By Helen Eckinger
Orlando Sentinel
 Police inspect vehicles and record tags in Fla. as they leave the area of a search for Haleigh Cummings, 5, who appears to have been abducted from her home. Investigators are interviewing 44 sex offenders who live nearby. (AP Photo) |
SATSUMA, Fla. — Haleigh’s father, Ronald Cummings, appeared in a brief interview on the Nancy Grace show last night and revealed new details about the case.
Cummings told Grace that Haleigh and her little brother were sleeping in the same bed as his 17-year-old girlfriend, Misty Croslin, when the little girl disappeared, which Capt. Steve Rose of the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office confirmed this morning.
Cummings also said that he and Croslin had both taken and passed polygraph tests.
“I don’t have anything to hide - I just want my daughter back,” Cummings told Grace.
Rose confirmed that Cummings and Croslin had taken polygraph tests but declined to release their results.
Rose said that the Sheriff’s Office has searchers on foot and in boats in the nearby St. Johns River today searching for Haleigh, but that its aerial search has been hampered by wind and cloud cover. He said volunteers with Texas EquuSearch will begin searching previously inaccessible areas on horseback late today or tomorrow. The Sheriff’s Office has received numerous tips in the case, but Rose said he was unable to discuss their specifics.
“We’re still looking at all possibilities,” Rose said.
Texas EquuSearch, which assisted the Orange County Sheriff’s Office in its search for Caylee Marie Anthony, has arrived in Satsuma where it will help investigators search for Haleigh.
EquuSearch founder and director Tim Miller told the Orlando Sentinel that a member of the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office contacted him yesterday afternoon.
“He said ‘We sure could use your help,’ and I said, ‘Well, we will be on our way,” Miller said.
Miller said that EquuSearch members from across the country are on their way to Putnam County and that the group will be putting out a call for local volunteers after it sets up a staging area.
The group plans to use searchers on ATV, horseback, and foot to search for Haleigh. They will also be bringing in sonar equipment.
“The good news on this one is that it’s not a month-plus before Haleigh’s been reported missing,” Miller said, referring to the Caylee case. “We’re certainly optimistic - we have to be optimistic.”
Putnam County Sheriff Jeff Hardy just wrapped up a news briefing about the search for Haleigh Cummings. He said searchers have focused on five-square-mile area and will continue looking for the five-year-old girl.
“We’ll expand the investigation as far as it needs to go,’' He said. “As far as whether or not Haleigh is still in the area, that is an unknown.” He said family members, including the 17-year-old girlfriend who found Haleigh missing Tuesday morning, have cooperated with investigators. He wouldn’t provide details about evidence investigators have collected.
Haleigh’s father and his family are “hanging in there,” according to Josh Duckett, who is acting as a spokesman for the family. “They’re doing as well as can be expected,” Duckett told the Orlando Sentinel this morning. Josh Duckett is the father of missing Lake County toddler Trenton Duckett.
Duckett said that he had no qualms about encouraging Haleigh’s father, Ronald Cummings, to interview with CNN’s Nancy Grace last night. In 2006, Duckett’s estranged wife, Melinda Duckett, committed suicide after filming a interview with Grace, during which Grace grilled her about her missing son, Trenton Duckett. Melinda Duckett’s adoptive parents have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Grace and CNN, alleging that Grace provoked Melinda Duckett’s suicide. Josh Duckett was initially named as a co-defendant in the suit, but he was dropped after a magistrate determined that the family could not establish a claim against him.
“I don’t have a problem with Nancy Grace’s show,” Josh Duckett said. “She does things that need to be done, she asks questions that need to be answered and as long as you tell the truth you won’t have a problem.”
From today’s Orlando Sentinel
The search for Haleigh Cummings turned more desperate Wednesday after officials said someone likely abducted the 5-year-old from her bedroom in rural Putnam County.
“There is no longer any reason to believe that the child simply wandered off outside,” said Maj. Gary Bowling of the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office.
Family members begged for the safe return of the girl they call Doodlebug on the second day of a massive search in this sparsely populated county about 80 miles north of Orlando.
“Just bring her back,” said Haleigh’s maternal grandmother, Marie Griffis. “There are plenty of places you can drop off a kid, no questions asked.”
Haleigh lives with her father, Ronald Cummings, 25, and his girlfriend in a double-wide in Satsuma, an isolated riverfront community northeast of Ocala National Forest.
The girlfriend, Misty Croslin, 17, put Haleigh to bed about 10 p.m. Monday while Cummings was working at PDM Bridge.
Croslin woke up about 3:30 a.m. Tuesday, noticed Haleigh was missing and called 911 for help.
“I just woke up and my back door is open, and I can’t find my daughter,” Croslin told a 911 dispatcher. She said she had been sleeping and the door was not open when she went to bed.
A screen door on the side of the couple’s Satsuma home had been propped open with a cinder block. The main door was slightly ajar, but authorities found no obvious signs of forced entry.
Cummings just returned home while Croslin was talking to the dispatcher.
“I just got home from work, and my 5-year-old daughter is gone. I need somebody to be here now, I’m telling you,” he told the dispatcher. “If I find whoever has my daughter before you do, I’m killing them. I don’t care if I have to spend the rest of my life in prison.”
Officials issued a statewide alert for Haleigh on Tuesday, triggering a search that quickly drew as many as 130 officers from several law-enforcement agencies with bloodhounds and helicopters.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, FBI, and Volusia, Marion and Flagler sheriff’s offices are helping Putnam County deputies and investigators.
The search continued Wednesday and included divers exploring the nearby St. Johns River.
Bowling said 44 sex offenders live in a 5-mile radius of Cummings’ home, but most have been contacted by law enforcement since Haleigh disappeared. Many sought out authorities on their own.
“Right now, we don’t have a lot of clues indicating where she’s at,” Detective John Merchant said. “I’m always positive, though. We want to find her alive.”
No suspects have been named, and no one has been ruled out.
“All the world’s a suspect right now,” Bowling said.
Family members said Haleigh was unlikely to leave on her own.
“Haleigh is a very indoor-type child,” said Griffis, her grandmother. “If she goes outside, she wants you to be with her -- she would never go outside by herself in the dark.”
Griffis said Haleigh is bright and loves drawing, makeup and playing with gadgets.
Her mother, Crystal Sheffield, 23, was at her home in Baker County near the Florida-Georgia state line at the time of her daughter’s disappearance. She was in Putnam County on Wednesday, talking with investigators and waiting for news on her daughter’s whereabouts.
She gets custody of Haleigh and her 3-year-old brother, Ronald Jr., every other weekend. This weekend the family was planning to celebrate Ronald’s fourth birthday.
Joshua Duckett, father of missing Lake County toddler Trenton Duckett, stepped in Wednesday as a family spokesman.
“I’ve been through it, and it definitely helps the family to have someone who can say, ‘Hey, I know what you’re going through,’ ” said Duckett, whose son was last seen Aug. 26, 2006.
Also Wednesday, bounty hunter Leonard Padilla, who inserted himself in the case of missing Orlando toddler Caylee Marie Anthony, joined the ranks heading for Putnam County. At a staging area near Cummings’ house, he said curiosity had drawn him to Haleigh’s search.
Meanwhile, a volunteer group from Houston that helped look for Caylee in Orlando last year said it is gearing up to help in the search for Haleigh.
Caylee’s remains were found in December, and her public memorial was Tuesday.
Tim Miller, founder of Texas EquuSearch, said his organization has been in contact with Putnam County officials. Some volunteers may drive and others may fly to Florida, he said.
“It’s pretty ironic. We have another child disappear seven hours before Caylee’s memorial,” he said.
Anyone with information about Haleigh’s whereabouts is asked to call the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office at 386-329-0808.
Amber Alert Name: Haleigh Ann-Marie Cummings Race: White Sex: Female Age: 5 Height: 3-feet-3 Weight: 39 pounds Hair: Blond Eyes: Brown
*Have a tip on her whereabouts? Call the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office: 386-329-0808.