A coroner's testimony has revealed disturbing details about the death of 15-month-old Evelyn Boswell.
Disturbing details have surfaced about the tragic death of 15-month-old Evelyn Boswell, who went missing for months before her disappearance was reported in February 2020.
A Tennessee coroner has testified the baby suffocated and had a blanket wrapped around her head. A "mechanical obstruction" was also found in Evelyn's airway, which was aluminum foil, the forensic expert said.
Dr. Darinka Mileusnic-Polchan recently took the stand in a Tennessee court and testified about the child's cause of death. Evelyn was so firmly bound there were indentations on her face, said the chief medical examiner for Knox and Anderson counties.
The Sept. 28 hearing was to decide which autopsy photos could be shown to trial jurors. The gruesome images could unduly influence panelists, argued the attorney for Megan Boswell, who faces a long list of charges including murder and abuse of a corpse in her daughter's death.
Evelyn's body was found on her grandfather's property on March 6, 2020. He had contacted the state Department of Children's Services on Feb. 18, 2020, saying he had not laid eyes on the baby since Thanksgiving. Investigators would later learn a babysitter appeared to be the last person who saw Evelyn, and that was in early December.
Several members of the Boswell family, including Megan, had lived on the property at varying times, authorities said.
Also testifying at the recent hearing was Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent Brian Fraley.
"We received a call from the defendant's father talking about property — a storage shed on the property," Fraley told the court. 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, behind that, we found the body in that playhouse in the trash can."
Fraley said Evelyn's remains were in a plastic garbage bag, with other bags piled around it. "I observed a leg and a foot attached on top of this trash," he testified.
Evelyn was alive when she was placed head-first into the trash can, the coroner said. The causes of her suffocating included being placed in the trash can as well as the blanket and aluminum foil, the medical examiner testified.
Fraley also testified that Megan Boswell told investigators that her daughter accidentally suffocated while sharing a bed with Megan and a boyfriend. But Mileusnic-Polchan testified that Evelyn was too old to die in such a manner.
Megan Boswell, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges and is being held without bail, is next scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 16. Her trial is set for February.
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