SULLIVAN COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL) – The mother of deceased Sullivan County toddler Evelyn Boswell has been scheduled to appear in court next on September 30.
Megan Boswell appeared over video for a hearing on Friday, May 14, according to the Sullivan County Circuit Court Clerk.
You can watch the full court appearance in the video below:
The court clerk said no new motions or charges were brought to the court on Friday.
Judge Jim Goodwin said Boswell’s September 30 hearing is set to start at 9 a.m.
Attorneys are still awaiting analysis of two pieces of forensic evidence from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. However, both Boswell’s attorney, Brad Sproles, and state prosecutors would not say exactly what those pieces of evidence are.
“There’s just a tremendous caseload that the TBI has of crime, analysis, forensic analysis that they do. And probably COVID probably affected it as well,” said Sullivan County District Attorney General Barry Staubus.
Sproles told News Channel 11 that he could possibly still file additional motions at the September hearing.
Sproles said if the case against Boswell goes to trial, he would not expect a trial date before 2022.
“I would expect it’s probably going to be some time next year. I don’t expect it to be tried this year,” he said.
Several elements of the case, such as a trial date or location are still undetermined.
“I’m certain the judge will have us do some things to see if we can get a jury here in Sullivan County before he agrees to move it, and another option is that we could go to another county, pick the jury there and bring them up here for the trial,” Sproles said.
Staubus said prosecutors have a large amount of materials that they could use in a trial.
“We’re still working to go to trial,” Staubus said Friday.
News Channel 11 asked Sproles on Friday if the state has made any indication of being willing to offer Megan a settlement.
“They have not. And I would be surprised if they did,” Sproles said.
Boswell is charged with two counts of felony murder in the death of her daughter, Evelyn Boswell. She is facing charges of aggravated child abuse, aggravated child neglect, abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence and more.
In January 2021, state prosecutors announced they were seeking the enhanced punishment of life imprisonment without parole for Boswell.
Sproles said he and Boswell have now completed their review of all the case evidence turned over by the state. In total, Sproles said the evidence takes up almost a terabyte of space on a hard drive.
New court documents obtained by News Channel 11 say the hard drive of evidence includes “hundreds of photographs of the scene and the victim and a copy of the autopsy report.”
Evelyn’s autopsy remains under seal to the public by court order, while Megan remains in the Sullivan County Jail, where she’s been held since February 2020.
“For the amount of time she’s been here, my opinion, she’s doing amazingly well. She’s holding things together, we meet, she talks intelligently about the case,” Sproles said Friday.
Aggravated child abuse and neglect charges against Megan allege that her actions resulted in serious bodily injury for Evelyn. Motioning for a bill of particulars, Sproles has asked the state for clarification on these counts.
In their response, prosecutors wrote, “the serious bodily injury suffered by the minor victim, Evelyn Mae Boswell, alleged in Counts 3 and 4 is death.”
Referencing preceding cases, prosecutors wrote further, “death is the ultimate serious bodily injury.”
