Missing Girl Summer Wells: Police Release Realistic Age-Progression Photo

One day shy of the two-year anniversary of the disappearance of Summer Wells, police have released an age progression photo showing what the child might look like today. Summer was planting flowers with her mother and grandmother on a warm June day in Knoxville, Tennessee, when she went missing. She told her family that she wanted to go inside to play. The 5-year-old was never seen again.

An Amber Alert was issued the following day, but two years later, she remains missing. Investigators hope the newly released image will help locate the little girl whose family has never given up hope they will find her.

From the beginning, Summer’s family has cooperated with the police.
In 2021, her family said it was uncharacteristic of Summer to just walk away and they were very concerned about her welfare. Her father, Donald Wells, told WJHL his wife passed a lie detector test.

Wells told the news station that shortly after Bly took the test, she was asked to come to the command center because they had a tip in the case. Unfortunately, the tip didn’t lead to Summer’s discovery.

Investigators put together a large-scale search for Summer.
more than a dozen government agencies joined the efforts to find Summer, WATE reported at the time, searching through dense woods.

“It’s very treacherous and it’s very, the grade in the hills we were in is very steep. There’s no trails, it’s all thick brush. You don’t know what you’re going to come across, you could be walking and fall in a cavern for all you know,” Knox County Rescue Assistant Chief Justin Faulkner said in 2021.

On June 15, 2021, Summer Wells disappeared, leading to one of the most exhaustive and involved missing child cases we’ve ever investigated.

Though we have no new details to share publicly, rest assured: We’re continuing to chase every lead in order to find Summer. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/v0Mks6d0lq

— Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (@TBInvestigation) June 14, 2023

Search efforts slowed in the months following her disappearance, but the case didn’t go completely cold.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation tweeted that even though there have been no recent leads in the case, the Amber Alert remains in place for Summer.

“We won’t stop searching for Summer until we have answers,” the tweet reads. The bureau urges followers not to share speculation but rather to report to it with credible tips.

The age-progression photo shows how Summer might look today.
Children grow rapidly, and their faces change over time. Summer’s seventh birthday was February 4. The new rendering from artists with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children shows how she may look now.

Leemie Kahng-Sofer, director of case management for the center, told WJHL that artists use multiple images and sources to create age-progression renderings.

“We try to collect as much as possible of what’s called reference photos, and although ideally, these are photos of the parents at the time or at the age that the child is missing currently, really any family photos, any sibling photos, any parent photos at whatever age is very helpful,” Kahng-Sofer said.