MEAWW.COM / NEWS / CRIME & JUSTICE

'We have to prepare ourselves for the worst': Summer Wells' dad Don speaks out after serving sentence

Despite the public pointing fingers, the family has always maintained that someone broke into the home and abducted Summer, who was 5 at the time

HAWKINS COUNTY, TENNESSEE: The father of a girl who vanished at the age of five under mysterious circumstances from her home has finally broken his silence months after he was released from prison. Don Wells finished his sentence for a DUI arrest on October 30. His daughter Summer Wells disappeared from her Tennessee home on June 15, 2021, and hasn't been seen since. 

"We have to prepare ourselves for a worst-case scenario," he told WJHL. "You know, we could always hope for a good scenario." Summer's amber alert remains active, though it has been 19 months since her sudden disappearance. The small Hawkins County community carried out a massive search after she went missing. While the public highly criticized the girl's family, they have always maintained that an abductor broke into the home and stole the five-year-old.

RELATED ARTICLES

THE MISSING FILES: Man who lives near spot where Summer Wells disappeared claims family is hiding truth

Summer Wells: TBI looking for pickup truck driver seen in the area where 5-yr-old disappeared

The devastated father and his wife are now waiting for a miracle to happen as Summer's seventh birthday is this Saturday, February 4. Following the girl's disappearance, Don's three sons were removed from the family after six weeks. He heavily criticized the Department of Children's Services for their handling of the case, and said regaining the custody of his children has been a big problem. 

What did Don Wells say?

"We really want our boys back home," Don said, according to The Sun. "If Summer was to be found today, we wouldn't be able to see her or talk to her. And we can't talk to our boys." Don admitted that he got emotional when online sleuths hit him with accusations involving her disappearance, during a podcast in 2021. 

"Like an idiot, I believe it and I flipped out, started drinking, and everything else," he previously said. "And that's why they took our kids." He confirmed in his latest interview that his sons repeatedly kept in touch with their mother while he was serving time. "Suddenly I wasn't, we weren't, allowed to contact them at all," Don said after he was released. 

He lashed out against the government for not helping them with regaining custody of their children. The Department of Children's Services was "doing nothing to help us," he told the outlet. "In fact, they're making us jump through all kinds of hoops, which is almost impossible to jump through all of them and hold a job and do all these things and making it real, real tough on us."

Don said that he is now working out of state as he no longer works for his previous employer. "I don't know if exactly fired or whatever would be the right term, but they don't want the drama from YouTubers out there," he said, pointing to different videos he posted online to raise awareness for Summer's disappearance. "They're trying to build houses. They're trying to sell houses. And they, of course, don't want that kind of drama on the job sites. I really don't blame them for that."

Don also spoke about his wife's deteriorating health condition, something which the family had already previously posted on their website FindSummerWells.com. "Candus has been in the emergency room four times for heart problems," he told the outlet. "And we're looking at eventually doing major surgery, hopefully, to correct the problem with her heart. She's doing better, I think. But all the stress and stuff are not helping at all."

With Summer's birthday just a day away, her dad tried to imagine what his daughter might be like over a year and a half since she was last seen. "I don't really want to celebrate her birthday without her," the heartbroken father said. "She was definitely going to be tall, probably as tall as me I'd say, because she was growing so fast. I'm sure she would be the same person. And she didn't have any qualms about taking on her brothers, that's for sure. She didn't hesitate to put them in their place real quick."

What happened to Summer Wells?

According to the accounts given by the family, Summer was last seen with her mother and grandmother, gardening in their front yard before she went inside to play with her toys at 6.30 pm. She was never seen again after that. No evidence has been found to support the family's claims that a predator was present in the house and took their little girl. Following the girl's disappearance, it soon came to light that both the parents have criminal records. 

Don was arrested in 2020 on domestic assault charges, leading Candus to file for an order of protection against him. The charges against Don were dropped a couple of months before the tragic incident as she asked for the order to be dismissed. Both parents were ordered to take a lie-detector test as part of the investigation into Summer's disappearance and reportedly passed. 

"There's not a day that goes by that we don't check up on something on this case," Hawkins County Sheriff Ronnie Lawson told The Rogersville Review. "It's definitely not a cold case, and everything is still on the table. Nobody wants to find her more than we do."