Search for missing Tennessee 4-year-old underway

The search for a missing Tennessee girl, who vanished just after she worked in her family garden in Rogersville, continued on Thursday.

Summer Wells, 4, was planting flowers with her mother and grandmother in the moments leading up to her disappearance, according to her father, Donald Wells.

“She wanted to go into the house — wanted to go downstairs and play with her toys,” he told WSMV.

“I went down in the basement, and she was gone, so she went out the basement door, which was unlocked, and we haven’t seen her since.”

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said a statewide Amber Alert was issued June 16, one day after Summer was reported missing to the Hawkins County Sheriff’s Office. The circumstances surrounding her disappearance remains unclear, and an investigation and a search for Summer continue, the bureau said.

Authorities also noted it’s not like Summer to wander away from her home.

Since her disappearance, investigators have looked into more than 200 tips with the help of more than a dozen agencies across Tennessee.

“Basically our role was to find anything that we could that either led to finding Summer or something that could be evidence to assist that effort in the investigative process,” Rescue Technician at Knox County Rescue Mohamed Abbas told WATE. “It was one of the hardest things I’ve probably ever done.”

In 2009, Summer’s maternal aunt, Rose Marie Bly, was reported missing. She was last seen leaving her Wisconsin residence in the city of St. Croix Falls. At the time, she told her husband she was going to meet a cousin at a bar, but that she’d be back before midnight.

Bly was never heard from again, according to WVLT. Her case remains unsolved.

Five days after her disappearance, officers recovered her vehicle in a Grantsburg parking lot typically used by truck drivers to park their tractor trailers.

Summer is described as standing 3 feet tall and weighing 40 lbs., with blond hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing gray pants and a pink shirt and might have been barefoot.

Authorities have asked anyone who has seen Summer or has information on her whereabouts to call the Hawkins County Sheriff’s Office at (423) 272-7121 or the TBI at 1-800-TBI-FIND (824-3466).