The Megan Boswell Trial
Trash can, blanket, bottles | New pieces of evidence shown to jury in Megan Boswell trial
by:
Murry Lee
Posted: Feb 10, 2025 / 08:54 AM EST
Updated: Feb 10, 2025 / 12:15 PM EST
LIVE TRIAL - MONDAY RECAP 1 of 2 - AM
Disclaimer: Some evidence that may be shown during the trial could be graphic in nature.
SULLIVAN COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL) – Megan Boswell’s murder trial resumed Monday.
Witness: David Gratz
Former Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) agent David Gratz continued his testimony on Monday morning. He told the jury several items of evidence recovered on the night Evelyn’s remains were found were sent to TBI labs for analysis.
Assistant District Attorney Amber Massengill provided Gratz with a piece of evidence that he identified as the trash can Evelyn was found in. Gratz removed the white trash can from its container and showed it to the jury.
Gratz said the black residue on the trash can was the result of the TBI lab searching for fingerprints. He also noted that pieces of the trash can had also been removed for analysis and said it did not look exactly like it had the night the child was found.
Next, Massengill provided Gratz with a piece of gum that had been stuck to the inside of the trash can when Evelyn’s remains were recovered. Gratz confirmed it was collected as evidence and sent for analysis.
Gratz also identified the trash bag Evelyn’s body was in at the time investigators recovered her remains on March 6, 2020. He told the jury that it had undergone extensive analysis at a TBI lab like the trash can.
Massengill also provided a water bottle that Gratz said was found in the trash can. Gratz was unable to recall if the bottle had been in the bag or elsewhere in the trash can.
Gratz was then given several pieces of evidence, one of which was aluminum foil.
“It was in the trash can, wrapped around the victim’s head,” Gratz said. Gratz unfolded the aluminum foil and showed three larger pieces to the jury, as well as some smaller ones. He clarified that it had been flattened and folded in order to be processed, but it had been formed to Evelyn’s head when she was found.
On one piece, Gratz noted there was material residue that he identified as “human decomposition.” Gratz also identified hair collected from the aluminum foil.
Massengill gave Gratz another piece of foil that he said could fall apart if he were to handle it. Gratz told the jury that the foil had markings on it from when it underwent analysis at the TBI lab.
Gratz identified the outfit Evelyn had been wearing when she was found on March 6, 2020, a fleece onesie with penguins on it. He also noted there was some “insect debris” along with the outfit in the bag. The onesie had several stains on it when Gratz held it up to show the jury.
The next item identified was the gray and white blanket wrapped around Evelyn’s body in the trash can.
The court then entered a recess due to at least one juror becoming ill because of the smell of the evidence.
Witness: David Gratz Pt. 2
Massengill then asked Gratz about searches at Tommy Boswell’s property. Gratz confirmed there had been searches at the property before March 6, 2020.
He did confirm, however, that the playhouse Evelyn was found in was not searched prior to March 6, 2020. There was no evidence that the trash can or body had been moved to Tommy Boswell’s property after earlier searches, Gratz said.
According to Gratz, there was no evidence that Tommy Boswell was involved in the death of Evelyn.
He also told Massengill that authorities that Ethan Perry, Hunter Wood, Angela Boswell and William McCloud cooperated with investigators and were ruled out as suspects in Evelyn’s death and disappearance, despite various claims about each by Boswell.
“There was one individual,” Gratz answered when asked if there was any individual that the investigation pointed to. He told the court there was. “It was the defendant.”
When Scott began cross-examining Gratz, he asked if Wood, Boswell’s boyfriend in 2019 and 2020, had refused to provide DNA to law enforcement. Gratz said he believed that Wood did refuse to provide that at one point.
Gratz told Scott he was unaware during the investigation that Wood was schizophrenic. He told the court he did later learn Wood had some type of mental health issues.
Scott asked if Gratz had considered that someone with mental health issues would have put the aluminum foil on Evelyn. Gratz said intense forensic analysis was conducted on the foil. Scott asked again about a potential link between the foil and mental health issues, which drew an objection from the prosecution. The legal teams approached Judge Jim Goodwin’s bench.
Scott rephrased the question, and Gratz said he was unaware of any investigators looking into links between the foil and mental health issues in regard to Evelyn’s death.
Scott sought to confirm that a search was conducted on Tommy Boswell’s property on Feb. 23, 2020. Gratz was unsure of the exact date without reviewing case files so Scott asked Goodwin to allow him to check those. Goodwin allowed him to do so.
After checking his notes, Gratz was able to confirm that Tommy Boswell’s property was searched by the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) and Union County Sheriff’s Office on Feb. 23, 2020. Gratz’s report stated that a cadaver dog was used in the search, but it did not result in any findings.
Scott also confirmed Boswell’s former trailer property on Sugar Hollow Rd was searched with cadaver dogs on Feb. 21, 2020.
Scott turned to the fingerprints of Wood that were obtained by law enforcement. He asked specifically if investigators had Wood’s palm print, which Gratz was unaware of. Scott then asked if Gratz knew that a palm print was found on the trash can. Gratz answered that he knew prints of some kind were found on the trash can but claimed he would have to defer to a forensic scientist about the nature of the prints.
Gratz told Scott that when the trash can was found, some bags inside were moved before investigators saw part of Evelyn’s body. Scott asked several questions about how investigators on the scene handled the trash bags and when they were removed from the can. Scott asked if there were any leaves in the trash can, and Gratz said no, there were not.
When Massengill was given a chance to redirect, Gratz told her more people than he could guess were interviewed over the course of the investigation.
Massengill attempted to ask a question of Gratz about Wood being around Evelyn, but Scott objected.
Gratz was released, and the next witness was called.
Witness: Matt Price
The district attorney’s office then called SCSO Lieutenant of Investigations Matt Price to the stand. Price, a longtime member of the SCSO, was a sergeant in the criminal investigations division during the search for Evelyn.
Price told Deputy District Attorney William Harper about responding to Tommy Boswell’s property on the night Evelyn’s remains were found.
Harper showed Price several photos of the trash can and its contents, each of which he identified and described. Some of the items included a carton of milk with an Oct. 20, 2019 expiration date, a carton of eggs with an expiration date of Oct. 6, 2019 and a receipt from the bookstore at Northeast State Community College.
Price said water bottles, a baby bottle, a tissue, a pair of latex gloves and other items in the trash bags that could have value as evidence were removed and sent to TBI labs for analysis. He identified those items when they were presented to him and showed them to the jury.
Harper also gave Price a cold and cough medicine bottle, which he said was found in the trash bag as well.
Price was then asked about a Feb. 20, 2020 interview he and Gratz conducted with Boswell. He said she showed up at the sheriff’s office unannounced to speak with investigators and help them find Evelyn, who had already been reported missing.
A recording of that interview was shown to the jury. In it, Boswell told Price and Gratz about a conversation with her father about her mother, Angela Boswell. She told them Angela Boswell had begun acting strangely and worrying about the Department of Children’s Services (DCS).
Boswell started to make reference to her mother wanting to take Boswell to Mendota, Virginia. However, when investigators asked her what is in Mendota, she claimed to not know.
Boswell told them Angela Boswell did not want to be involved in the case surrounding Evelyn.
Price told her then that there had to be more to her story about where Evelyn was. Boswell said her mother had been speaking with Ethan Perry, who was previously thought to be Evelyn’s father, since January.
Boswell told Price that she and Angela Boswell had a good relationship, but her mother started acting differently during the search for Evelyn. Price insisted there must be more she was not saying, and Boswell said her mom had told her not to talk to police about her.
She told Price and Gratz that Angela Boswell wanted to take Boswell to Mendota, but she said no.
“Maybe Ethan gave Evelyn to her,” Boswell said in the Feb. 20, 2020 interview. However, she claimed not to know if her mother had ever had Evelyn.
“I know when you’re not being 100% honest,” Price told Boswell in the interview.
Boswell said her mother only kept Evelyn once before for a few hours. She also told police that she and Wood had talked earlier that day, and he expressed concern about people calling his family’s restaurant and threatening to kill him.
Boswell told them locations where she would think to look for Angela Boswell.
Gratz then read a conversation on Facebook that Boswell had with someone else, in which she described Evelyn as “mean as [expletive].” Both investigators told her she had previously described Evelyn as sweet, and Boswell told them she didn’t want to seem like a bad mom, which was also why she didn’t want to report that she did not know where Evelyn was for a period of time.
In the interview, Price asked Boswell to not withhold any more information from them. He asked her why of all things she could have been doing she was calling Angela Boswell. She told them she believed her mother had Evelyn and that the child was alright, but Angela Boswell would not give her an answer about Evelyn.
Price said the night before, during a previous interview, Boswell had told them she believed Perry had the baby. Both investigators expressed frustration when Boswell asked if she’d get in trouble if she revealed new information.
Boswell then said Angela Boswell came and took Evelyn without permission from her trailer in early December 2019. Boswell said she didn’t call her mother for roughly a month until Angela called Hunter T’s Chicken Shack in January 2020. Her mother told Boswell that Evelyn was safe at that time.
Gratz asked Boswell when the last time she had seen Evelyn was, and she said early December when Angela took her. That contrasted with her previous claims that she had left the baby with Perry. Boswell said the only person who had seen Evelyn since early December was her mother but she had not received photos of her since then.
At that point, Price asked in visible frustration why she had relayed that version of events before. Boswell claimed she was worried something would happen to Evelyn if police became involved. She briefly cried in front of both investigators and told them about where she thought Angela could be found.
Price asked for Boswell’s Google and Facebook account information, but she seemed hesitant and said she would want to talk to an attorney about that part. Gratz said days had been lost in the search because Boswell told different stories.
Price also told Boswell they had evidence to suggest she had a phone during a time she claimed otherwise.
When the video concluded, Goodwin sent the jury to their lunch break.
COURT IS IN RECESS FOR LUNCH
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Photo: Former TBI agent David Gratz shows the jury the aluminum foil that was found wrapped around Evelyn Boswell’s head.