A Tennessee mother is set to go on trial for the murder of her 15-month-old daughter whose remains were found sitting in a trash can on her family’s property.
Megan Boswell, now 23, is charged with felony murder in the death of her daughter, Evelyn, who was first reported missing in February 2020, PEOPLE previously reported.
Evelyn Boswell was last seen by her family in December 2019, when she was 15 months old. Her remains were discovered in a playhouse on the property the following March.
Megan was indicted on murder charges in August 2020, and has pleaded not guilty to felony murder, and one count each of aggravated child abuse, aggravated child neglect, tampering with evidence, abusing a corpse and several counts of false reporting to authorities.
The Knoxville News-Sentinel reported that jury selection for Megan’s trial finally began on Monday, Feb. 3, five years after the case was first initiated. Opening statements began on Wednesday, Feb. 5, WJHL reported.
During the investigation, the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office claimed Megan “provided detectives and agents with a number of conflicting statements.”
At a 2022 court hearing, reported by WKRN, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Agent Brian Fraley testified that Evelyn’s body was found in a storage building owned by Megan’s father.
“We received a call from the defendant’s father talking about property — a storage shed on the property,” Fraley reportedly said. “He believed it may have been valuable for us to look in it and search, so we did respond and search that.”
“And there was a playhouse,” he continued. “Behind that, we found the body in that playhouse in the trash can.”
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During the search for Evelyn, PEOPLE previously reported that Megan gave conflicting statements during interviews with different local news outlets.
Sullivan County Sheriff Jeff Cassidy said at a 2020 press conference that every time authorities spoke to Evelyn’s mother, “her story changes.”
During his 2022 testimony, Fraley reportedly testified Megan eventually told investigators that Evelyn had died while co-sleeping.
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