"I hope and pray, my staff hopes and prays and everyone who works on this case hope and prays … that she is alive," Sheriff Jeff Cassidy said.
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Sullivan County Sheriff Jeff Cassidy said Wednesday afternoon that everyone involved in the search for missing toddler Evelyn Boswell hopes she is still alive, even as he confirmed police are searching a pond in Wilkes County, North Carolina, in connection to the case.
"I hope and pray, my staff hopes and prays and everybody who's worked on this case hopes and prays that she is alive," Cassidy said at a news conference inside a courtroom in Blountville, Tennessee. "And we're going to continue to work just like she is alive."
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Leslie Earhart said authorities here learned about the search of the pond moments before holding the news conference at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. The tip that prompted the search is one of more than 570 that have been checked out by police in the ongoing investigation, she said.
Details about that tip are scarce, Earhart said, as the information apparently was submitted to authorities in North Carolina, not to the TBI.
Wilkes County authorities could not immediately be reached for comment. Wilkes County is in northwestern North Carolina, about 90 miles southeast of Blountville and 80 miles north of Charlotte.
"In due diligence, they're checking it out, and I'm waiting to hear back just to confirm," Earhart said, adding that investigators have not confirmed whether Evelyn was taken across state lines. "All tips have to be checked out just to make sure."
'Every time we talk to her, her story changes'
Authorities believe Evelyn, a 15-month-old girl from Blountville, vanished sometime in December. But her family didn't report her missing until Feb. 18, officials said, when Evelyn's grandfather told the Department of Children's Services that certain family members hadn't seen her in two months.
"Every time we talk to her, her story changes," Cassidy said. "I'm serious when I say that. Every single time."
The mother, who is Evelyn's sole legal guardian, initially claimed the child was with the father, Ethan Perry, according to an arrest affidavit. She said she was supposed to meet Perry the next day in the parking lot of a local grocery store to pick up their daughter.
Investigators later determined Perry is stationed at Fort Polk, Louisiana, on active duty in the Army. He did not have Evelyn.
Megan Boswell went on to claim in interviews with media outlets that Evelyn's maternal grandmother, Angela Boswell, had taken the child to a campsite in Mendota, Virginia, north of Bristol.
She also claimed investigators had asked her to take a polygraph test, but that she refused because she is pregnant.
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