Investigators searching for a missing girl in Tennessee are scaling back their efforts as the disappearance of Summer Wells approaches the two-week mark.
Summer, 5, has been missing since June 15 from her Hawkins County home. Summer’s parents reported her missing that Tuesday evening, and her grandmother has since said the family looked for the girl themselves for 10 minutes before calling police. Investigators from multiple local, state and federal agencies have search the remote, densely-wooded area daily since Summer first went missing. Now, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation says that the effort will be scaled back.
“Search efforts will continue on a more specialized team basis as needed and directed from local, state, and federal agencies. Just because we may not be seen as such a large present in and throughout the area, rest assured that we have not quit and won’t quit until we find Summer Wells,” the agency said in a release obtained by Fox 56 Lexington.
According to the report, 1,150 searchers have participated and more than 3,800 hours have been logged in the search for the missing girl.
“Just because we may not be seen as such a large presence in and throughout the area, rest assured that we have not quit and won’t quit until we find Summer Wells,” TBI Incident Commander Tim Coup said in the release.
A TBI spokesperson has previously said that the circumstances of Summer’s disappearance are not clear, and authorities are not ruling out any possibilities in the investigation, including foul play. The spokesperson also said that Summer’s family has been cooperative with the investigation.
Read all of CrimeOnline’s covering of the search for Summer Wells here.
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