Agreeing to manage the reward contributions intended to help locate missing 5-year-old Summer Wells last year may have led the Church Hill Rescue Squad to conclude that “no good deed goes unpunished.”
At least that’s what CHRS attorney Joe May stated in the opening sentence of a lawsuit he filed last week in Hawkins County Chancery Court on behalf of the rescue squad.
The lawsuit seeks for the CHRS to be “discharged of all liability” relating to more than $75,000 that was contributed to serve as a reward for anyone who provided information that led to the recovery of Summer Wells.
Of that amount $35,000 was returned to two donors in the form of uncashed checks for $25,000 and $10,000. Another $40,305 is currently held in the bank account created by the CHRS to accept donations.
This lawsuit comes on the heels of the CHRS receiving an email on June 9 from a person claiming to be an “independent investigator” alleging “inappropriate donation instructions may have been used in international solicitation” by a person identified as Qiana Carlock.
Those international donations resulted in $32,193 being wired into the reward fund account at the former CIVIS Bank (now Thread Bank). The remaining $8,000 was contributed via 28 donations made by people whose identities weren’t recorded by the bank.
Carlock has an address in Las Vegas, and the alleged investigator, Fiona O’Connor, as an address in the United Kingdom.
The June 9 email sent by O’Connor to the CHRS states that Carlock held an “unregulated, illegal fundraser on YouTube over the course of 10 days.”
May stated in the lawsuit that an identity search was conducted on both Carlock and O’Connor and their home addresses, and he was not able to verify that either person actually exists.
The CHRS lawsuit names both Carlock and O’Connor as defendants and calls for them both to appear in Chancery Court. The CHRS lawsuit also requests that the Rogersville Review publish an advertisement for four consecutive weeks notifying donors and/or anyone claiming the funds, as well as O’Connor and Carlock, “to appear and make defense to the complaint.”
The lawsuit further seeks to allow the CHRS to place all reward funds that are currently in the bank account into the custody of the Hawkins County Clerk and Master, and that any interested parties be required to settle between themselves any and all claims they might have on the funds — absolving the CHRS of any liability or claims of damages.
“This is a cause which implicates the phrase “no good deed goes unpunished”as a sardonic commentary on the frequency with which acts of kindness backfire on those who offer them,” May states in the lawsuit.
The defendants in the lawsuit are identified as O’Connor, Carlock, Summer Wells reward fund donors and interested parties, and the Child Advocacy Center of the Third Judicial District, to which the CHRS initially intended on forwarding all unclaimed reward money.
Summer Wells disappeared from her home in the Beech Creek community of Hawkins County on June 15, 2021, and to date is still missing.
Members of the community sought to create a reward fund in hopes of encouraging tips and information that would lead to Summer’s recovery.
May notes in the lawsuit that the CHRS became one of the public faces of the search and rescue effort, and as a result agreed to open an account at CIVIS Bank to accepts donations for a Summer Wells reward fund.
“As a result of such massive, widespread notoriety, the Rescue Squad has a real and reasonable fear of liability or vexatious, conflicting claims against the disputed funds, and is not in the position to safely determine which, if any claim or potential claim is meritorious without great hazard and possible multiple liability,” May states in the lawsuit. “The Rescue Squad claims no interest in the disputed funds, yet cannot safely distribute the money or any part of it without an order of the court establishing the rights of donors and potential claimants.”
No hearing dates have been set as of yet in this lawsuit.