Don Wells, the father of missing Tennessee girl Summer Wells, was charged with domestic assault.

This is an accusation in an affidavit, not a finding, and it has no reported link to Summer's disappearance. What it does is put the family back in the headlines more than five years after a 5-year-old vanished from her own yard. Summer is still missing.

The Hawkins County Sheriff's Office said deputies were called to a domestic disturbance just after 10:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 12, 2026, in the 100 block of Ben Hill Road in the Beech Creek area near Rogersville, Tenn., WJHL reported. Deputies found Don Wells outside the home with scratches on his sternum and abdomen, and his wife, inside, had visible injuries and told deputies he had assaulted her, according to the sheriff's office. He was charged with domestic assault and held in the Hawkins County Jail, WJHL and WCYB reported. Fox News reported jail records show he was booked at 4:15 a.m. Tuesday and was scheduled for arraignment at 9 a.m. Wednesday.

WVLT reported an affidavit says his wife, Candus Bly, texted dispatch to report the assault. According to the affidavit, the two had been drinking when they argued, and Bly said he "got in her face, scratched her cheek, grabbed her face, and told her he needed a new wife." Asked whether that was common, she said yes and described him as "a scary person especially when he drinks," the affidavit says, and she claimed he said he "intended to get rid of her." The deputy also wrote that Wells had a small amount of blood on his chest and a small bleeding wound on his arm, WVLT reported. No response from Wells or his family was reported.

Fox News reported Wells has been arrested before on domestic assault, DUI and firearms charges unrelated to his daughter's disappearance, and that he was served with a civil order of protection on behalf of his wife in 2020. WVLT reported he pleaded guilty to DUI in 2022, and WSMV reported he served 180 days in jail in that case. Summer Wells was 5 when she was reported missing from the family's Ben Hill Road home on June 15, 2021, and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation still lists her as an endangered child. Investigators have sought the driver of a red pickup truck with ladder racks and white buckets in the bed as a possible witness, Fox News reported. Anyone with information can call the Hawkins County Sheriff's Office at 423-272-7121 or the TBI at 1-800-TBI-FIND. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.