. But it

is kind of weird that Candace and Don have different stories about such a simple thing. Yeah, it is kind of strange. And I also saw on the internet a lot of people were like, oh, maybe she had lice, you know, a lot of kids that age get lice. And that's why her head was shaved. But, you know, according to Candace and Don, this is the reason why her head was shaved. And it was shaved very recently before she went missing. Dawn Wells later expressed that he, Candace and Candace's mother, all passed lie detector tests, but this has not been confirmed by police. And all we really do know is that Candace did take one and she passed. Then in July, the media became aware that summer's three brothers, Jose Wyatt and

Whalen, had been removed from the well's household. And this is what Don had to say about this. Yeah, it's dangerous at my house. All sorts of people been trespassing on my property. While Nita for one, they think she's a psychic, and she has some sort of special gift. And we don't need her crazy ass stopping at our house. And by the way, we don't know who Nita is, but apparently she's some sort of special gift, and we don't need her crazy ass stopping at our house, and by the way, we don't know who oneeeta is, but apparently she's some sort of psychic in the area. She claims to be a Christian, and then she claims to be a psychic.

How does that work? If you're a Christian, God says that you don't go there, period. It's against God. Dawn also claims that the children were removed because of social media threats against he and his wife Candace. But here's a statement that Don later made on a podcast interview he did for a show called J is for Justice. They come at me and said, either posing, said they had some inside scoop with TBI and that

they knew I sold my daughter for drugs, and I flipped out. I flipped out. I flipped out. I believed that stuff, like an idiot, I believed it, and I flipped out, started drinking and everything else. And that's why they took our kids. Now, we had already talked about the fact that Summer's home life may have been less than ideal,

so this does make you wonder. Dawn did disclose that the boys were taken by the Department of Child Services, but he did not disclose the exact reason why. Well, it sounds like he is kind of saying that he thought people were saying that he sold some for drugs, so he freaked out and started drinking and maybe became like super aggressive and it made a very uneasy and inappropriate environment for the kids and somebody found out and then took him away.

So it's kind of maybe almost like he's blaming the situation on, oh you know I flipped out, I was an idiot, because people were thinking this and that's why, but it's like it didn't seem like they had a good environment anyway. Yeah, I mean as we know, he's been arrested for DUI. He's had trouble in the past with alcohol. So, you know, obviously Don Wells has an issue with alcohol, but does that make him a killer? We don't really know. Or in a complex, I should say.

The investigation at this point had hit a roadblock, but a neighbor of Don and Candace's explained that the day summer went missing, which again was June 15, 2021, just before the initial search began, she and her two children who were 19 and 14 heard what they believed was a very loud scream. Judy Sue Brown, who lived on Ben Hill Road next to Don and Candace, was out serving property lines when she saw the flash of a car drive up her neighbor's driveway.

And by neighbor's driveway, I mean the Wells driveway. So she then heard a truck door slam and moments later what she described as a shrill or animal istic scream, but she said that she didn't believe that it was a dog or even an animal at all. So our question here is that if this is true, how was it possible that Candice and her mother hadn't seen this car drive up the driveway? Looking at the property, the driveway curves

and runs right between the home and Candice's mother's trailer. So there really is no way that Candice and her mother wouldn't have heard or seen this. Yeah, I mean, when you look at it, you're like, there's absolutely no way that a car would be able to drive up to the property without anybody seeing it. And if you, if the neighbor heard a door slam and a scream,

how would nobody in the Wells family have heard this? Yeah, exactly. And just to give you guys a little update on what's going on with Dawn and Candace as of more recently, on October 29th, 2021, Don was arrested yet again, but this time for driving under the influence, open container, violation of financial responsibility, expired registration, improper lane usage, and no insurance. He was held on a $5,750 bond,

and he was released a few days later on the morning of October 31st. Now in November of 2021, so just a few months ago, Candace and Dawn flew out to California to be interviewed on the Doctor Phil show. But as soon as the panel began to ask Candace, if she had anything to do with her daughter's disappearance, she got up and left

the show. She said quote, now this is something nobody else knows. I was clearly told before ever agreeing to go to California that if anyone started to interrogate me on the trip or any media any time, then I was to just either go quiet or walk away. I don't know why she says this because it's like you were agreeing to go on the freaking doctor Phil show to be interviewed obviously an interview is kind of the same thing as an interrogation. Yeah, they're going to ask you questions about your daughter's disappearance. But I'll say it's a little suspicious of her to freak out about an interrogation when someone's just trying to ask you questions

about what happened to your daughter. Yeah, and it even gets a little bit more sketchy and we're about to talk about that right now. Two body language experts claimed that during the show, the Dr. Phil show, both Don and Candace displayed quote, guilty body language, and when asked what she thought should happen to the person who took summer, assuming she was abducted, Candice closed her eyes and paused,

which the experts claimed was a classic example of blocking or escaping. Another question that came up was whether or not the cornbread mafia was involved in this and possibly if they had taken summer. And with this, Candice really broke down into tears. And by the way, the cornbread Mafia, it's a term for a grassroots organized crime group that resides in this area. So Dawn tried to answer the question, but before he could, Candace interrupted him saying, get these wires off me.

And she then attempted to remove the microphones from her jacket. Candice then said, I want out, I'm being interrogated again. And this is when she officially left the show. And the experts called this insinuating and running. So obviously, you know, these people are experts, but this doesn't mean that definitively she is responsible for summer's disappearance. But it is an interesting thing to mention here. Now that you guys essentially have a timeline of what has happened, let's talk about some theories that have circulated regarding this case.

Remember when we talked about summer leaning against those stacked milk jugs in the back seat of the car on the way home from the swim spot? And she appeared to be sleeping? Well some believe that in that video, summer may have already been dead. And here's why some folks believe this theory. The day that summer went swimming and went missing, it was about 90 degrees and humid as hell. But in the video, summer's wearing long pants

in a jacket, something you wouldn't really expect a child to be wearing on such a hot day, especially on the way home from a swimming spot. Now this obviously could mean nothing, but another thought is that summer was being staged in the backseat to look like she was sleeping because she was propped up by the milk jugs. Some think that summer may have drowned at the swimming hole, and that the entire purpose of the video was to show or prove that summer was still alive and that she was just sleeping. We know that a certain level of neglect took place in the household, so was it possible that Candice wasn't paying attention to summer, and she slipped under the water and couldn't

be revived afterwards. So we did look this up, and it looks like it takes a child about 30 seconds to drown, and maybe an extra couple minutes to actually die from drowning. So we know, according to Hunter, that she had, you know, slipped under the water for around 15 seconds, and he helped her because it seems like Candice was maybe on her phone. So this is possible because it's a very small window of time when a child, according to the research we did online, were not experts at that or medical professionals,

but that's just what we came across. It only takes a couple minutes. And obviously, if there's any medical professionals out there that want to weigh in on this, we would love to hear your take. Also, something that we saw mentioned a few times was what is called dry drowning. So this is an acute lung injury caused by water aspiration that would develop over minutes to hours after exposure and could progress to respiratory failure. But on occasion, children will fall under the water and often inhale or gulp down water

to acquire air if they're in the state of panic or fear of drowning. But after taking in water through their nose or mouth, the muscles in the child's wind pipe can become constricted in order to protect their lungs, but this closes them off and can be deadly, although it is a very rare condition. And doctors have officially labeled this event in medical terms as post-emergent syndrome. And I mean, could this be the cause of Summer's death if she is deceased? It's definitely possible. I remember, like years ago, I read this article about a child who had died after going to

the swimming pool earlier in the day, later went home and took a nap, and there apparently had been water in the child's lungs and they died of dry drowning. God, that's so sad. So it's really interesting to me this whole concept, obviously this is again speculation, but it is important to mention here.

So if she did drown that day, whether it be dry drowning or if she had drowned actually in the water, that would likely mean that 15-year-old hunter was aware of the situation, but this brings us to the grocery store. So something that's weird to me, obviously I think the video is extremely weird

where she, you know, Candace is saying that she wanted the video to be of Summer's arm propped up. I don't know why if they were trying to stage her in a certain way, it's really weird. And we also don't know what the purpose of this very short video is. Right. Like what?

It's a very short video. And we don't know how it's surfaced, by the way. I don't we don't think that she posted it. It's possible that police found it on the phone. We're really not sure. But basically, it's a super short video, and it's weird that Candice has this commentary of, oh, I wanted to videotape her in this way. Like why?

Yeah, I really don't know. But the interesting thing here is that, you know, as you mentioned, Hunter and Summer were in the car while Candice and her mother were in the grocery store. So if Summer did drown at the swim spot and then they went to this grocery store is Hunter just sitting in the back seat with summer? Who's dead? Well exactly and also you know we know obviously they wouldn't have bought this milk ahead of time because there was like three gallons of milk at least and they're just chilling in the car. So the milk would have spoiled the cheese

maybe would have melted or gone bad. Right. It would have caught us day. Exactly. So I really just don't see Hunter in the car while they're getting milk and cheese, why would they get milk and cheese if summer was dead in the car and they're trying to figure out what to do. And then Hunter is just in the car for quote up to an hour, whereas Candice said they were only in there for five minutes. So it is weird those discrepancies of time, but... Yeah, I mean, the only proven times that we really have throughout this entire day is one that they were at the swim spot because of the TikTok video that was posted, and then two, the prescription that was filled at Walgreens, and obviously, you know, the doctor's office as well.

Right, so the rest of the accounts between Hunter and Candace, we don't really know what's true. And then if nothing happened to Somerwale, she was swimming and in that video of her against the milk. Again, I don't know why she was fully clothed like that in the hot summer heat and why Candace was making commentary. It's just really bizarre. But then if something had happened to Candace later, like, you know, with the whole thing about the neighbor hearing the scream and the truck, like what could have happened there? Yeah, I mean, just trying to put these pieces together is so frustrating.

It's extremely unclear. Yeah, because everything is so unclear. You have these suspicions, but obviously there's no evidence at all to suggest that somebody abducted Summer from the Wells property, so that's why I think these questions come into play. And another theory is that Summer was sold into child sex trafficking, and it's not just because Don had mentioned it in that podcast interview. To give his statement some context, there are some photos circulating around the internet

that show Summer the day before she went missing, out in the front yard in the rain standing in front of a large red barrel with the words for sale and big letters painted on it, and summer's barefoot wearing a pink dress. I came to find that this was actually a video taken by Candace of summer dancing in front of the barrel. Now to give Candace and Dawn the benefit of the doubt, it's entirely possible that this barrel was used to sell any number of items given the fact that you know, their front yard is cluttered with junk. But I do think this is, you know, an interesting angle and something worth noting. A spokesperson for the TBI explained in December that there is

currently no evidence to suggest that summer was abducted, but that they will continue to investigate and explore all possibilities, including foul play, and the possibility that Summer may have gotten lost in the mountain terrain after wandering off. It's almost been seven months since Summer disappeared, and we're still no closer to having any answers as to whereabouts. What's really interesting here is that Summer was also not the only person to disappear without a trace in the family. So on August 1st, 2009, Summer's aunt and Candace's sister, Rose Murray, Bly, vanished

into thin air in St. Croix, Wisconsin after she drove to a local bar to meet her cousin for a drink. She told her husband that she would be back before midnight, and the bar was about less than five miles away, but she never made it home. Instead, police found her car five days later in a parking lot that's used for truckers to park their tractor trailers. And this location was 30 miles from Rosemarie's residence. But get this, her husband was questioned because police responded to more than one domestic dispute call to their residents prior to Rosemarie's disappearance. And in one incident, her husband got Rosemarie in a headlock and slammed her head into the ground. But sadly to this day, her case remains unsolved, and police say there is no connection

to Summer's case. A prayer circle for Summer was organized at a local church in July that was put together by a Kingsport Tennessee man named Timmy Etherton. He said, quote, God put this on my heart to bring the community together and pray as a team. I know people on Facebook have been praying too, but I just don't feel that's enough. I also want to pray for her family as well. Just pray for Candace and the boys in Donald because they need it too, just as Summer does. A family friend of Candace and Donald's named David Dotson spoke at this prayer circle as well, saying, The family, they need that support. a lot of negativity has been said and it affects

the mother, the father and the children and we just want to focus on getting summer back. That's the main thing. From speaking with Candison Dawn, the boys, obviously they just want summer back and they just want her safe. Returned back and just keep on praying. The current reward fund for any information leading to Summers whereabouts is more than $75,000 and rising. If you or anyone you know has any information about Summers case, please call 1-800-TBI-Find. Summers was just a little girl filled with so much life and she deserves justice. So please share this episode and summer's story.

Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and on Friday, we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. I just think this case is really frustrating because it's always so, so just unbelievable when a parent could be involved, and of course I really don't want to blame the parents if they're not involved, but something just isn't right here to me. Yeah, and I think a lot of people suspect that the parents may have something to do with it. If they don't, you know, obviously we're not trying to call people out here and say,

yeah, you're guilty of this. But, you know, the circumstances surrounding all of this are just very strange. So it's important to detail all of the factual events. Especially with all the discrepancies in statements like Candace will say something, Donald say something, Hunter says something, the grandma says something and everyone's story is different. It's like what the hell is going on? Why is everyone's story different? Why does Candace feel like she's always being interrogated instead of just simply questioned about what happened to her daughter? I don't know man, it's just weird. That and we know that Candace and the grandmother were the last two people to see that Candace and the grandmother were the last two people to see Summer Wells, you know,

alive before she disappeared. So yeah, we will definitely update everybody if, you know, hopefully this case sees just as soon and we'll do another episode. But I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens. So thank you guys so much for tuning in. Thank you for listening to the show and sharing this show with friends

and leaving us nice reviews. It means the world to us. Yeah, we really appreciate the reviews that you guys have left us recently. We love reading them. You guys are awesome. So much respect to you guys as a community. We love you. Alright guys, so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1%, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1%, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, you you