Donald Wells, the 61-year-old father of missing Tennessee girl Summer Wells, has been arrested again, this time on a domestic assault charge, according to court records.
Hawkins County Jail records indicate Wells was booked at 4:15 a.m. Tuesday. He was scheduled to appear for arraignment at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
Authorities had not immediately released additional information. Representatives for the Wells family and the sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Don Wells pictured in a Hawkins County booking photo. (Hawkins County Sheriff’s Office)
Wells has previously faced arrests involving domestic assault, DUI and firearms charges, none of which were related to his daughter’s disappearance. In 2020, his wife was also granted a civil order of protection against him.
Summer was 5 years old when she disappeared from her family’s rural Rogersville home, a case previously reported by News Outlet that remains unsolved. She would now be 10. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has published an age-progressed image depicting how she may have appeared at age 9.
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Summer’s mother, Candus Bly, told investigators that she last saw her daughter on June 15, 2021, at the family’s home on Ben Hill Road in Rogersville. Bly said Summer had come inside after planting flowers with her grandmother.
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Summer Moon-Utah Wells in an age-progressed image of what she may have looked like as a 9-year-old. She has been missing since June 15, 2021, when she was 5. (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children)
Summer’s parents have said they believe someone entered their 11-acre property, lured the child away and abducted her.
Investigators have not publicly named any suspects. They have, however, sought a possible witness who was driving a red pickup truck equipped with full-size ladder racks and white buckets in the bed.
Summer was approximately 3 feet tall and weighed about 40 pounds when she disappeared. She was last seen wearing gray pants and a pink shirt and may have been barefoot. She has blonde hair.
Summer Wells pictured in an undated family photo released by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation shortly after her June 2021 disappearance. Her whereabouts remain unknown. (Tennessee Bureau of Investigation)
The couple’s other children were removed from the home after Summer’s disappearance. The family’s website says the parents were cleared in a Department of Child Services investigation, but they have not regained custody of their sons.
Both of Summer’s parents have criminal records. Bly’s sister, Rose Marie Bly, was reported missing in Wisconsin in 2009; that case also remains unsolved.
Anyone with information about Summer’s whereabouts is asked to contact the Hawkins County Sheriff’s Office at 423-272-7121 or the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-TBI-FIND. Tips may also be emailed to TipsToTBI@tn.gov.
