Tennessee now requires parents to notify police about missing children within 24 hours or face criminal charges. Evelyn’s Law went into effect on July 1, 2021, and it stipulates charging parents with a Class A misdemeanor for failing to timely report a missing child. The law is named after Evelyn Boswell, a 15-old-month who was found dead months after she initially went missing.

Tennessee used its new Endangered Child Alert to find a woman who was kidnapped in 2019. Daphne Westbrook was 18 when she was allegedly abducted by her non-custodial father; law enforcement determined the case didn’t qualify for an AMBER Alert. The woman was found safe in Alabama in March 2021. Her father has since been indicted and charged with aggravated kidnapping. Tennessee recently passed the Holly Bobo Act which allows law enforcement to send alerts for endangered adults ages 18-20.

Tennessee will require parents to report missing children after two days, or face increased penalties. “Evelyn’s Law” goes into effect on July 1, 2021, and also requires parents to notify law enforcement within 24 hours if a missing child is 12-years-old or younger. The law was passed after the mother of 15-month-old Evelyn Boswell did not notify law enforcement that their daughter was missing until months later. The mother was charged after the child was found two and a half weeks later.

Tennessee’s Holly Bobo Act is now in effect which raises the age limit for missing person alerts. The law increases the age limit from 18 to 21 to notify the public for an endangered missing person.

State legislators are also considering a Silver Alert to notify the public for missing and vulnerable adults. Alzheimer’s Tennessee is lobbying legislators for issuance of an alert for missing adults with dementia, disabilities, or impairments.

Tennessee lawmakers are considering a bill that will require parents to immediately notify law enforcement within 48 hours if a child goes missing. “Evelyn’s Law” would also make everyone a “mandatory reporter” if they believe a child is in danger. The bill is named after Evelyn Boswell, a toddler who was missing for nearly two months before she was reported missing. Violators could face jail time for not making timely reports.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) released new age-progression photos for two children who went missing from a house fire on September 23, 2012. AMBER Alerts were issued at the time for 9-year-old Chloie Leverette and 7-year-old Gage Daniel. Their remains were never found. “Amber alerts do not expire,” said Leslie Earhart, Tennessee Bureau of Investigations spokesperson. “They remain active until we have definitive information concerning the child’s whereabouts.”

A Tennessee bill would place police surveillance cameras on the state’s busiest roadways. The current state law forbids unmanned traffic enforcement surveillance cameras, but Representative Mark White wants the cameras to be used to track suspected criminals, including AMBER Alert suspects. Critics are raising privacy concerns about the proposed law.

The Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office in Tennessee issued a warning not to support a GoFundMe page connected to a missing 15-month-old girl. On February 19, 2020, the sheriff’s office issued an AMBER Alert after 18-year-old Megan Boswell reported her daughter was missing. On February 23, the sheriff’s office said a donation site that claimed to be connected to the investigation was fraudulent and it was not authorized to use the agency’s name. On March 6, the child was found dead, ending a 17-day-search in 3 states. The mother is now charged with making a false report.

A family in Bedford County, Tennessee, held a birthday party for a 16-year-old girl and 13-year-old boy who have been missing for nearly seven years. An AMBER Alert was issued for Chloie Leverette and Gage Daniel when they disappeared after their grandparents were found dead in a home that caught fire. The family held a birthday party on June 30, 2019, to keep the case alive with the hope someone will see them and call police. “Every day you’re looking, you’re wondering, not knowing what happened where are they? It takes a part of you, a part of your soul,” said mother Cheryl Daniel.

The Bell Meade, Tennessee, Police Department is using new video surveillance cameras to capture vehicles connected to serious crimes including child abductions. The city spent $500,000 to place cameras in 20 sites throughout the city. If a license plate is connected to an AMBER Alert, missing person case, or other crime, police can direct the camera to search for that plate. Police are notified if the plate is located.

Germantown, Tennessee, police were swamped with calls about a missing 14-year-old girl who was not actually missing. Numerous people spread the news about the missing teen after reading about it on Facebook and Twitter. Police interviewed family and friends and contacted other law enforcement agencies before the teen showed up and said she was in the neighborhood all day.

Mike Cox in front of flag; Austin Morris and Jim Lowe by truck; Austin Whitehead mugshotA suspect accused of assaulting his wife and snatching their 2-year-old son was no match for a trio of truckers and highway patrol troopers who responded to an AMBER Alert in Tennessee. On January 9, 2013, 23-year-old Austin Whitehead allegedly got into a violent fight with his wife and then took their son with him in his Pontiac Grand Am.

The Houston County Sheriff's Office wanted to issue an AMBER Alert because of the assault and because Whitehead had allegedly threatened suicide. Tennessee AMBER Alert Coordinator Mike Cox said there was no question the alert met the state's criteria.

“We thought he was a danger to the child because of his possible mental state and the injuries to his wife,” said Cox.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) oversees the statewide AMBER Alert program. Cox was assigned to be the state AMBER Alert coordinator in September 2012, and this was the third time he helped initiate an alert. “You can practice all day long, but you know it is different when it is real,” he said. “Every time I lie down at night I think, ‘I hope I made the right decision and did the right thing.’”

After all the information was gathered the alert went out at 1:20 p.m. to law enforcement, media, transportation, state lottery, and the National Weather Service. The alert can go out statewide or to three individual regions. Because authorities believed Whitehead was traveling to Covington, Georgia, Cox decided to send the alert to only the middle and eastern regions.

Moments after truck driver Jim Lowe saw the AMBER Alert on the electronic highway signs, he spotted the Pontiac Grand Am about 170 miles from the reported abduction. He used his radio to notify the trucks ahead of him and three truckers started to box the suspect in and slow him down.

“It is pretty wild,” noted Cox. “In almost 22 years of law enforcement I have never seen anything like it.”

Tennessee Highway Patrol dispatchers notified troopers, and they arrested Whitehead and safely recovered the young boy from the car. The AMBER Alert was cancelled less than two hours after it was issued.

“I am just glad that little kid is safe at home tonight in his own bed,” Lowe told a reporter. “I guess that is just where God meant for me to be.”

Tennessee has had five AMBER Alerts since Cox became the coordinator, and he said he is grateful for everyone who got the program up and running before he started. “I have a child of my own and it makes me feel good,” he said. “It is about as fulfilling as anything we can do in law enforcement. Nothing is more important than children.”

A Sevierville, Tennessee, mother has been charged with filing a false police report after she claimed her 3-month-old daughter had been abducted. The Sevier County Sheriff's Office issued an AMBER Alert in March when the woman told detectives a couple posing as social workers took her child. Detectives later found out the baby was staying with extended family members at the request of the mother.