NEWSTeen Mom, 18, Could Become Youngest Woman Sentenced To Death For Daughter's Murder
Dec. 9 2020, Published 4:00 p.m. ET
Megan Boswell, 18, could become the youngest woman to ever be sentenced to death in the United States if the teen mom from Tennessee is convicted of murdering her 1-year-old daughter, Evelyn Mae Boswell.
Sullivan County District Attorney General Barry Staubus announced at a hearing last week that he still had not determined if his office would seek the death penalty and informed the judge that he would announce his decision at the next scheduled hearing on January 22. If she is sentenced to death, Boswell would be the youngest American on death row in close to a century and the first to be under the age of 20 since 1964.
Boswell was arraigned back in August after a grand jury indicted her on 19 counts, including two counts of felony murder; one count of aggravated child abuse; one count of aggravated child neglect; one count of tampering with evidence; one count of abuse of corpse; one count of failure to report a death under suspicious, unusual, or unnatural circumstances; and 12 counts of false reports. She entered a plea of not guilty to all 19 charges.
ORPHANED BOY 'MURDERED BY HIS GRANDMA' MONTHS AFTER FATHER'S FATAL OVERDOSE: COURT DOCS
She had been held for months prior to that on a single charge of making a false report, following a slew of misleading comments and inaccurate information the teenager gave to members of the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office. That false information and her bogus tips cost the department thousands of dollars and made them lose valuable time in their search for the missing toddler. Boswell allegedly told police that her mother, Angie, had taken Evelyn, and later tried to garner sympathy by declaring she was pregnant with her second child.
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Boswell did not report her 15-month-old child missing to authorities for months. It was her father, Tommy Sr., who eventually notified police in February, at which point he had not seen his granddaughter since Thanksgiving. Boswell had initially told people that Evelyn was with her father, Ethan Perry. There was a detailed plan about how she was going to get Evelyn from Ethan, with the exchange set to take place in the parking lot of a local grocery store. Ethan, who was on active duty and stationed in Louisiana at the time, soon informed police however that he did not have Evelyn.
Evelyn's remains were later found buried beneath a shed on Tommy Sr.'s property. Her body had been dumped in a hole alongside a pile of clothing and toys. That is the same property Boswell had been living at with her father and his new wife until November when she moved out around the same time Evelyn was last seen alive. It is still unclear where she and Evelyn were staying after they moved out of his house, or if Evelyn ever even left that property.
Investigators and prosecutors have both been guarded with the details of the case, but hinted that they have bombastic evidence. Boswell and her lawyers have yet to even see the autopsy, though the judge did rule last week that they would have access to the papers before the next court appearance.
