It was every parent’s worst nightmare and families across America waited anxiously for updates. A 15-month-old toddler had vanished in Tennessee…
When 15-month-old toddler Evelyn Boswell vanished in Tennessee, the authorities had issued an Amber Alert – a public emergency notification system to help locate missing children. Everyone was searching for her.
Blonde, blue-eyed Evelyn was reported missing on 18 February 2020. The description on flyers handed out said that she was wearing a pink tracksuit, pink shoes and a pink bow. Evelyn was the daughter of Megan Boswell, who had been 17 when she’d had her with Ethan Perry in 2018, before they’d separated. Boswell was now dating Hunter Wood and they had just applied to move into an apartment together.
When Evelyn was reported missing, it wasn’t Boswell who went to the police, it was Boswell’s dad, Tommy Boswell Sr who had first triggered the search when he had called the Department of Children’s Services. At first, Boswell said she had last seen her daughter on 26 December 2019, two months earlier.
READ MORE: Dad with ‘nothing left to live for’ after wife dies saved by astonishing twist of fate
She’d told people that Evelyn was with her dad, and they were in a “custody” battle, but police quickly determined that wasn’t the case. Ethan was in the military and was stationed in another state. It was the start of Boswell’s constantly changing stories.
When she spoke to a local news outlet, Boswell shocked everyone by saying she knew who her daughter was with but hadn’t contacted police because she didn’t want to “tip” that person off. “The reason I didn’t report it or anything was I knew the person who had her, and I didn’t want them to run away with her,” Boswell said.
“I’m just kinda worried, you know, about where they are at. What they’re doing with her at this point in time.” Boswell told police that her mum, Angela Boswell, who had a criminal record, had Evelyn and was refusing to return her until Boswell repaid a debt. Boswell told police about a campsite in Virginia where she was allegedly keeping her, but when officers went, there was no sign of them. Boswell then changed her story and said that her mum had actually given Evelyn to an unnamed person, and Evelyn was safe and would have a better life with them.
By then, a reward for information leading to Evelyn’s return has now reached more than $60,000. Investigators were suspicious of Boswell’s changing version of events and were concerned why she hadn’t reported her daughter missing earlier, as every hour counts when a child has been abducted. The search prompted a petition for “Evelyn’s Law”, to make it illegal for parents to wait longer than 72 hours to report a child missing.
When they investigated the apartment application that Boswell had made with her new boyfriend, Evelyn wasn’t named. She said that her boyfriend didn’t want Evelyn to live with them. Was that why Boswell hadn’t reported that her mum had given Evelyn to a new family? So she could start a new life with her new boyfriend?
On 25 February, Boswell was taken into custody and charged with false reporting which had delayed the search for the toddler. With Boswell in custody, she was instructed to take a polygraph test, but she revealed she was pregnant which meant she couldn’t take one. That was also a lie.
On 6 March, police raided the Boswell family home in Blountville, Tennessee, three weeks after Evelyn was reported missing. It was where Boswell had been living in a trailer with her daughter in December 2019. Behind a shed in the yard was a brown playhouse. Inside was a white trash can and when officers looked inside, they found the body of Evelyn.
The toddler had been found wrapped in a blanket, in a garbage bag with aluminium foil tightly placed around her face and had been “shoved” head first, into the bin. Evelyn was dressed in a purple onesie with penguins on it. Medical examiners determined she had likely died of suffocation.
Boswell’s prints were on the trash can and on the foil. She was charged with murder. As she waited for trial, Evelyn’s Law came into effect in July 2021. The death of the toddler had shaken communities to the core and knowing that her own mother was allegedly to blame, made the case even more tragic.
A DNA test revealed that Ethan Perry wasn’t Evelyn’s father after all. At the trial in 2025, the court heard from the prosecution that Boswell had made up multiple stories about where her daughter was, while knowing she was dead.
Witnesses testified that Boswell had neglected Evelyn before she went missing. One said the little girl had been seen with a terrible diaper rash and another said the home Boswell had her daughter in was dirty. Another witness said they had heard Boswell say her daughter was “mean as f**k”. The prosecution said that Boswell wanted to move on with her new boyfriend and that Evelyn wasn’t part of that plan.
They said that she had started off looking after Evelyn properly when she was born then became neglectful. The defence said that Evelyn had died of natural causes, such as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), or Boswell had rolled on her while sharing a bed.
They said Boswell had panicked. “She’s not sophisticated. She’s had a hard life. She’s scared she’s going to get in trouble,” they said. They said that she was a good mum who always took her daughter to medical checkups. But in fact, testimony revealed she stopped taking Evelyn from nine months.
The prosecution said that Evelyn was “in the way” of the new life that Boswell wanted and her lies after the killing showed she lacked remorse. The jury found Boswell guilty of first-degree murder, as well as child abuse, neglect, tampering with evidence, abuse of a corpse, and several counts of making false police reports.
In September 2025, Boswell, 24, was sentenced. She made a statement. “I did not kill my baby Evelyn,” she said. “The state of Tennessee treated me very unfairly. If I had had a fair trial, I would have been acquitted.”
“There is no doubt that this defendant had absolutely no hesitation when she killed her daughter,” the judge said, adding that she is a dangerous offender and society needed protection from her, even in old age. Boswell was sentenced to life in prison, with an additional 33 years. She will have a chance for parole after 51 years.
