Evelyn, a 15-month-old girl with wispy red hair and big blue eyes, remains untraceable – despite nearly two weeks of intense media coverage across the country of her reported disappearance. Authorities say she has not been seen since mid-December.
Evelyn’s mom Megan “Maggie” Boswell is now behind bars after an arrest warrant says she refuses to tell the truth about her baby’s plight. She spun threads – the sheriff’s office called them “inaccuracies” – in TV interviews too.
Evelyn’s maternal grandmother, Angela Mae Boswell, was released on Friday from the same Sullivan County prison, accused of fleeing the city in a stolen car with a boyfriend after her ex-husband – Evelyn’s grandfather – reported that the infant disappeared on February 18.
And Evelyn’s grandfather, Tommy Boswell Sr., does not speak publicly – especially to journalists.
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“You are all vultures,” he told the USA TODAY Network’s Knox News this week during a meeting at the Boswell family complex in the small town of Blountville where Evelyn lived.
The Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office is working around the clock – with the help of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the FBI – to find out where Evelyn is and, more importantly, whether she is safe and alive.
Sheriff Sullivan Jeff Cassidy and Captain Andy Seabolt said that Evelyn’s mother’s story has changed several times. Cassidy’s agency doesn’t say much else, however. Search warrants have been obtained, authorities have confirmed, but remain sealed. Cassidy said the agency still “hopes” that the toddler is alive, but has canceled the idea of a citizen search.
Knox News sifted through judicial and public records this week to glean a portrait of the Boswell clan in which Evelyn was born.
A difficult start
Angela Boswell was only 16 when she gave birth to Tommy Boswell Sr.’s first son – Tommy Jr. – in 1993. A background check shows that Tommy laid charges of assault in Sullivan County a few months later birth of the boy, but details of the arrest are no longer available. A report from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation shows that he was convicted of assault for crime one year later in this case.
The couple, according to records, eventually moved to Bulls Gap, Tennessee. In March 2001, Angela Boswell gave birth to the couple’s second child – Megan Boswell, Evelyn’s mother. Angela married Tommy Boswell Sr. a few months later.
In 2009, the couple returned to Sullivan County, settling the children in a prefabricated house on the top of a hill on family land.
But there was little harmony inside these walls, the court records show. In March of the same year, Tommy Boswell Sr. told deputies that his wife attacked him, stabbing his neck with an ink pen and wrestling with their 14-year-old son, Tommy Jr., as he attempted to save his father.
Months later, records show that an angry father Tommy Boswell appeared at the home of his wife’s father, David Lynn Jones. Jones will later tell the authorities that Tommy Boswell Sr. accused his son of theft and that he was drunk when he fled in his Chevrolet Camaro.
“Less than three minutes later, Jones said the power had been cut at his home,” said an attorney.
Angela Boswell was with Jones and claimed that her husband called her a few minutes later to tell him that he had run over the Camaro and fled. She first told authorities she was driving, but – under pressure from Jones – then insisted that she lie to protect her husband, according to court records.
Tommy Boswell father refused to return to the accident site, but ultimately paid a fine for leaving the accident site.
Less than two years after this incident, Tommy Boswell father was angry again – this time because another man was inside his house with his wife, according to an affidavit of complaint.
Conflicts continue
On a cold February 2012 morning, Brandon Yates and Angela Boswell woke up to cries from outside the Muddy Creek home they slept in, according to court records.
Angela Boswell was naked and said she could hear her husband’s truck – and his voice – outside. When Brandon Yates went to the door, the Boswells son Tommy Jr. threatened him with “some sort of wooden club” and told him to go out to stop the arrest warrants.
Yates did, walking down the steep driveway leading out of the Boswell family compound.
“Brandon said he was halfway down the driveway to Muddy Creek Road when he saw a gray Chevrolet pickup truck with” Tommy’s Paving “on the side … heading straight for him”, declares the representative.
“Brandon said he feared for his life and started running towards a fence in the yard,” he said. “Brandon stated that he was unable to pass the truck and was struck by the vehicle … and was knocked over the hood and landed in the driveway.”
He later told Sullivan County deputies Tommy Boswell father, his son, and an unidentified third man surrounded him, kicking and punching him, before releasing himself and running to a house. neighbor for help.
When detectives called Tommy Boswell Sr., he admitted “the three of us worked with him” but hung up, said a warrant. Boswell’s two men – Tommy Jr. was 19 years old – were arrested.
Seventeen months later, a reunited father Tommy Boswell and his wife celebrated the birth of another son, Elijah. Tommy Boswell Sr. and his son quickly entered into plea agreements for the Yates assault, which resulted in probation.
But it didn’t take long before trouble broke out again in Boswell’s house.
Divorce and reconciliation
Angela Boswell filed for divorce from her husband in September 2014 – two months before Elijah’s first birthday. Megan Boswell was 13 years old. She wanted custody of the two. She obtained a divorce a year later in an agreement reached at a hearing at which Tommy Boswell Sr. was not present.
A year later, the couple celebrated another birth – Charlotte Boswell. By the time Charlotte was two years old, the Boswells were boiling again, according to records.
It was early fall 2018 and the Boswells were separated again. Records show that Angela Boswell was mixing the three children – a pregnant Megan, Elijah and Charlotte – between the Muddy Creek complex, her father’s house in Kingsport and an apartment in Johnson City.
His driver’s license was suspended. The labels on his car were expired. Police arrested her several times, often finding her children unrestrained, according to records. She has been imprisoned several times.
Tommy Boswell Sr. insisted that she was putting their children, including Megan, at risk and asked a judge to grant her custody.
“(Angela Boswell) is currently in prison,” wrote Tommy Boswell Sr. in a petition for a restraining order against him. “She said that she was short of blood and that she would take revenge on me when she was released from prison.
“I am afraid for myself and my children, Megan, Elijah and Charlotte Boswell,” he wrote. “She uses illegal drugs in front of our children. It exposes our children to criminals. “
Tommy Boswell Sr. won his claim and brought the kids back to Muddy Creek. Angela Boswell, caught trying to sneak stimulant pills in prison, was behind bars when Megan’s baby, Evelyn, was born, according to the records.
And a new life
Evelyn’s father Ethan Perry joined the military before he was born. So far, he has remained largely silent about his disappearance. The relationship between Perry and Megan Boswell is little known – when it started and when it ended.
Photographs of Evelyn suggest that she and her mother lived on the Boswell family grounds with Megan Boswell’s two younger brothers and sisters at some point before his disappearance.
Tommy Boswell Sr. operates – with Tommy Jr. – an enclosure paving business, which now includes three prefabricated houses, a double bay garage, a work shed and a stable of dump trucks, heavy equipment and personal vehicles. Captain of Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office says Elijah and Charlotte are now living there with Tommy Sr.
Megan Boswell lamented in September 2019 in a Facebook article that her life was difficult, but Evelyn made it bearable.
“I’m not the best mom in the world, but I try so hard for this little beauty,” she writes. “I can’t even explain the love I feel for her, and I know she loves me too. Lately, my life has been really bad, but she will contact me and tell me “mom mom” and my heart is melting and I remember her unconditional love.
“You can say what you want me to be a young mom, but I promise you my life is so much better with this angel,” she wrote. “My life was not wasted when I had it, it gave me a purpose and a reason to wake up every day and improve myself. There is no love like your child’s love! “
Five months later, Megan Boswell did not explain where her angel is.
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