Police: Remains identified as missing Tennessee girl

BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Remains found last week in Tennessee were positively identified as those of a 15-month-old girl missing for weeks, police said Wednesday.

The remains found Friday are those of Evelyn Mae Boswell, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Leslie Earhart said in a video message posted on Twitter. No other details were released.

The remains were found in Sullivan County on property belonging to a family member, the bureau had said earlier. The discovery followed a 17-day search across three states for the girl.

An Amber Alert was issued more than two weeks ago, but authorities said she hadn’t been seen since at least December.

Evelyn’s mother, Megan Boswell, 18, was arrested Feb. 25 on a charge of filing a false report about her daughter’s disappearance. Authorities said her inaccurate and conflicting statements had impeded the investigation.

Megan Boswell was being held in the Sullivan County jail. Judge James Goodwin increased Boswell’s bond Monday to $150,000, according to news outlets.

Boswell initially told state investigators that Evelyn was with the child’s father, Ethan Perry, according to court documents from her arraignment. But Perry is stationed with the U.S. Army at Fort Polk, Louisiana, and did not have Evelyn, WJHL-TV reported.

Megan Boswell later said her mother, Angela Boswell, took her daughter to a campground in Mendota, Virginia, not far from Tennessee’s Sullivan County. Authorities searched multiple campgrounds in that area and found no sign of the girl, the TV station said.

Angela Boswell herself was arrested the week before her daughter was taken into custody. She and her boyfriend, William McCloud, were arrested in North Carolina on fugitive warrants unrelated to Evelyn’s case, authorities had said. Authorities looking for Evelyn searched a pond in the county where they were arrested.

Angela Boswell told a judge in North Carolina that she wanted to go home to resolve the situation with her granddaughter, news outlets reported at the time. She was subsequently returned to the Sullivan County jail a day before her daughter joined her there, and arraigned on a theft charge.