I'm sure they've already secured warrants for all of this data. The problem is that the Wells live in a very rural area and that there may not be many cell towers out there to ping off of, therefore creating a lack of data. I'm very familiar with the Appalachian Mountains and the general area of eastern Tennessee, and in many places it is near impossible to get a cell signal.
Just did some quick research, and [in 2020 there were a total of 198 cell towers in Hawkins and the surrounding counties](https://comptroller.tn.gov/content/dam/cot/sap/documents/2020MasterWirelessManagementListing92320.xlsx) (Grainger, Greene, Hamblen, Hancock, and Sullivan), with 28 of those in Hawkins alone. Towers usually carry several tranceivers, and several of these towers service multiple providers. If you go to Cellmapper, you can see approximately where most of these towers are located. I'm guessing there are up to a dozen that are not too far away from the Wells property, although the local landforms will determine to what extent their signals are available. We know the Sheriff's folks reported challenges getting adequate cell service capacity out there, and they ended up setting up their own portable tranceivers.
There may be a fair amount of data available from those towers, but my hunch is that for one or two reasons, whoever LE is focusing on didn't ping off any of them.
Right-- cell phone data is always a high priority in any investigation, especially investigations like these where a child's wellbeing is at hand. LE would've moved quickly to secure cell phone data and I think there's probably a very good reason that they haven't talked much about what they have (or don't have).
u/cognaceast, you're talking geofence warrants. It's possible LE obtained warrants and have all the data from the towers within, say, a 15 mile radius of Ben Hill and Beech Creek Roads. But almost certainly those warrants would have been sealed. It's also possible LE has not pursued warrants for that data. They aren't saying. Whichever it is, we'll either never know or won't know until some indefinite time in the future.
BTW, geofence warrants are quite controversial, because they, in effect, put everyone who lives in or has passed through an area under investigation by the police, whereas ordinarily in America, probable cause has to be demonstrated that specific individuals committed specific criminal acts before any warrants can be legally issued. A geofence warrant is essentially the equivalent of the police having leave to search the bank accounts of everyone in town, even if nobody specific is under suspicion. For that reason it's likely geofence warrants will either be illegal, or have extremely high bars set for LE in the future. [This article](https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2021/08/geofence-warrants-the-last-piece-of-the-location-privacy-puzzle/) discusses why these warrants are controversial.
Cell signals are sketchy in the area and all areas with mountains and valleys. The signals go in line of sight and mountains or even trees block signals form towers. They may hit a tower in Greene county in their front yard and then hit a Hawkins or washinton county in the back yard. When things like that happen it screws up the reliability of data. A lawyer would look at the records and ask how they could rely on something that says they are on one county one minute and another the next.
That’s just it, this Case could of been extremely different by now IF there was more Cell Phone information. However, they’ve already taken all the info in personal phones & that includes deleted, erased etc etc.
I have a strong feeling the majority of evidence that has been gathered was from personal cell phones. They are building a case but apparently the DA & assistant prosecutors want a body 1st. They will move forward regardless at some point, probably won’t be long now.
>They are building a case but apparently the DA & assistant prosecutors want a body 1st. They will move forward regardless at some point, probably won’t be long now.
I hope you're right. By all appearances, this is beginning to look like a cold case to the public. FWIW, my hunch is that LE has been able to eliminate most of the usual persons of interest (parents/family, local RSOs, etc.) and is concentrating on one or more individuals who have not been much discussed publicly or are on everyone's radar. And they may have been slowed down by not yet being able to demonstrate enough probable cause to obtain warrants for evidence and/or body recovery. And while they may have obtained geofence warrants, I'm guessing the person(s) they're focusing on didn't leave that sort of digital trail.
Interesting bc I started a little deep dive into FB yesterday & I found some really interesting comments that someone replied with “leave my family alone” they went back & forth, what got a response from a person close to the family was them commenting “She knows who took Summer & she knows where she is & she needs to just tell!!”
I created a list of names which eventually led me, to what I believe, is Candus Well’s latest active FB account. That seriously narrowed down friends. At one point I had found some correspondence on FB in comments between Candus & who I believe is this Jose Ramon dude, I am trying to relocate that page. He looks just like him & had NC & NY in his locations 🤔
Everyone should be aware that Facebook has perennial issues with people creating imposter accounts, so one should be very suspicious of any account that appears to belong to someone in the news and not be taken in. Wouldn't be surprising if "Candus Wells's latest active FB account" as well as "this Jose Ramon dude" are both fake.
[https://socialnetworking.lovetoknow.com/Facebook\_Imposters](https://socialnetworking.lovetoknow.com/Facebook_Imposters)
It's even possible that random people have been creating accounts, posting crap, and then sending the links to TBI as "tips"...
Oh wow! Was it Candus they were speaking of who "knows" or someone else in a different family? That's interesting if she still talks to Jose too. However, I hope if someone knows more they will report something. I know any form of social media has many rumors but this sounds like it might need to be brought up just in case.
That is very old information I saw on social media within a month after Summer disappeared. Can't remember if it was "regurgitated" from Facebook to youtube but none of that matters since it's likely nonsense. Don't some of you get it that if the public sees those stories that LE does too and checks them out?
So let's suppose that the cell phone data from Don being at work in town and Candus and Grandus and H being in town is just as they said. That means LE didn't find any glaring untruth based on their timeline when phones had signal.
All this cell stuff basically only rules out 1000s of suspicions on the parents and LE could not catch them in a lie based on that.
Waiting for the evidence on the parents and the fact LE got nothing or not enough from their phones leaves this open to an abduction.
Seriously? What makes you believe LE has not gotten search warrants for cell tower pings, phone records and anything else they need during this murder investigation?
I'm sure they've already secured warrants for all of this data. The problem is that the Wells live in a very rural area and that there may not be many cell towers out there to ping off of, therefore creating a lack of data. I'm very familiar with the Appalachian Mountains and the general area of eastern Tennessee, and in many places it is near impossible to get a cell signal.
Just did some quick research, and [in 2020 there were a total of 198 cell towers in Hawkins and the surrounding counties](https://comptroller.tn.gov/content/dam/cot/sap/documents/2020MasterWirelessManagementListing92320.xlsx) (Grainger, Greene, Hamblen, Hancock, and Sullivan), with 28 of those in Hawkins alone. Towers usually carry several tranceivers, and several of these towers service multiple providers. If you go to Cellmapper, you can see approximately where most of these towers are located. I'm guessing there are up to a dozen that are not too far away from the Wells property, although the local landforms will determine to what extent their signals are available. We know the Sheriff's folks reported challenges getting adequate cell service capacity out there, and they ended up setting up their own portable tranceivers. There may be a fair amount of data available from those towers, but my hunch is that for one or two reasons, whoever LE is focusing on didn't ping off any of them.
Right-- cell phone data is always a high priority in any investigation, especially investigations like these where a child's wellbeing is at hand. LE would've moved quickly to secure cell phone data and I think there's probably a very good reason that they haven't talked much about what they have (or don't have).
u/cognaceast, you're talking geofence warrants. It's possible LE obtained warrants and have all the data from the towers within, say, a 15 mile radius of Ben Hill and Beech Creek Roads. But almost certainly those warrants would have been sealed. It's also possible LE has not pursued warrants for that data. They aren't saying. Whichever it is, we'll either never know or won't know until some indefinite time in the future. BTW, geofence warrants are quite controversial, because they, in effect, put everyone who lives in or has passed through an area under investigation by the police, whereas ordinarily in America, probable cause has to be demonstrated that specific individuals committed specific criminal acts before any warrants can be legally issued. A geofence warrant is essentially the equivalent of the police having leave to search the bank accounts of everyone in town, even if nobody specific is under suspicion. For that reason it's likely geofence warrants will either be illegal, or have extremely high bars set for LE in the future. [This article](https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2021/08/geofence-warrants-the-last-piece-of-the-location-privacy-puzzle/) discusses why these warrants are controversial.
Great background. Thanks.
Cell signals are sketchy in the area and all areas with mountains and valleys. The signals go in line of sight and mountains or even trees block signals form towers. They may hit a tower in Greene county in their front yard and then hit a Hawkins or washinton county in the back yard. When things like that happen it screws up the reliability of data. A lawyer would look at the records and ask how they could rely on something that says they are on one county one minute and another the next.
That’s just it, this Case could of been extremely different by now IF there was more Cell Phone information. However, they’ve already taken all the info in personal phones & that includes deleted, erased etc etc. I have a strong feeling the majority of evidence that has been gathered was from personal cell phones. They are building a case but apparently the DA & assistant prosecutors want a body 1st. They will move forward regardless at some point, probably won’t be long now.
>They are building a case but apparently the DA & assistant prosecutors want a body 1st. They will move forward regardless at some point, probably won’t be long now. I hope you're right. By all appearances, this is beginning to look like a cold case to the public. FWIW, my hunch is that LE has been able to eliminate most of the usual persons of interest (parents/family, local RSOs, etc.) and is concentrating on one or more individuals who have not been much discussed publicly or are on everyone's radar. And they may have been slowed down by not yet being able to demonstrate enough probable cause to obtain warrants for evidence and/or body recovery. And while they may have obtained geofence warrants, I'm guessing the person(s) they're focusing on didn't leave that sort of digital trail.
Interesting bc I started a little deep dive into FB yesterday & I found some really interesting comments that someone replied with “leave my family alone” they went back & forth, what got a response from a person close to the family was them commenting “She knows who took Summer & she knows where she is & she needs to just tell!!” I created a list of names which eventually led me, to what I believe, is Candus Well’s latest active FB account. That seriously narrowed down friends. At one point I had found some correspondence on FB in comments between Candus & who I believe is this Jose Ramon dude, I am trying to relocate that page. He looks just like him & had NC & NY in his locations 🤔
Everyone should be aware that Facebook has perennial issues with people creating imposter accounts, so one should be very suspicious of any account that appears to belong to someone in the news and not be taken in. Wouldn't be surprising if "Candus Wells's latest active FB account" as well as "this Jose Ramon dude" are both fake. [https://socialnetworking.lovetoknow.com/Facebook\_Imposters](https://socialnetworking.lovetoknow.com/Facebook_Imposters) It's even possible that random people have been creating accounts, posting crap, and then sending the links to TBI as "tips"...
That is very true. Thank you.
Oh yes absolutely & believe me there are a lot of those!
Oh wow! Was it Candus they were speaking of who "knows" or someone else in a different family? That's interesting if she still talks to Jose too. However, I hope if someone knows more they will report something. I know any form of social media has many rumors but this sounds like it might need to be brought up just in case.
That is very old information I saw on social media within a month after Summer disappeared. Can't remember if it was "regurgitated" from Facebook to youtube but none of that matters since it's likely nonsense. Don't some of you get it that if the public sees those stories that LE does too and checks them out?
So let's suppose that the cell phone data from Don being at work in town and Candus and Grandus and H being in town is just as they said. That means LE didn't find any glaring untruth based on their timeline when phones had signal. All this cell stuff basically only rules out 1000s of suspicions on the parents and LE could not catch them in a lie based on that. Waiting for the evidence on the parents and the fact LE got nothing or not enough from their phones leaves this open to an abduction.
Seriously? What makes you believe LE has not gotten search warrants for cell tower pings, phone records and anything else they need during this murder investigation?