Art Harris Investigates

[Faith]

March 19th, 2009
http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/haleigh-cropped2.jpghttp://www.artharris.com/images/031909_1.jpghttp://www.artharris.com/images/031909_5.jpghttp://www.artharris.com/images/031909_6.jpghttp://www.artharris.com/images/031909_2.jpghttp://www.artharris.com/images/031909_4.jpghttp://www.artharris.com/images/031909_3.jpg

Haleigh Face Shot

Photo of Haleigh Cummings alleging physical abuse

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c) artharris.com, all rights reserved

SATSUMA, Fla.—The Bald Truth has obtained exclusive photographs of Haleigh Cummings and her little brother, Ronald, Jr. that her mother claims show black eyes and other injuries amounting to physical abuse by their father–photos Crystal Sheffield plans to use in the bitter he-said, she-said custody fight for Haleigh’s little brother.

Against the backdrop of a massive police investigation to find the missing five year old, who vanished from her bed over a month ago, Crystal tells me she took photos during her own court ordered visits as the non-custodial parent after father Ronald Cummings was awarded the children in 2005.

Now Haleigh’s four year old brother Junior has become the prize in a new custody fight that alleges the children’s father, Ronald, has abused them.

When I spoke with him Wednesday night over sweet iced tea at a popular local eaterie, Mema’s, he called the charges “lies,” and noted that a magistrate had awarded him custody because Crystal missed a dozen doctor’s appointments, didn’t have a job, and admitted to using cocaine.

Asked if he was concerned about another visit by child protective custody workers to check on Junior, demanded by his mother, he said they’d been to his house before and found it safe and him a good father. “Bring it on,” he said, “bring it on.”

One photo obtained by The Bald Truth shows little Haleigh with a large scratch across her nose, and her face black and blue beneath the eyes.

There is no date on the photo, and Sheffield’s attorney, Kim Picazio, concedes it will be hard to prove when she took it because the memory card erased the dates.

However, Picazio says she’s been able to reconstruct the timeline from witnesses and school records Sheffield obtained after Haleigh disappeared from her bed last month when 17 year old Misty Cummings, her ex’s new bride, was babysitting.

Crystal’s stepmother, Connie Sheffield, 29, a registered nurse tells me in an exclusive interview that she took the photo the weekend before Thanksgiving, 2008, when Crystal brought the children by before returning them to Ronald.

She snapped away as Haleigh romped beneath an early Christmas tree, checking out the wrapped presents. “I’ve got to start early because there are so many kids in the family I’ve got to get presents for. Haleigh went from present to present, and I handed her a box and said, this is for you.’ She was so happy.’”

The photos show no dates, or the wrong date because Sheffield considered dates on stills “tacky” so turned that camera option off. But she insists other photos in the batch match up with family events that can be documented on a timeline.

It was Nov. 12 when she says Crystal came by to visit her father, Johnny Sheffield, a former sheriff’s deputy and ex-Marine, and brought the children—a week after Haleigh had fallen on the playground at Browning Pierce elementary where she was in kindergarten.

The school’s daily health room activity log, obtained by The Bald Truth, shows that on November 6, at 1:50 p.m, a school nurse noted Haley had cut her nose from a playground fall. A week later, on Nov. 12, just before Crystal picked up the children for that weekend visitation, Ronald brought his daughter to the emergency room at Flagler Hospital in nearby St. Augustine.

After examining her, the doctor prescribed “no school for the next three days, Nov. 13-15, according to a copy of the prescription we obtained.

It would not be the first time Haleigh missed school that fall. In fact, the attendance record we’ve also obtained shows she missed 31 days between September and Feb. 10 when she was reported missing.

At times, her family says she’s missed school for illness, and takes medication for Turner’s Syndrome.

As far as her schoolyard fall, Crystal says she didn’t know about the documented injuries until she picked up Haleigh’s records after she turned up missing.

“I didn’t know she’d missed that much school until I got the records,” Crystal told me Thursday. “That surprised me. My fiance’s kids have missed a couple of days, but this (a month) is bullcrap.”

Calls to Ronald Cummings, and other family members Thursday were not returned by deadline.

Crystal’s lawyer, Kim Picazio, tells me she’s turning the records and photos over to child protective services to make their case in Crystal’s attempt to win back custody of her son.

“I’m a nurse and work in a pediatric clinic,” says Connie Sheffield, Crystal’s stepmother who took what she found to be disturbing photos during that weekend visit. “And you always document what you see and know. The records show the school documented minor injuries, not major ones– scratch on the nose on Nov. 6.

“There was nothing major noted– no bleeding, no swelling, no bruising and no abrasion on the chin. But when I saw Haleigh and her black and blue bruises, I asked Crystal, ‘Omigod, what happened to her face.’ She said, ‘Ronald said she fell at school.’” Purportedly on concrete at the playground.

Her stepmother says she was suspicious because there were no abrasions on the hands or knees, as there might be if you were to try to stop a fall, nor any wrist injuries. “When most people fall, they try to brace themselves,” she told me. “I was concerned because I noticed there was still dried blood in her nose, her nose was so swollen, it looked crooked. I didn’t know if it was broken.”

Looking back, she now says those injuries didn’t reflect the school nurse’s notes of a minor cut on the nose, and that such “significant” injuries would always be documented “to make sure there were no facial fractures, jaw injuries, head trauma. Then she didn’t go to school for three days after that.”

Crystal says these and other photos posted exclusively at The Bald Truth show welts and bruises to Haleigh’s brother, Junior., as well.

She says she asked the kids why Junior had welts on his legs and bruises on his arm. “Haleigh said, ‘Daddy hit him with a stick,” something Ronald denies.

After that incident, Crystal demanded child services visit Ronald’s home, and as reported here earlier, they found no wrongdoing, concluding any discipline was within the law.

But with Picazio’s claims of other witnesses to Junior’s abuse, she’s now demanding another investigation, and met with the Department of Children and Families on Tuesday and urged them to look into new allegations of abuse at the Cummings’ home.

“I don’t believe that anyone knew exactly what was going on in that household until the spotlight was shown upon it,” Picazio tells me. “Why now?

“Well, we’re still not going to let Junior just sit there in an unsafe environment just because Haleigh is missing,” Picazio said. “Is she supposed to allow her other child, who has not been taken under the nose of a 17-year-old child, to be abducted or to be abused in that household? Is she supposed to sit by and watch when she knows what’s going in that household? She would be remiss. They would be calling her reckless. They would have the right to take action against her. So no, we are not going to wait. We’re not going to allow Junior to sit in an unsafe household.”



Haleigh’s Medical Chart (http://www.artharris.com/docs/haleigh-med-chart.pdf)
Haleigh’s Absentee record (http://www.artharris.com/docs/haleigh-absent.pdf)
Haleigh’s ER note (http://www.artharris.com/docs/haleigh-er.pdf)


http://www.artharris.com/2009/03/19/do-exclusive-haleigh-cummings-pix-prove-abuse/#more-1290

[Faith]

Haleigh’s ER note (http://www.artharris.com/docs/haleigh-er.pdf)

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll116/helpfindthemissing/HFTM/ERnote.jpg

[Faith]

Haleigh’s Absentee record (http://www.artharris.com/docs/haleigh-absent.pdf)

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll116/helpfindthemissing/HFTM/HaleighsAbsenteerecord.jpg

[Faith]

Haleigh’s Medical Chart (http://www.artharris.com/docs/haleigh-med-chart.pdf)

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll116/helpfindthemissing/HFTM/medchart-1.jpg

larger view of bottom part

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll116/helpfindthemissing/HFTM/medchart1.jpg

[Faith]

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/missing-haleigh-cummings-5.jpgMissing, Haleigh Cummings, 5

By Art Harris, (c), www.artharris.com., all rights reserved
In what could set a legal precedent for missing children, The Bald Truth has learned exclusively that the mother of five year old Haleigh Cummings aims to fight for legal custody of a daughter abducted a month ago from her father’s home while he was at work and his 17 year old girlfriend slept nearby.


In an exclusive interview, Crystal Sheffield, 23, tells me she also wants custody of her son and Haleigh’s little brother, a four year old she had with Ronald Cummings, 25.



The boy, “Junior,” as he’s called, reportedly told police he saw a man dressed in black snatch his sister off her mattress in the pre-dawn darkness Feb. 10 as she slept in the living room of their father’s trailer in Palatka, Florida.



“We think she’d be the better parent, so we’ll be exploring how (Ronald Cummings) got custody in the first place, whether it was proper. We already have one child missing from his care, and he’s about to marry the 17 year old (Misty Croslin), who was home babysitting her and his son,” says Sheffield’s lawyer, Kim L. Picazio, a family law expert from Broward County who has been interviewing locals by phone and is expected to arrive in Putman Count on Thursday.



“From what I’ve gleaned from investigators, news reports and interviews with local witnesses and the mother’s family, I have grave concerns for the welfare of Haleigh’s little brother, Junior. When I get down there Thursday, I’ll be investigating if there’s any type move the mother needs to make to protect the last child that remains in the father’s custody.”




Picazio is also bringing in a crack private investigator, William Staubs, 52, a gravel-voiced tough guy who weighs 250 pounds and goes by the nickname Cobra. He’ll be hunting witnesses, says Picazio, “who may not want to tell everything to a police officer, but may tell me things that could lead to finding Haleigh through a private effort.”


At a press conference Tuesday, a new reward of $35,000 was announced. Dozens of state, local and federal law enforcement remained tight-lipped, as both parents plead for Haleigh’s safe return.


Family members scribbled messages in black magic marker on yellow helium filled balloons they soon released.



“Haleigh-bug, Nana misses you very much. Please release my Doodle,” wrote Crystal’s mother.


“Misty and Daddy got married, just like you wanted,” wrote Haleigh’s father. “We love you.”


At the Putman County courthouse Monday, Ronald and Misty applied for a marriage license; on Tuesday, she was brandishing a new diamond ring for the cameras.


Croslin said that her engagement may be misunderstood by some people, but “it’s still all about finding Haleigh. This is what Haleigh wanted. She’s always talked about it.”



Croslin also claims Haleigh called her “mom.” According to reports, the bizarre lovebirds could tie the knot as early as this week. With Misty a minor, her family had to fill out paperwork granting her the okay to marry.
On the 911 tape of Misty’s initial call to police last month to report Haleigh missing, Ronald can be heard cursing his new fiance in the background, and threatening to kill whoever took her. But they’ve apparently made up.
“He’s getting married 30 days after Haleigh goes missing, that says it all,” Crystal tells me in an exclusive interview, adding that she has postponed her plans to marry an electrician named Chad, but will keep paying for the wedding dress she has on layaway.


“With Haleigh missing, getting married is the last thing on my mind. I can’t sleep. I lay down at night, but I don’t sleep. I try to rest, but I can’t. It’s bad when your baby is gone.”



Crystal says she spent much of Tuesday in tears, telling me how she paid a private visit to Ronald’s trailer home where Haleigh spent her last night. Police found the back door propped open by a brick, and Misty says she has no idea how that happened, and didn’t hear a thing. Investigators have been running down leads and tips with the help of the FBI.



On Tuesday, Crystal surveyed the living room of her ex-boyfriend’s trailer, the purported crime scene, as police held TV cameras back to give her privacy; then Haleigh’s distraught mother threw herself onto the mattress the five year old used as a bed, and burst into tears.



Outside, friends could hear her screaming, hysterical, inconsolable. It was a heart-breaking scene, one told me.



Misty was with her, pleading with Crystal to believe her when she said she had no idea how her baby vanished, or who was behind it. Crystal asked for a toy, or some momento of Haleigh to take with her; it was fine with Misty, but she said she’d have to ask Ronald first. Crystal left empty-handed.



Later, she told me she’d cried herself out, but “it didn’t help much.”
Both Misty and Ronald claim they passed lie detector tests, though police sources won’t confirm nor deny it.



Victim’s advocate Wayanne Kruger, an author who’s daughter pressed charges against a godfather who’d molested her as a child, flew in from California to volunteer, and donated proceeds from a book signing to help Crystal stay afloat.


In the meantime, Kim Picazio, the new lawyer and mother of three, says she aims to organize a command post for volunteers and start printing bumper stickers, pins and t shirts to raise awareness about what police are calling an abduction.


Authorities are still searching for Haleigh. She has blond hair and brown eyes and is 3 feet tall.



Please call the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office at 386-329-0800 if you have any information regarding Haleigh Cummings
http://www.artharris.com/2009/03/11/haleigh-mom-wants-custody/

[Faith]

Wedding Bells for Missing Girl’s Dad


By Bald Truth Staff, (c) www.artharris.com all rights reserved


Misty Croslin, 17, tells reporters how father of Haleigh Cummings, 5, proposed marriage at Chili’s while they mourned missing girl. She told police she was asleep in the same room with Ronald Cummings’ son, Junior, 4, and Haleigh, on Feb. 10 and never heard the would-be kidnapper enter the trailer in Palatka, Florida, where the little girl vanished from the home without a trace.
http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/haleigh-family-pic1.jpg

http://www.artharris.com/2009/03/11/wedding-bells-for-missing-girls-dad/#more-1216

[Faith]

Nancy Grace: Art Harris on Haleigh Cummings (http://www.artharris.com/2009/03/14/nancy-grace-art-harris-on-haleigh-cummings/) »


Haleigh Dad: “Only God Can Judge Me” (http://www.artharris.com/2009/03/12/haleigh-dad-only-god-can-judge-me/)

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ronald-pickup.jpg

Ronald Cummings’ Truck Before Wedding Thursday, (c)artharris.com
From Bald Truth Staff, (c), www.artharris.com (http://www.artharris.com), all rights reserved
He didn’t rent a limo, but sources tell The Bald Truth Haleigh Cummings father, Ronald, had his white pickup nice and shiny on his wedding day Thursday in Satsuma, Florida.



He was scheduled to tie the knot in a private ceremony, marrying girlfriend Misty Croslin, 17, who was babysitting his five year old daughter, Haleigh, the night she was apparently snatched from his double wide a month ago in the pre-dawn darkness.



As more than 100 law enforcement searched up and down Highway 17 for clues in Putnam County, Ronald and Misty were busy with wedding plans, and Haleigh’s mother, Crystal, 23, was scouring the county with a private investigator, William Staubs, aka Cobra, looking for clues into her daughter’s disappearance, sources tell The Bald Truth.



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http://www.artharris.com/2009/03/12/haleigh-dad-only-god-can-judge-me/#more-1227

[Faith]

Nancy Grace: Art Harris on Haleigh Cummings
March 14th, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWpkMrcDe84&feature=player_embedded

Nancy Grace Quizzes Journalist Art Harris about the Cummings Case

Bald Truth Staff, (c) www.artharris.com (http://www.artharris.com), all rights reserved

Art Harris gives the latest Haleigh Cummings update on CNN Headline News’ Nancy Grace Show Thursday, March 12.

Law enforcement searched a stretch of highway near Satsuma, looking for clues, undisclosed items that may have been tossed frrom a car, and have sent the back door to the father’s trailer, where the five year old was sleeping when she was snatched a month ago, to a forensic lab for examination.

Posted in Haleigh Cummings (http://www.artharris.com/category/haleigh-cummings-haleigh-ronald-cummings-crystal-sheffield-wayanne-kruger-missing-children/), NANCY GRACE (http://www.artharris.com/category/tv-appearances/nancy-grace/), haleigh cummings (http://www.artharris.com/category/true-crime/missing-children/) | 24 Comments » (http://www.artharris.com/2009/03/14/nancy-grace-art-harris-on-haleigh-cummings/#comments)

http://www.artharris.com/2009/03/14/nancy-grace-art-harris-on-haleigh-cummings/

[Faith]

Misty Cummings: “I’d Never Hurt A Child!” (http://www.artharris.com/2009/03/17/i-dont-need-a-lawyer-lawyers-are-for-guilty-people-misty-cummings-exclusive/)


March 17th, 2009


Misty Cummings First Post-Today Show Interview –with Art Harris By Art Harris, The Bald Truth

(c) www.artharris.com (http://www.artharris.com), all rights reserved


SATSUMA, Fla., March 16–The 17-year-old babysitter who was sleeping in the same room with Haleigh Cummings when the five year old vanished says she doesn’t need a lawyer.



“Lawyers are for guilty people, I have nothing to hide,” Misty Cummings tells me in an exclusive interview the day after coming home from New York City and a Today Show interview with her day old husband Ronald, Critics say her performance, hedging, defensive, raises more troubling questions about the story she’s told police.



Misty wore blue jean shorts, and a t shirt as she climbed out of her new husband’s white pickup emblazoned with the slogan, “Only God Can Judge Me.”
Her new mother in law, Teresa Neves, gushed with praise for how much Haleigh and her baby brother, Ronald, Jr., aka Junior, loved Misty and how they couldn’t wait for her to marry her son, Ronald.



He was working the night shift at a nearby plant when Misty told me she called his cell phone; she called her mother; she couldn’t find Haleigh anywhere, and the back door was wide open, propped open by a brick. Ronald has been saying the first he heard his daughter had vanished was when he drove home that morning, saw Misty outside, and learned Haleigh was gone and the back door was wide open


For her part, Misty said the kids adored her, called her “stepmom,” and claimed the children preferred her to their own mother, Crystal Sheffield, 23, who lost custody in 2005 when a magistrate ruled the children would enjoy a higher standard of living with the father.



He also cited Crystal’s admission she’d done cocaine, a party lifestyle she tells me she abandoned several years ago. Ronald denied he did any drugs, despite a lengthy record of arrests, but no apparent convictions.



Crystal told me in an exclusive interview that she was afraid to tell the judge where she’d gotten the drugs–Ronald, allegedly– as he stared a hole through her in court. “I was afraid of him,” she said in our interview, describing partying that began with pot, then pills and cocaine.



Her lawyer, Kim L. Picazio, a veteran family lawyer and mother of three, says Ronald began feeding her drugs shortly after he started dating her at 14. He denies it, and the missing child, and her new allegations of neglect and abuse are expected to be the cornerstone of a new custody fight. Picazio met with child welfare officials on Tuesday to press her case.



While I spoke with Misty and her new mother in law, Teresa Neves on Sunday, a colorful, pro bono private investigator from Broward County named William Staubs, aka Cobra, put his arm around Ronald, and wandered around the corner at the CITGO for a heart-to-heart.



Cobra, a six foot, 250 pound self proclaimed “hillbilly” who counts over 8,000 fugitives, 200 child molesters and one terrorist he’s brought in, tells me he assured the skinny, grieving father his only mission was to find Haleigh, or “the scumbag who took her.”


While a task force of state, federal and local police, lead by the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department runs down tips and leads, Cobra says he’s been hearing from locals who have been providing him with confidential information they just “dont’ feel comfortable telling a cop.”



By Tuesday night, he counted 107 tips he’d either chased down and dismissed or was still actively working. And as he was refueling at a local convenience store, a weeping Teresa Neves, Ronald’s mother, pulled up in her red pick-up and pleaded with him to search a swampy area leading to the lake behind his trailer, and off they went to tromp in the woods. Neves said she’d spent four hours looking around, and became unnerved when she spied what looked like an underground pen that appeared to be a “tiny jail.”


After an hour following Haleigh’s grandmother through forest thick with palmettos, cotton mouth snakes, brown recluse spiders and black mud that made a sucking sound when Mrs. Neves made a wrong step in her sandals and white jeans, we became separated and found her down a long dirt road. She said she’d spied a long cotton mouth snake and made a run for it.


We emerged at the house of an ex-Marine who said we were lucky he’d unloaded his gun. He didn’t like strangers in his backyard, and asked if we’d seen the no tresspassing signs. He said law enforcement had searched his home and others in the area several times, and sent divers into the murky lake behind him that’s thick with alligators.


As for the underground “jail” Neves described, he said they were hog pens, and totally innocent. “I’m just here to find Haleigh,” Cobra explained, “so we got to check out any credible lead.”


In our interview, Misty told me she believed she’d been cleared as a possible suspect after a polygraph examiner told her she’d passed her lie detector test. But police refused to confirm it, and sources close to case told me no one has been ruled out, that they were looking at several individuals, closing no doors.



In fact, sources tell me they may want to speak with Misty again to clear up timelines from the night Haleigh vanished, and other areas of interest, including one relative the Cummings family says they consider their number one suspect.


Watch our Misty exclusive and let us know what you think. Note: thanks to readers who helped me correct a misreported fact about the timeline.
http://www.artharris.com/2009/03/17/i-dont-need-a-lawyer-lawyers-are-for-guilty-people-misty-cummings-exclusive/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNe0zHiLtgo&feature=player_embedded

____________________


The above article has changed... It used to read.....

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth
(c) www.artharris.com (http://www.artharris.com/), all rights reserved

SATSUMA, Fla., March 16–The 17-year-old babysitter who was sleeping in the same room with Haleigh Cummings when the five year old vanished says she doesn’t need a lawyer.

“Lawyers are for guilty people, I have nothing to hide,” Misty Cummings tells me in an exclusive interview the day after coming home from New York City and a Today Show interview with her day old husband Ronald, that critics say raises more troubling questions about the story she’s told police.

Misty wore blue jean shorts, and a t shirt as she climbed out of her new husband’s white pickup emblazoned with the slogan, “Only God Can Judge Me.”

Her new mother in law, Teresa Neves, gushed with praise for how much Haleigh and her baby brother, Ronald, Jr., aka Junior, loved Misty and how they couldn’t wait for her to marry her son, Ronald.

He was working the night shift at a nearby plant when he says he got a chilling call from Misty: she couldn’t find Haleigh anywhere, and the back door was wide open, propped open by a brick.

For her part, Misty said they called her “stepmom,” and claimed the children prefered her over their own mother, Crystal Sheffield, 23, who lost custody in 2005 when a magistrate ruled the children would enjoy a higher standard of living with the father.

He also cited Crystal’s admission she’d done cocaine. Ronald denied he did any drugs, despite a lengthy record of arrests, but no apparent convictions.

Crystal told me in an exclusive interview that she was afraid to tell the judge where she’d gotten the drugs–Ronald, allegedly– as he stared a hole through her in court, she says. “I was afraid of him,” she said in our interview, describing partying that began with pot, then pills and cocaine.

Her lawyer, Kim L. Picazio, a veteran family lawyer and mother of three, says Ronald began feeding her drugs shortly after he started dating her at 14. He would certainly deny it.

While I spoke with Misty and her new mother in law, Teresa Neves on Sunday, a colorful, pro bono private investigator from Broward County named William Staubs, aka Cobra, put his arm around Ronald, and wandered around the corner at the CITGO for a heart-to-heart.

Cobra, a six foot, 250 pound self proclaimed “hillbilly” who counts over 8,000 fugitives, 200 child molesters and one terrorist he’s brought in, tells me he assured the skinny, grieving father his only mission was to find Haleigh, or “the scumbag who took her.”

While a task force of state, federal and local police, lead by the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department runs down tips anjd leads, Cobra says he’s been hearing from locals who have been providing him with confidential information they just “dont’ feel comfortable telling a cop.”

By Monday night, he counted 100 tips he’d either chased down and dismissed or was still actively working. And as he was refueling at a local convenience store, a weeping Teresa Neves, Ronald’s mother, pulled up in her red pick-up and pleaded with him to search a swampy area leading to the lake behind his trailer, and off they went to tromp in the woods. Neves said she’d spent four hours looking around, and became unnerved when she spied what looked like an underground pen that appeared to be a “tiny jail.”

After an hour following Haleigh’s grandmother through forest thick with palmettos, cotton mouth snakes, black recluse spiders and black mud black mud that made a sucking sound when Mrs. Neves made a wrong step in her sandals and white jeans, we became separated and found her down a long dirt road. She said she’d spied a long cotton mouth snake and made a run for it.

We emerged at the house of an ex-Marine who said we were lucky he’d unloaded his gun. He didn’t like strangers in his backyard, and asked if we’d seen the no tresspassing signs. He said law enforcement had searched his home and others in the area several times, and sent divers into the murky lake behind him that’s thick with alligators.

As for the underground “jail” Neves described, he said they were hog pens, and totally innocent. “I’m just here to find Haleigh,” Cobra explained, “so we got to check out any credible lead.”

In our interview, Misty told me she believed she’d been cleared as a possible suspect after a polygraph examiner told her she’d passed her lie detector test. But police refused to confirm it, and sources close to case told me no one had been ruled out and that they were looking at several individuals, closing no doors.

In fact, sources tell me they may want to speak with Misty again to clear up timelines from the night Haleigh vanished, and other areas of interest, including one relative the family says they consider their number one suspect.

Watch our Misty exclusive and let us know what you think.

[Faith]

Accused Child Predator Offers Help for Haleigh (http://www.artharris.com/2009/03/18/accused-child-predator-offers-help-for-haleigh/)


March 18th, 2009


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ajDG0BCmbs&feature=player_embedded

Art Harris Interviewed by First Coast News By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c) artharris.com, all rights reserved

SATSUMA, Fla.–Just when you think you’ve seen every aspect of bizarre happenings around horrible crimes, consider a new window on the absurd: a guy in a pickup truck swings by the volunteer tip office for missing Haleigh Cummings and offers to donate office furniture.

Only his name sets off bad juju inside the brain of Haleigh search organizer Jeremiah Regan, 26, a tireless young man who has worked non-stop to keep community awareness up and tips flowing. “My brain just went, ‘Bing’. I knew that name.”

Indeed, he remembered reading about a local named Daniel Snodgrass, 54, an accused child molester out on bail for sexual battery against two little girls, a man with a circus fascination who offered unicycle lessons and drove a white stretch limo.

He lived just up the road, about a mile from the trailer where Haleigh was last seen over a month ago, and my law enforcement sources say he’s been checked and his ankle bracelet monitor doesn’t place him near the missing five year old Feb. 10 when she vanished.

Nonetheless, as a concerned citizen, Snodgrass had dropped by to offer used office furniture for the cause. Regan made the connection and called me to ride along to confirm it was the same Snodgrass he remembered and to survey potential donation.

We drove down a long dirt road to a small house with a giant malamut tied to a pole, and a shed where he kept old office supplies, including two heavy desks he told Regan he was welcome to take back.

In fact, while a beared friend named Marty showed us around, Snodgrass went to bring his trailer around back. It was indeed the man who matched his mugshot.

“Are you wearing your ankle bracelet?” I asked. Stunned, he said yes. I looked down to see his jeans covering anything he may have been wearing. “Who are you?”

At that point, Regan said he couldn’t accept donations from anyone accused of a sex crime, and Snodgrass asked us to leave his property.
“Call the police, Marty!” he yelled. We walked past the white stretch limousine.

“Is that the limo you used to give rides to children?” I asked.


“Get off my property,” he said.



We couldn’t leave fast enough.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/03/18/accused-child-predator-offers-help-for-haleigh/

[Faith]

ArtHarris.com Haleigh Vid Featured on CNN (http://www.artharris.com/2009/03/19/artharriscom-haleigh-vid-featured-on-cnn/)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DQPyEKGVic&feature=player_embedded
CNN’S Mike Galanos on exclusive artharris.com Misty Cummings video


http://www.artharris.com/2009/03/19/artharriscom-haleigh-vid-featured-on-cnn/

[Faith]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvswuH4abSo&feature=player_embedded

Lisa Croslin speaks exclusively to www.artharris.com about her daughter, Misty.

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, © www.artharris.com. all rights reserved

SATSUMA, Fla.–The Bald Truth has learned Misty Cummings, the 17-year old who was baby-sitting Haleigh Cummings the night she vanished, has been warned to “watch what she says” about what happened the night Haleigh disappeared.

In an exclusive interview with artharris.com (aka The Bald Truth), the Croslin family tried to put to rest troubling questions about Misty’s varying accounts about the night she was supposedly home alone with Haleigh and her little brother, Junior.

“I don’t know if it was Misty’s mistake in the story or if it was turned around by the media,” says sister-in-law Lindsy Croslin, 22, who sat next to Misty’s mother, Lisa, and spoke to me exclusively at their home in Satsuma two days after The Today Show interview that sparked debate about Misty’s credibility.

“She says they were all in the bed, but Haleigh was on the floor on her mattress in her little bed watching TV,” her mother, Lisa Croslin tells me. “Junior was in the bed with Misty.”

Who was sleeping where and what child was watching which video where has been hard to decipher, and investigators tell me they are still pouring over Misty Cummings’ accounts of finding Haleigh missing, and comparing them, including her interview with www.artharris.com.

“We almost have to tell her to watch what she says,” explained Lindsy, “not because she’s hiding anything, but because it’s so mixed up, and then they start asking more questions and more questions. She’s just so tired. She just doesn’t want to talk about it.”

Here’s what Misty told artharris.com in an exclusive interview CNN’s Nancy Grace Show is expected to feature tonight, along with our exclusive Lisa Croslin sitdown above:

“I put her (Haleigh) to bed at 8 o’clock,” Misty told me. “That’s her bedtime when she has school. She didn’t’ go to sleep…She was probably asleep in about 30 minutes.I was washing her blankets.

“I laid her blanket on top of her when she was sleeping. Then I made my bed and got into bed. Then I woke up about three o’clock to go to the bathroom.

“On the way from the bathroom, I noticed the kitchen light was on. I walked to the back door and noticed the back door was open, so I run back to my bedroom to get my cell phone to call Ronald and that’s when I noticed Haleigh was gone.

“I was scared, I didn’t’ know what to do. I’ve never had to go through anything like that before. I was very, very scared.

“I called my mom to let her know what was going on. I was really terrified, scared.”

In our interview, her mother, Lisa, tells me Misty always “sleeps with lights off., So when she woke up and noticed the (kitchen) light was on when she went to the bathroom. hen when she went around the corner, she noticed the back door was open…She ran back to the bedroom and Haleigh wasn’t in there. That’s when she started calling.”

http://www.artharris.com/2009/03/23/exclusive-misty-cummings-mom-speaks-out/#more-1363

[Faith]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL_Eku0Vuww&feature=player_embedded

Ronald Cummings Mom leads Cobra into woods near crime scene

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c) www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

A woman was crying on the phone, when private investigator and bounty hunter William Staubs, aka Cobra, took the call. If she had a lead to check out, she’d better hightail it to the Citgo on Highway 17 to meet him. It was Teresa Neves, Haleigh’s paternal grandmother.

Weeping in her pickup truck, she told the private investigator she’d just spent four hours in the woods wandering near her house where she’d spied what she thought might be suspicious footprints and what looked like an underground pen she feared might be hiding her missing granddaugther.

“Show me what you saw, Mama,” said Staubs, following Haleigh’s grandmother into swampy woods about a mile from her son, Ronald Cummings trailer, where the five year old was reported missing early Feb. 10.

And off we went, as Neves lead the 53 year old bounty hunter and private eye to an empty trailer, where he knocked on a door, and a path where he examined footprints. “That looks like it’s from someone who was working on building this walkway,” he said.

Plunging back into the woods, Neves took off fast, as Cobra and his son, Matthew, tried to keep up. Suddenly, she was gone, and they were in the middle of nowhere and not pleased.

Was he getting played? He’d been speaking with her son Ronald before he obtained a lawyer and stopped talking, and relations with both families appeared solid. As he rode around the county in a black Chevy Tahoe, tinted window lights flashing requests to phone in clues about Haleigh.

Now here he was almost lost in the woods, having then followed up on almost 100 leads; now he says he’s up to over 120. The Putnam County Sheriff’s Department counts almost 4,000 leads in the hopper since Haleigh vanisehd six weeks ago.

Suddenly, his cell phone rang. It was Neves, who explained she’d seen a big snake and took off. “I ain’t afraid of snakes, but she didn’t have to leave us like that,” said Cobra, as he began marching towards a road, then ran into a local who said the area had been searched by police several times.

The resident, an ex-Marine, explained the underground “jail” she may have seen were his innocent hog pens.

Another day, another lead.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/03/26/exclusive-haleigh-cummings-grandmother/#more-1387

[Faith]

Exclusive: Cobra Inside Haleigh Prayer Vigil

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb7Ph5vBJGI&feature=player_embedded

PI William Staubs, aka Cobra, prays for Haleigh Cummings with family

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c) www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

SATSUMA, Fla.–The Bald Truth has learned law enforcement experts are comparing statements given by Ronald and Misty Cummings, quizzing locals who know them and developing time lines to crack the mystery of Haleigh Cummings, who vanished six weeks ago from under the nose of the 17 year old babysitter who has since married the missing five year old’s father.

“We’re still looking at inconsistencies,” a top law enforcement source told me, as the task force of federal, state and local police try to figure who’s telling the truth in their search for what they hope will be a little girl who’s still alive.

The high profile missing child case fell into the lap of Putnam County Sheriff Jeff Hardy, who climbed the ranks from patrol deputy to top local cop supervising detectives sifting for clues.

One source familiar with the case told me investigators have quizzed Misty and Ronald several times, including one 14 hour marathon sitdown Misty’s mother, Lisa Croslin, grew concerned about, and reminded her daughter she could leave whenever she felt like it. “But Misty and Ronald say they’ve treated them real nice,” she tells me in an exclusive sit down.

In another exclusive interview, Misty Cummings told me she didn’t need a lawyer because “lawyers are only for guilty people…I have nothing to hide.”

Last week, her husband, Ronald, hired the Palatka law firm of Kimball and Snider to represent him pro bono in his efforts to cooperate with the sheriff, deal with the media and fight efforts to reverse custody of his son.

He denies knowing what happened, but conceded on The Nancy Grace Show that police were still trying to confirm Misty’s location the night Haleigh vanished. Still, Ronald says publically he believes her account, that Misty was home alone at their trailer when she woke up at 3:30 a.m. to notice a light on in the kitchen, the back door propped open by a cinder block and the five year old gone.

Only, that’s not what Ronald told bounty hunter and private investigator William E. Staubs, aka, “Cobra,’ who has been pursuing leads pro bono ever since arriving from Ft. Lauderdale two weeks ago to cruise Highway 17 in his black, $100,000 Chevy Tahoe tricked out with high tech gear like heat-seeking radar, long range cameras and night vision equipment. A real life “Dog,” Cobra counts 8,000 fugitives, 199 child molesters and one terrorist among his captures. Haleigh’s father, Ronald Cummings, has hired the firm of Kimball and Snider of Palatka to represent him on a pro bono basis.

The lawyers said they would assist Cummings with three things — continuing cooperation with the sheriff’s office, attention from the news media and any matters relating to his daughter’s biological mother, Crystal Sheffield

As the only journalist Cobra has allowed to tag along, I was with the gravel-voiced, 250 pound self-styled “Hillbilly” when he first met Ronald Cummings outside a Satsuma convenience store. Haleigh’s father said he appreciated Cobra’s efforts to find his daughter, believed him “sincere.” They hugged and arm-wrestled, spoke several times over the course of the week. Ronald invited us to the intimate family prayer vigil for Haleigh, the only outsiders, and let my camera inside. Our exclusive video is posted here.

“I don’t think he knows where the young uns at,” Cobra told me, “but he pretty much knows what happened.” Misty is the key.

“He …pretty much told me straight up, the only reason I married her” was to find Haleigh, that he believes she knows what happened. “He said, ‘I’ll divorce her tomorrow when I find my kid…You know the saying, ‘Keep your friends close, your enemies closer.’ In a nutshell, he married this girl to keep her close.”

Cobra says Ronald confided he knew Misty was seeing another man before they married, and possibly partying the night Haleigh vanished. Sources close to the case tell me investigators have quizzed a light-skinned African American known as “White Boy Greg,” the purported paramour who passed a polygraph regarding Haleigh’s disappearance.

“Ronald said, ‘I know she’s f—ing him,” but so what. I still love her,” Cobra told me.

At the family prayer vigil, Ronald hugged his mother, Teresa Neves, tight, standing next to a stone-faced Misty, who knelt down with the others to place candles by a shrine of photos and stuffed teddy bears. After the preacher asked divine guidance for Cobra, he told the family he didn’t “work for either side,” he was “working for Haleigh.”

He also said any uncertainties in his mind could be resolved if Misty gave him a walk through of the crime scene, and told him exactly what happened Feb. 10, in the early morning hours when she says she discovered Haleigh missing.

Standing beside Ronald, she nodded agreement, set the reenactment for 11 p.m. last Tuesday at the trailer. “She said, ‘I’ll be glad to take you over there,’” says Cobra, who waited for the couple at Mema’s, a down-home country cooking hotspot off Highway 17 in Satsuma. Only Ronald and a relative showed up; he said Misty had changed her mind.

“That’s when I knew she was lying about something. I had an interview set with Misty, (then) she flat refused,” says Cobra. “She never looked me in eyes because she knew I knew.”

At the table, over fried grouper and sweet tea, Ronald let Cobra listen in as he phoned home. “Misty was screaming at him, ‘you get out the f— out of there. Don’t talk to him. If you don’t leave, I’m leaving.’”

Cobra asked Ronald about her story, pointed out holes, raised questions about White Boy Greg. Ronald appeared agitated, angry, claiming he might just go home and waive his gun in her face, stormed out.

Alarmed, Cobra phoned the Putnam County Sheriff and urged them to check on Cummings and Misty. “I didn’t want that on my conscience,” said Cobra, also concerned about Haleigh’s baby brother, Junior, at home.

Responding to the call, Putnam County Sheriff Sgt. Joseph Wells, central district supervisor, whipped his cruiser into a local substation to hear Cobra’s story, taking the tip seriously, then alerted units to meet at a Kangaroo Convenience store near Cummings’ house.

“Anytime tensions reach this point, if they start to get a sense of distrust between the two of them, anything’s possible,” Sgt. Wells told me. “We always take potential for domestic violence seriously and we’ll have to check on that…obviously that’s urgent,” he told me, hunting an address on his dashboard laptop. “Then if we develop some information about a possible location of the child, that takes on some urgency also.”

Waiting for dispatch to update him on units enroute to Cummings house, he said Haleigh’s disappearance had put local parents in a state of fear, and frustrated police. “To go this long without being able to resolve the case is a concern,” he told me, adding the official reply on one has been ruled in or out. “It’s been tough, physically and mentally for everybody on our end. We want to bring the case to a conclusion, but so far it just hasn’t gone that way.”

Sgt. Wells knows Ronald Cummings, understands his frustration and anger, heard him one day talking about maybe taking the law into his own hands, tried to calm him down.

“I had a conversation with him in his truck one day,” Wells told me, “I said, ‘if he let his emotions boil over, and something regretable happens, it won’t do anything but derail the investigation and slow us down, and we gotta keep focused.”

“I told him the same thing tonight,” said Cobra.

“Hopefully, he’ll keep his head on his shoulders,” said Sgt. Wells. “Like I told him, ‘I can’t imagine what it feels to march in your shoes, but I can tell you what’s gonna happen if things get out of control and there’s additional family violence.”

“That’s why I tried to get him into a hotel tonight for safekeeping,” said Cobra, “but his concern was the attorney (for Crystal Sheffield, who is fighting for custody of his son, Junior) would see him taking the kid out in the middle of the night and it would be bad for him. I said, ‘I’m not an attorney, but I heard your old lady on the phone screaming at you. ‘I’m going to my brother’s house! You ain’t never gonna find me!’”

“Does he know how to get in touch with you?” the officer asks Cobra, should his units get Cummings to reconsider the hotel offer.

“All he’s gotta do is call me and I’ll put him up in a hotel.”

We ride out to the house, where deputies knock on the door. I see Ronald come to the door, half-dressed. It’s 1:30 a.m. Time for what police call a “wellness check.”

Ronald says there’s no problem. Cobra appears exhausted, waiting back at the Kangaroo with Sgt. Wells, then decides to pack it in with his pony- tailed sidekick, son, Mathew, 21, one of five children

“Matthew asked me, ‘Dad, if one of us went missing, would you look as hard as you’re looking for Haleigh,’ and I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘WHAT?’ And I told him, ‘Son, you know I’d be tearing the place up. I’d put a gun to the head of anyone who knew where you were until they coughed it up.’ I can’t do that here. I’m an investigator, but this little girl tears me up. It’s why I’m working 22 hours a day.’”
AddThis

http://www.artharris.com/2009/03/25/exclusive-cobra-inside-haleigh-prayer-vigil/

[Faith]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca251Iv_sFk&feature=player_embedded

Exclusive: Art Harris Talks to Ronald Cummings’ Mom, Teresa Neves

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c) artharris.com, all rights reserved

To hear Ronald Cummings’ mother tell it, Misty Cummings is at the top of the list of all-time terrific girlfriends or fiances her son has ever had.

In an exclusive interview with artharris.com, Teresa Neves says the children, Haleigh and Junior “were never happier” than they were with Ron and Misty, and says she doesn’t believe police have a suspect in the mystery of a missing five year old who vanished while babysitter Misty (now) Cummings was asleep with the kids. “I wish they did, ” she tells me.

Watch Haleigh’s paternal grandmother make her case, only on artharris.com.

This is from the interview I did with Misty Cummings and her mother in law the day she got back from New York and her Today Show interview with Ronald Cummings. I’d used very little of Teresa Neves but what she has to say is timeless and priceless.

Touching how she describes little Haleigh, and her insight and opinions on the case.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/03/30/exclusive-ronald-cummings-mom-defends-misty/#more-1419

[Faith]

Haleigh Cummings’ Dad “Denies Drug Problem”

From Bald Truth Staff, (c) www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

Despite charges by his ex-wife’s attorney that “drugs, sex and rock ‘n roll” were rampant inside the double-wide he shared with his missing daughter, Haleigh, and son, Jr., Ronald Cummings claims he takes no illegal drugs.

In a press release issued by Cummings’ Palatka, Fla. attorneys, he only takes “prescription medication for accidental injuries;” he “denies a drug problem,” the statement reads.

Here’s the press release, just in from Ronald Cummings Palatka, Fla. attorneys, T. Jerry Snider, and Greg Kimball, dated March 30, 2009. March 30, 2009.

This press release is in response to the biased episode of Geraldo at Large, aired March 28, 2009. Apparently, Geraldo Rivera is still angry about being given a trespass warning by the police, at Ronald Cummings request, at the trailer park in Satsuma, Florida.

Obviously, Geraldo Rivera did not read this office’s press release of March 27, 2009, a copy of which follows.

In fact there was no response to the merits of our press release at all, other than Geraldo Rivera’s statement that we lied and claimed that cash was paid to Crystal Sheffield by the Geraldo at Large show.

Our press release accurately stated that we had no knowledge in this regard.

Regarding the “investigator” William E. Staubs, called Cobra, this office is still attempting to understand the relationship between Cobra and attorney Kim Picazio. They are both from the Ft.Lauderdale area and Picazio once represented Cobra’s wife in a divorce against Cobra, where Cobra had no attorney, according to BrowardCounty records.

It is true that Cobra tried to befriend Ronald Cummings and stoked his fears about what happened the night Haleigh went missing.

This office received information on March 25, 2009 from an individual employed by a client of ours identifying Gregory Lewis Page as someone the police would be interested in contacting. This individual was directed to pass on all relevant information to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office that day.

Ron Cummings takes prescription medication for accidental injuries, but denies a drug problem.

Lastly, when Crystal Sheffield states that Ronald Cummings’ home is unsafe for Ronald Cummings, Jr., age four, it should be remembered that she was the one who put Ronald Cummings Jr. on the Geraldo at Large show, thus identifying him as an eyewitness in Haleighs disappearance, causing him to potentially be a victim of witness elimination by the crime’s perpetrator.”

PRESS RELEASE from March 27, 2009:

New reports have surfaced about Ronald Cummings, Jr. telling his biological mother, Crystal Sheffield, about a black man that came into his house the night Haleigh went missing.

These reports are in fact not new.

On March 2, 2009, Crystal Sheffield and Ronald Cummings, Jr. were interviewed by Craig Rivera. In a display of shabby journalism, Craig Rivera talks openly about Jr.’s role in allegedly observing certain facts.

Crystal Sheffield, in turn, with Ronald Jr. in her arms, asks a series of leading questions to Ronald that has the answer phrased as part of the question.

Ronald Cummings, Jr.’s response seems to be mystification and/or passive agreement to whatever his mother is saying.

The phrases attributed to Ronald Jr. such as “squeaking shoes,” “couch bouncing,” and “dressed in black” are not appropriate language that a 4 year old would use. Rather, this is adult talk, suggesting coaching.

Any new statements attributed to Ronald Cummings, Jr. have been tainted by the Geraldo at Large show, as any experienced child investigator knows.

The Craig Rivera interview can be viewed at foxnews.com, Geraldo at Large.

Speculation has it that Crystal Sheffield received a substantial amount of money from the Geraldo at Large show, but this office has no knowledge in this regard.

T. Jerry Snider

http://www.artharris.com/2009/03/30/haleigh-cummings-dad-denies-drug-problem/#more-1424

[Faith]

Exclusive: Chrystal Sheffield Car Wreck

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYHVpv1bY-o&feature=player_embedded

Happier Times: Crystal Sheffield, Haleigh and Ronald Cummings, Jr.

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c) artharris.com, all rights reserved

“I don’t remember what happened,” a fuzzy Crystal Sheffield tells The Bald Truth in an exclusive interview after her white Suburban plowed into the back of a car driven by two women. “I just woke up and all these people were looking down at me.”

That was on Tuesday in Palatka, where the stressed mother of missing Haleigh Cummings, was raced to a Putnam County Hospital for an apparent seizure disorder she says runs in the family. Her new baby, Chloe, with boyfriend Chad Griffis, was strapped in the car seat.

She says both were unhurt, as well as the passengers in the car she hit, and when we spoke again Wednesday as well, she described a second seizure that hit her later that day when her father, ex-Marine Johnny Sheffield, a retired Putnam County deputy sheriff, was driving, and whisked her to a hospital in Flagler County.

She attributes it to an empty stomach and says tests for drugs and alcohol were negative; she’s been prescribed the anti-anxiety meds, Zanex, to help her cope with the stress of a missing child, and her custody fight for Haleigh’s baby brother, Ronald Cummings, Jr.

Her biggest concern: that Ronald Cummings would use the accident to claim she shouldn’t be caring for the kids, or at least driving. “But I can always get someone to drive me to pick up the children,” she says. “That doesn’t hurt my being a good mother.”

She says doctors have scheduled CT scans and an EEG.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/02/exclusive-chrystal-sheffield-car-wreck/#more-1443

[Faith]

Exclusive: White Boy Greg and Misty Cummings!

April 3rd, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6QY30jQ1Uo&feature=player_embedded

Exclusive: White Boy Greg’s first interview, talks Misty to Art Harris

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c) artharris.com, all rights reserved

SATSUMA, Fla.–He’s been called the mystery man who holds the key to unlocking the secrets of Misty (then Croslin), and the conflicting timelines she’s given in the days and hours before Haleigh Cummings, age 5, went missing from the trailer where the 17 year old babysitter claims they were sleeping. Then, amid rumors about Misty and her mystery man, she married Haleigh’s father, Ronald, 26–and the couple stopped talking publically.

His name is Gregory Page, 28, aka White Boy Greg, an aspiring, graphic designer and single father of two with big time dreams who has been plagued by drug arrests and stints in the county jail for possession.

So far, he’s kept his own counsel, aghast at talk show hosts begging him to call and jack up ratings, rants he blames for sending his mother to the ER with a stroke, and his five year old into a tantrum of tears, as his mug shot flashes across the TV screen in Palatka, Florida.

He’s spoken in depth to police about his time with Misty, investigators confirm, his mother, and an outside private eye and bounty hunter named William Staubs, who goes by the street name, Cobra.

“I’m light-complected, had a white father and my mother is black, so they call me ‘White Boy’ on the street,” Page tells me in his first media interview that can be heard exclusively on artharris.com.

In that interview, Page tells me he did have a “fling” with Misty the weekend before she reported Haleigh missing, but was not with her that Monday night.

“Only a fool would be at another man’s house, laying up with his girlfriend,” he tells me on in a phone call he agreed to let me tape. “It was a brief little fling, not like no love or anything, no relationship, (just) like ‘how ya doin.’”

“I was with the girl that weekend,” he says, describing a three day party of sex, cocaine, pot and pills. Only in the last two weeks did he learn about his public notoriety with Misty, “when a neighbor read your website and told my mother…I was startled….”

But Page adamantly denies he’s the mysterious “black man in black” with “squeaky” shoes who Haleigh’s, baby brother, Junior, age 4, reportedly told his mother, great grandmother, and police he’d seen in the trailer that night. According to the reports, Junior said the man had made the couch “bounce” and took his sister.

Page believes he was scapegoated over his drug arrests to divert attention from Misty and Ronald Cummings, where he believes the truth lies. Shortly after Haleigh vanished, Page says he sat down with Putnam County Detective John Merchant, the lead investigator, laid out the details, took a polygraph and was told he passed.

Sources close to the case confirm he’s not a suspect, and that Misty also told police they’d been together.

Says Page: “I wish I could tell you what happened. I’ve got two kids the same age (as Haleigh and Ronald, Jr.), but I don’t know. I feel real bad for the family.” And William Staubs, aka Cobra, says he’s talked to Page for hours, checked out his story, and is convinced he’s telling the truth about that weekend and any Haleigh connection.

Playing cupid that weekend: a Kristina Prevatt, 18, who everyone calls “Nay Nay.” She says she introduced Misty to Page. Soon everyone was eager to get the party started, say both Page and Prevatt, and soon everyone was high, including Misty.

“Cocaine?” I ask Page.

“Yeah, he says, “and pills, all kind of shit.”

“What kind of pills?”

“Roxies, and all that,” says Page.

“What are ‘roxies?’” I ask.

“It’s a breakthrough for Oxycontin,” Page explained. “I’m not going to lie to you, I do a little drugs, but I’m going to straighten up.”

After the news broke about Misty as the witness at the center of the missing child, Page’s mother, Lyn, tells me, “I asked (Greg), ‘Did you go to bed with that girl?’ And he said, he had, three times.’”

Page believes some may have used Junior’s purported “black man in black” siting to hype his drug history and divert attention from Misty and Ronald Cummings, where he believes the truth lies. (Remember cousin Joe in Tennessee, the Cummings’ family prime suspect who has dropped off police radar?) Shortly after Haleigh vanished, Page says he sat down with Putnam County Detective John Merchant, the lead investigator, laid out the details, took a polygraph and was told he passed.

Sources close to the case confirm he’s not a suspect, and that Misty also told police they’d been together. Says Page: “I wish I could tell you what happened. I’ve got two kids the same age (as Haleigh and Ronald, Jr.), but I don’t know. I feel real bad for the family.”

Their fated encounter began, as Prevatt tells artharris.com in an exclusive interview, when she took a frantic call from a distraught Misty who reported she’d just been in a terrible fight with Ronald. He’d exploded in rage when she informed him she was pregnant, says Nay Nay, who believes it was a ruse to pressure him.

“She showed me the pregnancy tests,” says Prevatt, “it was positive, but I think it was her sister’s. She was in love with Ronald and wanted him to marry her. She said she can’t leave him because she said he gives her what she wants.”

If Cummings did believe her, he wasn’t buying paternity.

“She said he kept calling her a ‘whore, that it wasn’t his baby, a ‘n— lover’ because she hangs out with me, and my baby Daddy is black….He dropped her off at her brother’s house, but kept her clothes. She ran down the road and called me and I picked her up.”

—————–

So it began, the wild weekend. But as Page’s mother clarifies and an astute reader confirms with Prevatt’s traffic tickets in a post, the teenagers were hanging out at least as early as Feb. 3, when Prevatt says they started cruising in her blue Lincoln, which clipped a truck at an intersection; Nay Nay kept driving.

No one was hurt but Prevatt confirms she left the scene; the other driver called 911 and cops pulled her over.

By fate or coincidence, they wrote her ticket outside the house of Greg Page’s mother, Lyn, an Army reserve veteran and home health care worker who cares for his two toddlers and four other children.

It was hot, so Lyn invited Nay Nay, Misty and another friend inside, made small talk, asked if they knew her son, Greg, and whipped out family photos of the strapping, six footer with light skin.

“I’ve GOT to meet him,” gushed Misty. ‘I want to meet him.”

“She seemed very nice, very polite,” says Lyn in an exclusive interview with artharris.com and asked that her last name not be used.

Later that week, Wednesday or Thursday before Haleigh vanished, she recalls seeing her son riding around with the girls–Misty, Nay Nay and Amber Brooks, a Ronald Cummings “ex” he dated before Haleigh’s mother, Crystal Sheffield and who has custody of their son.

“Greg is a good looking young man,” says Page’s mother, “the girls like him.”

Page says he’d never met Misty until that Thursday, when she got a ride from Prevatt, an old Misty acquaintance who knew Ronald from Amber Brooks days. Greg said he didn’t know Ronald Cummings. “Me and Misty and Nay Nay were hanging out, doing drugs and partying, and she came back the next day and we hanged out.”

That weekend, Page says he cruised with the girls between Palatka and St. Augustine, where Amber Brooks tells artharris.com she had words with Misty for purportedly stealing her man and “trying to take my child.” They were pulled apart before it came to blows, says Prevatt.

Misty was trying to forget Ronald, says Prevatt. “Smoking weed, drinking, (taking) downers, roxies, snorting cocaine,” says Prevatt. “She’d turned her phone off and acted like she wasn’t even thinking of Ronald after she hooked up with Greg.”

But she couldn’t shake him. “She told me she loved him because he gave her what she wanted, and she wanted a baby.”

Several calls to Ronald’s family and to Misty’s were not returned.

But I recall dinner with Cummings about ten days ago, when Cobra pressed him over Misty cancelling a crime scene walk-through she’d promised to do, clear things up. Bringing up White Boy Greg, Cobra pushed a button; Ronald was still furious, if philosophical, about Misty hooking up with him. “So what if she (slept with)” a (black man), he said, using the racial epithet. “I still love her and one of my best friends is black.”

In our interview, Page says he last saw Misty about 4 a.m. Sunday, Feb, 8, and learned later she was going to visit her father, laid up in the hospital from a car accident, busted leg.

He says Misty called him, “said she wanted to hook up later.” But later never came. He says he called, but she never called back, and he didn’t reach out after Haleigh turned up missing. “I didn’t need the heat,” he says.

Meanwhile, Misty was apparently ambivalent about her breakup with Ronald, couldn’t shake his spell. “She told me she loved him because he gave her what she wanted, and she wanted a baby,” Prevatt told me.

By Sunday, the party was winding down.

“She said she wasn’t going back to Ronald, and said for me to drop her off at her brother’s house,” recalls Prevatt, “that she had to take care of the kids,” unclear if she meant her nephews or Haleigh and Junior. “I asked her, ‘You going to Ronald’s? But she didn’t answer, she was over in a corner talking quietly to him on the phone. They both kept talking and hanging up.”

Then Misty made a personal request. “She asked me if I had a condom,” says Prevatt. “She said Ronald asked her to bring one, but I didn’t have any.”

She’s not sure where Misty spent the night Sunday, and Monday morning, Haleigh was supposed to take the school bus. Often, Misty would walk the kids to the bus, sometimes in her pajamas. That’s what three sets of parents with children on the bus tell me.

Only on Monday morning, Jerry Santos, a neighbor at the bus stop with his children tells me Ronald raced by in his purple car with tinted windows, came inches away from hitting a pickup truck–and mowing him and kids down in the loading area. Inside, Santos could make out Haleigh. “My daughter was still scared that afternoon about how close he came, she couldn’t stop talking about it,” says Santos.

Other parents tell me Haleigh did not ride the bus that morning, raising questions about whether Misty spent the night elsewhere; it looked like Ronald had to scramble to get Haleigh to school on time, turning him into a speed demon, perhaps concerned another tardy would put him in hot water with Haleigh’s school and the Department of Family Services.

But Haleigh did ride the bus home. Ronald has said he picked her up and took her home before he went to work, but two sets of parents tell me they saw Misty pull up in the blue van, and yell at the children to hurry as they piled in.

“It all comes back to Misty,” Cobra tells me, “and her timeline. No one knows what she was doing after she visited her Dad at the hospital Monday. Or whether she was even home that night (Monday). So many conflicts in her stories. She said she put blankets in the washing machine at 8 p.m. so why did police note the washing machine was running hours later? She said she went to the bathroom and called Ronald when she couldn’t find Haleigh, but Ronald was standing outside, supposedly just home from work.”

Then, early Feb. 10, Haleigh turned up missing and Misty didn’t answer her phone for several days, says her friend, Prevatt. Finally, she picked up. “She said, the FBI had had her phone. She said she couldn’t talk because the phones were tapped and hung up.”

That was the last time they spoke, she says.

“What do I think happened?” asks Prevatt. “I just know when she’s with the kids, I can’t hang out with her because Haleigh would tell Ronald Nay Nay was there and he’d get mad. I used to hang out when my friend, Amber, was with him, but not since Misty moved in. Ronald doesn’t like me, and to Misty, obviously Ronald is more important.”

Prevatt says Misty can be two-faced, “pretending she’s a friend, but now she won’t talk to me. Detectives told me she said I was a ‘lying slut.’ They wanted to know if I was there (at the trailer) that night or if she told me anything, but I wasn’t there and I don’t know what happened. I took a lie detector test and they told me I passed.

“Haleigh was cute, just like any other little kid. Misty said she felt like their Mom, but she wanted her own baby from Ronald…

“It’s all fu*ked up.”

—————————-




For Gregory Lewis Page Arrest Records, click:

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/greg-arrest111.jpg (http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/03/exclusive-white-boy-greg-and-misty-cummings/greg-arrest111/)

Greg Page Record 1


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More Greg Page Arrest Records:

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/greg-arrest222.jpg (http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/03/exclusive-white-boy-greg-and-misty-cummings/greg-arrest222/)

Greg Page Arrest Record 2, click here:

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More Greg Page Arrest records:

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/greg-arrest333.jpg (http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/03/exclusive-white-boy-greg-and-misty-cummings/greg-arrest333/)
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More Greg Page arrest records:


http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/greg-arrest444.jpg (http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/03/exclusive-white-boy-greg-and-misty-cummings/greg-arrest444/)

Greg Page Arrest Records

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More Greg Page Arrest Records:

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/greg-arrest555.jpg (http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/03/exclusive-white-boy-greg-and-misty-cummings/greg-arrest555/)

Greg Page Arrest Records


http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/whiteboygregsmall3.jpg (http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/whiteboygregsmall3.jpg)

http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/03/exclusive-white-boy-greg-and-misty-cummings/#more-1526

[Faith]

April 10th, 2009

Haleigh Cummings: Geraldo Update Sat. Night

Haleigh Cummings smiles in pink, one of her Mom’s favorite shots

From Bald Truth Staff, (c) artharris.com

After Geraldo Rivera got up in Ronald Cummings’ face, he didn’t know Cummings was fuming and developed his own bailout plan–track down his child caseworker and lean on him to tell Geraldo that Ronald was a good guy. Didn’t quite turn out that way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2c9oMehHi0&feature=player_embedded

http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/10/geraldo-invites-art-harris-on-sat-night-show/

[Faith]

8/11/09

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVkAPOfXZKQ&feature=player_embedded

EXCLUSIVE: “White Boy” Greg on The Bald Truth, Again!

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, © artharris.com, all rights reserved

In an exclusive TV interview –the only on camera interview he’s given–Gregory Lewis Page, 28, sat down near his Palatka home and spoke with artharris.com, saying he spent the last weekend Haleigh Cummings was known to be alive partying with Misty Cummings– her soon to be 17 year old stepmother.

Private investigator and bounty hunter Williams Staubs, aka Cobra, tracked Page down, checked out his story and made the introduction. He told us the same thing Staubs says Page laid out for him–denied any knowledge of what happened to Haleigh. It was Misty, then soon to be bride of father Ronald Cummings, who reported Haleigh missing early Feb. 10–the day after Page last says he spoke with her. Now, Page tells artharris.com, he fears threats against him, and believes they are serious. Check out our complete interview on the next page, and on artharris.com, or BaldtruthTV.com.

Gregory Lewis Page, as told to artharris.com:

I feel like it was a kind of a rushed thing because right before she went back to him, she was with me, and she was telling me she left him because he was going to beat on her or whatever, they used to fight all the time…

I’m the mystery man. All sudden they just throw me out there as the mystery man hiding, behind the scenes, kinda makes me look guilty, ya know, how they throwed me out there, the media put me out there, ‘oh the mystery man. Instead of just saying, ‘Oh a friend.’

I just got caught up at a young age, I’m not a bad guy, and a lot of the things the media said about me, true enough, I went to jail for ‘em. But a lot of it wsa just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

You know what I mean? The police charged me with other people’s drugs, I went through the process and beat it, but it’s still on there (my record). So it’s like a black eye, even though I didn’t get convicted…

Now they’re talking about, I worked for the cops, but I never had to do that. Now I got the same MOS as Ronald (Cummings) on the news because he had a lot of charges but no convictions. And no jail time, and I got the same kind of thing, but we’re different…

I didn’t force Misty do anything, they came to me. And we hung out, me her and her friend, Nay Nay, partying and getting high. I don’t want to be involved in all this. Period. That’s the bottom line.

Sooner or later, God‘s going to reveal it to everybody, let ‘em know the truth. And people who have no involvement will get freed out of it, and those who were actually involved will get prosecuted for it.

Hopefully people will take my side and know I’m telling the truth and could forgive me for my involvement in it, even though I have none. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Basically what it is

I had nothing to do with it and that’s pretty much were I stand at, you know. Don’t know anything.

When they brought me in, I didn’t know what was going on. They said, ‘We going to bring you in on this Haleigh Cummings. I didn’t think I (should have been) brought in at all, you know. I didn’t feel like I was going to be brought in because I had no involvement in it.

You know how people talk, I guess the investigators seen my phone number on her phone…and seen we had involvement and questioned her and I guess she told them and they came and got me

I was kinda worried about it (at first), but when they told me what was going on, I’m saying, ‘hey man, this is a bunch of crock, crocks of garbage, cause I know I ain’t did nothing.

Then Saturday, they (police) came back and got me and wanted me to take a lie detector test. They put this blood pressure cup on your arm and its very uncomfortable, and they ask you questions over and over again. And you get different responses in heart beat rates and all kinds of stuff like that, and they haven’t questioned me since.

I’m the good guy.

For me to pass a lie detector test and you still throw me into it…
I feel like what was thrown at me now, that I passed a lie detector test and you still throw me into it? Somebody had to mention my name, know what I mean?

To change the focus from the parents and put it on the ‘mystery man,’ know what I’m saying? So now, the whole world says, ‘Oh, he’s a black guy, he done it.’”

That’s the typical stereotype.

Everything I heard about him (Ronald Cummings), he was a piece of s—. To be honest with you, know what I mean? I heard he went round robbin’ people and stealing drugs and stuff like that, I don’t know I never dealt with him. I don’t know anything about him.

(For his part, Ronald Has drug arrests but no convictions, and his attorney has denied in a press release he uses only prescription meds, no illegal drugs).

“He was on one side of Putnam County, I was on the other. If someone has the heart to take a gun and rob a drug man in a drug hole, they could be capable of anything. Cause it take some balls to go in there and just strong-arm somebody.

(Cummings denies he’s ever committed such a violent act, even against drug dealers, but that’s one rumor police sources tell the investigators have ruled out.)

Page: I let God handle my problems. I try not to worry about anything, cause God ain’t gonna take you to anything he can’t take you through. That’s my philosophy on life, you know.

We were just riding around, typical Friday and Saturday night. Just riding around having fun, just me, Misty and Nay Nay.

I don’t remember the last day, but I’m sure I like seen her Sunday.And that was the last day I seen her. But Monday, I did talk to Misty. And she told me she was at the hospital with her Dad, because her Dad had been in a car a wreck. And she said, ‘I’ll call you back, and never heard from her again.”

But I haven’t tried to contact her since because I want to stay the hell away from her.

Now I understand her parents are riding around trying to find out where I stay at, making death threats on me.

(The Croslins deny any desire to harm Page and deny making such threats).

I don’t know why they’d want to harm me. They should be more concerned about the child than to try to harm somebody else.

Harming me isn’t going got solve the problem– the child is still going to be gone. And it’s nothing can be done about it until it’s solved.

If I could put myself in their shoes, I wouldn’t be concerned about anything other than my child brought home safely.

Running around town trying to get free stuff (as Ronald Cummings has been reportedly trying to do), I wouldn’t be thinking about that stuff, just my child brought home safely.

I sympathize with the family, I wouldn’t want my child to be abducted.



http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/11/exclusive-white-boy-greg-on-the-bald-truth/#more-1596

[Faith]

Have YOU Seen Haleigh Cummings?

4/14/09

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ygVhrL4aLg&feature=player_embedded
Haleigh Cummings, in blue, artharris.com exclusive pic, credit if used

http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/14/have-you-seen-haleigh-cummings/

[Faith]

April 14th, 2009

White Boy Greg on CNN’s Jane Velez Mitchell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWTnYcSjXFw&feature=player_embedded

Jane Velez Mitchell, CNN Headline News’ Host, Reports Our Scoop

From Bald Truth Staff, (c) www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

Thanks for Jane’s on going coverage of the Haleigh Cummings case…and mentioning our White Boy Greg interiview. Unlike some reporters who lift what they can and pretend it’s their own, Jane has been generous in her praise and attribution.

Go, Jane.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/14/white-boy-greg-on-cnns-jane-velez-mitchell/

[Faith]

Haleigh Cummings Dad Protests Firing!

April 18th, 2009

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c)artharris.com, all rights reserved

Under attack by the mother of their missing five year old daughter, Haleigh, for alleged abuse and his new bride’s purported former party girl lifestyle, Ronald Cummings has fired back at the bio Mom, and the engineering company that fired him as a crane operator, a job loss that could factor into future custody disputes.

Indeed, a steady job with health insurance was cited by a Putnam County judge who granted Ronald custody of Haleigh and “Junior”in 2005, in the now resurrected, swampland “War of the Roses” with bio Mom Chrystal Sheffield. Now Ronald’s lawyers are hinting he may sue Palatka, Florida’s PDM Bridge company for wrongful termination.

“From the time of Haleigh’s disappearance,” his Palatka, Fla. attorneys said in a press release Thursday, “Ronald Cummings was told that his employer was holding his job open…that he could start back to work on Monday, April 6, 2009.

“Ronald agreed to this date and was prepared to go in to work when he was told on Friday, April 3, 2009 that the offer to return to work was being withdrawn for “abandoning his job.”

After he was fired, PDM asked for deputies with the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department to cruise the sprawling yard of the respected steel fabricator and engineering construction firm, a mere precaution to avert potential violence from terminated employees.

Cars patrolled for several days without a Ronald siting, or an incident, police tell me.

“It’s a judgment call you make sometimes,” PDM human resources director Tony McCauley told The Bald Truth in an exclusive interview Friday from headquarters in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

“Ronald expressed his displeasure with the company for going back on its word, but at no time threatened anyone,” his attorney’s said in their release.

“We are obviously very sympathetic to the tragedy that happened,” McCauley told me, adding that PDM was “very patient” with Cummings, but was never notified if or when he would return. He confirmed Ronald had recently finished a 3-month probationary trial period for new employees, but never filed an official request for a leave of absence to keep the job open.

“If an employee applies for a leave in a hardship situation like that, we try to work with them,” he told me, “but when we realized that hadn’t happened, we had to move on…There are a lot of people out there calling us for jobs, begging us for jobs, and that’s what some people probably don’t understand.

“You try to be as patient as you can; we held the job open for some time, but you have to draw the line with an employer-employee relationship. I can’t imagine what the family must be going through, but we are also running a business.”

Indeed, the business of PDM is steel fabrication and bridge building, breath-taking spans that include the famous St. Louis Arch finished in 1965, and considered one of the architectural wonders of the world. PDM has build bridges across giant canyons and rivers, worked for NASA; its website, PDMBridge.com, displays gleaming, seemingly superhuman feats of engineering.

Firing with both barrels, Cummings lawyers also blasted bio-Mom Chrystal Sheffield for shirking thousands of dollars in back child support she owes him, noting her similar jobless status and chided the media for delving into Cummings’ “private life” with a new bride whose friends regaled The Bald Truth with alleged tales of excess, including a three day party of drugs, sex and drinking the weekend before she reported Haleigh missing about 3 a.m. Feb. 10 from the trailer where she was living with Ronald. Misty (then Croslin) was babysitting.

Sheffield attorney Kim Picazio says Ronald’s firing could factor into her custody fight for Haleigh’s baby brother, but she’s especially troubled by the party lifestyle of the 17 year old stepmom private investigators like Williams Staubs, a Florida bounty hunter who goes by the street name, Cobra, has been uncovering.

—————————————————–

To read Cummings attorneys’ recent full statements, and Picazio’s response, read on.

April 16, 2009

This press release is in response to the Florida Times-Union article of today’s date.

Ronald Cummings in the last two months has had to deal not only with the disappearance of his daughter Haleigh, but also false muckraking allegations by attorney Kim Picazio, representing Crystal Sheffield, and Picazio’s personal friend “Cobra.”

From the time of Haleigh’s disappearance, Ronald Cummings was told that his employer was holding his job open. He was told by his employer that he could start back to work on Monday, April 6, 2009. Ronald agreed to this date and was prepared to go into work when he was told on Friday, April 3, 2009 that the offer to return to work was being withdrawn for “abandoning his job.”

Ronald expressed his displeasure with the company for going back on its word, but at no time threatened anyone.

This office has referred Ronald to a Daytona Beach law firm that handles labor and employment law.

It should be noted that Crystal Sheffield is currently thousands of dollars in arrears for child support. She has not been gainfully employed in approximately two years. When Crystal and Ronald lived together it was mainly Ronald’s grandmother that cared for their children since Crystal was usually watching TV.

This office anticipates providing Department of Children and Families (DCF) with new information on a confidential basis in the near future.

It is ironic that the last Florida Times Union article by Dana Treen on April 5, 2009 bemoaned that the squabbles and personal differences of Haleigh’s parents have distracted from the search for Haleigh. The article blamed both sides equally. The article was rebutted in a press release from this office (which is being re-printed and follows this release).

Now Dana Treen wants to wade into personal matters on the side of Crystal Sheffield. Which is it, Mr. Treen?

(Signed)

Greg Kimball

PRESS RELEASE

April 6, 2009

This press release is in response to the Sunday, April 5, 2009 Florida Times Union article on the Haleigh Cummings case.

The headline of the article was “Family Feud Takes Focus off Search for Haleigh.” Both Ronald Cummings, the father of Haleigh, and Crystal Sheffield, the mother of Haleigh, were blamed equally.

The reporter for the Florida Times Union failed to give a proper perspective on this issue.

A few facts need to be clarified:

1. It was Crystal Sheffield who chose to launch a Department of Children and Families (DCF) investigation about Ronald Cummings, as part of preparation for a custody battle over Ronald Cummings, Jr., rather than focus on the search for Haleigh.

2. Crystal Sheffield got attorney Kim Picazio from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to represent her. Attorney Picazio has been on television at every opportunity seeking publicity for herself and about family law issues.

3. Attorney Kim Picazio has admitted on television that the so-called investigator William E. Staubs, who refers to himself as “COBRA,” is a personal friend. Cobra arrived in Putnam County from Ft. Lauderdale [sic] shortly after Haleigh went missing and has been feeding information to Picazio and some media.

4. Ronald Cummings had to obtain legal counsel in self defense of the public allegations by Sheffield-Picazio, and also regarding Sheffield-Picazio allegations to DCF.

5. That Kimball & Snider, P.A. only got involved in this case on March 18, 2009, approximately five weeks after Haleigh went missing. Our initial press release (a copy of which follows) of March 19, 2009, in paragraph three (3) stated that Sheffield-Picazio allegations about family law manners were detracting from the search for Haleigh.

6. That Kimball & Snider, P.A. got involved in this case because Ronald Cummings, at the urging of a family member, called our Palatka office. Palatka is about five miles from Satsuma where Ronald resided.

7. Kimball & Snider, P.A. has responded through press releases to rebut and correct Sheffield-Picazio allegations. We have not appeared on national tv or even given any interviews to local media.

8. Kimball & Snider, P.A. has provided information on a confidential basis to DCF and Putnam County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) about this case, and will continue to act responsibly to assist DCF and PCSO.

(Signed)

Greg Kimball

T. Jerry Snider

http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/18/haleigh-cummings-dad-protests-firing/#more-1624

[Faith]

Exclusive: Haleigh Cummings Mom Blasts Back!

April 18th, 2009

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c)artharris.com, all rights reserved

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmyx_1aWQzs&feature=player_embedded

With a bitter, on-going fight between parents of Haleigh Cummings over who’s most fit for custody, now the war has escalated to war between law firms representing the parents.

In a biting statement we’re breaking here, Crystal Sheffield’s Miami attorney, Kim Picazio, is blasting local lawyers for Ronald Cummings over what she’s calling “unethical, unprofessional, and amateurish personal rants” about her—-not to mention attacks against William Staubs, aka Cobra, a colorful private investigator and bounty hunter who “has worked countless hours to find their client’s missing child.”

Picazio says Cummings lawyers don’t return her calls, and only communicate via press releases containing “abrasive and unnecessary attacks and comical conspiracy theories.”

Lawyers attacking lawyers out of the courtroom? First Casey Anthony, now Haleigh Cummings? Two escaped convicts on the loose in Putnam County? A missing girl’s father fired. Now family lawyers duking it out against the backdrop of a stalled police investigation? Can it get any crazier?

We’ve put press releases by Cummings’ lawyers on The Bald Truth attacking her, and feel it’s only fair to publish a response by attorney Kim Picazio.

————–

“Ronald’s attorneys’ once-in-awhile press releases continue to ooze unethical, unprofessional, and amateurish personal rants about Crystal Sheffield’s lawyer, as well as the highly qualified licensed Private Investigator who has worked countless hours to find their client’s missing child.

“The law firm’s abrasive and unnecessary attacks and comical conspiracy theories against another member of the Florida Bar are telling. Obviously, they are at a loss for exculpatory information to offer the general public in rebuttal to their client’s recently uncovered depraved lifestyle and egregious behavior exhibited both before, and after, little Haleigh Cummings’ disappearance.

It is difficult for any individual to conceal “the truth” from the media and/or extremely competent journalists who have been following the search for missing Haleigh Cummings.

The nation has shown a fervent interest and demand for the facts surrounding this tragedy, and the media has delivered a solid insight into the same.

Ronald Cummings lifestyle, behavior, and level of irresponsibility, have been ardently uncovered by well-seasoned journalists for the world to see.

If the truth and the facts are unflattering, or even scathing - the facts are the facts. Ronald Cummings now coined defense to the disclosure of all he undoubtedly strove to conceal, has been only remind the public that the mother of Haleigh Cummings owes him child support.

However, Mr. Cummings’ attorneys’ latest press release fails to mention that Mr. Cummings has willfully turned his back on his own legal and moral obligations to a child - his infant son, age one. He financially, emotionally, and physically abandoned his disabled infant child less than one (1) year ago - a child born to but another of his teen girlfriends/victims.

Haleigh remains missing. The Putnam County Sheriff’s Office has publicly stated that the teenager responsible for caring for Haleigh Cummings on the night of her disappearance has given inconsistent statements to the authorities.

Such inconsistencies have, according to law enforcement, impeded their investigation. On the heels this frustrating revelation, Ronald Cummings chose to marry the same teenager whose inconsistencies have frustrated authorities investigating his daughter’s disappearance.

And now we know that Ronald Cummings willingly left his young children in the care of that same teenager whom he knew was using illicit drugs in the immediate days prior to Haleigh’s disappearance. Crystal Sheffield’s little girl has not been found. If the truth about Ronald Cummings’ lifestyle or teen bride could lead law enforcement closer to finding Haleigh, not one of us should close our eyes or stay silent. We need to find out what happened to Haleigh while she was in Misty Croslin’s custody.

We will keep asking the hard questions, ferreting out fact from fiction, delving deeply, sometimes uncomfortably, into the lifestyles of all persons of interest, and keeping the public aware of our findings - all in our endless pursuit of clues as to Haleigh’s disappearance.

Unlike Ronald Cummings, Haleigh’s mother, Crystal Sheffield, her family, friends, and well-wishers from across the country, continue to keep the search for little Haleigh in the public eye - refusing to let this precious missing girl become a cold case. Haleigh’s mother and volunteer supporters have continue to distribute Amber Alert flyers by the thousands, Haleigh Tee Shirts, Car Stickers, Lapel Pins, Wrist Bands, and Necklaces. Every tip and lead given to Haleigh’s mom and/or her representatives is zealously followed up upon by eager investigators working around the clock to find Haleigh. At every local or community event, you will find Sheffield, her family, and friends distributing flyers and/or other materials to keep the search for Haleigh alive and thriving.

And yes, you bet that Crystal’s legal team will take every opportunity to remind the nation that Haleigh Cummings’ disappearance remains an unsolved mystery. Crystal’s representatives will continue to “scream from the mountain tops” to ensure no one forgets Haleigh is missing, and to seek protection for Haleigh’s four (4) year old little brother remaining in Ronald and Misty Cummings’ home.

Instead of getting married to an individual claimed by police to be hindering their investigation, Crystal Sheffield has opened The Haleigh Bug Center, a central community gathering location in Satsuma, Florida. The HB Center is not a business. Instead, it serves as a central location for Haleigh’s mother, friends, family, and other volunteers to distribute information about Haleigh, and coordinate future events to increase public awareness of her continued disappearance.

The Haleigh Bug Center has also become an invaluable resource for the intake of tips and leads about Haleigh’s disappearance and the days that led up to this tragedy.

All useful information is given directly to the Putnam County Sheriff’s office for further investigation. Good hearted citizens have travelled hundreds of miles to visit the Haleigh Bug Center to offer support to Haleigh’s mother in her never ending quest to locate her daughter. Crystal Sheffield will not stop, and she will not stay silent.

If anyone has any relevant information which could possibly assist law enforcement in discovering the truth of what happened in Ronald Cummings’ residence on the date of Haleigh’s disappearance, let the truth be known.

My office made numerous requests to Ronald Cummings’s lawyers for a meeting to discuss this case, child support issues, and our concerns about the welfare of little Junior living in Mr. Cummings home with Misty Croslin. After our fourth unanswered message, we received a letter from Kimball & Snyder declining my invitation.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/18/exclusive-haleigh-cummings-mom-blasts-back/#more-1632

[Faith]

Haleigh Cummings Case Party Girls Busted! Ronald Cummings, BOLO?? (http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/20/haleigh-cummings-case-party-girls-busted-ronald-cummings-bolo/)



http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/kristina-prevatt-mug-240x300.jpg (http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/20/haleigh-cummings-case-party-girls-busted-ronald-cummings-bolo/kristina-prevatt-mug/)http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/amber-brooks-mug-shot1-240x300.jpg (http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/20/haleigh-cummings-case-party-girls-busted-ronald-cummings-bolo/amber-brooks-mug-shot1/)
Kristina Prevatt, aka “Nay Nay,” and Amber Brooks, Booking Photos

April 20th, 2009

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, © www.artharris.com (http://www.artharris.com), all rights reserved

In a dramatic new twist in the case of missing Haleigh Cummings, two young women with close ties to the father of the missing five year old, Ronald, and his new bride, Misty Cummings, were arrested and booked Monday morning into the Putnam County Jail on charges of cocaine possession.

Amber Nicole Brooks, 20, of Palatka, Florida, the mother of Cummings’ 20-month old son, Jordan, was arrested by Putnam County sheriffs deputies, booked into jail at 8:04 a.m. and charged with cocaine possession, smuggling “contraband” into a detention facility and failing to appear for another outstanding warrant.

Bond was set at $2,512.00 for the three felony charges, according to the Putnam County Jail log.

Also arrested and booked (at 8:39 a.m.): Kristina Renee Prevatt, 18, aka “Nay Nay,” the party pal of Misty Cummings who in an exclusive upcoming interview at artharris.com describes a wild, three day party of sex, drugs and drinking with Misty the weekend before the 17 year old babysitter reported Haleigh missing on Feb. 10. Misty, who has since married Ronald, is said to be the last person who saw Haleigh.

On Monday, Prevatt was charged with possession of cocaine and trying to smuggle contraband into a detention facility, records show. Her bond was set at $2008.00.

In our interview, she tells me she introduced Misty and Greg Page, aka White Boy Greg, and drove them around for two days. She also says Misty claimed Ronald had physically abused her when she told him she was pregnant, and that lead to her party girl revenge. Nay Nay says she doubts Misty was telling the truth.

She also says Amber Brooks borrowed her car recently, and got it stuck in the mud, reportedly running from a man with a machete. She says Misty still had clothes in her trunk from that lost weekend, but they have since been removed.

Prevatt describes this and more in our exclusive television interview between her and pro bono private investigator and bounty hunter William Staubs, aka “Cobra,” who is expected back in Satsuma late Monday.

As for Amber Brooks, in a recent exclusive interview with The Bald Truth, she tells me she once lived with Ronald and took care of Haleigh and her little brother, Junior, before their son, Jordan, was born, then split with Cummings who she said has paid no child support, and raised their son as a single mother.

With a previous drug arrest on the books, Brooks has been struggling to raise their son, who has been quietly cared for by her grandmother in Palatka, but Jordan’s future may be up in the air after a surprise visit by Ronald Cummings Sunday.

Indeed, just before 10 p.m. Sunday night, April 19, according to a 911 call my source heard on a police scanner, Brooks’ grandmother called the Putnam County Sheriff’s dispatcher to report Cummings had pulled up outside her house in his purple Nissan Ultima and sent Haleigh’s little brother, Junior, to her door to ask for his little brother, Jordan.

When the grandmother refused, she told police, a black man who was apparently with Cummings appeared and asked for the child. That’s when my source says he heard the grandmother tell 911 she locked the door and called police, who confirmed the incident, including a BOLO (be on the lookout) for Cummings and a police cruiser that was dispatched.

“That’s how I understand it went down,” said PCSD Captain Dick Schauland in a phone interview with The Bald Truth.

Lt. Johnny Greenwood, also a PCSD spokesman, confirmed the arrests of Prevatt and Brooks. He said both had been cooperative in previous interviews with task force detectives when questioned about Haleigh’s kidnapping, but saw no connection with that case and the arrests.

“I don’t know how investigators may want to talk to them. I know they’ve talked to them already…and they’ve been cooperative the whole time,” Lt. Greenwood tells me. “Usually, charges like that might be used as leverage, but in this case they’ve already been cooperative.”

Cooperative or not, one investigator on the case told me Monday the task force would explore whether the cocaine arrests might be still be used to “squeeze” the women for any undisclosed information that might help move the stalled case forward.

“We’re waiting on that one tip to come in. Somebody knows something,” Lt. Greenwood tells me. “Somebody out there knows what happened. It’s just gonna take them slipping up and telling somebody, or somebody hears something. That’s all it’s going to take, one tip.”

In our exclusive interview with Prevatt, Nay Nay, as everyone calls her, says she picked Misty up after a fight with Ronald mid-week before Haleigh vanished, drove her to meet Page, and off they went on their party girl weekend—and had a surprise encounter with Brooks. Her account dovetails with what Page, or “White Boy Greg” as he’s called on the street, told us in his exclusive sit down.

Both describe Page’s brief romantic hook up with Misty, and her physical altercation with Amber Brooks at a party where witnesses tell me the cat-fighting women had to be physically pulled apart.

While Amber tells me Ronald Cummings rarely saw their son, friends say Brooks remains bitter that Misty moved in with her ex, and may have been angling to take away her son. Investigators theorize a number of dynamics at play, including a Misty who may have been jealous of the women who had previously had children by her main man.

Kim Picazio, lawyer for Crystal Sheffield, tells me Brooks described to her how Cummings would “smack” his son, Junior, causing nose bleeds —a similar account Brooks told me as well — but a police source says Amber also praised Ronald as a fine father who did not abuse the kids in a recent interview with the task force.

“She tells people what she thinks they want to hear,” said a lead investigator in the stalled missing child case.

In an exclusive interview, the task force official who asked that his name not be used, tells me investigators on the Haleigh case would be exploring any conflicts between the bit players in this twisted epic of Jerry Springer proporations, in an attempt to learn more from the two women about Haleigh’s disappearance than previously shared under police questioning.

Sources tell me sheriff’s investigators interviewed Brooks last week after she also met with investigators for Putnam County Department of Family Services who questioned her about Ronald Cummings alleged abuse–charges leveled by Haleigh’s mother, Crystal Sheffield, who is trying to regain custody of their son, Junior.

Through his attorneys, Ronald Cummings has denied any physical abuse towards the children, and maintains he’s the better parent by a longshot.

DFS has previously investigated Cummings and reportedly found his use of physical punishment within the acceptable bounds of parental discipline.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/20/haleigh-cummings-case-party-girls-busted-ronald-cummings-bolo/#more-1641

[Faith]

EXCLUSIVE! Misty Cummings Pal Nay Nay Talks!

Don't watch with children around.

April 20th, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1I6zOihOTw&feature=player_embedded


Kristina Prevatt, aka Nay Nay, Misty Cummings Gal Pal Talks to Cobra

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c) artharris.com, all rights reserved

In an exclusive interview with The Bald Truth, we watch a party pal of Misty Cummings, Kristina Prevatt, aka Nay Nay, describe Misty’s spree of drugs, sex and rock and roll with “White Boy Greg” Page, after running from what she says Misty described as abuse by Ronald Cummings, and her duties babysitting his children, Haleigh and Junior.

“When I picked her up” mid-week before Haleigh vanished, Prevatt tells pro bono private investigator and bounty hunter Williams Staubs, aka Cobra on The Bald Truth at artharris.com, “she said (Cummings) threw her against the mirror and she said her arm was all cut up and stuff because she said she was pregnant, and he said, it wasn’t his baby, and he rolled her up and tried to squeeze her into a ball.”

Why was Ronald Cummings angry? “She had a pregnancy test, said it was posiive,” said Prevatt in her first television interview. “(It) might have been her sister’s because her sister was pregnant.”

Soon, Prevatt says Misty described how Ronald dropped her off at her brother’s house, and she began walking, then called for Nay Nay to pick her up–and the three day party began.

To hear Prevatt tell it, she drove Misty and Page to nearby St. Augustine in her beige Lincoln to party.

In an earlier interview, Prevatt told me that Misty ran into Amber Brooks at one party, and the two women had to be pulled apart. Page said Misty was smoking pot, doing cocaine and taking “Roxies.”

According to this new interview with Prevatt on The Bald Truth, she gave a ride to a prostitute she knew named Lindsay, and it was on to Crescent City, and a house full of Hispanic laborers “who were acting real crazy.” Prevatt says she wanted to stay in the car with Misty, but Greg insisted they all wait inside while Lindsay went to work.

Prevatt tells Cobra, who Monday night bonded both Prevatt and Amber Brooks out of the Putnam County Jail where they were being held on felony cocaine possession charges, that Lindsay agreed to pay her half her sex for hire proceeds for driving, and disappeared into a back room where “all the Mexicans took turns,” paying from $30 to $120 each.

Prevatt says she and Misty were invited to participate. “They said, we were in their house,” but they declined. “We sat real close to Greg,” she says, and split “when Lindsay got her money.”

As for drugs, she said, “Misty does pills and weed, and xanex, Loritab, but smoking weed, that’s like her main thing.”

Ronald Cummings, through his attorneys, denies any illegal drug use, though he’s been arrested numerous times for drug possession and once plead no contest to the charges.

After the two day party, Prevatt says that Saturday night before Haleigh vanished turned to Sunday morning and Misty asked to be dropped at her brother’s house. Prevatt says Misty was trying to conceal she was talking “like secretly” to Ronald on the phone.

“I guess he asked her to bring a condom,” says Prevatt, “and I didn’t have any condoms.”

Nay Nay says she dropped Misty at her brother’s house. “She was like, ‘Gotta go to my brother’s house, gotta watch the kids in the morning….So I said, ‘You’re going to Ronald’s house, and she said, ‘No, I’m not, no I’m not…Come back in the morning, and help me watch the kids,’ but I didn’t end up doing that.”

For her part, Prevatt says she was so exhausted after dropping off Croslin, she crashed at Lindsay’s house in Flagler Estates nearby, and woke up at 4 p.m. Monday, Feb. 9. When she called Misty later that week, Haleigh was missing, and Prevatt says Misty told her “the same thing I’d heard on the news, something about the kitchen light.’ Then I heard her sister in the background saying, ‘Don’t talk on the phones, the phones are tapped.’ Then she hung up.” That was the last time they spoke, she says.

Police say both Brooks and Prevatt have spoken to task force detectives and fully cooperated in recounting what they know about details behind Haleigh’s disappearance. Misty Cummings has also spoken several times to detectives who say they are struggling to reconcile conflicts in her stories.

But sources on the team tell me they aim to use Monday’s arrest of Prevatt and Amber Brooks, mother of a third child, a 20 month old disable son named Jordan, by Ronald Cummings, to try to help the women remember more information.

Several weeks after Haleigh turned up missing, Prevatt was back partying, and hooked up with Brooks again, even let her borrow her beige Lincoln.

In her exclusive interview here on The Bald Truth, Prevatt says Amber Brooks got her car stuck in the mud and she found a big dent in the trunk. “At first she acted like, ‘I don’t’ know what happened.’ Then I said, what the f—did you do to my trunk?’ And she was like, ‘Oh, it must have happened when I paid someone to push the car (out of the mud) when I wasn’t there.”

When William Staubs asked what Amber had related to her about Ronald and parental discipline, Prevatt said, “Amber says he usually smacks the s—out of Haleigh and Junior, and one time he smacked Junior, and he got like a bloody nose.”

Ronald has denied any abuse, and investigators with the Putnam County Department of Family services once absolved Cummings several years ago of abuse charges after Haleigh’s mother, Crystal Sheffield, initially lost custody and tried to challenge a court order to regain it.

A Miami family law attorney, Kim Picazio, has launched her own investigation of the charges, and says Amber Brooks and others have described slaps that have lead to bloody noses. Says Picazio in an interview with The Bald Truth Monday, “Amber told me Ronald always explained Junior had a ‘weak nose,’ and that’s why he bled so much.”

At the time, county child advocates ruled that his parental discipline was within acceptable department guidelines. “They have a bunch of nice clothes,” observes Prevatt, who spent time with Brooks when she was going with Cummings.

As the cupid behind the wheel who put Misty in the arms of White Boy Greg Page the weekend before Haleigh vanished, she says she was recently startled when the Cummings and Croslin klan flagged her down.

They’d been reading all about Misty’s assignation with Greg Page, and Cobra says Cummings acknowledged to him he knew it, but in the scheme of things, it didn’t matter, that he loved Misty, and was trying to keep her close to find out what happened to Haleigh.

But that didn’t mean his pride wasn’t wounded, that his bride to be had slept with another man, much less a light-skinned African American nicknamed White Boy.

Recalls Prevatt, “Misty’s Mom and sister saw me and said, ‘Where does White Boy Greg live?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know,’ and they said, ‘Ronald … and their Dad are looking for him and want to kill him. Ronald’s going to shove eleven inches down his throat.’”

A task force investigator tells me police have heard the same alleged threats, but shrugged it off as red clay hubris, a once cocky rooster trying to regain his strut.

For his part, police say they’ve ruled out Page and say he’s fully cooperated in the Haleigh probe. In our exclusive interview, Page told me he doesn’t know what happened after he left a message for Misty a day before she reported Haleigh gone. He says she never called back.

Sources inside the investigation tell me Page was forthcoming about his wild weekend with Misty, who also confirmed some details of their sexcapade. As for the threats, Page has heard about them, and says he’s laying low.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/20/exclusive-misty-cummings-pal-nay-nay-talks/#more-1668

[Faith]

Exclusive: BOLO For Haleigh Cummings’ Dad?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrQ6WAHMFYQ&feature=player_embedded

Exclusive Police Tape Reporting Ronald Cummings Drive By

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, © www.artharris.com, all rights reserved
*******Warning: do not republish without permission*******

It was Sunday night about 10 p.m. when a frightened grandmother called the Putnam County Sheriff. Mary Brooks had just spotted the father of missing five year old Haleigh Cummings cruising through her parking lot in his purple Nissan Altima.

“You know Ronald Cummings, whose daughter is missing?” Mary Brooks asked the dispatcher on the exclusive police audio tape obtained by The Bald Truth.

“Yes, Maam,” replied the officer.

“He was driving through my parking lot tonight,” explained the grandmother of Amber Brooks, an ex Cummings girlfriend who gave birth to his disabled son, Jordan.

“I have custody of his son he claimed he didn’t have; he’s one year old and I’m very leary about that,” Mary Brooks went on. “(Ronald) and his new wife (Misty)…drove through here, and about an hour later, some guy come knocking on my door, and I didn’t answer it.”

There was no reason for Cummings to be in her ‘hood, she figured–except one: She feared he might be trying to take the toddler he’d fathered with Amber. Jordan was staying with her.

With no legal custody order in place, Cummings would be well within his rights to demand she hand over the child, as the biological father, say family law experts, even though Brooks says her ex has barely seen the child since he was born, and pays no child support.

Not to mention Amber’s predicament as a 20 year old mother in a world of trouble, busted early the next morning (Monday) for cocaine possession, and bailed out later that day by private investigator William Staubs, aka, Cobra, who also bonded out Misty Cummings’ party girl pal, Kristina Prevatt, 19, on similar drug charges.

She goes by the nickname, Nay Nay.

It was Prevatt who drove Misty on her wild weekend of drugs, sex and rock and roll with “White Boy Greg” Page, according to police and interviews I’ve done with her and her friends, a party that ended only 36 hours before Misty reported Haleigh had vanished from the trailer the 17 year old babysitter shared with Ronald.

While a local preacher who monitors police scanners tells me he’s certain he heard a dispatcher report Junior came to the door to ask for Jordan, the police tape we’ve obtained has no mention of that. Palatka police officials told me they will ask the Putnam County Sheriff to review other audio traffic in case such an incident was reported.

Mary Brooks did say on the police tape that she “peeked out my peep hole” and saw a “thin, black guy, maybe a friend of (Ronald’s). He does not need to be here, claiming, you know, bothering me about the baby he said he didn’t have.”

“When he came through, did he stop at all or drive through?” asked the officer, according to the tape.

“He just cruised through and my daughter was coming through and they passed each other, and she (saw) his new wife…I’m the great grandmother, and I have custody of the baby and I’m very upset…”

“OK, I’m going to get an officer out there,” says the dispatcher. “If he comes back, just call me back and don’t open the door.”

“Thank you,” said Brooks.

When officers drove through the neighborhood looking for Cummings, they didn’t see his car, but did interview Amber’s grandmother. No report was filed because there was no evidence a crime had been committed, Palatka police officials told me.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/22/exclusive-bolo-for-haleigh-cummings-dad/#more-1694

[Faith]

Exclusive Police Tape Reporting Ronald Cummings Drive By

UPDATE WED. April 22, 3:40 pm.

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, © www.artharris.com, all rights reserved
*******Warning: do not republish without permission*******

It was Sunday night about 10 p.m. when a frightened grandmother called the Putnam County Sheriff. Mary Brooks, 63, had just spotted the father of missing five year old Haleigh Cummings cruising through her parking lot in his purple Nissan Altima with tinted windows.

“You know Ronald Cummings, whose daughter is missing?” Mary Brooks asked the dispatcher on the exclusive police audio tape obtained by The Bald Truth.

“Yes, Ma’am,” replied the officer.

“He was driving through my parking lot tonight,” explained the grandmother of Amber Brooks, an ex- Cummings girlfriend who gave birth to his disabled son, Jordan.

“I have custody of his son he claimed he didn’t have (on national TV when Cummings mentioned he only had two children); he’s one year old and I’m very leary about that,” Mary Brooks went on. “(Ronald) and his new wife (Misty)…drove through here, and about an hour later, some guy come knocking on my door, and I didn’t answer it.”

Tipped to the incident Sunday night by William Staubs, a tireless bounty hunter and private eye nicknamed “Cobra” who is working pro bono on the Haleigh Cummings mystery, I called police, then a source who said he’d earlier told Cobra he’d heard over a police scanner that Cummings’ son, Junior, had knocked on the grandmother’s door, asking to see his brother. The source is a local preacher who monitors police radio traffic and has been reliable in the past.

Only the Junior incident never happened, I can now report. It’s not on the police audio tape I obtained, and, while authorities are checking the radio traffic, Mary Brooks tells me, in an exclusive interview Wednesday, she never saw Junior.

“I wish I had seen him, I miss that little rascal,” said Amber’s grandmother, Mary recalls putting out crayons and coloring books for Haleigh and her little brother, Junior. Amber and Ronald would bring them to visit, she said, when Amber was pregnant with Jordan and living with Cummings. “She watched Haleigh and Junior all the time.”

But on Sunday night, she said, there was no reason for Cummings to be in her ‘hood, she figured–except one: She feared he might be trying to take the toddler he’d fathered with Amber. Jordan has been staying with her.

With no legal custody order in place, Cummings would be well within his rights to demand she hand over the child, as the biological father, say family law experts, even though Amber Brooks claims her ex has seen little of the child since they split, and pays no child support.

In our interview, Mary Brooks told me that she’s been caring for the baby for several months after Amber tumbled into an abyss of drugs and partying.

Indeed, Amber was arrested Monday and charged with cocaine possession, along with Misty Cummings party friend Kristina Prevatt; her grandmother tells me she dropped by to visit Monday night after Cobra bonded the women out of Putnam County jail and treated them to a chicken dinner. Mary says she begged her grandchild to go to rehab “to get her life straight, but she didn’t want none of it,” says Brooks.

In a recent interview, Prevatt told me she’d run into Amber while chauffeuring Misty Cummings on her weekend of drugs, sex and rock and roll with “White Boy Greg” Page. According to police and interviews I’ve done with her and other friends, it was a party that ended 36 hours before Misty reported Haleigh had vanished from the trailer the 17 year old babysitter shared with Ronald.

Witnesses tell me Misty and Amber nearly came to blows at a party that weekend, with Amber smarting that Misty had not only stolen her ex, but concerned she was threatening to take her son, Jordan.

According to her grandmother, Amber had few role models, and dropped out of high school. Mary had legal custody for a year when Amber was 12 “because her mother had drug problems. Amber is following in her mother’s footsteps,” says Mary.

Amber was born when her own mother was 19. “She wasn’t the mothering type,” says Mary who counts four children and several grandchildren, including Amber’s little brother, Dawson, age 8. “I think all my kids would tell you they had it good growing up,” says Mary, who moved from New Jersey to Palatka with her husband years ago.

When Amber lived with Ronald, she got to see Haleigh and Junior when they’d visit. “They’d come by every couple of weeks,” she says. “His kids are adorable. Junior is a sweetheart, but he told me Haleigh was his favorite. You could tell.”

As for discipline, she once saw him spank Junior when he was sucking his thumb at two years old, she says. “I don’t believe in that. He was crying, so I picked him up and sat on the couch. Why beat a child for sucking his thumb? But I never seen him rip ‘em up and throw ‘em or anything drastic.”

Calls to Cummings’ mother, Teresa Neves, and his lawyers, asking for comment, were not returned by press time.

When Amber left the baby with her grandmother when Jordan was three or four months old, Mary Brooks says she got a call from Ronald. “He said, ‘I want to see the baby. So he came over and took the baby. The next day he was back at my house with Jordan and all his things.” She says that was his father’s last visit.

To complicate matters, Jordan was born with a genetic disorder called Microcephaly, where the head is smaller than normal from abnormal brain growth. It’s associated with Down’s syndrome, according to medical texts, and can be caused by a variety of factors, including, if during pregnancy the mother abused drugs or alcohol, was exposed to toxic chemicals or other diseases. She worries about Jordan.

“He’s very hot-tempered,” says Mary, “has fits and cries and screams, but to me, he’s very smart. I’m just worried about him later.”

She was also worried when a man knocked on her door Sunday night, an hour after Cummings did his drive by. Mary Brooks says she told police she feared he was sent by Ronald to take Jordan, who she adores and draws a small government check for his disability.

On the police tape we obtained, Brooks can be heard saying she “peeked out my peep hole” and saw a “thin, black guy, maybe a friend of (Ronald’s). He does not need to be here, claiming, you know, bothering me about the baby he said he didn’t have.”

The “baby he didn’t have” is a reference to Cummings statement when Haleigh went missing, saying he only had two children, says Brooks. “He didn’t mention Jordan.”

On the tape, the dispatcher asks, “When he came through, did he stop at all or drive through?”

“He just cruised through and my daughter was coming through and they passed each other, and she (saw) his new wife…I’m the great grandmother, and I have custody of the baby and I’m very upset…”

“OK, I’m going to get an officer out there,” says the dispatcher. “If he comes back, just call me back and don’t open the door.”

“Thank you,” said Brooks.

When officers drove through the neighborhood looking for Cummings, they didn’t see his car, but did interview Brooks. No report was filed because there was no evidence a crime had been committed, Palatka police officials told me. But Brooks tells me she followed up with a visit to police headquarters Tuesday and asked an officer to to fill out an incident report.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/22/exclusive-bolo-for-haleigh-cummings-dad/#more-1694

[Naia]

:g: Is the FBI still involved with Haleigh's disappearance? Anyone know?

[Faith]

April 22nd, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu9gToNxEjQ&feature=player_embedded

Jane Velez Mitchell Reports Artharris.com Scoop last week

From Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c)artharris.com, all rights reserved

ATLANTA–Jane has invited us on her show in a little while to talk about Haleigh Cummings. Stay tuned.–Art
———–
Back from the show…so much to talk about, so little time. Jane is as smart as they get, and committed to covering the story.

Check out a terrific profile of her in the NYT several weeks ago…her show is blowing away Glenn Beck’s CNN HLN ratings…Then, on the way out of CNN’s sprawling studios at the Omni in downtown Atlanta, I stopped by another studio where Nancy Grace will be doing her show through much of May, and got to see my old friend…

Like many of you, she wondered if Haleigh will ever be found. Then it was time for the latest on Caylee…

Thanks for your feedback…–Art

http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/22/watch-cnn-hln-jane-velez-mitchell-tonight-were-on/#more-1710

[Faith]

Haleigh Cummings: CNN’s Jane Velez Mitchell

April 24th, 2009

Excerpt from Jane Velez Mitchell Show, April 21, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lyNM_b8Plo&feature=player_embedded

http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/24/haleigh-cummings-cnns-jane-velez-mitchell/

[Naia]

This is simply unbelievable. Was what happened to this little girl more or less ignored because of her mother's sins so to speak?

[LiveLaughLuv]

Exclusive: Haleigh Cummings—-Dad’s Solid Alibi?

April 27th, 2009

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, © artharris.com, all rights reserved

To co-workers within earshot of Ronald Cummings at Palatka, Florida’s PDM Bridge, Misty Croslin sounded hysterical when she called one night weeks before the 17 year old babysitter reported his daughter, Haleigh, had vanished while he was at work and she was asleep with the kids.

“I remember she called him in tears, because the little girl was giving her fits and he told her, ‘Whip her, just whip her and make her be quiet,’” recalls fellow crane operator Eric Zastrow, 32, in an exclusive interview with The Bald Truth. “He said, ‘Just whip the little brat, she needs to understand it’s time to go to bed, or put a movie in for her.’ Then he hung up.”

Also a night shift crane operator, Zastrow told me he was working with Cummings “on the yard” from the time PDM hired Haleigh’s father in October last year until Ronald was fired in early April. The reason: failing to let the company know he was coming back, a spokesman tells me.

A PDM staffer confirmed Zastrow worked on the same yard as Cummings. He also told me that on another night when Misty phoned and put Haleigh on, her father sounded as sugary as cane syrup. “Hey Baby, how you doing, sweetheart,” cooed Cummings, according to his co worker, who was standing within earshot.”

“We know all about the phone calls, Misty calling him upset that she can’t control a five year old,” one of the lead Putnam County Haleigh task force investigators tells The Bald Truth in an exclusive interview. He asked that his name not be used. “It’s what you’d expect from a 16 or 17 year old babysitter.”

While police tell me they are double checking timelines and alibis of anyone who may have come in contact with Haleigh, they believe Haleigh’s kidnapper was no stranger to the family. “We’re not looking at a stranger abduction,” a lead task force member tells me. He said he’s been authorized to offer immunity from prosecution to any credible witness who can provide a sworn statement —and the crucial piece– that cracks the case.

“I don’t consider druggies credible,” he tells me, “and heaven knows we’ve got a lot of those down here. They’re like interviewing rocks, memory’s not very good.”

Still at the top of murky timelines: Misty Cummings, the babysitter Ronald Cummings married after she reported Haleigh missing. She went on a three day party binge the weekend before she reported Haleigh missing, hooking up with White Boy Greg Page– a revenge romance– according to Page and his chauffeur, Christina Prevatt, a Misty pal.

Investigators say Misty has told several conflicting stories, but maintains she was at the trailer sleeping when Haleigh vanished. If police do find anyone credible who, for example, can put Misty somewhere other than the trailer, or Ronald Cummings off PDM property where he said he worked until the end of his shift, “then you’ll see some fireworks,” the investigator told me.

So far, Cummings has a solid alibi. Not only do co-workers like Zastrow tell police they recall him on property, even taking his dinner break in the cafeteria, but The Bald Truth has learned exclusively that Cummings cell phone pings came from cell towers by the steel plant, and that on the way home, he stopped by a convenience store to buy a few things. That would certainly seem to debunk one theory that he went to the trailer to check on Misty, then returned to work that night.

In a telephone interview, Williams Staubs, the private investigator and bounty hunter nicknamed “Cobra,” tells me he’s still checking Cummings alibi, puzzling through Misty’s, and passing on what he hears to police, including the curious story of an ex wife of Crystal Sheffield’s fiancé, Chad Griffis.

Seems Chad won custody of two children from that marriage to Helen Edmison, and Marie Griffis, Crystal’s mother, tells me the ex wife, who lives in North Georgia, hates Crystal because she’s raising her two children–AND knows Ronald Cummings.

“We are trying to run that down,” says a lead Putnam County investigator, in a chat with The Bald Truth. “If we can find anyone who saw them together in Satsuma when Haleigh went missing, that’s of interest.”

Asked about an offer of immunity for a key witness, Johnny Greenwood, the Putnam County Sheriff’s spokesman, tells me, “I had not heard about that. Immunity can only come from the state attorney. We’re not authorized to offer immunity to anyone.”

With witnesses like Greg “White Boy Greg” Page stirring controversy and, more recently, threats, The Bald Truth has also learned Palatka police are boosting patrols in his downtown neighborhood after reports that relatives of Ronald Cummings “are trying to find him and harass him about the Haleigh Cummings disappearance,” according to an official police report made available to me.

In an exclusive interview with me over the weekend, assistant chief James Griffiths, second in command of Palataka’s finest, says the patrols began last week after Page’s mother, Lyn, heard about threats purportedly made against her son.

Then a white neighbor, a 43 year old divorced mother of two, reported a red pickup drove through the ‘hood, with two white men inside. In an exclusive phone interview with me, she said one rolled down the window and offered her $50 to tell them where they could find White Boy Greg and Cobra. Page’s mother, called 911, laid it out for two officers, and when she learned a police report had not been filed, marched down to the station to fill out her own report.

But Lyn apparenlty provided “no names of who might be doing this harassing,” said Griffiths, reading from the report, “just that a woman had seen two unknown white males driving in the neighborhood supposedly trying to locate Greg Page.”

But the mystery neighbor tells me the driver matched a mug shot of Cummings father, Lester. She made that ID from a mug shot I e- mailed her Sunday; and also says she found the same man on You Tube videos of Haleigh Cummings rallies. Cummings could not be reached for comment, but Cobra tells me a red Nissan Pathfinder the neighbor described to him is similar to one owned by Cummings grandmother, and sits in her driveway, outside the trailer, were Ronald and Misty are staying.
http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/27/exclusive-haleigh-cummings-dads-solid-alibi/#more-1731

[Faith]

Exclusive: “Ronald Cummings Tried to Kill Me!”

4/27/09

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c)artharris.com, all rights reserved

Just when we think the dysfunctional dynamics in Satsuma, Florida can’t get any stranger among rival clans of missing five year old Haleigh Cummings, Misty Cummings’ father, Hank Croslin, now accuses his new son in law, Ronald, of trying to poison him with painkillers he apparently thought would take away aches from a recent car accident, but made him violently ill instead.

“He believes Ronald Cummings was trying to kill him,” according to an official police “suspicious incident” report obtained exclusively by The Bald Truth that reveals a family that pops pills together, sticks together, unless, well, someone reports a bummer. Could this mean a Ronald-Misty rift might be looming?

According to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department deputy, who answered the call the weekend before last, “Hank said that he regularly gets prescription pills from Ronald, including xanex and roxicet.”

Misty’s father related that he’d asked “Ronald if he had any xanex, and Ronald pulled several pills from out of his pocket, and gave Hank one,” the report goes on.

“ Hank said that Ronald never told him what the pill was, and that he did not know what the pill was. Hank described the pill as being small, round, and white. Ronald also gave Hank’s son one of the pills,” says the report.

“Hank would not identify his son, but he said that his son later told him that he identified the pill as a muscle relaxant,” the deputy wrote.

“Hank said that he voluntarily took the pill, and it made him very ill.

“Hank said that he was in a coma for four (4) days following the incident, and believes that Ronald provided the pill to him with the intent to harm him….He believes that Ronald Cummings was trying to kill him.”

But William Staubs, private investigator and bounty hunter, tells me he met with the Croslin’s Monday, and family members explained that the pill didn’t induce the coma– doctors did deliberately after Croslin aspirated on his own vomit and nearly died. Cobra said family tried to downplay the incident. He told them he was worried for Misty.

I asked the sheriff’s department why no one was arrested. “On the surface, it appears illegal, but didn’t rise to the level to make a case,” a major told me. “No money changed hands.”

In related ER matters, early Monday, Haleigh’s mother, Crystal Sheffield, while hanging at the Haleighbug command post on Highway 17 with her sister, was rushed to the emergency room after blacking out from another apparent seizure, falling and hitting hear head, blood gushing everywhere.

Family members also tell me paramedics found her woozy and, Cobra, who raced to the scene with her attorney, Kim Picazio, says he found an ax on the floor, an apparent weapon Crystal had armed herself with to ward off a possible stalker her sister said they’d spotted “wearing all black,” and lurking outside.

No stalker was found, said Cobra.

After she was treated and released, her finance, Chad Griffis, tells me she’s now home resting, and neurological tests are being scheduled.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/27/exclusive-ronald-cummings-tried-to-kill-me/#more-1743

[Faith]

Art Harris has these articles together today 4/28/09 Is he trying to tell us something?




Exclusive: “Ronald Cummings Tried to Kill Me!” (http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/27/exclusive-ronald-cummings-tried-to-kill-me/)

see post above for this article


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTl4PUY6o_E&feature=player_embedded

April 27th, 2009

Misty Cummings, then Croslin, Talks About Last Night With Haleigh By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, © artharris.com, all rights reserved
According to co-workers within earshot of Ronald Cummings at Palatka, Florida’s PDM Bridge, Misty Croslin sounded hysterical when she called one night weeks before the 17 year old babysitter reported his daughter, Haleigh, had vanished while he was at work and she was asleep with the kids.



“I remember she called him in tears, because the little girl was giving her fits and he told her, ‘Whip her, just whip her and make her be quiet,’” recalls fellow crane operator Eric Zastrow, 32, in an exclusive interview with The Bald Truth. “He said, ‘Just whip the little brat, she needs to understand it’s time to go to bed, or put a movie in for her.’ Then he hung up.” Read the rest of this entry » (http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/27/exclusive-haleigh-cummings-dads-solid-alibi/#more-1731)



Haleigh Cummings: CNN’s Jane Velez Mitchell (http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/24/haleigh-cummings-cnns-jane-velez-mitchell/)
April 24th, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lyNM_b8Plo&feature=player_embedded

Watch Art on CNN Jane Velez Mitchell Tonight! (http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/22/watch-cnn-hln-jane-velez-mitchell-tonight-were-on/)

April 24th, 2009
Excerpt from Jane Velez Mitchell Show, April 21, 2009


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu9gToNxEjQ&feature=player_embedded

April 22nd, 2009

Jane Velez Mitchell Reports Artharris.com Scoop last week From Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c)artharris.com, all rights reserved
ATLANTA–Jane has invited us on her show in a little while to talk about Haleigh Cummings. Stay tuned.–Art Read the rest of this entry » (http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/22/watch-cnn-hln-jane-velez-mitchell-tonight-were-on/#more-1710)

[Faith]

Exclusive: Haleigh Could Be Alive—-Top Cop

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/naynay2-150x150.jpg

Misty Cummings Wild Weekend Chauffeur, Christina Prevatt, Back in Jail

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c) artharris.com, all rights reserved

In an exclusive,wide-ranging interview, the lead investigator in the Haleigh Cummings case tells the The Bald Truth he’s holding out hope the missing five year old could be alive.

“I didn’t think so for a long time, based on statistics for these kinds of missing children cases,” Captain Dominic Piscatello, chief of major crimes for the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department, told me Monday. “But now, based on what we’ve learned, I’m holding out hope. You remember Pamela Smart (the kidnapped Utah girl who turned up safe years later). Everyone had written her off as dead. We’re not ready to write off Haleigh.”

As supervisor of PCSD investigators spearheading the federal, state and local task force, Piscatello provided few details behind his change of heart, but did tell me earlier he’s confident the case is no stranger abduction, far more likely a child kidnapping by someone known or tied to a small circle of “players” who had contact with the five year old via family or friends.

His investigators have built timelines, which they continue to fill in for each of those so called “players,” including Misty Cummings, the 17 year old babysitter who reported the child missing Feb. 10, then married Haleigh’s father, Ronald, several weeks later. Both deny anything to do with the disappearance, and have made teary pleas for Haleigh’s safe return.

According to her family, Misty just retained an attorney, like her husband. In an exclusive interview several weeks ago, she told me she didn’t need one “because only guilty people need a lawyer.”

According to Piscatello, she’s only confessed to partying the weekend before Haleigh vanished, driven on a wild three day weekend of sex, drugs and rock and roll by pal Christina Prevatt, 19, aka, Nay Nay, who helped Misty make her love connection with “White Boy Greg” Page, 28, a light skinned African American who has been laying low following purported threats from her family members.

But Prevatt was back in the Putnam County Jail Tuesday, on suicide watch with a mandatory 72 hour hold for her own safety, the captain told me. She was rebooked after William Staubs, aka “Cobra,” pro bono private eye and bounty hunter, tracked her to a “filthy” Palatka crash pad, and announced he was revoking her $2,400 bond on drug charges. He’d bailed her out last week with Amber Brooks, a former Ronald Cummings ex, who remains free on bond, then learned she’d tried to allegedly snatch her own child, a nine month old girl named Destiny, from the father, Donovan Spells, 47.

According to Kim Picazio, the Miami lawyer representing Crystal Sheffield who has also been mediating domestic turmoil between Prevatt and her man, Nay Nay “needs to get into rehab for her drug addiction, and we’ve been pleading with her to get help.”

Picazio tells me Prevatt apparently snapped Monday when she saw another woman holding Destiny outside the father’s house and tried to wrestle the baby from her and the father. She was in the car with her mother.

“Drive, hurry up and drive!” she was yelling at her mother as she engaged in a dangerous tug of war for the baby, according to Picazio.

Cobra says that incident, an alleged child kidnapping, made her risky business for the bonding company and required him to hunt her down. He said he found her asleep on a dirty mattress today at 1 p.m and announced she was going back to jail.

“She cried and screamed that she’d die in jail,” Cobra told me, “but jail might be the safest place for her right now.”

Indeed, the troubled young woman sent a test message to her ex boyfriend, who forwarded it to Picazio and Cobra, that she aimed to kill herself after spotting her baby in the arms of another woman.

Captain Piscatello hopes to harvest clues from all the emotional chaos, and within minutes of her booking, had investigators grilling her again about what she knew about Haleigh’s disappearance or anyone who might know. “I don’t think she’s involved directly at all,” Piscatello told me, “but this gives us a chance to see if she will give us something she hasn’t before.

“We’ll make sure she gets checked by a doctor, and maybe when she gets the drugs out of her system, and gets off suicide watch, she’ll be able to remember something about someone we might be able to use…all we need is a break.”

http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/28/exclusive-haleigh-could-be-alive-top-cop/

[Faith]

Art Harris has changed the words of the article.


Exclusive: Haleigh Could Be Alive—-Top Cop

Misty Cummings Wild Weekend Chauffeur, Christina Prevatt, Back in Jail

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c) artharris.com, all rights reserved

In an exclusive,wide-ranging interview, the lead investigator in the Haleigh Cummings case tells the The Bald Truth he’s holding out hope the missing five year old could be alive.

“I didn’t think so for a long time, based on statistics for these kinds of missing children cases,” Captain Dominic Piscatello, chief of major crimes for the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department, told me Monday. “But now, based on what we’ve learned, I’m holding out hope. You remember (Elizabeth) Smart (the kidnapped Utah girl who turned up safe years later). Everyone had written her off as dead. We’re not ready to write off Haleigh.”

As supervisor of PCSD investigators spearheading the federal, state and local task force, Piscatello provided few details behind his change of heart, but did tell me earlier he’s confident the case is no stranger abduction, far more likely a child kidnapping by someone known or tied to a small circle of “players” who had contact with the five year old via family or friends.

His investigators have built timelines, which they continue to fill in for each of those so called “players,” including Misty Cummings, the 17 year old babysitter who reported the child missing Feb. 10, then married Haleigh’s father, Ronald, several weeks later. Both deny anything to do with the disappearance, and have made teary pleas for Haleigh’s safe return.

Piscatello told me he’d asked Cummings’ attorney to bring his client in to meet with investigators in an attempt to resolve unanswered questions about events surrounding Haleigh’s disappearance. He declined to reveal what the questions might be, and did not imply Ronald might be a suspect, just a grieving father who may hold clues that might lead them to a kidnapper, and hopefully, a little girl who’s still alive.

Cummings’ attorneys issued a press release Tuesday blasting our story reporting exclusively that police consider Ronald’s alibi solid–that co workers and cell phone towers show he was at work on the yard for PDM Bridge when Haleigh was purportedly snatched from the trailer where she was sleeping with her brother and babysitter Misty Croslin.

The attorneys said they found conflicts, gossip and hearsay in the story — that also quoted a co worker overhearing Ronald order Misty to “whip” Haleigh or put in a movie to keep her quiet–but declined to elaborate because of the upcoming meeting with the task force.

“This office had prepared a more lengthy and detailed response, but it has just been learned that a meeting has been scheduled for this office to meet with the law enforcement task force investigating Haleigh’s disappearance,” read the statement. “In the interest of not interfering with law enforcement’s investigation, this office will withhold further comment until deemed appropriate.

We left messages with Ronald’s mother, and his grandmother, where he’s been living with Misty, asking for comment, but received no call backs by press time, or after. His lawyers have refused all phone interviews, apparently preferring to communicate via press releases.

It was unclear whether his wife, Misty, had also been invited to speak with investigators who have interviewed her numerous times. According to her family, Misty recently retained her own attorney, like her husband. In an exclusive interview with me several weeks ago, she told The Bald Truth she didn’t need one “because only guilty people need a lawyer.”

According to Piscatello, who cites “conflicts” in her account of the night Haleigh disappeared, the only thing she’s ever confessed to is partying the weekend before Haleigh vanished. Fresh from a domestic spat with Ronald, according to friends, she sought a quickie revenge romance , going on what several friends who were with her tell me was a wild three day weekend of sex, drugs and rock and roll–chauffeured by pal Christina Prevatt, 19, aka, Nay Nay. It was Nay Nay who helped Misty make her love connection with “White Boy Greg” Page, 28, a light skinned African American who has been laying low following purported threats from Cummings family.

But Prevatt was back in the Putnam County Jail Tuesday, on suicide watch with a mandatory 72 hour hold for her own safety, the captain told me. She was rebooked after William Staubs, aka “Cobra,” pro bono private eye and bounty hunter, tracked her to a “filthy” Palatka crash pad, and announced he was revoking her $2,400 bond on drug charges. He’d bailed her out last week with Amber Brooks, a former Ronald Cummings ex, who remains free on bond, then learned she’d tried to allegedly snatch her own child, a nine month old girl named Destiny, from the father, Donovan Spells, 47.

According to Kim Picazio, the Miami lawyer representing Crystal Sheffield who has also been mediating domestic turmoil between Prevatt and her man, Nay Nay “needs to get into rehab for her drug addiction, and we’ve been pleading with her to get help.”

Picazio tells me Prevatt apparently snapped Monday when she saw another woman holding Destiny outside the father’s house and tried to wrestle the baby from her and the father. She was in the car with her mother.

“Drive, hurry up and drive!” she was yelling at her mother as she engaged in a dangerous tug of war for the baby, according to Picazio.

Cobra says that incident, an alleged child kidnapping, made her risky business for the bonding company and required him to hunt her down. He said he found her asleep on a dirty mattress today at 1 p.m and announced she was going back to jail.

“She cried and screamed that she’d die in jail,” Cobra told me, “but jail might be the safest place for her right now.”

Indeed, the troubled young woman sent a test message to her ex boyfriend, who forwarded it to Picazio and Cobra, that she aimed to kill herself after spotting her baby in the arms of another woman.

Captain Piscatello hopes to harvest clues from all the emotional chaos, and within minutes of her booking, had investigators grilling her again about what she knew about Haleigh’s disappearance or anyone who might know. “I don’t think she’s involved directly at all,” Piscatello told me, “but this gives us a chance to see if she will give us something she hasn’t before.

“We’ll make sure she gets checked by a doctor, and maybe when she gets the drugs out of her system, and gets off suicide watch, she’ll be able to remember something about someone we might be able to use…all we need is a break.”
http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/28/exclusive-haleigh-could-be-alive-top-cop/#more-1755

[Faith]

April 27th, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KTwNN2nmaU&feature=player_embedded

http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/27/exclusive-did-dad-say-just-whip-haleigh/

[Faith]

Exclusive: Haleigh Cummings–Nay Nay Out of Jail!

4/30/09

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c) www.artharris.com

The Bald Truth has learned just before 9 p.m. Wednesday, Christina Prevatt, aka Nay Nay, 18, ex- party girl chauffeur for Haleigh Cummings’ stepmother, Misty, was bonded out of the Putnam County Jail, again, on her original cocaine possession charges.

Only this time, it wasn’t bounty hunter Williams Staubs, aka Cobra, but Chuck’s Bail Bonds, according to attorney Kim Picazio, who has been trying to help the suicidal teenager struggling with drug addiction enroll in a rehab program.

She told The Bald Truth that she spoke to the Palatka, Florida outfit that took the gamble on Nay Nay, fresh off suicide watch, and says they declined to tell her who had put up the money for the bit player in the Haleigh Cummings mystery to go free, and likely go wild.

Her last get out of jail free card came from Staubs. Just before Cobra bonded her out Monday morning, task force detectives with the Putnam County Sheriff’s task force on the missing five year old, tell me they were interviewing Prevatt in jail, but learned nothing new.

Detectives hit her up again for information after Cobra put her back behind bars Tuesday for violating terms of her bond, but police sources say nothing new came up.

It was Prevatt who drove Misty on her weekend break with White Boy Greg Page, returning the day before Misty would report Haleigh missing.

“She’s been very cooperative with us,” Lt. Johnny Greenwood, the sheriff’s spokesman told me today. “She’s not a suspect or a person of interest, as some have wrongly reported, just someone who might know someone who knows something.”

Cobra tells me he’d bonded out Prevatt to cruise the Satsuma underbelly, along with Brooks, poking their heads into crack houses to see if they recognized anyone who might jog their memories and shake loose any information. Then he learned she’d tried to snatch her own child from temporary custody of her ex, and was threatening to kill herself, and put her back behind bars, this time on suicide watch.

Sources tell me a doctor ruled she was no longer a danger to herself, so could not be held under the mandatory 72 hour lockdown regulations.

Then Cobra got word Wednesday night, she was back on the street, and headed for the parking lot behind the Palatka Huddle House, where he says he found Prevatt standing by her new main man, a local ex-con named Jerome, out on his own $31,000 bond, records show, courtesy of, you guessed it, Chuck’s Bail Bonds.

“She didn’t look so good,” Cobra told me, who had lead the girl back to jail in tears and handcuffs a day earlier. “In fact, she looked so bad, she looked homesick for jail.”

With tensions mounting as he confronted Jerome, Cobra said he was glad he’d ordered his passengers to wear bullet proof vests; he shoved two pistols in his belt, ready for anything.

Later, I called Jerome. He picked up his cell phone. I asked to speak with Nay Nay.
“You the man who owes her money?” he asked.

“I don’t think so. Why, you think I owe her?”

“I think you owe me money,” he laughed. “Like five million dollars.”

I decided to ask how much he charged for the ladies. Cobra said he was bragging about having Nay Nay and Amber back under his roof.

“Who told you I do that?” he asked.

“That’s the word, Jerome,” I said.

————-

“She didn’t look so good,” Cobra told me. “She looked homesick for jail, like she missed jail already.”

————-

Meet Jerome, fresh out of jail himself earlier this month on a $31,000 bond for assorted charges, including drugs…

UCN: 542009CF000537XXAXMX

File Date: 2009-04-02
Judge: EDWARD E HEDSTROM

Defense Atty:

Defendant
WILLIAMS, JEROME RAYMOND

Alias
WILLIAMS, GEROME R
WILLIAMS, RAYMOND JEROME

Date
#
Docket Description

2009-04-02
1
ARREST REPORT - FHP TRP.VEGA (AR 4/1/09)

2009-04-02
1
BOOKING NUMBER: 09-1322

2009-04-02
1
NO VALID DRIVERS LICENSE

2009-04-02
1
ATTACHING TAG NOT ASSIGNED

2009-04-02
1
POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA

2009-04-02
1
SALE OF 10 PLUS GRAMS OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

2009-04-02
1
POSSESSION CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE WITHIN 200 FEET PARK

2009-04-02
1
POSSESSION CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE WITHIN 1000 FT.GROCERY

2009-04-02
1
POSSESSION OF LEGEND DRUGS WITHOUT PRESCRIPTION WITH

2009-04-02
1
INTENT TO SELL OXYCONTIN 40 MG

2009-04-02
1
POSSESSION CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE 1000 FEET CHURCH

2009-04-02
1
POSSESSION WITH INTENT TO SELL 1000 FEET SCHOOL

2009-04-02
1
POSSESSION OF LEGEND DRUG WITHOUT PRESCRIPTION WITH

2009-04-02
1
INTENT TO SELL

2009-04-02
1
POSSESSION OF COCAINE

2009-04-02
1
POSSESSION OF COCAINE (CRACK)

2009-04-02
1
POSSESSION WITH INTENT TO SELL LEGEND DRUG WITHOUT

2009-04-02
1
PRESCRIPTION

2009-04-02
2
DEFENDANT PRESENT FOR FIRST APPEARANCE HRG 4/2/09

2009-04-02
2
ADJ INS P D APPOINTED FOR FIRST APPEARANCE ONLY

2009-04-02
2
SUFFICIENT PROBABLE CAUSE FOUND

2009-04-02
2
$ 504.00 SECURED BOND SET CT. I

2009-04-02
2
$ 504.00 SECURED BOND SET CT. II

2009-04-02
2
$ 504.00 SECURED BOND SET CT. III

2009-04-02
2
$5004.00 SECURED BOND SET CT. IV

2009-04-02
2
$5004.00 SECURED BOND SET CT. V

2009-04-02
2
$5004.00 SECURED BOND SET CT. VI

2009-04-02
2
$1004.00 SECURED BOND SET CT. VII

2009-04-02
2
$5004.00 SECURED BOND SET CT. VIII

2009-04-02
2
$5004.00 SECURED BOND SET CT. IX

2009-04-02
2
$1004.00 SECURED BOND SET CT. X

2009-04-02
2
$1004.00 SECURED BOND SET CT. XI

2009-04-02
2
$1004.00 SECURED BOND SET CT. XII

2009-04-02
2
$1004.00 SECURED BOND SET CT. XIII

2009-04-02
3
TRAFFIC CITATION - #1468-SNO X - NO DL

2009-04-02
4
TRAFFIC CITATION - #1467-SNO X - TAG ATTACH

2009-04-02
5
AFFIDAVIT OF INSOLVENCY

2009-04-02
6
ORDER APPOINTING PUBLIC DEFENDER FOR 1ST APP HEARING

2009-04-02
7
$ 504.00 CHUCK’S BAIL BOND POSTED - #00803821 4/2/09

2009-04-02
8
$ 504.00 CHUCK’S BAIL BOND POSTED - #00803820

2009-04-02
9
$ 504.00 CHUCK’S BAIL BOND POSTED - #00803819

2009-04-02
10
$1004.00 CHUCK’S BAIL BOND POSTED - #00803818

2009-04-02
11
$1004.00 CHUCK’S BAIL BOND POSTED - #00803814

2009-04-02
12
$1004.00 CHUCK’S BAIL BOND POSTED - #00803817

2009-04-02
13
$5004.00 CHUCK’S BAIL BOND POSTED - #00805254

2009-04-02
14
$5004.00 CHUCK’S BAIL BOND POSTED - #00805255

2009-04-02
15
$5004.00 CHUCK’S BAIL BOND POSTED - #00805256

2009-04-02
16
$5004.00 CHUCK’S BAIL BOND POSTED - #00805257

2009-04-02
17
$5004.00 CHUCK’S BAIL BOND POSTED - #00795984

2009-04-02
18
$1004.00 CHUCK’S BAIL BOND POSTED - #00803815

2009-04-02
19
$1004.00 CHUCK’S BAIL BOND POSTED - #00803816

2009-04-02
19
CONTINENTAL HERITAGE INSURANCE CO.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/04/30/exclusive-haleigh-cummings-nay-nay-out-of-jail/#more-1809

[luvmygirls]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvPleLlYWNw


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myOb8xtPS3s


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsDdg7cblXA

[LiveLaughLuv]

http://www.artharris.com/2009/05/04/haleigh-cummings-dysfunction-junction/

[Faith]

http://www.artharris.com/2009/05/04/haleigh-cummings-dysfunction-junction/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7eQHKyjoA4&feature=player_embedded

Jane Velez Mitchell Interviews Art Harris, www.artharris.com

[Faith]

May 4th, 2009

Haleigh Cummings: Who’s Who?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHXx0xiW0Ek&feature=player_embedded

ane Velez Mitchell Asks Art Harris Who’s Who in the baffling case of missing Haleigh

From Bald Truth Staff, (c) www.artharris.com

In keeping us updated on the latest Haleigh Cummings news, CNN HLN’s Jane Velez Mitchell puts together a panel, including Art Harris, who offers a quick who’s who of the case. Sometimes, you need a scorecard to keep the cast of characters straight.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/05/04/haleigh-cummings-whos-who/

[Faith]

Haleigh Cummings: Daddy’s Girl Got Attitude!

May 5th, 2009

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/haleigh-with-attitude.jpg

Ronald Cummings Post On Lawyer Site

Daddy’s Little Girl: Ronald Cummings posts a favorite Haleigh photo

From Bald Truth Staff, (c) artharris.com, all rights reserved

This may be one of our favorite Haleigh photos yet, posted by Ronald Cummings lawyers, Kimball and Snider, of Palatka, Fla. on their new website. And from what we read, Ronald may be doing video updates!

We’re eager to hear how he’s doing and what he’s thinking…He’s called Cobra, but isn’t returning our calls. We’ll keep trying and offer a platform for him to say whatever he wants anytime, Misty, too!

Go guys, find Haleigh!

http://www.artharris.com/2009/05/05/haleigh-cummings-daddys-girl-got-attitude/#more-1970

[chambord]

New article from Art Harris

According to Nay Nay, Ron's name is on Jordan's BC.
Art tells about Jerome's involvment in the case


http://www.artharris.com/2009/05/14/exclusive-drug-dealer-haleigh-cummings-help/

[Faith]

New article from Art Harris

According to Nay Nay, Ron's name is on Jordan's BC.
Art tells about Jerome's involvment in the case


http://www.artharris.com/2009/05/14/exclusive-drug-dealer-haleigh-cummings-help/

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/amber-brooks-with-jordan2-300x223.jpg

BEFORE: Amber Brooks, Holding Son, Jordan.

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c) artharris.com, all rights reserved

The Bald Truth has learned that a convicted Palatka, Florida drug dealer who was arrested again Tuesday night on drug trafficking charges claimed to be using his street sources to help find clues into what happened to missing five year old Haleigh Cummings.

That’s what thirty seven year old Jerome Raymond Williams told me last week in an exclusive interview after discovering two women he’d recently helped bail out of jail had ties to Haleigh Cummings’ family he figured he might be able to exploit in an attempt to cut himself a better deal with upcoming drug charges.

Indeed, Williams told The Bald Truth before his latest arrest he was exploring options with the hard-working missing child task force that hoped the career criminal might be the break they’d been waiting for.

“We thought we had something special with Williams,” confided one law enforcement source who spoke on condition of anonymity, explaining how investigators often have to tap dance with the devil to solve unsolved mysteries like Haleigh Cummings.

Unfortunately, said the source, the drug dealer turned out to be a bust–a ‘VERY dead link to the case.” Out of some 4,000 leads police have chased, so many seemed promising, only to lead to another dead end.

There was cousin Joe in Tennessee who Misty Croslin’s family fingered as their favorite suspect – only police couldn’t tie him to the crime….A so called Haleigh sighting by a government scientist at a beauty parlor outside Nashville: a woman with a tan wearing flip flops and blue jean cutoffs in winter and a little girl the witness swore to be the missing five year old, another bust…a Chad Griffis ’”ex” whose family believed might have had it in for Crystal Sheffield for stealing her man and raising her kids…”We thought that was hot, too,” an investigator told me, “but it’s not on the radar anymore.”

It keeps coming back to the missing hours Misty Cummings can’t account for on the night Haleigh vanished, and a timeline investigators tell me they are still trying to corraborate. Then along comes Williams.

Williams and 30 year old Courtney Renee Leonard were taken into custody Tuesday night after undercover drug officers suckered the ex-con into trading prescription painkillers for what they dangled as stolen TVs, radios and a radar detector, according to the Putnam County Sheriff. .

According to a roommate who shared a triplex with Williams behind the Huddle House in Palatka, he offered a stranger four Loritabs for electronics gear. Drug officers from Putnam and St. John’s Counties, and the Palatka, PD, had been watching Williams, who arranged to meet the undercover officer in a parking lot.

According to police, both Williams and Leonard drove up, and after a little horse-trading, she offered to buy one TV for cash; while Jerome clinched a deal to trade Loritabs for electronics. Afterwards, police found illegal and prescription drugs in Williams’ car, including crack and powder cocaine, and an assortment of pills—Hydrocodone, Oxycodone, Diazepam, Cyclobenzapine and Clonazepam.

Williams was charged with two counts of drug trafficking and cocaine possession with intent to sell, possession of a schedule II controlled substance with the intent to sell, possession of a schedule IV substance with the intent to sell, possession of a legend drug without a prescription, possession of a legend drug with the intent to sell, possession of drug paraphernalia, maintaining a drug conveyance and dealing in stolen property, according to the sheriff..

Officers also served two outstanding warrants for trafficking in Hydrocodone and two counts for selling cocaine. Williams was booked into the Putnam County jail, where Chuck’s Bail Bonds sprung him earlier this month, and had helped arrange bond for Christina Prevatt, aka Nay Nay, and Amber Brooks, Ronald Cummings ex girlfriend and mother of his son, Jordan, after Cobra first rounded them up and bailed them out. Cobra, the nickname adopted by private eye and surety agent William Staubs, had this idea he’d use the girls to cruise the crack dens and try to shake up and shake loose tips from the same crowd they’d partied with the last weekend before Haleigh went missing—when Nay Nay was driving Misty Cummings on her revenge romance in the arms of “White Boy” Greg Page after a dust up with Ronald.

At one party, Nay Nay says Misty nearly came to blows with Amber Brooks, after needling her on My Space about stealing her man, and how she aimed to get her baby, too, a disabled boy named Jordan whose paternity she confirmed when Jerome handed her the phone.

“Yep, Ronald’s name is on the birth certificate,” she told me last week after bonding out courtesy of Chuck’s Bail Bonds.

Charles Durwood Ingram, 49, a former Palatka police officer… is the Chuck behind Chuck’s Bail Bonds, a registered sex offender who plead guilty to lewd and lascivious assault on a child in 2002. After he was sentenced to four years in prison and 11 years probation, he served two years, and began registering as a sex offender, which by statute, barred from the bail bond business. Records show he transferred title to his wife, but when I dropped by the office in a strip mall the other day, there he was, gaunt and goateed, sitting behind a desk; locals say he can be seen riding around town with his wife when she drops off bonds at the jail to spring steady clients like Jerome Williams.

“Chuck takes care of me,” says Jerome of the former bondsman who declined comment. Asked about his status as a convicted sexual predator, Jerome told me that “Chuck says he was set up and framed.”

“If you were set up, why would you plead guilty to go to prison and go on the books as a sexual predator?” asks Putnam County Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Johnny Greenwood, who investigated the case and interviewed the victim. “I just presented my facts and statements. He took the deal. If it was me and I didn’t do something, I’m gonna fight it for sure.”

But with no bond imposed for his new trafficking charges, Chuck’s long-time client was out of luck this time, and The Bald Truth has learned Jerome was transferred Wednesday to a secure facility in St. John’s County.

“He asked to be moved,” says Lt. Greenwood. “There were a lot of guys in jail in Putnam County he’d had dealings with in the past he might be facing as a co defendants in the future. He expressed his concerns (to the jail) that, ‘Hey, these guys know me.” So he was moved for security reasons.”

His co-defendant, Courtney Leonard, remained in Putnam jail, charged with dealing in stolen property; her bond has been set at $2,504.00

————————-

Jerome’s phone went to voice mail when I tried him today. Last week, he sure was sounding upbeat. He’d buried the hatchet with Cobra, after the self-proclaimed “hillbilly” went toe to toe with the drug dealer and alleged pimp for taking Amber and Nay Nay under wing after they were bailed out.

At first baffled over how he was suddenly in everybody’s crosshairs, on the one hand he told me he was worried locals would think him a snitch, yet he was boasting to another Palatka bail bondsman that he was a bankrobber who took “federal money,” and a “drug dealer like my Daddy.”

‘That’s what he said in our office when they were trying to get one of the girls’ bonds transferred from Cobra to him, “ recalls A-1 Bail Bonds owner Donna Jaquith. “He was yelling and screaming and acting like an asshole.”

Last month, Amber was booked into the county slammer on a Friday night, on the same cocaine and failure to appear charges that landed her there originally.

Only that time, it wasn’t “Cobra” Staubs who bailed her out (within the hour), but Chuck’s Bail Bonds, the same local outfit that put Misty party pal Prevatt, 18, aka, Nay Nay, back on the streets after jail docs took her of suicide watch.

That release, while legally kosher, irked investigators with the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department who tell me they’d hoped she’d detox for a few days in jail and clear her head enough to remember something useful to their investigation into the missing five year old.

It was Prevatt who told The Bald Truth she drove Misty (then Croslin) on a three day binge of parties, drugs, and sex, the weekend before Haleigh turned up missing. After they were arrested together earlier this month, it was Cobra who bonded them out for Donna Jaquith’s A-1 Bail Bonds, a Chuck rival, to cruise the drug netherworld of Putnam County in search of tipsters who might know something, anything.

Then Nay Nay tried to snatch her 9 month old from the child’s father and sent a suicide threat text message to Kim Picazio, the family law attorney for Crystal Sheffield who has been trying to encourage Prevatt to go into rehab. “She actually called to ask if we could pick her up from a drug house the other night, that she didn’t want to be around it, or do it,” Picazio tells me.

Then she was back with Williams, who, according to Picazio, took the girls clothes when they were staying with him so they couldn’t run away. When I got Jerome on his cell phone two weeks ago, he confirmed Amber Brooks had been was staying with him, too.

According to Picazio, he’s been furious at Cobra for cruising through the ‘hood and driving customers away, and Staubs tells me that before their detete, he was interrogating a witness in a cheap motel when Jerome pounded on the door and demanded Cobra stay away, or else, then began threatening his witness.

Moments later, Staubs was detailing that encounter for detectives, when 911 calls came from the motel.

Then, Amber Brooks turned herself into the Jail; Chuck’s bailed her out; she moved into Jerome’s studio with Christina Prevatt, aka Nay Nay, and the convicted felon realized he might have two golden girls who could come in handy as part of a radical makeover he was considering after warming to attorney Kim Picazio who describes feeling out of place as she hopped out of her green Hummer in an Eli Tahari suit and high heels and sat in the tiny apartment with Williams, the girls and three beds. “I was polite and just treated him like a human being, and he was all ears,” she tells me. In fact, he actually considered allowing Nay Nay to go into rehab, says Picazio, and seemed hopeful about a fresh start.

“I’m gonna do what I can to find that missing little girl,” Williams told me in a late night call last week after starting to understand how might benefit from ties to Misty Cummings galpal “Nay Nay” and Amber Brooks.

Sources tell me Williams recently met with Putnam County sheriff’s investigators, who, after three months of dead ends, were ready to entertain how the drug dealer might help them. After all, there was an immunity offer on the table for anyone, even a dealer with a past, if he could help bring Haleigh home.

No specifics were ever discussed, sources tell me, but Williams implied he might know drug dealers who knew Misty. Only his wheeling and alleged dealing apparently rocked on, and the triplex where he was staying behind the Huddle House in Palatka hit vice cops radar.

On one visit, Picazio tells me she met a Williams friend named Daniel Bass, 47, a registered sex offender who called himself the landlord. Picazio says she warned him he might need to evict a needy family with young children in the complex, if children of a certain age nearby violated terms of his sex offender status.

Then came Tuesday night’s bust. “Nay Nay” was not arrested. Picazio who has been checking up on her between representing Crystal Sheffield in her bitter custody dispute with Ronald Cummings, and pressing her case with Florida’s Department of Family and Children, got her on the phone.

“She told me, ‘Kim, I didn’t have anything on me,’” says Picazio, who has been urging Prevatt to seek drug rehab and lobbying Jerome to let her go if she wants help. Police tell me they’d wanted Nay Nay in jail to “dry out” and get her head clear enough to remember anything she might have forgotten in previous interviews about Misty Cummings.

Investigators have interviewed Misty at least 10 times—and tell me they are still trying to reconcile “inconsistencies” in her stories, and plug timelines in others.

Meanwhile, her husband, Ronald, has been asked to return for another police interview with his attorney, Greg Kimball, “to clear up a few things, minor stuff,” a task force member tells me. But that pow-wow has yet to occur.

My sources also maintain police still do not believe it’s a stranger abduction, more likely someone “in the loop” of Haleigh’s family and friends whose name may have not yet surfaced. “We’ve got to keep an open door and an open mind,” says a source close to the case.
——————

JEROME RAYMOND WILLIAMS
Palatka , FL
Booking Date & Time: 5/12/2009 9:22:10 PM - Booking#: 09-01875
Release Date & Time: 5/13/2009 10:12:00 AM
DOB: 9/9/1971 - RACE: B - SEX: M
Charges Misd/Felony Degree Bond Bond Posted
365.16-1b HARASSING COMMUNICATION PHONE CALL M S $0.00
806.13-1b1 DAMAGE PROP-CRIM MISCH 200 DOLS OR LESS SUBSQ OFF F T $0.00
322.03-1 NONMOVING TRAFFIC VIOL OPERATE MOTOR VEHICLE WO VALID LICENSE M S $0.00
320.261- NONMOVING TRAFFIC VIOL ATTACH REGISTRATION LICENSE PLATE NOT ASSIGNED M S $504.00 5/10/2009 7:49:45 PM
322.03-1 NONMOVING TRAFFIC VIOL OPERATE MOTOR VEHICLE WO VALID LICENSE M S $504.00 5/10/2009 7:50:09 PM
316.1935-1 FLEE/ELUDE POLICE FAIL TO OBEY LEO ORDER TO STOP F T $2,504.00 5/10/2009 7:48:21 PM
893.13-6b MARIJUANA-POSSESS NOT MORE THAN 20 GRAMS M F $504.00 5/10/2009 7:49:11 PM
893.13-6a DRUGS-POSSESS CNTRL SUB WO PRESCRIPTION F T $1,004.00 5/10/2009 7:46:33 PM
893.13-1a1 COCAINE-SELL SCHEDULE II F S $5,004.00
893.135-1c1 DRUGS-TRAFFIC 4 GRAMS LESS 30 KG OTHER CNTRL SUBST F F $0.00
893.13-6a COCAINE-POSSESS POSSESS COCAINE F T $1,004.00
893.13-1a1 COCAINE-SELL SCHEDULE II F S $5,004.00
893.135-1c1 DRUGS-TRAFFIC 4 GRAMS LESS 30 KG OTHER CNTRL SUBST F F $0.00
893.135-1c1 DRUGS-TRAFFIC 4 GRAMS LESS 30 KG OTHER CNTRL SUBST F F $0.00
893.13-6a COCAINE-POSSESS POSSESS COCAINE F T $2,504.00
893.13-1a1 COCAINE-POSSESS WITH INTENT TO SELL MFG DELIV ETC SCHEDULE II F S $2,504.00
893.13-1a1 COCAINE-POSSESS WITH INTENT TO SELL MFG DELIV ETC SCHEDULE II F S $2,504.00
893.13-1a1 COCAINE-POSSESS WITH INTENT TO SELL MFG DELIV ETC SCHEDULE II F S $1,004.00
893.13-1a1 COCAINE-DISTRIB SCHEDULE II F S $2,504.00
499.03-3 DRUGS-HEALTH OR SAFETY POSS WIT SELL LEGEND DRUG WO PRESCRIPTION F T $1,004.00
893.13-6a DRUGS-POSSESS CNTRL SUB WO PRESCRIPTION F T $1,004.00
499.03-1 DRUGS-HEALTH OR SAFETY POSS HARMFUL NEW LEGEND DRUG WO PRESCRIPTION M S $504.00
893.147-1 NARCOTIC EQUIP-POSSESS AND OR USE M F $504.00
893.13-7a5 DANGEROUS DRUGS KEEP SHOP OR VEHICLE ETC FOR DRUGS 1ST VIOL M F $504.00
812.019-1 STOLEN PROP-DEAL IN F S $2,504.00
$33,076.00
—————————
Click here for Amber Brooks original booking, April 26. amber-brooks-booking1 (http://www.artharris.com/2009/05/14/exclusive-drug-dealer-haleigh-cummings-help/amber-brooks-booking1/)
(http://www.artharris.com/2009/05/14/exclusive-drug-dealer-haleigh-cummings-help/amber-brooks-with-jordan2/)


http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/amber-brooks-mug-jpg2-240x300.jpg

AFTER: Amber Brooks May 1 Mug Shot

amber-brooks-booking-details (http://www.artharris.com/2009/05/14/exclusive-drug-dealer-haleigh-cummings-help/amber-brooks-booking-details/)
Amber Brooks Booking Details May 1, 2009

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/daniel-bass-mug1-240x300.jpg

Daniel Aubrey Bass, 47, convicted sexual predator, helped bond out Amber

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/jerome-williams-mug1-240x300.jpg

Jerome Williams, 38, convicted felon, accused drug dealer, bonded Nay Nay, Amber

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/kristina-prevatt-mug.jpg
Christina Prevatt, 18, aka Nay Nay.

his entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 5:26 am and is filed under ART HARRIS REPORTS, Haleigh Cummings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

[Faith]

The Bald Truth on CNN’s Jane Velez Mitchell

May 19th, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlX9SJiwxAA&feature=player_embedded

Jane Velez Mitchell Adds The Bald Truth to Haleigh Cummings Panel

From Bald Truth Staff, (c)www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

If you missed the last Jane Velez Mitchell Show that focused on missing Haleigh Cummings, there was The Bald Truth’s Art Harris, www.artharris.com, talking about convicted drug dealer Jerome Williams and his entourage–Nay Nay, aka Christina Prevatt (Misty Croslin’s chauffeur the weekend before Haleigh vanished from her trailer) and party pal Amber Brooks…

http://www.artharris.com/2009/05/19/the-bald-truth-on-cnns-jane-velez-mitchell/

[Faith]

May 20th, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlX9SJiwxAA&feature=player_embedded

Jane Velez Mitchell Adds The Bald Truth to Haleigh Cummings Panel

From Bald Truth Staff, (c)www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

JVM just invited journalist and The Bald Truth founder Art Harris onto a Haleigh Cummings panel tonight (7-8 pm) focusing on why her father has balked at having the Anthony’s involved in the search for Haleigh…

Ronald Cummings lawyers issued yet another press release Tuesday, this time accusing the Anthony’s of having their own agenda in offering assistance, and stressed they believe no similarities exist between the Haleigh & Caylee cases. What do you think?

Meanwhile, if you missed the last Jane Velez Mitchell Show (posted here) that focused on missing Haleighs, The Bald Truth’s Art Harris explores convicted drug dealer Jerome Williams and his entourage–Nay Nay, aka Christina Prevatt (Misty Croslin’s chauffeur the weekend before Haleigh vanished from her trailer) and party pal Amber Brooks…

Williams is behind bars in St. John’s County, charged with drug trafficking and other felonies. No bond.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/05/20/the-bald-truth-on-cnn-jane-velez-mitchell-2/#more-2035

[Faith]

Haleigh Cummings: Cobra Arrested, Bonds Out!

May 23rd, 2009

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/cobra-mug-shot2.jpg

William Eugene Staubs, aka Cobra, mug shot, Putnam County Jail

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, © www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

SATSUMA, Fla.–He’s always nervous before a takedown, and that day, was no different.

He was chain smoking, guzzling go-cup sweet tea from Me-Ma’s Café, sweating beneath his kevlar vest. Parking his black Chevy Tahoe outside the Sheriff’s substation on Highway 17, he checked his Taser, tucked curls (still blond at 51) beneath a do-rag, and turned up the Gangsta rap. Cobra was psyched.

“Showtime,” said William Eugene Staubs, 51, a beefy bounty hunter and pro-bono private eye on what has been a personal, and risky quest to find missing Haleigh Cummings. “Someone’s going down!”

And Cobra was off to confront an alleged sexual predator he had reason to believe had violated his bond–and just might, he hoped, just might know something to fuel his hunt for little Haleigh.
—————-
It’s a mission Staubs vows to keep — despite that costly March 20 misstep that put him behind bars for five hours Friday. after a jailhouse bond glitch. A local outfit, A-1 Bail Bonds, balked, at first agreeing to bail him out, then backing out, citing money owner Donna Jaquith told me Cobra still owed her.

That delayed what Cobra hoped would be a quick turnaround when he learned Circuit Judge Art Nichols had issued a warrant for his arrest, and promised Puthan County Detective Kent Taylor he’d surrender Friday, even if he had to drive all night from Fort Lauderdale. He worried he’d miss the blue crab festival, then found a Miami friend to cough up the $5,000 bond to free him for illegally trying to revoke the bond of an accused sexual predator.

“Our investigator spoke to the insurance firm behind the bail bond company and they said at no time did they give Mr. Staubs permission to revoke their client’s bond, much less throw him to the ground, put handcuffs on him and try to take him to jail,” sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Johnny Greenwood told me.

Asked about Cobra’s efforts to find little Haleigh, Greenwood said, “His intentions are good, but we haven’t received any information from him we didn’t already have. “

“I haven’t solved the f—ing case for them,” fumed Cobra who called me Friday, after he bonded out on a false imprisonment charge.

“But I must be pretty good, because I ran down 300 leads and found everything on my own they say they already knew. They never cooperated with me, but we’re on the same page now.”

Well, almost. Cobra faces up to five years behind bars for a third degree felony, charges pressed by Daniel Snodgrass, 54, who faces possible life in prison if convicted of sexual battery on a child under 12 and lewd and lascivious molestation.

He’s scheduled to go on trial June 22 in Palatka , Florida, and remains free on a $78,000 bond and a GPS ankle monitor.

Asked if it’s routine to allow an alleged predator to go free on bond in a capital case, the state attorney’s office told The Bald Truth it may have been policy of the last administration, “but we would oppose it today,” said state attorney spokesman Chris Kelly.

Now, Cobra is out on bond, accused of taking the law into his own hands by trying to revoke the Snodgrass bond without permission, according to the bonding firm. “They’re lying; I had permission,” says Cobra, “they just got cold feet when Snodgrass threatened to sue, and now they’re tyring to kick me to the curb.”

Mid-March, Cobra picked up Snodgrass on his “radar,” after the alleged predator tried to donate used furniture to the “Haleigh Bug Center,” a hotspot for volunteers in the missing child case that sometimes include families with children about the same age as his alleged victims. When the center learned the identity of the would be donor, the organizer rejected the gift as “inappropriate.”

As a journalist, I happened to be following Staubs around the day he decided to check up on Snodgrass after scoring a list of alleged sex offenders out on bond and awaiting trial he figured might be worth checking. Putnam County counts almost 250 registered sex offenders who have done their time, but who still have to check in; police tell me all have been ruled out as suspects in the Cummings case, which is not considered a stranger abduction.

Still, armed with information from Snodgrass’s ex wife, his girlfriend’s daughter and others, Cobra felt it important to check his bond, wondering if he may have violated it by dropping by the Haleigh Bug Center with children all around.

First stop that day…Chuck’s Bail Bonds, which held the papers on Snodgrass. I tried to follow Cobra into the office in a strip mall, but a slight, rail-thin man with a beard and glasses saw my camera and ordered me out.

I later learned that would be Chuck Ingram, a former Palatka police officer and registered sex offender who served hard time for sex crimes against a child..As a convicted felon, he’s barred from the bail bond business, but still goes to the office and rides around town with the new head of his firm, wife Dale. I was waiting outside when Cobra emerged with a sheaf of papers he identified as the Snodgrass file.

He then made a flurry of calls to insurance contacts, including one hee identified as C.E. Parish, the powerful general agent fbehind Continental Heritage Insurance, and Roger Capener, another supervising agent. Cobra told me they had granted permission to take down Snodgrass; Staubs said he taped the conversations as proof, and we were off to the races, with deputies leading the way, kicking up dust down a long dirt road.

Both men told me in exclusive interviews Friday they never gave Cobra the greenlight. “I didn’t authorize it, or not authorize it,” said C. E. Parish. ‘I just said, ‘I want to stay out of it. Don’t pick up that man…Let the local agent make the decision.’”

Whatever was said, Cobra told me he had the all clear.

A fence and a gate marked the property line and a no trespassing sign. Cobra popped his siren, made sure the German shepherd was locked up; a barefoot man with a gray fu Manchu, no shirt and washboard abs sauntered towards him. I couldn’t hear, but watched as Snodgrass emerged, and appeared to balk at going with Cobra.

As Putnam County deputies watched, Cobra tripped Snodgrass, threw him on the ground and cuffed hands behind his back, then pushed him towards the Tahoe.

At the truck, Cobra spread his legs to check him for weapons. I spied his ankle bracelet, covered up by blue jeans. He was shouting, “Marty, call my lawyer!!” Marty was the friend without a shirt.

Then Snodgrass turned to me and said he was glad I was filming, so he could show what was happening because it was “illegal. I didn’t do nothing wrong.”

Stay tuned–those exclusive videotapes may be coming soon to artharris.com.

Next stop would have been jail, as Cobra loaded Snodgrass in the van, hands cuffed behind his back, and started driving.

The phone rang.

Now Cobra was angry, frowning as he fumed. Suddenly, he had marching orders to take Snodgrass home and release him; the insurance company had done an about face, he said, after apparent calls from Snodgrass’s attorney. But the agents say their initial order was ignored.

I climbed out as Cobra chauffeured the client home.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/05/23/haleigh-cummings-cobra-arrested-bonds-out/#more-2049

[Faith]

June 1st, 2009

Exclusive: Cobra’s Takedown Controversy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq3kp70TS9c&feature=player_embedded

Exclusive: Cobra “Takedown” of an accused predator that lead to his arrest May 22

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, © artharris.com, all rights reserved

SATSUMA, Fla.—The orange pickup truck kicked up dust clouds on the back roads, a “Missing” poster of 5 year old Haleigh Cummings on the rearview window. Behind the wheel: an accused predator free on bond.

Although charged with sexually abusing a nine year old girl and molesting her 16 year old sister almost two years ago, Daniel Everett Snodgrass, 54, maintains his innocence, and a soft spot for missing children. A fine motive for the self-employed businessman to drop by the Haleighbug Center on Highway 17 outside Satsuma to offer free furniture almost three months ago.

“I’m a nice guy, I just wanted to help,” he told center organizer Jeremiah Regan, 26, who followed the truck, uncertain of the mystery benefactor’s identity as he drove past the gate with the no trespassing sign, invited in to check out two heavy desks in a shed alongside a sprawling ranch house, where Snodgrass taught young girls how to ride a unicycle. Regan thanked him, then spied a black bulge around his ankle, partially covered by long blue jeans – the tell-tale GPS monitor.

Snodgrass. Snodgrass….The name suddenly rang a bell…He suddenly remembered the news…a man named Snodgrass had been charged with a capital sex crime, set for trial June 22, in Palatka, where at least two girls are expected to testify he molested them. (Snodgrass has told police the alleged victims and witnesses are lying.)

After confirming his identity, Regan politely rejected the donation, and Snodgrass ordered him off the property. He related the story to William Staubs, aka Cobra, bounty hunter, bond pickup agent and pro bono private eye who was checking out accused and registered sex offenders in Putnam County as part of his search for clues to the Haleigh Cummings mystery.

According to law enforcement, GPS satellite coordinates transmitted during the window of time the little girl was reported missing early Feb. 10 showed Snodgrass was nowhere near Ronald Cummings trailer when 17 year old babysitter Misty Croslin said she woke up to find Haleigh gone.

While ankle monitors aren’t infallible near large bodies of water, experts say, police source told me Snodgrass was ruled out in the Cummings case, along with 247 registered sex offenders in Putnam County.

But Cobra says he grew concerned about Snodgrass after he’d paid a visit to the Haleighbug Center, which was shut down in Satsuma last week and moved to the hay farm in Baker County, where Haleigh’s mother, Crystal Sheffield, lives with her fiancé, and their one hear old, while undergoing further tests for seizures that make her unable to drive, according to her attorney, Kim Picazio.

Cobra was also concerned after interviewing Snodgrass’s mentally disabled ex-wife who related the same story she’s also told police—that she helped Snodgrass recruit young girls during their marriage. He also wondered whether he might be selling furniture and other items, if a tipster was correct.

“If your client is having a yard sale, that’s not a good sign,” said Sam Jochananov, a general insurance agent from Miami who bailed out Cobra after a local bail bond owner, Donna Jaquith, yanked his bond. “You’ve gotta ask if he’s a flight risk.”

Flight risk or not, critics say Cobra was not authorized to revoke a bond written by another agent, in this case, Chuck’s Bail Bonds, which had guaranteed the $70,000 no collateral bond that sprung Snodgrass.

If their client failed to show for court, and they couldn’t afford to pay, Cobra says the insurance firm that guaranteed the bond would be out of luck. As an authorized agent of the same outfit, like Chuck’s, Cobra claims the power of attorney granted him by the insurance carrier and on file with the state gives him the right to look out for the company, investigate and revoke a bond if necessary. Others dispute that.

Still, off he went to Snodgrass’s home, where our cameras caught Cobra calling for police backup on March 20—he reported hearing a gun being loaded inside the house—after he set off his siren and Snodgrass refused to come out. Cobra retreated to his truck and waited for police after a Snodgrass’s housemate named Marty marched out in jeans with no shirt, strutting washboard abs, a gray Fu Manchu and defiance; he demanded Cobra take a hike, snarled he was trespassing.

The exclusive videotape of the encounter and takedown– shown here for the first time, with part 2 scheduled to air June 5 at artharris.com – reveals what happened next:

As two Putnam County sheriff’s deputies stood feet away like referees, and Marty took photos of Cobra, the beefy bounty hunter asked Snodgrass to go with him. When he resisted, Cobra threw him on the ground, flipped him like a pancake, and slapped on the cuffs.

In the criminal complaint Snodgrass filed against Cobra, he says the private eye jammed his knee in his back, and escorted him to his black Chevy Tahoe. There, the videotape shows, Snodgrass said he was glad a camera was recording because Cobra’s rough stuff was “illegal,” that he’d done nothing wrong to merit bond revocation, or the sexual battery charges against him.

With Snodgrass in the back seat, Staubs was enroute to the Putnam County Jail when insurance agents underwriting the bond ordered him to release the client, apologizing and advising Cobra to explain that his paper work was found to be in order after all.

Two months later, Cobra learned the complaint had become an arrest warrant, and he turned himself in to the Putnam County Jail May 22, charged with false imprisonment, a felony. Within hours, Cobra was free on a bond, but it was hardly trouble free. He had to spend several hours in jail, his biggest fear, after A-1 Bail Bonds posted his bail letter, then yanked it, claiming concern he’d owed them money.

But Cobra tells me he offered his girlfriend’s credit card, owed them nothing and then had to scramble to find a Miami bondsman, Sam Jochananov, to put up the $5,000 bail. Sam tells me he was entitled to the $500 fee, and had no qualms Cobra was good for it. “I’ve known him for ten years. We’ve done a couple hundred pickups. I trust him. In fact, I’d trust him at my mother’s house.”

Sam said he had to field an angry call from the Palatka firm demanding the bond fee, but he says he told A-1 he’d put up the bond papers that ultimately got Cobra out, and that Donna was out of luck.

In an interview with The Bald Truth Sunday, Cobra said he’d just obtained a copy of his official power of attorney issued by Continental Heritage authorizing him to pick up any client, and mailed it last week to detective Taylor. “That should prove I worked for the company, and had every right to do the pickup,” Cobra told me.

No trial date has been set for Staubs; a call to Snodgrass’s attorney requesting comment wasn’t returned by Sunday.
—————————-
Ironically, Ken Taylor, the same detective who put together a case against Cobra had previously investigated the sex crime charges against Snodgrass, and some feared the accused predator might now claim to be a victim and attempt to undermine what law enforcement considers a slam dunk.

Only the frightening sexual battery and molestation case against Snodgrass seems to have been eclipsed by debate over Cobra’s failed attempt to revoke his bond.

For the first time, confidential police reports obtained exclusively by The Bald Truth reveal the furtive world of an alleged predator, a confused little girl, and a fast acting relative who alerted police to photos of a child posed in adult lingerie – photos allegedly taken by Snodgrass who happened to be a friend of the girl’s father. She told officers her father said it was all “innocent fun and nothing sexual was meant by them,” but not to tell her mother.

Reported to the Abuse Hotline, an investigator from Florida’s Department of Children and Families yanked the girls from the father’s home over failure to report the initial incident, according to the report, which offers a glimpse into alleged predators use to groom children as prey.

When Taylor came by to interview the girls, a child welfare investigator showed him a signed contract between Snodgrass and the girl’s father, retaining Snodgrass to teach both girls “how to ride a unicycle and it covered the possibility of Snodgrass measuring the girls for outfits.”

Taylor also found photos of the girls with Snodgrass inside the father’s album, which included photos of topless women, apparently taken by Snodgrass, according to the police report. Taylor watched via closed circuit television while a female coordinator with the DCF Child Protection Team from the University of Florida spoke with the two girls.

They said Snodgrass had “several different jobs…a limo service, a dating service and taught people how to be in the circus.”

According to the report, one girl described a maneuver Snodgrass used—holding the unicycle seat, as he “rubbed her privates” over her clothing. She said she was wearing a “see-through” black and red top he’d picked out, and black bottoms. She said her father remained outside “watching the fire” while Snodgrass snapped away, posing her on “a big bed with a pink and hot pink bedspread,” later found during a search.

When asked about the incidents, the report says, the girl became “very shy and did not look at (the case worker), then “disclosed that Dan had tied her to his bed while she was naked.” Unwilling or unable to “verbalize all that exactly happened to her,” she did describe how he had performed oral sex and “made her hold his ‘thing’.”

‘It felt nasty,’” said the girl, elaborating about the tan rope he’d used to tie her wrists to four posts on the bed, similar to a tan nylon rope police found later inside his home. According to the report, she told the caseworker her father advised “she had to do whatever Dan told her to do,” and that Dan had been drinking wine and beer.

When the caseworker interviewed her sister, she said she had told her father about the inappropriate touching and he’d confronted Dan who said “if he did it, he didn’t’ mean to do it and it would never happen again.”

In the report, the sister said Dan prescribed mandatory massages as part of his unicycle training regimen, posing her in various bathing suits and lingerie, interludes where he allegedly touched private places without permission.

They’d met Snodgrass, she told investigators, when her father’s motorcycle ran out of gas on the top of Dunn’s Creek Bridge. He’d ferried her father for a fillup, then returned to ask her “if she wanted to be in show business.”

On Sept. 11, 2007, the police report says, the men signed a contract and the girl began visiting Snodgrass’s home three times a week for two hour lessons. The first alleged sexual incident occurred on the third visit, according to the report, and during the final visits, she said she tried on different bathing suits, lay on his bed for massages and once wore what she described as a “Catholic school girl outfit.”

Six days before Christmas 2007, armed with what he believed to be sufficient probable cause that a sex crime had occurred, Taylor pressed Judge A.W. Nichols for a search warrant “to collect any and all evidence from the residence,” and it was signed. Then he presented an arrest warrant, the report says, and “Judge Nichols agreed…and signed an arrest warrant for Daniel Snodgrass for Capital Sexual Battery on a minor child under the age of twelve, with no bond.”

Later that day, Taylor lead a team from Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID), to search the house, where he read the warrant to Snodgrass and one of his tenants, then advised “Snodgrass I had an active warrant for his arrest. I then read Snodgrass his constitutional rights per Miranda,” and he agreed to speak without a lawyer, according to the police report.

Armed with a digital camera and camcorder, searchers documented a wardrobe, that may have been used for the unicycle scheme, including “several outfits (bathing suits, lingerie) described by both (girls), including a read and black (Victoria Secrets) teddy.”

Among the items seized: “red/black Teddy, size small, jeans shorts for children size 12, yellow seamstress measuring tape, six pages of nude photos (Polaroid), one folder containing information on (victim 1) (wth photographs), one folder containing information on a (16 year old)” girl.

In addition, the report says police collected a VHS tapes, home movies, 4 swimsuits (two bikinis, 2 one piece), black photo album containing information on (girl 1), 15 polaroid photographs of (the girls), Sony Vaio desk top computer, wireless receiver for DVR, black surveillance camera attached to bed frame, black surveillance camera in box in living room, black surveillance camera hidden on gorilla in bathroom, red belt with red balls, 2 VHS pornographic movies (“Lust in a Cage,” “Ultimate Craving”), hand written notes, 2 unicycles, and a Polaroid camera.

After the search, Taylor sat down with Snodgrass and recorded a statement. “He denied ever touching either (accuser)” and “refused to admit he had pictures of any juveniles in women’s lingerie,” according to the report , referring “to the clothing as ‘Circus Outfits.’ I asked Snodgrass about the pictures of the girls in the Victoria Secrets thong ‘Teddy.’

According to the report, “Snodgrass refused to admit the outfit was a Teddy, (and) advised me I needed to give both Victims a lie detector test, because they were lying. I asked Snodgrass if he was willing to take a computerized voice analysis examination.” That’s when Snodgrass asked to speak with an attorney before “taking the examination.”

According to the report, Taylor properly ended the interview when Snodgrass asked for a lawyer, and booked the accused into the Putnam County Jail, where he initially remained without bond.

The next day, December 20, 2007, Taylor got a call from a registered nurse with the Child Protection Team from the University of Florida. During her forensic medical exam of one victim, she said the girl “disclosed Snodgrass had in fact … penetrated her,” according to the police report, and “forced (her) to watch pornographic movies in Snodgrass’s bedroom, as well as (showing her) images of naked children on his computer….and made her smoke ‘weed’ that made her feel funny.”

Based on the new revelation, Taylor obtained another search warrant, and found a “white plastic garbage bag” with a pink comforter similar to one girls described in the bedroom, 37 homemade VHS tapes, 8 homemade compact disks, pink pillow cases, pink shams, pink sheets, a tan nylon rope, and a brown cardboard box with women’s clothes.”

When the news of the arrest was reported on television, Taylor received more calls, including one from the grown daughter of a Snodgrass girlfriend, who said she’d tried to warn her mother there was something strange about Dan, and claimed he’d tried to “recruit her into working for his escort service.”

She’d also gone along when Snodgrass had taken the girls to the circus in Jacksonville, and did not notice anything “out of the ordinary” except it seemed he was paying an “inordinate amount of attention” to one of the girls, according to the report.

Later, Taylor asked if she were aware of photos Snodgrass had taken of her. No, she said. So Taylor showed her “two Polaroid photographs … in what appears to be an unconscious state.”

Shortly afterwards, the police report says, she ended the interview and remarked she “did not believe Daniel was capable of such a crime.”

According to the report, Snodgrass’s ex wife told police she’d helped him “gain access to young women,” using pets “to get young girls to come and talk to Daniel,” who she introduced as her brother or her son.. Only she couldn’t remember any names, claiming “most of these incidents had happened when they lived in St. John’s County.”

Taylor forwarded his investigation to the State Attorney’s office, and Snodgrass was later charged.
————-
Last year, he spent four months in jail, until Judge Edward Hedstrom reversed the no bond hold, and Snodgrass was released on a $70,000 bond with a GPS ankle bracelet, according to Jacksonville’s Action News reporter Celine McArthur. Recently, she tried to ask the judge why he didn’t consider Snodgrass a threat to the community, or a serious flight risk, criteria for a judge to deny bond, but he was “unable to speak with us.”

Asked about the likelihood of bond granted for someone charged with a capital sexual offense, a spokesman for the Florida State Attorney’s office told The Bald Truth that their office would fight such a request today, but the Snodgrass case had happened during “the previous administration.”

As part of her diligent reporting, McArthur learned a Florida Department of Justice report showed that 12 per cent of those charged with murder and 52 per cent of people charged with rape, were released on bond before trial. One third, she reported, “were either re-arrested for a new offense, failed to appear in court or committed another pre-trial violation.”

According to police, Snodgrass has complied with terms of his bond, which requires he remain in Putnam County until trial, except for medical appointments, and stay away from girls under 18. Donna Jaquith of A-1 Bail Bonds in Palatka told me she declined to bond him out, citing a capital sex charge, and asked for his house deed as collateral. But Chuck’s Bail Bonds offered a better deal…

http://www.artharris.com/2009/06/01/exclusive-cobras-takedown-controversy/#more-2138

[AmandaReckonwith]

Dumb question... why does it say June 5?

[Faith]

I stopped highlighting- it's all just awful.

[Faith]

Dumb question... why does it say June 5?

The exclusive videotape of the encounter and takedown– shown here for the first time, with part 2 scheduled to air June 5 at artharris.com – reveals what happened next:

[Trailblazer]

http://www.artharris.com/

Ronald Bruised Knuckles Punching Door After 911 Call

The Bald Truth has learned exclusive new details in the Haleigh Cummings mystery, from a father’s bloody hands, to an updated timeline—that sources close to the case say may help law enforcement flesh out conflicting stories in the baffling disappearance of the missing five year old. Little Haleigh was reported missing more than four months ago by then babysitter Misty Croslin who married her father, Ronald, a month later.

While law enforcement agencies met last week to go over what they do know and what they don’t about the circumstances, Putnam County Sheriff Jeff Hardy said some evidence had yet to be analyzed, and would be soon, and felt confident the case would be solved.

But we can report exclusively one minor mystery has been solved–why Ronald Cummings right fist appeared to be badly bruised after his daughter was reported missing at 3:27 am, Feb. 10. On the 911 tape, he sounds angry at Misty, and police tell me he was so upset his daughter was gone, he reared back and slammed his fist into a door.

“He was upset when he got home, and when he got angry, he punched a door and busted up his knuckles,” said Lt. Johnny Greenwood, spokesman for the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department in an exclusive interview with The Bald Truth, aka artharris.com.

Sources tell The Bald Truth that investigators saw Ron bleeding when they arrived that night, and immediately swabbed his hand (along with several other people who gave permission) for possible DNA to confirm his account, and state of mind.

In fact, Cummings pointed out the exact spot on the back door he’d hit hard enough to leave a hand print. As part of a thorough forensic exam of the trailer, police took blood samples from the door that matched blood from his wound, sources tell me, and ruled his account plausible and believable.

But cracking the Haleigh mystery remains far more difficult than cracking knuckles, and sources tell The Bald Truth, a major focus has been anyone with ties to the families, or who may have been watching, or had access to Cummings’ trailer that night.

Police say investigators have spoken with Misty Cummings more than 10 times, along with members of both families, including mother Crystal Sheffield, who is engaged in a bitter custody dispute over Haleigh and little brother Ronald, Jr. Investigators have been trying to schedule more meetings with Ronald and his lawyers, but had not when we last spoke earlier this week.

No one has been accused, or named as a suspect, or person of interest. But in a desperate quest to find answers, investigators are attempting to plug inconsistencies in what they call Misty’s conflicting timeline—and where she may have been that night. She claims she was at the trailer, never left and was not sleeping so heavily from being under the influence of anything illegal that would have kept her from hearing an intruder.

But The Bald Truth has learned Misty’s wild partying we’ve reported – and law enforcement police sources confirm — in the days leading up to the lost little girl raise questions about her state of mind that night – and fuel some investigators’s theories that a possible drug craving may have lead her to search for more drugs the night Haleigh vanished.

Let’s go back.

We’ve reported extensively and exclusively on the wild party weekend that witnesses and friends have told us began as early as the previous Wednesday, when 17 year old Misty told fellow party girl “Nay Nay” (Christina Prevatt, 18) she’d had a fight with Ronald after suggesting she might be pregnant.

To hear the story Nay Nay has told us on camera, she drove Misty to meet a local named Greg Page, aka White Boy Greg, and the trio were off for several days and nights partying with cocaine, a painkiller called “Roxies,” pot, and alcohol. By early Sunday, as Nay Nay, and Page tell me, they were partied out, and Nay Nay dropped Misty at her parents, though Prevatt says she was speaking with Cummings earlier and it sounded like a reconciliation was in the works.

Whether she wound up back at the trailer Sunday night is not known, but a parent in the carpool line Monday afternoon has told police –and The Bald Truth in an exclusive interview, that she overheard Misty griping at the wheel of the family’s blue van as she waited for Haleigh to get off the school bus, about the “bad shit” they’d bought from someone the night before (Sunday), and would never buy anything from that dealer again.

The parent who was also waiting for her children to get off the bus and asked to go nameless, told me it sounded like Misty was talking to her companions in the car about drugs they’d used the night before (Sunday). “I was pulled up right next to her window and could hear it clearly,” the woman told me, saying it was the same account she gave investigators.

But what she says she saw next truly shocked her. Haleigh emerged from the bus, all smiles, and began running to the van, where Misty was trying to control two little boys, possibly Ronald Jr and Haleigh’s cousin who is the son of her brother and sister in law, Lisa. She says she heard an obviously irritated Misty scream for Haleigh to hurry up, then slap one of the boys.

Stunned she says she turned to boyfriend, Jerry Santos, a local businessman and little league coach, who was there to pick up their children. He didn’t see the alleged slapping, he tells me, but did see Misty behind the wheel, and Haleigh get off the bus and climb in with her.

Both Ronald Cummings and his mother, Teresa Neves, have claimed separately they picked up Haleigh that last Monday afternoon, but at least three parents tell me they only saw Misty at the bus stop. But Santos tells me, “Misty was definitely driving,” that he never saw either father or grandmother at the bus stop.

Neither Neves, nor Cummings returned our calls for comment today, and his grandmother, Annette Sykes, accused The Bald Truth of being very unfair to Ronald and her family in its coverage of her missing great granddaughter and said, “You know all you need to know,” before slamming down the phone and ordering us not to call again. Nor did Cummings attorney Greg Kimball, return our calls. He’s been speaking via press releases.

Why was Misty so irritable that day at the bus stop, investigators are trying to understand, with some theorizing it could be because she might have been jonesing from partying Sunday night, and by Monday afternoon, had grown edgy, possibly from a rebound effect, and griping about the quality of party favors.

And what might that have had to do with Ron Cummings driving like a bat out of hell Monday morning as he took Haleigh to her last day of school, then went to work, where police confirm he was until he left to go home and find his daughter gone?

Several parents tell me they saw Ronald driving so fast he nearly clipped a group of parents and children standing near the bus stop, then sped off.

According what private investigator William Staubs says sources told him – and mine confirm – Ronald was up all Sunday night waiting for Misty to come home. The sources say she never did, and he finally fell asleep—and overslept. Then had to rush and race to get Haleigh to school, and presumably try to find Misty before he went to work Monday afternoon at PDM Bridge Company, where sources say co workers and cell phone records confirm he was until quitting time.

When she finally came in Monday morning, she slept at her father’s house” nearby, Staubs tells me in an exclusive interview.

Whatever happened that Sunday night, Misty was back driving the carpool Monday afternoon, and at the Ron’s trailer after that. But did she leave again Monday night, possibly to score and ward off the bad mood earlier witnessed in the carpool line? She says not, that she was home with the kids all night Monday, and so far, no one has come forward to say otherwise, sources tell me.

[Faith]

This video goes with the article above.

Haleigh Exclusive: Bloody Hands, Timeline Details

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid10363234001?bctid=10721544001

http://www.artharris.com/2009/06/11/haleigh-exclusive-bloody-hands-timeline-details/

[Faith]

June 15th, 2009



Haleigh Cummings: Timeline, Clues: Art on JVM

Haleigh Exclusive: Bloody Hands, Timeline Details (http://www.artharris.com/2009/06/11/haleigh-exclusive-bloody-hands-timeline-details/)

Jane Velez Mitchell CNN HLN Last Thursday Talks Haleigh Cummings Clues From Bald Truth Staff, (c) www.artharris.com, all rights reserved
Jane always does a terrific job covering all the top crime stories, and we appreciate her inviting Art on to share what he’s learned in the case. Everyone wants to find Haleigh alive, and sends thoughts and prayers to the Cummings and Sheffield families–and best of luck to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department in smoking out the one clue that will break the case.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukGifIedMps&feature=player_embedded

http://www.artharris.com/2009/06/15/haleigh-cummings-timeline-clues-art-on-jvm/

[Faith]

Haleigh Exclusive: Mystery Donor Revealed!

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Haleigh-With-Attitude-199x300.jpg
Haleigh With Attitude!

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c) www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

“I remember watching Haleigh Cumming’s mother break down in front of the cameras,” says Crystal Sheffield’s mystery benefactor in an exclusive interview with The Bald Truth.

“She was just shaking and sobbing, and talking about how much she missed her daughter, and I kept thinking, ‘This poor lady.’ I couldn’t imagine what she was going through, facing $12,000 in back child support and selling bracelets and t-shirts to raise money to keep people interested in finding her missing child.”

The angel donor asked that her last name not be used, but her first name is Barbara. She’s a Texas oilfield analyst with no children of her own, just a big heart for single, working mothers struggling to get by. She doesn’t tithe to a church, she tells me, but believes in giving back, shunning the big name charities to give 10 per cent of a nice income directly to individuals in need. Crystal Sheffield fit her bill, she says.

“I was just touched, and decided, ‘this is someone I wanted to help.”

So she tracked down Sheffield attorney Kim Picazio, and in April, dashed off the first of three checks that will ultimately go to Ronald Cummings for the care of missing five year old Haleigh and Ronald, Jr.

Thanks to her Texas “angel” investor, Crystal is expected to be free and clear of her child support debt this week.

It’s a circuitous route, with Barbara mailing funds from Texas to Picazio, who deposits it into her firm’s trust account, then dashes off a check to state child support disbursement officials.

When it clears, usually within a week, Picazio tells me she writes a check to state of Florida disbursement officials, who either draft a check for Cummings, or direct deposit it into to his bank account.

After Barbara’s first check for $2,000 arrived, Picazio says she drafted and mailed one to state officials on April 27 for that amount. She says Cummings’ lawyers confirmed it was received, along with a second for $2,100 she mailed to the state on May 13. His attorney’s could not be reached for comment.

Last seek, Picazio says she received the last check from Barbara for $8,317.94, and promptly dispatched it to the state.

“That will pay off Crystal’s child support arrears in full,” Picazio tells me. “It just changes Crystal’s life in so many ways.”

Barbara tells me when she first called, Picazio put her in direct touch with Crystal, who seemed extremely grateful. “She didn’t ask me for anything, just said it should be between me and Crystal.”

Afterwards, she says Crystal called. “She was speechless,” says Picazio, and “so appreciative. This was not solicited, but came out of the blue.

“There are some people in the world who donate to large foundations, and others who donate to individuals they wish to help directly. I think this lady’s gesture and charitable spirit was noble, and was used very directly to help a particular individual in need.”

“I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for single mothers struggling to work and raise their children alone,” says Barbara, who has taken her own sister into her home, a local cop raising a daughter on her own.

In fact, she says she moved into a larger home in the Houston suburbs so they could all live together, and has been gratified to see the burden ease for her sister and her neice.

She’s says fine with the money going to Haleigh’s father, “if it’s money the court says is owed, to take care of the children.”

Barbara hasn’t followed the investigation in detail and isn’t taking sides in the parent wars. “I’m as much in the dark as anyone,” she says, “I don’t know what happened….but there must have been an unsafe situation in the home for this to happen, an unsafe environment.”

Barbara says she’s a regular reader of artharris.com, where she goes for updates, along with Nancy Grace and Jane Velez Mitchell. She did note Misty Cummings’ wild weekend of partying, first reported here, and wonders if “she was so wiped out, she left to get something that night, or was just so tired she didn’t wake up and whatever happened happened.”

Misty has denied both scenarios. “Whatever,” says Barbara, “it seems like an unsafe situation for the kids to have been in.”

As for her charitable style, mystery Texas woman fast on the draw with her checkbook. Barbara says she ordinarily sends checks to friends “in a bad situation, or if I see a family where the parent has lost a job and is struggling. This time, I wound up giving more than normal, but I’d set it aside, and have to remember how fortunate I’ve been. I know money can’t buy you love, maybe it can buy you a little time.”
http://www.artharris.com/2009/06/21/haleigh-exclusive-mystery-donor-revealed/

[Faith]

Haleigh Search Yields No Clues, Just Crack!

Monday, June 29th, 2009

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/crystal-sheffield-holds-baby-300x225.jpg

Crystal Sheffield Holds Junior

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, © www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

Two months before Friday’s police search, a grieving mother hunting answers requested a parent update from frustrated Putnam County detectives working the Haleigh Cummings mystery, only to learn investigators had no break, but were working hard to follow up some 4,000 tips they’d run down, and remained committed to finding her daughter, and analyzing more forensic evidence.

While sources close to the case told me police did not consider Haleigh a stranger abduction, then or now, theorizing it more likely a child snatch by someone with ties to, or familiar with, the Cummings family, they couldn’t tell Crystal much, says her attorney, Kim Picazio. She joined Crystal for the sheriff’s department briefing in Satsuma that also included Sheffield’s mother, Marie Griffis.

Officially, no one had been ruled out, but sources told me investigators were focused on plugging holes in conflicting stories given by a 17 year old babysitter, Misty (then Croslin), who after several days of hard partying, reported Haleigh missing early Feb. 10 from the trailer where she was living with father, Ronald Cummings, Haleigh and little brother, Junior.

All the more reason why Marie Griffis made her unusual request – for police to search their 40 acre farm in Baker County for little Haleigh, dead or alive, to clear up suspicions, gossip or innuendo that the Sheffield side of the family had anything to do with the child gone missing. The search had nothing to do with any so called “tip,” as some have misreported.

“We wanted them to formally clear Crystal,” said Kim Picazio, her attorney in an interview with The Bald Truth. “They’d never searched the property, and we felt it important so people could read between the lines and understand she’s not on their radar as a suspect and never was.”

That request initially set plans into motion for Friday’s intense search in Baker County, sources tell me, and more than three dozen sheriff’s deputies from three counties, along with state police from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) descended on Griffis’s hay farm where Sheffield lives in a trailer with boyfriend, Chad, and daughter, Chloe, just behind Marie and Bruce Griffis’s doublewide.

As reported by local media and confirmed by law enforcement, police also brought along divers to check two nearby lakes, cadaver dogs to search for human remains (they found none), used backhoes to dig up animals –horses, cows, goats–the family alerted police before the search they’d buried on the property, according to Captain Dominic Piscitello, of the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department who supervised the effort.

“We searched just about everything and came up empty,” Piscitello told reporters, declaring there was no evidence of any human remains, or Haleigh.

Since the property belonged to Griffis’ husband, Bruce, he had to sign consent forms in advance to allow police on his property. Sources close to the case say Griffis made clear to law enforcement they would only allow police to conduct the search, not controversial private investigator William Staubs, aka Cobra, who represents Marie’s ex mother in law, and has been highly critical of Crystal and her attorney.

Out on bond for allegedly arresting an accused sex offender without authorization—something he vehemently denies—Cobra faces a third degree felony charge for false imprisonment.

While Cobra claims the family was tipped in advance of the search, Kim Picazio insists her clients requested the search, but didn’t know the exact date it would happen—an account law enforcement confirms—until searchers showed up. In fact, she seemed surprised when Crystal called her Friday morning, followed by a local reporter telling her a search was underway. Sources close to the case tell me law enforcement is keeping insider details about the investigation from Picazio.

In our interview, Picazio told me Crystal relayed that Marie was out on the property leading searchers around, and they were “digging,” something the family did not know would happen, according to sources close to the investigation. But when police showed up with back hoes, Griffis showed officers where to dig for the farm animals they’d buried.

Not only did police unearth the carcasses to confirm the claims, but used dogs to search inside and under all trailers and structures, witnesses told me. Piscatello told reporters the search turned up no clues to indicate Haleigh had been there, and called it all part of “due diligence,” just another effort to rule out potential suspects and check off extraneous issues that would allow investigators to narrow the focus of the Haleigh probe.

No search warrants were necessary, and none had to be requested, sources tell me, because the family asked for police to search. Nor would a judge likely have issued one so easily since there was no probable cause a crime had occurred there.

The only wrinkle: police searching an empty truck on the property discovered an undisclosed amount of crack and crack pipes. When I spoke with Major Gerald Gonzalez of the Baker County Sheriff’s department Monday morning, he said the truck was not registered to anyone in the Sheffield or Griffis families, but to a man described as a friend, Jesse Watkins.

“The Putnam County folks discovered the crack and crack pipes and turned it over to us,” said Gonzalez, “but we were not able to make contact with Mr. Watkins to get his take on what was located.”

According to Maj. Gonzalez, the ‘91 green and white Ford truck was parked near a trailer on the property. “Nobody was willing to stake claim to it. Basically we were told it was a friend.”

He said the Griffis are well regarded, and that there was alot of sympathy for the plight of Haleigh’s mother, Crystal Sheffield, in Baker County, where her mother, Marie, is a longtime school bus driver.

“It’s my understanding they were very cooperative, and wanted this search done to make sure everyone knew from their perspective everything that could be investigated was investigated,” said Gonzalez.

While the crack seizure remains under investigation, Maj. Gonzalez doubts there will be any arrests, or charges. “You’d never be able to prosecute something like this unless he or anyone was foolish enough to say, ‘Yeah, that’s mine.’”

Calls to Crystal, Chad, and Marie Griffis were not returned.
——————

PHOTO NOTE:

Asked about the blurry background in the photo, Kim Picazio tells The Bald Truth she snapped the shot of Crystal holding Ronald, Jr. in April with her cell phone camera. She says Haleigh’s baby brother was suffering from a terrible cold, and they’d stopped at a drug store near Satsuma for over the counter meds.

Picazio says Chloe was in a car seat next to Crystal, who had taken a sleepy Jr. from his toddler seat in the back of her green Hummer. In the far back was Sarah, Crystal’s sister; Jeremiah Regan, Haleighbug Center organizer, was driving. She says both children had car seats they used when on the move, she says.


http://www.artharris.com/2009/06/29/haleigh-search-yields-no-clues-just-crack/#more-2254

[Faith]

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Crystal-Haleigh-Butterbean-wm-001.jpg
Haleigh Cummings, mother Crystal Sheffield, with brother, Ronald, Jr. aka “Butterbean”

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c) www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

June 30th, 2009

As a member of the Putnam County Child Abduction Response Team, and a lead investigator trying to crack the Haleigh Cummings mystery, Peggy Cone found herself searching the hay farm in nearby Baker County last Friday, when more than three dozen law enforcement officers from the state police and several counties descended on two trailers the missing five year old’s mother, Crystal Sheffield, and her maternal grandmother, Marie Griffis, call home.

It was an invitation only affair, according to Captain Dominic Piscitello of the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department; the mother’s family had invited law enforcement to search the 40 acre property to help remove any suspicion Haleigh might be hidden there, or had been there since she was reported missing Feb. 10 from her father’s trailer in nearby Satsuma, Florida.

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Haleigh-and-Jr-JrXX100_0303-300x224.jpg
Haleigh Cummings and brother, Ronald, Jr., on a custody visit with Mom

After digging up several animals the family said they’d buried there, walking the property and sending divers into a nearby lake, Piscatello announced they’d found no sign of Haleigh, and no evidence to suggest she was there after her father’s babysitter turned child bride, Misty Cummings, said she awoke at 3 a.m. to use the bathroom and found her gone.

But during the search, Putnam County Det. Peggy Cone did discover drug paraphernalia and a small amount of crack cocaine in a Ford truck on the property, and reported it to a local deputy. “She showed me where she discovered a Marlboro Lights Cigarette pack behind the seat of a 1991 white and green Ford truck parked on the Southeast end of the property, which contained two Crack pipes and a plastic container with Crack Cocaine residue inside,” wrote officer Jerald A. Peterson, from the local sheriff’s Charlie Squad 1.

“I noted,” the deputy’s report goes on to say, “the cigarette packs location and took possession of the pack.”

But at the time, the deputy struck out trying to track down the truck’s registered owner the report identified as Jesse. L. Watkins, a friend of the family.

Later, he denied any knowledge of the drugs or pipes, Major Gerald Gonzalez of the Baker County Sheriff’s Department, told The Bald Truth, as did any member of the Sheffield or the Griffis families. Kim Picazio, attorney for Crystal Sheffield, said her client and family were shocked at the discovery and vehemently denied any suggestion they condoned –or might be using –illegal drugs.

According to a Gonzalez, given the sketchy circumstances, it would be virtually impossible to make a meaningful drug case and he doubted it would be pursued.

The police report: Baker County police report search (http://www.artharris.com/?attachment_id=2332)

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/crystal-on-couch-2XX100_0305.jpg
A photo of Crystal Sheffield with Haleigh and Ronald she says was taken moments before the one below.

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/crystal-on-couch_0304-300x224.jpg
Crystal Sheffield with son, Ronald, Jr. on the same couch. According to embedded info, Marie Griffis, Crystal’s mother, used her Kodak Easyshare digital camera to take it at 12:40 pm Jan. 25, 2009.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/06/30/haleigh-cummings-police-search-report/#more-2335

[Jute]

I stopped highlighting- it's all just awful.

omg, this is the first time I saw this article. Awful doesn't begin to describe it, Faith. Terrifying.

[Jute]

http://www.artharris.com/

Ronald Bruised Knuckles Punching Door After 911 Call

The Bald Truth has learned exclusive new details in the Haleigh Cummings mystery, from a father’s bloody hands, to an updated timeline—that sources close to the case say may help law enforcement flesh out conflicting stories in the baffling disappearance of the missing five year old. Little Haleigh was reported missing more than four months ago by then babysitter Misty Croslin who married her father, Ronald, a month later.

<snipped>
Both Ronald Cummings and his mother, Teresa Neves, have claimed separately they picked up Haleigh that last Monday afternoon, but at least three parents tell me they only saw Misty at the bus stop. But Santos tells me, “Misty was definitely driving,” that he never saw either father or grandmother at the bus stop.

<snipped>

This is one of the most baffling pieces of the story. I don't understand why Ron and Teresa claim to have picked up Haleigh.

[Faith]

Knuckles

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll116/helpfindthemissing/faitherhand.jpg

[Faith]

Exclusive: Haleigh Mom Mystery Donor Records

The Bald Truth has obtained exclusive copies of personal cashiers checks, deposit slips and correspondence from the Texas mystery donor named Barbara that reveal new details of the kind-hearted woman and her cash gifts to a grieving mother of a missing child for $12,000 in back child support Haleigh Cummings mother owed father Ronald.

According to her financial records, including cashiers checks she drew on her account at Chase, she initially only counted on paying off $4,000 of back child support, then agreed to put up three times that amount.

“When I began this process of contacting you to help resolve Crystal’s outstanding child support,” she writes Sheffield’s attorney, in e mails Barbara released exclusively Sunday to The Bald Truth, “it was my intent to help out a grieving mother that was doing everything in her power to find her child. That intent has not changed just because the dollar amount has increased.”

When told some had questioned the authenticity of the mystery donor, Barbara was outraged– and agreed to open the books on her donations, with the understanding her privacy would be protected. She says she wrote cashiers checks and mailed them to Kim Picazio for her trust account, then received confirmation the state had been paid in full.

The documents reveal the oil company analyst (who asked that her name and address be withheld to protect her from web crazies and cyberstalkers) volunteered to triple her donation when she was told Putnam County officials had grossly underestimated the arrears — that Sheffield really owed more than $12,000.

Shocked at first, Barbara says she “hopes there’s an accounting mistake,” according to one e mail obtained by The Bald Truth.

Haleigh Cummings vanished early Feb. 10, when her father’s live-in babysitter-girlfriend, 17 year old Misty Croslin (they married shortly after Haleigh went missing) called 911 to report the child had vanished from their trailer in Satsuma, Fla., while she slept, and Ronald was at work.

Police sources tell me she remains the “key” to solving the tragic disappearance, but is no longer speaking with investigators. Her husband, Ronald, agreed two months ago to set up a meeting with investigators to answer a few more questions, with his attorney, but sources close to the investigation tell me that no date has been set for that sitdown.

In other related news, Christina “Nay Nay” Prevatt, the 18 year old woman who described in an exclusive TV interview broadcast at artharris.com how she drove Misty Cummings on a three day party binge just days before she reported Haleigh missing, was arrested and charged with alleged cocaine possession and cyberstalking, spent one night in the Putnam County Jail, then bonded out Sunday. Sources say she drove off with the boyfriend of her older sister in a red Corvette, after AAA Bail Bonds got her out.

Nay Nay has been distraught, and struggling with drugs and alcohol, according to the father of her daughter, Donnie Spells, and showed up at his house this weekend upset he was seeing Amber Brooks, the ex girlfriend of Ronald Cummings and mother of their son, Jordan. According to Spells, he’s taken Nay Nay to rehab twice recently, but when she made a scene at his house, he had to call police. He told friends he didn’t want her to go to jail, just wanted her to get help, get straight for their daugher’s sake, and until then, stay away.

Brooks, who has also been in and out of jail, likes to taunt Nay Nay that she’s seeing her man, sending the young woman into jealous rages. Nay Nay’s exclusive interview appeared here months ago.

Against this peripheral backdrop of craziness and grief, Haleigh’s parents have been locked in a bitter custody wrangle, with mother Crystal Sheffield believed to be about $4,000 behind in child support in April…a figure that almost tripled when the Putnam County Clerk recalculated.

When she learned an unidentified woman claimed on an online radio show Sunday to have cancelled checks that showed the mystery donor was fiction, and the real donor was Picazio’s husband, Barbara was outraged someone would lie about her authenticity or our reporting, just because we agreed to protect her identity from proven prevaricators like the accusers.

In e mails we may publish in the future, she describes an overwhelmingly grateful mother who she recalls struggling with accepting the gifts at first. Crystal said she’d never before had anyone come to her rescue like this in her life, according to Barbara’s e mails, and expressed deep gratitude.

——————–
http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/barbara-check-1-wmarked-300x262.jpg (http://www.artharris.com/2009/07/06/exclusive-haleigh-mom-mystery-donor-records/barbara-check-1-wmarked/)
Barbara cashiers check number one, April 20.
barbara chk no 2 wm (http://www.artharris.com/2009/07/06/exclusive-haleigh-mom-mystery-donor-records/barbara-chk-no-2-wm/)
Barbara Check No 2
http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Barbara-check-2-wm-CashiersCheck8k-COPY-300x260.jpg (http://www.artharris.com/2009/07/06/exclusive-haleigh-mom-mystery-donor-records/barbara-check-2-wm-cashierscheck8k-copy/)
Barbara Check No. 3, Chase cashiers check
barbara check #3 W (http://www.artharris.com/2009/07/06/exclusive-haleigh-mom-mystery-donor-records/barbara-check-3-w/)
Barbara Check No. 3
barbara april 20 e mail to kp (http://www.artharris.com/2009/07/06/exclusive-haleigh-mom-mystery-donor-records/barbara-april-20-e-mail-to-kp/)
http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/barbara-bank-statement-redacted-300x114.jpg (http://www.artharris.com/2009/07/06/exclusive-haleigh-mom-mystery-donor-records/barbara-bank-statement-redacted/)
Excerpt of Barbara’s bank statements showing payments were deducted from her account
This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 2:19 am and is filed under Haleigh Cummings (http://www.artharris.com/category/haleigh-cummings-haleigh-ronald-cummings-crystal-sheffield-wayanne-kruger-missing-children/). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 (http://www.artharris.com/2009/07/06/exclusive-haleigh-mom-mystery-donor-records/feed/) feed. You can leave a response (http://www.artharris.com/2009/07/06/exclusive-haleigh-mom-mystery-donor-records/#respond), or trackback (http://www.artharris.com/2009/07/06/exclusive-haleigh-mom-mystery-donor-records/trackback/) from your own site.


http://www.artharris.com/2009/07/06/exclusive-haleigh-mom-mystery-donor-records/#more-2360

[Faith]

EXCLUSIVE: Haleigh Cummings’ Dad Arrested!

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ron-cummings-mug-shot-240x300.jpg

Ronald Cummings: Busted on charges of burglary and assault

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

The Bald Truth has just learned that less than two hours ago the father of missing five year old Haleigh Cummings was arrested and jailed in Putnam County, Florida and charged with burglary and assault involving his brother-in-law, Hank Croslin.

According to booking records, and interviews our intrepid moderator, 2 Spunky, did with law enforcement officers, Putnam County sheriff’s deputies were called to Welaka, Florida, where they took Cummings into custody at 1:03 a.m. Thursday est and drove him to jail after a fight broke out between him and Hank Croslin, Jr.

Details of the incident are sketchy, but sources tell us that the purported assault victim is the brother of his child bride, Misty, the 17 year old babysitter he married shortly after she reported Haleigh missing early Feb. 10. She has not been seen since.

Sources maintain law enforcement does not believe it be a stranger abduction, but has named no suspects.

There was no indication the arrest is related to any break in the case of the missing child.

Cummings is scheduled to be arraigned on the charges at 7. a.m. and attempt to bond out.

He does not look like a happy camper in his mug shot, and deputies tell us he has alternated between tears and belligerence.

Misty was was apparently at home with Ron when an altercation took place, sources tell us, a rift that may have also involved Misty’s father, Hank, Sr., who accused Ronald of trying to poison him with medication several mothw awhile bcakhilw :noinson hdnd have confirmed that after changing into his jail jumpsuit, he waxed and waned between belligerance and tearsand “upset” since being brought in. The Bald Truth will bring you more as the story develops.

BOOKING REPORT:

RONALD LEMYLES CUMMINGS
Satsuma , FL
Booking Date & Time: 8/6/2009 1:03:59 AM – Booking#: 09-03225
Release Date & Time:
DOB: 10/29/1983 – RACE: W – SEX: M

Charges Misd/Felony Degree Bond Bond Posted
810.02-2a BURGL WITH ASSAULT OR BATTERY F F $0.00

http://www.artharris.com/2009/08/06/exclusive-haleigh-cummings-dad-arrested/#more-2475

[Faith]

Haleigh Cummings: Mom, Dad Cleared, But Not Misty!

August 16th, 2009

Missing Haleigh Cummings would be six years old today, but the best present investigators can give her grieving parents is that neither are considered suspects, not father Ronald Cummings, nor mother Crystal Sheffield, but the 17 year old who was babysitting and reported her missing, Misty Cummings, is believed to know more than she has revealed.

Investigators still believe it is NOT a stranger abduction, but that someone close to the family or who knew the families is behind the kidnapping.

According to a press release on Haleigh’s birthday Monday, Putnam County Sheriff Jeff Hardy says investigators cannot reconcile conflicts in Misty’s account of what happened that night, and urge anyone who may have seen her out on the town or away form the trailer where she said she was sleeping with the child and her brother, Junior, when Haleigh vanished, to call the hotline.

“The biological parents, Ronald Cummings and Crystal Sheffield, are not considered to be suspects in the case,” says the sheriff’s release. “Investigators believe that Misty Croslin-Cummings continues to hold important answers in the case. She has failed to provide any sort of detailed accounting of the hours during the late evening and early morning of Haleigh’s disappearance.

“Furthermore, physical evidence at the scene contradicts Misty’s sketchy account of her evening activities. Any citizen with direct knowledge of Misty’s activities during that evening or into the early morning is encouraged to report that information to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office.”

Sources tell us that one conflict involves a movie she told us Haleigh was watching that night, and the fact police found the dvd player high up on a shelf or armoir likely out of reach for a five year old and too complicated to program without help.

The Bald Truth broke many of the details of Misty Croslin’s wild weekend of drugs, sex and rock and roll with party pals in the days leading up to that Sunday, when she came back to the trailer. Sources tell us that Sunday night she and Ronald were up all night trying to reconcile their differences, and that Ronald overslept and had to race Haleigh to school.

Witnesses tell us Misty picked Haleigh up at the bus stop, where she was overheard to describe the party favors she used Sunday night, and how they were very poor quality. In the days leading up to Monday, she’d also been using cocaine, roxies and other drugs, her party friends tell us, including Nay Nay, aka, Krystal Prevatt, who was arrested last weekend in an unrelated matter.

Investigators theorize she may have been jonesing Monday night home alone with the children, and with Ron at work, slipped away to score — or invited someone over — when something went terrible wrong and Haleigh turned up missing. Misty has maintained her innocence, but has stopped talking with police.

“Misty didn’t come home until Sunday night, when she and Ronald were up all night trying to work things out,” a source tells The Bald Truth, “but Monday night is sketchy.” This new information updates and corrects our previous account from sources who said Ronald was up all night waiting for her to come home.

After 4,000 leads and almost 200 interviews in the case, sources tell us, investigators finally got a chance to interview Ronald Cummings again–behind bars last week when he was arrested for battery and burglary involving a fight with Misty’s brother. Cummings had promised to schedule a sitdown with investigators months ago, with his then attorney, who has since resigned. But that inteview never happened.

The grilling took place in the Putnam County Jail, before Misty and his grandmother put up the $12,500 bond to spring him, and revealed little that was new. Over dinner at MeMa’s restaurant in Satsuma five months ago, Ronald confided he worried that Misty knew more than she was telling, and for that reason, was keeping her close, in spite of her shenanigans.

At the same time, he also confided he loved her. Misty has denied harming Haleigh in any way, or knowing what happened before she woke up and found Haleigh missing from bed.

Since that time, Misty’s family reported she called to say she wanted to leave Ronald, who wound up in jail for allegedly punching out her brother, Hank Croslin, Jr. Then last week, Hank reported a decapitated rat in his mailbox, suspected Ronald had planted it, as some Godfather goomba, after claiming he’d threatened him.

Cummings denied Ratgate, saying he was partying with Misty and friends at his grandmother’s trailer. But a witness said Ronald’s truck was spotted in the early morning hours rumbling through the neighborhood and put something in the mailbox.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/08/17/haleigh-cummings-mom-dad-cleared-but-not-misty/

[Faith]

Haleigh Cummings Update: Ron and Ratgate?

August 16th, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNjD1DNFHm4&feature=player_embedded

Jane Velez Mitchell on HLN: Keeping Haleigh Cummings Case Alive!

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c) artharris.com, all rights reserved

LOS ANGELES–When Jane Velez Mitchell’s producer called to ask if we were available to do a quick update on the latest bizarre twist in the Haleigh Cummings mystery, we were 3,000 miles away from the sad and frustrating swampland that seems to have just plain swallowed up a beautiful little five year old girl.

Six months and nothing.

But with vigilant colleagues on both coasts, we got tipped to the arrest of Ronald Cummings for allegedly beating up on his bro’ in law the night before as we were driving down Ventura Boulevard, heading back to get some sleep after a day chasing some Michael Jackson twist.

We weren’t sure we heard it right and had to pull over before the news sent us into a telephone pole…

“Say what?” I asked.

Unbelievable…yet, totally believable.

Imagine this scenario:

Small town, grieving father, grieving mother, the newlyweds at close quarters living all couped up in Grandma’s trailer…17 year old babysitter turned Baby Wife who reported her husband’s baby girl missing…so many conflicts in her stories, say police, hard to keep track of them all, possibly knowing more than she’s told the cops who say she’s not talking any more…

Is it just a young couple facing tough times as they take care of Haleigh’s little brother and possibly running low on what’s left of the back child support jackpot…

A mini-bonanza Ron was indeed righteously owed, dispatched out of the blue on behalf of ex Crystal Sheffield by a generous Texas donor with NO prior ties to any player in the case. Just saw her on TV and wanted to help. No matter how loud whacko bloggers sing their spin, make things up, impersonate, insinuate, and quote from our enterprise reporting without attribution, digital desperadoes attacking websites that won’t let the drama queens and paranoid fingerprintgators play their high school games…all the while, the MAIN players keep acting more whacko by the minute…

And frustrated investigators stand back and watch the auditions for Redneck Reality, fingers crossed that someone will just get pissed off and pop.

I mean, really, Baby Wife Daddy, Hank Sr. suddenly back in the saddle and riding over to Grandma Sykes trailer with Misty Mama Lisa to try and rescue their daughter, so their story goes, from a new son in law who had to be on something, the way he was freaking out…

And brave, no-nonsense Mrs. Sykes, Haleigh’s grandmother, trying to muscle her way into the catfight, pulling her grandson off Misty’s brother, JR, and sending him back into the trailer, according to what she told police. Then trying to keep him there, the 25 year old man who robbed the cradle to marry their baby girl at 17, then allegedly tried to poison his own father in law with prescription pain pills, Hank Sr told police–pills he’d requested Ron fetch for terrible hurts after a bad car wreck that put him on crutches. Nothing like having a friendly (alleged) pharmacist in the family.

But Hank SR had to be looney tune to accuse Ron, right? At least that was the story Team Ron was putting out…explaining Misty’s Dad must have had a reaction to his own pain meds that caused him to lose it for a few hours, nothing a few days in the hospital won’t iron out. … no harm, no foul, with Hank suddenly retracting his police report, and Ron denying any so called poison plot as delusional.

You still with me?

…And now, Hank’s son, Hank JR, calling the cops again last week…after he called the cops the first time to report yelling, a deputy told my moderator, denying he’d bitch-slapped bro in law bloody. JR saying, he was just trying to save a sister from a fate worse than Satsuma ‘gators.

Only…Misty standing by her man, and just a few days later, sources tell us, Misty and Ron, allegedly chopping the head off a rat and putting it in Lil bro in law’s mail box?

Come on…What IS this… some aspiring bush league Godfather looking to send a message to any family who get out of line?

I’m out here in Hollyweird for the moment, and I can tell you, no SITCOM writer could make this up.

South Park Meets Jerry Springer?

God help us all, not to mention Haleigh.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/08/16/haleigh-cummings-update-ron-and-ratgate/

[Battnt]

Exclusive: Haleigh Cummings’ Last Day

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, © www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

Jerry Santos, a neighbor or Ronald Cummings, may have been among the last few people to see Haleigh Cummings before she vanished. It was Monday, Feb. 9, and he’d just walked his children to the bus stop in Satsuma when Ronald came racing by, in such a hurry, he later told investigators, Haleigh’s father “ran a stop sign” and came too close for comfort.

“He missed me by five inches,” Santos says in an exclusive interview with The Bald Truth at www.artharris.com. Later that day, Santos and his girlfriend, Stephanie Mullis, say they spied Misty Croslin in the car pool line at the bus stop, driving a van that picked up Haleigh, and her younger cousin, Austin, now 5, an inseparable playmate who used to run from Haleigh as she chased him in the yard, trying to plant a kiss.

“He misses her terribly,” says his mother, Lindsay Croslin, who often joined Misty at the bus stop.

While these car pool parents can’t plug the crucial gaps in conflicting accounts of what Misty says happened later Monday night Feb. 9, between 8 p.m. (when she says she put Haleigh to bed) and 3:27 am the next morning (when she called 911 to report the child missing), sources close to the case say they help shed crucial light on a young couple in conflict and factors that could have contributed to making Haleigh vulnerable to a kidnapper, or killer.

When she got off the bus, Haleigh was happy, according to Mullis, who saw the child running towards a van Misty was driving. By some accounts, Misty seemed “drawn,” agitated.

With her window rolled down, and Misty just feet away, Mullis says she overheard Misty on the cell phone griping about “the bad shit” she’d gotten from someone she vowed to never deal with again. Mullis says she also heard Misty’s stern, expletive-laced admonition to a little boy in the car to behave, then says she saw her “smack” the child before Haleigh got in the car. “I was shocked,” she says.

We’ll be playing our interviews with several bus stop parents whose accounts on The Bald Truth, sources say, are consistent with the stories they gave in interviews with law enforcement, as part of a group of some 140 witnesses the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department, FDLE and the FBI have interviewed while trying to unravel the frustrating case of the missing six year old that has baffled them for over six months.

At the heart of the case, experts have focused on Ronald’s relationship with Misty, hoping it will yield insight, wondering why he’d marry — and stay married to — the young woman police say has not leveled with them. “You know the saying, you keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Ronald told me months ago in Satsuma.

“He told us the same thing,” says Tim Miller of Texas Equusearch who arranged polygraphs and other testing for Misty at her request.

That morning, Ronald was in a hurry. Santos tells me Ronald later explained he was speeding because he was upset Haleigh was missing. “No, Ronald, this was before Haleigh went missing,” Santos reminded. Then he says Cummings said she’d spilled something on her blouse and he needed to get a change of clothes. Santos says Ronald’s tinted windows prevented him from seeing Haleigh or Misty, who claims she walked Haleigh into school before returning home to crash for a couple of hours.

Later that day, according to my timeline, the school bus driver, and teachers confirm Haleigh took the bus home. She she hops off in Satsuma, Misty is waiting. It’s about 3 p.m., shortly before Ronald heads for work at PDM where his lawyer says he arrived maybe a half hour early for a five p.m. shift as a crane operator. He was scheduled to get off at midnight, but worked until 3 a.m., because extra work on a barge had to be done, my sources say.

At 8:30 p.m., cell phone records show a call between the couple who, sources tell me, fought over Misty’s desire to do some outside babysitting that night. Ronald said no way; then couldn’t reach her for hours, sending numerous text messages and leaving voice mail that went unanswered — until she finally picked up her cell phone about 3:15 a.m. He’d just stopped at a Handy Mart to buy beer, peanuts and cigarettes for them both, Miller says Ronald told him, raising questions why he’d be so considerate to a girlfriend who’d apparently been dodging his calls.

What happened between between those calls could be a matter of life and death for the missing child, and detectives are also looking at calls Misty apparently made to a brother, Timmie, who detectives interviewed Saturday on Cape Cod but was in Satsuma when Haleigh vanished. At the same time, looking at what happened earlier that day has helped investigators understand the curious dynamic between a 26 year old single father and the young babysitter Ronald first spied as she walked to the bus stop with her family last fall.

Ronald recognized Santos as the tattoo artist who had drawn Haleigh on his back several years earlier, but Jerry had to be reminded. “Oh yeah, how you doing?” he asked, as the two fathers often ran into each other on mornings they were sending their kids off on the bus in Satsuma. The Croslin family also showed up with their school age children. One morning, Ronald saw Misty for the first time in the Croslin pack.

“He asked me what I thought,” Santos tells me in our interview, posted at artharris.com, remarking how young she was and only half joking, “Ronald, 15 will get you 20.”

Soon they were a couple and Misty had moved in, babysitting Ronald’s children, Haleigh and Junior, her little brother. “She’s the best girlfriend Ronald has ever had,” said Teresa Neves, Ronald’s mother, when we spoke in Satsuma after their Today Show interview.

Bus stop parents, Santos and Mullis, and another grandfather who is a regular but asked to remain nameless, insist it was Misty who picked up Haleigh the last day she went to school—not Ronald.

However, Ronald maintains he picked up Haleigh, drove her home on his lap, then went to work at PDM Bridge Company. Other unidentified witnesses back Ronald’s account, according to sources close to the case, but I never found them.

Like the famous Japanese movie, Rashoman, where more than a dozen eye witness accounts of the same crime differ, the Haleigh Cummings case has been plagued by so many witnesses with faulty memories, conflicting accounts, and downright deception, it’s been a nightmare for investigators who quickly ruled out stranger abduction to focus on those close to the family, then zeroed in on the last person to report Haleigh alive—Misty, the 17 year old babysitter Ronald married a month after his daughter vanished.

Misty maintains her innocence, says she loves Haleigh dearly and would never do anything to harm her, or expose her to danger.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/09/09/exlusive-haleigh-cummings-last-day/#more-2796

[Naia]

Art writes such good articles.
Thanks Battnt. :happy0207:

[Faith]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dENq0WzbiCw&feature=player_embedded

Satsuma parents remember Haleigh Cummings’ last day at the bus stop

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, © www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

Jerry Santos, a neighbor or Ronald Cummings, may have been among the last few people to see Haleigh Cummings before she vanished. It was Monday, Feb. 9, and he’d just walked his children to the bus stop in Satsuma when Ronald came racing by, in such a hurry, he later told investigators, Haleigh’s father “ran a stop sign” and came too close for comfort.

“He missed me by five inches,” Santos says in an exclusive interview with The Bald Truth at www.artharris.com. Later that day, Santos and his girlfriend, Stephanie Mullis, say they spied Misty Croslin in the car pool line at the bus stop, driving a van that picked up Haleigh, and her younger cousin, Austin, now 5, an inseparable playmate who used to run from Haleigh as she chased him in the yard, trying to plant a kiss.

“He misses her terribly,” says his mother, Lindsay Croslin, who often joined Misty at the bus stop.

While these car pool parents can’t plug the crucial gaps in conflicting accounts of what Misty says happened later Monday night Feb. 9, between 8 p.m. (when she says she put Haleigh to bed) and 3:27 am the next morning (when she called 911 to report the child missing), sources close to the case say they help shed crucial light on a young couple in conflict and factors that could have contributed to making Haleigh vulnerable to a kidnapper, or killer.

When she got off the bus, Haleigh was happy, according to Mullis, who saw the child running towards a van Misty was driving. By some accounts, Misty seemed “drawn,” agitated.

With her window rolled down, and Misty just feet away, Mullis says she overheard Misty on the cell phone griping about “the bad shit” she’d gotten from someone she vowed to never deal with again. Mullis says she also heard Misty’s stern, expletive-laced admonition to a little boy in the car to behave, then says she saw her “smack” the child before Haleigh got in the car. “I was shocked,” she says.

We’ll be playing our interviews with several bus stop parents whose accounts on The Bald Truth, sources say, are consistent with the stories they gave in interviews with law enforcement, as part of a group of some 140 witnesses the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department, FDLE and the FBI have interviewed while trying to unravel the frustrating case of the missing six year old that has baffled them for over six months.

At the heart of the case, experts have focused on Ronald’s relationship with Misty, hoping it will yield insight, wondering why he’d marry — and stay married to — the young woman police say has not leveled with them. “You know the saying, you keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Ronald told me months ago in Satsuma.

“He told us the same thing,” says Tim Miller of Texas Equusearch who arranged polygraphs and other testing for Misty at her request.

That morning, Ronald was in a hurry. Santos tells me Ronald later explained he was speeding because he was upset Haleigh was missing. “No, Ronald, this was before Haleigh went missing,” Santos reminded. Then he says Cummings said she’d spilled something on her blouse and he needed to get a change of clothes. Santos says Ronald’s tinted windows prevented him from seeing Haleigh or Misty, who claims she walked Haleigh into school before returning home to crash for a couple of hours.

Later that day, according to my timeline, the school bus driver, and teachers confirm Haleigh took the bus home. She she hops off in Satsuma, Misty is waiting. It’s about 3 p.m., shortly before Ronald heads for work at PDM where his lawyer says he arrived maybe a half hour early for a five p.m. shift as a crane operator. He was scheduled to get off at midnight, but worked until 3 a.m., because extra work on a barge had to be done, my sources say.

At 8:30 p.m., cell phone records show a call between the couple who, sources tell me, fought over Misty’s desire to do some outside babysitting that night after he’d learned of her wild child excursion with Nay Nay and White Boy Greg Page just days before. No way, said Ronald, who kept texting, and leaving voice mail, but couldn’t reach her for hours — until she finally picked up her cell phone about 3:15 a.m.

Caught on convenience store security video, Ronald had just stopped at a nearby Handy Mart to buy beer, peanuts and cigarettes for them both, Miller says Ronald told him, raising questions why he’d be so considerate to a girlfriend who’d apparently been dodging his calls and playing around.

What happened between between those calls could be a matter of life and death for the missing child, and detectives are also looking at calls Misty apparently made to a brother, Timmie, who detectives interviewed Saturday on Cape Cod —and who had been in Satsuma when Haleigh vanished. At the same time, sources say looking at what happened earlier on Haleigh’s last day has helped investigators understand the curious dynamic between a 26 year old single father and the young babysitter Ronald first spied as she walked to the bus stop with her family last winter.

While Ronald recognized Santos as the tattoo artist who had drawn Haleigh on his back several years earlier, Jerry had to be reminded. “Oh yeah, how you doing?” he asked, as the two fathers began to run into each other in the morning as they put their kids on the school bus in Satsuma. The Croslin family also showed up with school age children in tow, and one morning, Ronald saw Misty for the first time among the Croslin pack.

“He asked me what I thought,” Santos tells me in our interview, posted at artharris.com, remarking how young she looked, and only half joked and only half joking, “Ronald, 15 will get you 20.”

Soon, they were a couple, and Misty moved in, babysitting Ronald’s children, Haleigh and Junior, her little brother. “She’s the best girlfriend Ronald has ever had,” said Teresa Neves, Ronald’s mother, when we spoke in Satsuma after their Today Show interview.

Bus stop parents, Santos and Mullis, and another grandfather who is a regular but asked to remain nameless, insist it was Misty who picked up Haleigh the last day she went to school—not Ronald.

However, Ronald maintains he picked up Haleigh, drove her home on his lap, then went to work at PDM Bridge Company. Other unidentified witnesses back Ronald’s account, according to sources close to the case, but I never found them.

Like the famous Japanese movie, Rashoman, where more than a dozen eye witness accounts of the same crime differ, the Haleigh Cummings case has been plagued by so many witnesses with faulty memories, conflicting accounts, and downright deception, it’s been a nightmare for investigators who quickly ruled out stranger abduction to focus on those close to the family, then zeroed in on the last person to report Haleigh alive—Misty, the 17 year old babysitter Ronald married a month after his daughter vanished.

Misty maintains her innocence, says she loves Haleigh dearly and would never do anything to harm her, or expose her to danger.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/09/09/exlusive-haleigh-cummings-last-day/


Haleigh Cummings Last Day: “Happy” on the Bus

September 11th, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt8NF64nOAU&feature=player_embedded

Saw “genuine” affection between Haleigh and Misty — parent Jerry Santos

From Bald Truth Staff. (c) www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

Here’s more of Art Harris’s exclusive interview with parent Jerry Santos, a father who says FBI agents told him he may be one of the last people to have seen Haleigh…He says his daughter befriended her and walked her to class, looked out for her, that she was a “sweetheart.”

We’ve left messages for Ronald’s highly respected attorney, Terry Shoemaker, to comment on Santos’ account of his client’s alleged reckless driving, and why he says he was in such a hurry and whether he still maintains he drove Haleigh home the day others say they saw Misty pick her up from the bus, not Ronald…and other comments and behaviour.

We’ll let you know if we get a callback and what he says.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/09/11/haleigh-cummings-last-day-happy-on-the-bus/




Exclusive: Misty Cummings Shocks Parent at Bus Stop!
September 13th, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXGN3OVgGyE&feature=player_embedded

Art Harris exclusive: mother in carpool line says Misty “smacked” little boy

In Part Three of our exclusive interviews with parents at the Satsuma school bus stop on the last day Haleigh went to school, we meet a mother who was there to pick up her children–and who says she was shocked to see Misty, then Croslin, now Cummings, “smack” a little boy in her car as she waited for Haleigh to get off the bus.

“I was shocked,” the mother tells The Bald Truth in this exclusive phone interview, recalling how she heard Misty warn a little boy in the car that if he didn’t sit down, she was going to “knock the sh–” out of him, then “smacked” him in the face.

The mother tells me Misty seemed nervous and on edge, and says she heard her complain about the “bad sh–” they’d gotten and would never deal with whoever gave it to her again. When I related her comments to Misty’s lawyer, Robert Fields, he said he was not aware of the incident and would have no comment until he ran it by Misty.

You may recall two friends of Misty told me what sources close to the case tell me they also told investigators–that they’d been partying together with drugs and alcohol for three days until Misty came home Sunday from her alleged revenge fling with WBG, and made up briefly with Ronald Cummings.

Sources tell The Bald Truth Ron and Misty were up all night talking, trying to work things out, and Ronald overslept and had to race Haleigh to school Monday morning, Feb. 9, causing parents at the bus stop to make note, and relaying it to investigators who came to interview them later that he’d come very close to the kids and parents who rode the bus that morning.

Misty has said she walked Haleigh to her classroom, then they went home and slept for a couple of hours before Ronald had to get up and get ready for work; parents saw her later at the bus stop, and others have told police they saw Haleigh at the house, where she played with a young cousin who adored named Austin, son of Tommy and Lindsay Croslin. Misty fed them dinner, she has said, but apparently she and Ronald had yet to work out their differences.

Indeed, there was considerable friction between the couple, friends and sources close to the case tell me, with the couple quarreling on the phone when Ronald called Misty from work at PDM Bridge at 8:30 p.m. Monday night. The source of that rift was that Misty wanted to babysit for a family member and Ronald was apparently against her going out again, according to my sources close to the case.

He was unable to reach her again until after 3 a.m., those sources tell me phone records show, when he exploded upon learning Haleigh was missing.

Looking back at that night, Ronald told me over dinner at Memaws he knew Misty had cheated on him with a black man, was none too pleased and used a racial epithet to describe WBG, but added it had nothing to do with prejudice because “some of my best friends are black.”

You may recall the day before Misty found herself in the carpool line to pick up Haleigh she had been partying with friends over the weekend without Ronald–Kristina “Nay Nay” Prevatt and “White Boy” Greg Paige, 28, a light-skinned black man who both provide details of their wild times in exlusive videotaped interviews we’ve posted here. They have also confirmed they were all together for investigators on the case, sources tell me.

Let us know what you think of the car pool parent’s take on Misty’s alleged behaviour and demeanor shortly after her wild weekend.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/09/13/exclusive-misty-cummings-shocks-parent-at-bus-stop/#more-2843

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChG0RZz_BFE&feature=player_embedded

In our final interview with bus stop parents on Haleigh Cummings’ last day at school, we speak with neighbor Jerry Santos, a local parent and Little League coach, who was shocked at a surprise visit Ronald Cummings made to his house, to plead with his father, a child welfare official, to defend him to FOX News anchor Geraldo Rivera.

Rivera and his brother, Craig, had paid a visit to Haleigh’s father to confront him on camera about what exes and friends said about his temper; afterwards, Cummings was so angry he made what the caseworker told him was an inappropriate visit to his home, then fumed after he was shown to the door, Jerry Santos tells me.

[texanne]

Wouldn't the school bus driver know if Haleigh did not ride the bus home?

[Faith]

Exclusive: Misty Cummings Fires Back at Family!!

9/11/09

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

The Bald Truth has learned exclusively that Misty Croslin is angry and preparing to fire back at her own family for accusing her of lying about the night she reported Haleigh Cummings missing.

“I talked to Misty today,” her attorney Robert Fields told me in an exclusive interview late Friday afternoon, “and she wants to make it clear that while her family is saying they are ‘distancing’ themselves from her, SHE’S the one who has been distancing herself from her family.”

He says she will issue a complete statement on Monday about the family rift, or at least her take on it.

Indeed, Misty won a permanent restraining order against brother Tommy Croslin, after she claimed he punched her in the face during a fight with her husband, Ronald, last month that landed Haleigh Cummings’ father in jail on burglary and assault charges.

It was Misty and Teresa Neves, Ronald’s mother, who bailed him out of the Putnam County Jail within hours, an incident that sparked Misty to file for a restraining order against Tommy, which was granted Wednesdy.

Outside the Palatka courthouse, Tommy said, “I’ve never done anything wrong to her, but I just let her have it. I don’t want nothing to do with her anymore.”

Misty’s mother spoke to the media, as well, declaring for the first time, she believes her daughter knows more about what happened to Haleigh than she’s revealed.

“Deep down in my heart, yes, I think my daughter’s holding something back. And her husband. I think they both are holding something back. That’s just in my heart,” said Misty’s mother.

“I’m going to tell her I love her, and if you know anything at all, please tell me. I mean, we can work I t through, I’ll be there by your side, we can work through h it, but please tell us what you’re holding back,” she added.

Misty’s father, Hank Croslin, Sr., also said he believed Misty knows more than she’s revealing about what happened to Haleigh before his wife joined the family chorus of doubt. Tommy’s wife, Lindsay, says the family has been “distancing” itself from Misty.

Robert Fields tells me Misty will have a complete statement on Monday.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/09/11/exclusive-misty-cummings-fires-back-at-family/

[Faith]

Exclusive: Misty Cummings’ Brother, Tommy, Jailed!! Investigation Update: Haleigh Case Break Coming Soon?

Hank “Tommy” Croslin, Jr., 23, the baby-faced brother of Misty Croslin Cummings who reported her then boyfriend, now husband’s five year old daughter missing last February, was booked into the Putnam County Jail Tuesday at 6:49 p.m. on felony theft charges for allegedly stealing a gun from a family friend, sources tell The Bald Truth.

Bond was set at a whopping $50,000, a signal, sources close to the case exclusively tell The Bald Truth, that investigators are turning up the heat in the nearly eight month old investigation of missing five year old Haleigh Cummings, setting in motion what some hope could be a break in the case.

“The pressure has begun,” a trusted source close to the case tells me in an exclusive interview.

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Judge-Terry-LaRue.jpg
Judge Terry LaRue, 7th Circuit Court

Indeed, the Croslin clan are a family divided by the unsolved mystery. Misty’s parents, Hank, Sr., and mother, Lisa, last week, in effect, called their daughter a liar, accusing her of holding back information. Her father said he believes she may have left the trailer that night to party, and Tommy’s wife, has declared the family has been “distancing” themselves from her.

But Misty’s lawyer, Robert Fields, says Misty is the one who says she’s been “distancing” herself from her dysfunctional family.

In an exclusive interview with me Tuesday night, he related that his client was surprised to learn Tommy had been arrested, had no idea why, and little reaction. Even though she’s failed a private polygraph arranged by Tim Miller’s Texas Equusearch that Fields puts no stock in, Misty maintains she had nothing to do with whatever happened to Haleigh and doesn’t know who did.

But her new revelation during one of the “truth” tests arranged by Miller– that she remembered a vague dream involving four shadowy people the night Haleigh vanished triggered mild excitement among the Haleigh task force. They “hadn’t heard that before,” one source close to the case confided.

Her brother, Hank, Jr. (Tommy) is expected to make his first appearance before 7th Circuit Judge Terry LaRue early Wednesday morning; we don’t know if he has an attorney who could request a bond reduction. My sources tell me it was Judge LaRue who signed the arrest warrant and has discretion on setting bond amounts, and agreed to the sky highl bond was appropriate in Croslin’s case.

Displeased with the dearth of information Tommy provided, I figure investigators won’t mind if he had to sweat for a few days in an orange Putnam County jail jumpsuit and contemplate the “consequences” of holding back what he may know about Misty and others, sources tell me.

Croslin can expect another visit from investigators Wednesday. “Tommy is playing Russian roulette,” one source close to the case confided. “I think we’re gonna see some fireworks.”

If the strategy is divide, conquer and squeeze, it just might be working. It was Tommy, you may recall, who found a decapitated rat in his mailbox last month, and filed a complaint alleging Cummings had threatened him, that he feared for his life, and believed Ronald planted the rat to send him a message.

Tommy, Misty’s mother and father, you may recall, wound up at the trailer of Annette Sikes, Cummings’ grandmother who has been housing the couple and Haleigh’s brother, Junior, and got into a fistfight with Ronald the other night, claiming Misty had called them to rescue her. She denied it, but Tommy filed battery charges against Cummings, who was arrested and spent a night in jail before making the $12,500 bond. Shortly after that, Tommy, aka Hank Jr. discovered the headless rat in his mailbox and fingered his brother in law, Ronald.

Ronald Cummings denied any ties to “Ratgate,” and claimed he was partying, with Misty as a witness.

But Tim Miller, director of Equusearch, the non profit search outfit dedicated to finding the missing who arranged the polygraph, hypnosis and a voice stress test for Misty, tells me in an exclusive interview that Ronald admitted he planted the rat –with Misty — as his own test of truth, as bizarre as it may sound.

The reason? “He said he wanted to see how good Misty could lie to the police so he could tell how good she was lying to him,” Miller told The Bald Truth. Another well respected attorney confirmed he heard Cummings relate the same story.

Neither Ronald, his mother, nor his lawyer, Terry Shoemaker, could be reached for comment.

http://www.artharris.com/2009/09/15/exclusive-misty-cummings-brother-tommy-jailed-investigation-update-haleigh-case-break-coming-soon/#more-2897

[Naia]

The reason? “He said he wanted to see how good Misty could lie to the police so he could tell how good she was lying to him,” Miller told The Bald Truth. Another well respected attorney confirmed he heard Cummings relate the same story.
I find that hard to believe. I think Ronald is supporting Misty to cya so to speak. Ronald ahemm, lived with Misty when she was only 15-16 years old. Ronald knows what those implications are.

[Faith]

Misty Cummings, Brother, Tommy, Grilled Again!

9/18/09

We just received an e mail press release from Lt. Johnny Greenwood, spokesman for The Putnam County Sheriff’s Office, regarding callers and media jamming their switchboard with questions about the interview detectives did with Hank Thomas Croslin Jr, on September 17, 2009.

“I can confirm that Hank “Tommy” Croslin Jr. was interviewed by PCSO Detectives regarding the Haleigh case, but I will not release any details surrounding the interview,” says the release.

“Sheriff (Jeff) Hardy realizes the importance of keeping the public involved in this case, and appreciates all of the leads that have been provided. Every lead that is provided is acted on by investigators.

“Although we continue to interview people in this case every single day, there have been no significant developments to report. Sheriff Hardy wants Haleigh Cummings’ family, the citizens of Putnam County, and the media to know that we will make formal releases when any significant event in this case occurs.”

Lt. Greenwood also told me that the Croslin interviews were done Thursday, as well as two other inmates he said were not connected to Haleigh Cummings case investigation.

“We interview inmates daily regarding various criminal cases,” he said. “The statement that we interviewed three other inmates was provided to explain that interviewing inmates is routine. I am not able to provide the names of the individuals interviewed.”

Here’s last night’s report from the Putnam County Jail by News 4 in Jacksonville.

http://www.news4jax.com/news/20976154/detail.html

http://www.artharris.com/2009/09/18/misty-cummings-brother-tommy-grilled-by-detectives/#more-2945

[Faith]

Exclusive: Misty Cummings Brother Reveals He Was At Trailer!

Art Harris

9/21/09

In a blockbuster revelation, The Bald Truth has confirmed that Hank Tommy Croslin, Jr., told Putnam County Sheriff’s investigators he dropped by Ronald Cummings trailer in Satsuma, Fla. sometime after 10 p.m. Feb 9—just hours before his 17 year old sister, Misty, reported Haleigh Cummings missing.

In a jailhouse interview with detectives Thursday, Capt. Dominic Piscitello, head of the Haleigh Cummings task force, tells The Bald Truth that Tommy said he banged on the door, saw no lights on, heard no sounds from inside and left when it appeared no one was home. “It’s the first time someone other than Ronald’s grandmother admits they were at the trailer that night,” says Capt. Piscitello.

Tommy’s admission puts him at Ronald Cummings’ trailer during the murky timeline Misty has been unable or unwilling to fill in the night she reported his six year old daughter missing, fueling further suspicion that Misty may not have been home.

“I wouldn’t believe a thing that comes out of Tommy’s mouth,” Ronald’s mother, Annette Sykes told me Monday when I related what Misty’s brother revealed. “He will lie about anything.”

If he is telling the truth, Tommy’s admission, first reported by T.J. Hart of Skye radio in Gainesville, Fla., would also mean that Misty’s brother stopped by the trailer twice that night; Misty says he was there earlier, about 6 p.m. as she was getting the kids dinner, but left. “That’s what she told me while we were getting ready for the polygraph she flunked miserably,” says Tim Miller, head of volunteer search organization extraordinaire, Texas Equusearch, in an interview with The Bald Truth.

When Tommy (aka Hank Jr) says he stopped by after 10 p.m., at Ronald’s request, “he stops short of saying no one was home,” says Putnam County Sheriff’s Deputy Maj. Gary Bowling in an interview with The Bald Truth, “but he did say, ‘there were no lights on. It was quiet, so I banged on the door and looked in the window and saw no (activity).’

“There’s double pane glass on the door, so you should be able to see any lights, even one coming from the TV in the living room.”

But Misty insists she WAS home, just didn’t’ hear Tommy knocking. “Misty was made aware of (Tommy’s) statement, that he banged on the door and she didn’t answer” when she met with investigators Saturday night at the PCSD office, her lawyer, Robert Fields, tells The Bald Truth. “She said, she’d heard what Tommy said, that all he did was knock on the door, but she didn’t hear him. She might have been asleep.”

Detectives have called Misty the key to unraveling what happened to the missing child she was babysitting before reporting Haleigh missing at 3:27 a.m. Feb. 10. and believe she knows more than she’s shared.

Investigators confirm she did not answer then boyfriend Ronald’s calls until after 3 a.m., after a fight they had on the phone at 8:30 p.m. when he called her from work over seven hours earlier.

But Tommy Croslin’s new information suggests either she was a heavy sleeper, or not at the trailer where she said she put the kids to bed at 8 p.m. after she let them each watch a different movie, Junior in the living room, and Haleigh in the bedroom, then crashed herself about 10 p.m.

Is Misty’s lawyer concerned her brother’s information further damages his client’s credibilty? “Misty’s not concerned, so I’m not concerned,” Fields told me.

What does concern him, though, is the fact she spoke with detectives without him present Saturday night, The Bald Truth has learned. “They know she has a lawyer, so that bothers me.”

“She voluntarily wanted to talk,” Maj. Bowling told me, declining to reveal the subjects discussed, but adding it was “pretty useless” in shedding light on their search for what happened to Haliegh. “We can’t be held responsible if a lawyer doesn’t have control of his client. She’s obviously not listening to what he’s telling her.”

One source close to Misty tells me she’s telling friends police wanted to discuss phone records related to her conflicting timeline, and urged her to go into protective custody. But one source close to the case doubts she was offered protective custody.

Just where is Misty?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWYpsGaaRAY&feature=player_embedded

I’m told after a bitter fight with Ronald earlier this week (sources tell me he threw her and her clothes out of his grandmother’s trailer, then ran down the road to apologize and brought her back), she’s taken off for the beach with an unnamed girlfriend. Her lawyer confirms she’s out town, telling me she’s taking a few needed days off to seek a change of scenery and clear her head.

On The Nancy Grace Show Monday, when I was invited to join a panel of guests that included my friend, T.J. Hart of Skye News, NG producer Marlaina Schiavo whose exclusive tour of Ronald Cummings trailer offers a terrific visual aid to understand how difficult it would be for someone NOT to wake up if Tommy Croslin was pounding on the door as he claimed.

But Ronald’s mother, Teresa Neves, tried to defend her daughter in law, arguing how exhausted Misty was after three days of partying and an all – nighter with Ronald Sunday to try to iron out their differences– and how she COULD have easily slept through the banging, but not the kids…Was she perhaps suggesting Haleigh might have awakened, or vanished before Misty woke up?

http://www.artharris.com/2009/09/21/exclusive-misty-cummings-brother-reveals-he-was-at-trailer-and-more/#more-2975

http://www.artharris.com/2009/09/21/exclusive-misty-cummings-brother-reveals-he-was-at-trailer-and-more/#more-2975

[Faith]

Exclusive: Misty Cummings’ Party Pal Busted!

Greg Page, aka, “White Boy” Greg, Arrested on cocaine charges, bonds out

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c) artharris.com, all rights reserved

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/greg-page-mug-shot.jpg

The gang’s all here, well almost.

At 11:14 p.m. Tuesday, another local in the Satsuma, Florida good time entourage Misty Croslin Cummings told police she partied with in the three days before she reported Haleigh Cummings missing, was arrested and jailed on felony cocaine and marijuana possession charges.

Then, 30 minutes later, Greg Page, a light-skinned African American many locals fondly call “White Boy Greg,” posted a $1,508 bond on the drug charges and waltzed out of the Putnam County Jail. WBG has always cooperated with authorities who tell me the last time he saw Misty was early Sunday morning, two days before Misty reported Haleigh missing; he’s not a suspect in the missing child case, though it’s unclear whether authorities had time to interview him in jail before he bonded out.

Another Misty galpal, Kristina Nay Nay Prevatt, 18, who Misty told investigators drove them all on the party spree before Haleigh vanished, also remains in jail on drug charges in Palatka’s little big house.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVkAPOfXZKQ&feature=player_embedded
Artharris.com exclusive with Greg Page–NOT a suspect in Haleigh case–PCSD

And let’s not forget the career criminal who claimed to be Nay Nay’s benefactor, aka pimp, Jerome Williams, who remains behind bars on felony drug charges, and had to be transferred to St. John’s County when word leaked out he was talking to Putnam County Sheriff’s investigators about redeeming his sordid past by ferretting out leads to find Haleigh, or what happened to the missing six year old. No one likes a snitch, even if it’s for a good cause.

He never did deliver, his $35,000 reward dreams dashed, and a chance to maybe wipe his slate clean gone forever. Sources tell me investigators had high hopes for a break, but Jerome broke their hearts. I talked to him several times before he went down and explained how he could be a hero, why law enforcement saw him as a, well, possible White Knight, albeit with gold teeth and a temper.

He had a plan, he said, to dispatch his damsels, Nay Nay and another sultry secret agent who ran in the same circles, Amber Brooks, a Ronald Cummings ex girlfriend, to, well go undercover…Jerome’s Angels…on the prowl to wink and wiggle and maybe come back with a lead…So investigators were bummed to learn Jerome’s angle was just a dangle, bogus bonafides, another lead, another disappointment amid 4,000 tips and leads pursued by the PCSD, the latest leading them to drain the pond last weekend, another dead end that had also raised hopes.

And let’s not forget Tommy Croslin, who just threw Misty under the bus in a strange recollection that he suddenly revealed– how he went to Cummings’ trailer the night Haleigh vanished, pounded on the door, and no one answered –or appeared to be home.

Just where was Misty? That’s what Ronald wanted to know, especially since she’d just come home Sunday after her revenge romance with White Boy, after a fight with Ronald sent her fleeing into the party netherworld and the arms of WBG.

Ronald told me he was indeed livid, but saw staying with her as the only chance to stay close to the last person who saw Haleigh. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” became his favorite line privately, while on talk shows he professed loyalty to his now wife he married a month after Haleigh vanished.

Her grandmother, Flora Hollars, in Nashville, tells me most of the family was against the matchup. “She was just a baby,” Flora told me in an exclusive interview. “The age difference was too big. But her mother let her do it.

“That’s the reason Misty turned out the way she did; they never made her go to school. She’s got some learning problems (disabilities). She had to grow up on her own. It’s sad.”

As bizarre as it sounds, Ronald and his family, including loyal mother in law Teresa Neves, may be the most stable home she’s ever lived in, fights, suspicions and the white hot glare of the press notwithstanding. Then there’s Ronald’s justifiable anger and jealousy.

Gary Bowling, a major with the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department, say his phone records reveal he made 20 phone calls to her that Monday night, but she didn’t pick up; that’s why he says he called the Croslin’s to ask if Misty was there, and Tommy says he made a request for him to check the trailer. Not that Ronald’s family believes Tommy, who faces theft charges and little prospect of getting out of jail anytime soon, with a whopping $50,000 bond hanging over his head.

Even Ronald Cummings did a quick turnaround in jail recently when Tommy filed assault charges against him for a fight that broke out when the Croslins showed up claiming Misty wanted to be rescued. He was out fast, denying he had assaulted anyone, and later that he had anything to do with a decapitated rat Tommy later found in his mailbox, and called police to finger Ronald.

Now it’s Tommy who’s ratting out Misty. And where is she? No one knew exactly Tuesday night, just that she’d taken off for parts unknown, jumping in the car of a friend shortly after another fight with Ronald.

http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Kristina-Nay-Nay-Prevatt.jpg

Remember Nay Nay, Kristina Prevatt, who drove Misty and White Boy Greg Around?

REGORY LEWIS PAGE: booking sheet–

Palatka , FL
Booking Date & Time: 9/22/2009 11:14:55 PM – Booking#: 09-03931
Release Date & Time:
DOB: 8/4/1980 – RACE: B – SEX: M

Charges Misd/Felony Degree Bond Bond Posted
893.13-6a COCAINE-POSSESS POSSESS COCAINE F T $1,004.00 9/22/2009 11:54:03 PM
893.13-6b MARIJUANA-POSSESS NOT MORE THAN 20 GRAMS M F $504.00 9/22/2009 11:53:07 PM

http://www.artharris.com/2009/09/23/exclusive-misty-cummings-party-pal-busted/#more-2993

[Faith]

Letter from Misty Galpal: Did Haleigh Cummings OD?

The Bald Truth has obtained a blockbuster letter from a jailed Misty Cummings girlfriend, Kristina Prevatt, aka, Nay Nay, who says detectives confronted her with a witness statement claiming she was partying with Misty the night Haleigh vanished, and that the missing six year old accidentally overdosed on Oxycontin and died.

According to the letter, the witness claimed they “freaked” out, and that another party participant named White Boy Greg, aka, Greg Page, scooped Haleigh’s body into a bag and drove to a nearby pond to toss her. Repeated calls to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department were not returned. Another lead investigator told me he was unaware of the letter.

Page vehemently denies the charges, and and any involvement in Haleigh’s disappearance or knowledge of what happened to her, and sources close to the case told me months ago he’d been ruled out as a suspect. His name surfaced again last night when he was arrested and charged with drug possession by Palatka Florida police officers, and bonded out.

“I got interorogated by the detectives again about the Haleigh case,” writes Prevatt, requesting that her ex-boyfriend and father of their child send money. “You are not going to believe what they told me. They said that your good friend (Joe) went to detectives and wrote a sworn affadavit that I was with Misty, White Boy Greg and Haleigh the night of Haleigh’s disappearance which you know I was at your house.

“Well, anyways, he said that we all were all over at a party at … house and Haleigh got a hold of some Oxycontin and died. We supposedly freaked out and Greg put her in a black bag in my car and we took her to a pond by the Mondex.”

Investigators did search a pond last weekend in that area, but claimed nothing of evidentiary value was found. Misty has told investigators she was indeed partying with Page, and Prevatt in the days leading up to the Sunday before Haleigh vanished, but no credible witness has come forward who saw Misty any place other than where she said she was that night–at home babysitting Haleigh and her brother.

Tommy Croslin, now jailed on gun theft charges on a whopping $50,000 bond, claims she was apparently not home when he dropped by to check on her after Ronald Cummings called to say she’d not returned his calls and would he stop by.

Private investigator William Staubs, aka Cobra, says he obtained the jailhouse letter from someone close to Nay Nay, who remains in the Putnam County Jail on drug charges, and passed it on to law enforcement. We spoke with the go between who verified the letter as authentic and obtained it from the recipient.
Police have called her accounts conflicting and believe she knows more than she’s been revealing.

In the letter, Prevatt says “the detectives got my car from the junkyard and to do some CSI shit.

“When you see our friend, you need to ask him why the **** would he make up some bullshit like that and putmein themiddle of a homicide investigation! I’m going to slap that mf in the face if I ever see him.

“You know I was with you that night! Well just had to let you kow what’s going on. Always, Nay Nay

In fact, witnesses have told The Bald Truth Prevatt slept much of Sunday and that Monday night may have been seen fighting with a woman outside her boyfriend’s home over custody of their child. White Boy Greg Page says he was told by officers he passed a lie detector test.

http://i991.photobucket.com/albums/af35/missingpersonscases/Various%20Photos/naynayletter91809.jpg

http://www.artharris.com/2009/09/23/letter-from-misty-galpal-did-haleigh-cummings-od/#more-3023

[Battnt]

Exclusive: Inside the Haleigh Cummings Family Feud!

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, © www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

It was a recent yard brawl between Ronald Cummings and Misty’s brother, Tommy, that blew their family feud sky high.

In part two of her exclusive interview with The Bald Truth, Misty’s sister in law Chelsea Croslin takes us inside the Haleigh Cummings tragedy that has left both families reeling and out of control, baffled the best law enforcement tax dollars can buy, put a 17 year old named Misty Cummings under a microscope of suspicion — and riveted viewers of 24-7 cable news shows who hope and pray the missing (now) six year old will be found and yearn for a break in the case.

Below, Part Two of journalist Art Harris’s Misty Cummings family exclusive:
—————————–

It began with a desperate call from Misty Cummings.

“She’d called Tommy to pick her up because she and Ronald were fighting,” Chelsea tells me. “She’s called us many times to pick her up in the middle of the night because she and Ronald got into an argument and needed their space. She’d go to her family’s house and he’d stay with his family.”

The night of that showdown, “Tommy was just trying to be a big brother,” she says, and “when he got there Misty told him to leave or Ronald will beat your ass.’ I don’t know what Ronald’s problem was, maybe all the stress. So they started fighting.”

Fists flew. Misty later said she got socked and took out a permanent injunction against Tommy; even Ronald’s grandmother, Annette Sykes, couldn’t break it up, until she sent Ronald back into the trailer. Tommy called the cops, filed a complaint for assault.

Ronald wound up in the Putnam County jail, then bonded out the next day. “It totally tore the family apart,” says Chelsea.

And let’s not forget “Ratgate,” where Tommy found a headless rat in his mailbox, took it as a threat, said he feared it was Ronald and asked police to investigate; the Putnam County Sheriff forwarded it’s probe to the state attorney. But Ronald had an alibi, he said, and though a neighbor says she heard and saw his truck, Misty backed him up. Tim Miller tells me he heard Ronald say he’d ordered Misty to lie for him so he could guage how adroitely she might be “lying to me.”

Then came her voluntary lie detectors tests; at first balking, then flunking two miserably. Miller, founder of Texas Equusearch, who has been donating time and money to cracking the case, tells me Ronald recently showed him an assault rifle in his closet and threatened to “blow Misty’s teeth through the back of her head, if she had anything to do with it, and take a few people with her,” then kill himself. “I said, ‘Whoa, Ronald, you don’t want to do that.’ He was obviously a distraught father and not thinking straight. He put the gun back.”

Sources tell me law enforcement is aware of the incident. But whether such displays of angst indicate imminent danger to anyone is unclear, or whether the honeymoon is over. Her polygraph results certainly tested the Ronald-Misty bonds, not to mention the jailhouse letter from a Misty party pal who wrote her boyfriend that police had confronted her with an accusation she’d been at a party with Misty and Haleigh accidentally OD’d, which she denied. Misty says it’s not true, as well.
———————–

Months ago, Ronald marveled wide-eyed as William Staubs, aka Cobra, opened the back of his black Tahoe and showed off a fancy machine gun he kept for emergencies. We were at a park in Welaka. Ronald asked if he could touch it…a gun buff who like many in Satsuma arm themselves for self-protection. But in Cummings case, guns and women sometimes don’t mix. Both Amber Brooks and Crystal Sheffield have told me they were frightened when he’d put a pistol in his mouth and threaten to do himself in. Russian roulette was a game he sometimes played as well, they say, unsure if the gun was loaded or not.

It seems everyone has guns in Satsuma, including a 76 year old neighbor who later reported Tommy Croslin had stolen an antique .45 Colt pistol from him, sending Misty’s brother to jail on a whopping $50,000 bond on a gun theft charge–until he and coughed up new information that he’d banged on the door the night Haleigh went missing and Misty didn’t appear to be home.
———-
Two days before Haleigh turned up missing last February, a drunk driver with no insurance smashed into the used car Timmy and Chelsea had just bought days earlier. Hank, Sr., her father in law wound up in the hospital in Gainesville, Fla., she says, and didn’t come home until after Haleigh vanished, on crutches, pins in his leg and a lot of pain.

With her car totalled, Chelsea started driving the blue family van, which she initially reported appeared to be parked in a different spot than she usually left it the day Haleigh was reported missing. Cousin Joe Overstreet had spent the night, and Chelsea later told police she’d left the keys on the kitchen counter, where she usually does, within easy reach. Reflecting now, she says, “What I told police was that I can’t totally, 100 per cent account for Joe that night…

“I don’t see Joe doing something like this, but I just gave police my observations — that the van just seemed to be in a different spot. I have a long driveway, and the back steps are to the left. I usually turn the wheel so the car is behind the stairs. This time, I noticed it seemed to be parked more on the side of the house. I don’t know if Joe took it to the store, or maybe he didn’t take it at all.”

While police say there’s no evidence he had anything to do with Haleigh gone missing, Cousin Joe, whose mother tells me was questioned twice by police about the case in the last two weeks, became the Florida Croslin family’s prime suspect; months ago, I watched Misty’s mother, Tommy and wife Lindsay give private investigator Williams Staubs a yard tour, showing him a drainage pipe under the driveway where they claim Joe stashed a gun he’d allegedly stolen from Ronald; Joe declined to comment.

What Chelsea does know is that the day Haleigh was reported missing, cousin Joe split for Tennessee; she was beyond exhaustion. “We’d just left Gainesville, dropping (Misty’s mother) Lisa off to be with Hank at the hospital. I’d been up late trying to figure out insurance claims for our car that was wrecked, dealing with an injured father in law and then, we go to sleep and about 4 a.m., and I get a phone call.”

It was Misty. “I don’t usually answer the phone in the middle of the night,” she tells me, “but I did this time and heard everyone in the background yelling for Haleigh.”

They lay in bed for an hour or so, not sure what to make of it, not wanting to wake up her two girls, close to giving birth to a third. At about 6 a.m., “I woke up Timmy when we realized this was serious. I couldn’t imagine anything like this. I just figured she’s probably hiding in a closet. My kids hide from me all the time. Sometimes I’ll find them in a cabinet. To them, it’s a game.”

It was no game. Within hours, she’d raced back to Gainesville to pick up Misty’s mother and hightailed it back to the Sheriff’s Department, where she and Timmy joined the long line of family members for interviews, took polygraphs, and watched Ronald and Misty hand over the clothes they were wearing to police. “Ronald was wearing his company jumpsuit, like a blue work outfit that zipped up the front, and they both went in back and took off everything, including their underwear.”

Chelsea says whenever she has a question, or comes up with a detail that might be a lead, she calls Putnam County and asks for one of the investigators she works with. “I don’ t want anyone to think we had anything to do with anything. We love Haleigh and Junior; I’d never hurt a child. We don’t even spank ours.”

But they came under the glare when a tip came in that Haleigh had been spotted in Abbington, Mass., far from Cape Cod ere they were living. “Everyone started saying, ‘Timmy must have kidnapped her, which was ridiculous. None of the rumors made sense. We were in Florida for the first six months of the investigation.

Even private investigator William Staubs, aka, Cobra, grilled her early on, she said. “I knew he was working for Crystal Sheffield’s family, but I have nothing against Crystal, so I told him what I knew. But I stopped talking to him after he started spreading rumors about someone named Donald Sapp, saying there was a convicted sex offender by that name and he was related to someone in our families. Lindsay (Croslin) has someone named Sapp in her family, but whoever Cobra was talking about, it wasn’t the same guy.

“You’ve got to be nuts to think I’d let some known pedophile near my kids…Then I heard he was saying Timmy was in Satsuma when police drained the Mondex pond, and he’s never left Massachussetts. It’s unbelievable…”

As for the custody dispute, she calls it a big distraction that took the focus off finding Haleigh–and takes issue with those who accuse Ronald of being an unfit father.

“Even though we’re at odds now, because there’s a lot of stress in the family, I’m not going to lie about it,” Chelsea tells The Bald Truth. “I’ve never seen Ronald hit the kids. He’s a very good Dad, and he’s proved it. How often do you see a father get custody over a mother?”

Even before he began dating Misty, Chelsea would see him at the bus stop with Haleigh, dressed to the nines in matching outfits, “cute little bows in her hair. I was very surprised to see a single Dad be the one to get her dressed up, put her hair up…

“Haleigh was his little Daddy’s girl, completely. It’s true she wanted him to marry Misty, like she’s been saying. Long before she went missing, they’d been pestering her father, Hank, to sign papers to allow it.

“He kept saying no, that you guys haven’t been together long enough. Wait until you’re 18,’ but that’s what Haleigh wanted. She was a very bright little girl, she knew what was going on and loved Misty. She didn’t care for Ron’s other ‘baby mama,’ (Amber Brooks).”

Chelsea also says it was obvious Misty loved Haleigh and the little girl adored her stepmom, as she’s claimed in interviews. Others have told me they’d see them walking hand in hand from the bus stop, and Chelsea says Misty did a fine job watching her kids, too, even if she’d occasionally fall asleep. “The kids were together all the time,” she says.

In an exclusive interview last week, Hank Croslin, Sr., also told The Bald Truth that he was against the marriage at first, and now feels guilty he allowed it because of the tragic events. He says Misty was a wild thing, out all night partying, running with a bad crowd before Ronald, and he felt she would be “safer” with someone looking after her,” despite the age gap between them.

Like her mother, he still feels she may know more than she’s revealing, and says he’s here if she wants to talk. “I know if I could spend a couple of days with her, she would tell me what’s in her heart, what she knows, but I need to get her away from Ronald.” So far, sources tell me, she’s refused to take her father’s calls.

Hank tells me he doesn’t believe she could hurt a child, and if she’s protecting someone, she needs to come clean. “I don’t want her to go to prison,” he says, “and if she knows somerthing, and doesn’t give it up, it’s going to be worse later. I don’t think she could survive prison. She’s such a tiny thing.’ But I don’t think she did anything to hurt Haleigh.”

Right now his main concern is bailing out her mother, Lisa, transferring soon from Nashville to the Putnam County Jail on petty theft charges for allegedly stealing a $400 check from a neighbor. He’s got to raise about $1,200 for her $10,000 plus bond, he says.

“She doesn’t deserve to be in jail, says Chelsea.”It’s obvious what the police are trying to do, put pressure on the Croslins by putting them in jail for anything and hoping someone will crack and give up Misty. But if anyone knew anything that would help bring Haleigh back, or solve this case, I don’t believe they’d hold it back to protect Misty, even though we’re all family and as family, and have to stick together.”

No question it’s taken a toll on the Croslins as well as the Cummings. Ronald keeps his grief bottled up, says his mother, Teresa Neves. Haleigh’s little brother, Junior, believes she’s just lost and is trying to find her way home. “He drew her a map the other day,” Annette Sykes tells me.

Meanwhile, Hank and Tommy are out of work; Timmy is still job hunting on trendy Cape Cod, where the economy is vacation based rentals and summer residents, but hopes to find work soon, she says. As for her children, she feels they are far safer there than in Florida, where it seems a child “goes missing every day.”

What’s especially hard, is when she has the news on for an update about Haleigh, and her children hear reports she might be dead. “I wish the media would stop doing the whole soap opera thing about the family,” she says, wincing every time she sees video of her crossing the street with daughter Destiny and Misty used as b roll. “I wish they’d use another shot because what if it is a stranger abduction and the same person who took Haleigh sees her cousin and knows what my daughter looks like?”

http://www.artharris.com/2009/10/05/exclusive-inside-the-haleigh-cummings-family-feud/

[Pandabear]

Haleigh’s little brother, Junior, believes she’s just lost and is trying to find her way home. “He drew her a map the other day,” Annette Sykes tells me.

That poor sweet little boy. :1187603408.CR.Mothe

[Faith]

Exclusive: Misty Cummings’ Undercover Mama!

October 12th, 2009

It was a unique search operation for Tim Miller, founder of Texas Equusearch, who seems to have a sixth sense – and a track record few can challenge, cracking unsolved mysteries by making people talk, finding the missing and the dead, offering expertise and equipment to police –and hope and closure to grieving families.

But in the search for Haleigh Cummings, he’s found his toughest challenge yet.

Instead of scanning ocean bottoms or busting through bedrock, he’d hoped to chisel away at the hardened heart of a tortured teenager, a child bride of 17 who police still believe holds the key to a missing five year old she reported missing eight months ago, while babysitting in Satsuma, Florida.

Call it “Operation Misty,” with one of Miller’s volunteers playing Misty Cummings’ undercover Mama, to keep her safe and glean information that he hoped might be useful to the Haleigh task force, The Bald Truth has learned.

In an exclusive interview with The Bald Truth Monday, Miller confirmed he secretly funded Misty Cummings’ mystery road trip to Daytona, Cocoa Beach, and Orlando, including a visit to Universal, after after she flunked a lie detector — because he feared her life was in danger. “If she died, we’d never find Haleigh,” he said.

Only last week’s road rage incident, when police pulled Misty over with driver and new best “friend” Donna Brock, blew his cover. Courtney Ballinger told the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office that a driver and passenger of a blue Dodge Caliber kept gesturing and making threats as they were driving near her on Interstate 4. No one was charged or arrested, but Brock was identified as a Miller volunteer, outted by a Florida radio station.

The information, that her pal, Donna, was in effect a spy, albeit for a good cause, reached Misty after the CBS Early Show flew the women to New York for Misty’s two part interview last week. “She was sitting there and got a text from Ronald, telling her what happened,” says Miller. “Let’s just say she wasn’t too happy.”

Brock is a long time Texas Equusearch volunteer; she’s worked on searches in North Carolina and in the Caylee Anthony case, lives parttime in Florida and, Miller tells me, offered to befriend Misty with a two-pronged goal: to glean information Misty confided that Miller would feed Putnam County Sheriff’s investigators, and to put some distance between her and husband Ronald Cummings.

“I was afraid Ronald Cummings might carry out his threat to ‘blow her teeth through the back of her head’ if it turned out she had anything to do with his missing daughter, then kill himself,” Miller told The Bald Truth.

”We’ve worked several missing persons cases where the one we believe has the answers has died or taken their own life, like Trenton Duckett’s Mom, and the case dies with them. If anything happened to Misty, the key to finding Haleigh, or what happened to her, would be gone.”

Miller says he first became alarmed after Misty “miserably” flunked a polygraph and a voice stress test he says she asked him to set up to clear her name—after initially balking. In getting to know the couple, to make them feel comfortable, he’d dropped by the Satsuma trailer where they lived with Annette Sykes, Ronald’s grandmother.

There, he says Ronald lead him to a closet, where he kept an assault rifle, with two clips, each holding 32 rounds, and pulled it out.

With his 3 year old son, Junior, watching, Miller tells me Cummings “made a statement that if he found out Misty had some involvement, he’d blow her teeth through the back of her head.

“Then, he put the (assault rifle) down on floor, butt first, and almost got on his knees, bent over, and put the barrel in his mouth, and says, ‘I’ll kill her, and then kill myself, and take a few others with me.’

“I said, ‘Ronald, give me that damn gun! You don’t need that gun around here. We don’t need anymore problems,’ and he said, ‘No, I’ll need this one more time.’

“And Junior is in the room, watching, and I’m thinking, ‘Here we go. He’s got a gun in the closet that doesn’t lock. It’s not in a locked gun case and there’s Junior in the house. It felt like child endangerment to me.

So I said, ‘Ronald, you already lost one child, and even at Junior’s age, they’re curious, and you don’t want to lose another child being irresponsible with this damn gun.’ That was the bedroom where he said he slept with Misty and Junior.”

Miller said he relayed the gun incident to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department, as Ronald and Misty appeared to be butting heads, with numerous family fights reported on this site, and documented by police. Ronald Cummings lawyer could not be reached for comment, nor did Donna Brock return our calls.

Two weeks ago, cameras captured Misty and Ronald in a very public embrace before Misty climbed into the car of a mystery friend who would later be identified as Donna Brock, and took off for the beach. Our sources told us, however, that The Kiss, belied the tension between them, and over the next week, we reported numerous fights via phone and text, including one where Ronald purportedly told Misty not to come back.

Shortly after she returned to Satsuma, Ronald’s mother, Teresa Neves, blamed major dysfunction in Misty’s family as one culprit in the relationship, with a restraining order against brother Tommy, who’d accused Ronald of decapitating a rat and putting it in his mailbox, both Misty parents declaring they felt she knew more than she was revealing about Haleigh, and a mother awaiting transfer to the Putnam County jail from Tennessee on theft charges.

Meanwhile, Misty flew to New York for the CBS Early Show, accompanied by Donna Brock, with the network paying for round trip airfare, hotel and meals, as is customary for those flown in for interviews.

At the same time, Ronald Cummings was telling his story to Maury Povich, for airing Oct. 22, and the couple was blaming media pressure, that they could go nowhere without mass attention, for the cause of their split, even hinting reconciliation might be possible one day.

Is any of this beginning to sound scripted?

As we reported the roller coaster relationship, we were told initially Misty had split from Ronald, gone AWOL, with the couple fighting and acrimonious.

Then as we learned more, we were asked not to reveal our sources of the inside information on the rift in progress, lest we blow TE’s strategy to unearth any surreptitious Haleigh leads, and honored that request. We did confirm independently that law enforcement was receiving a regular feed and updates on Misty whereabouts, along with tidbits that might be useful in the investigation, on a voluntary basis.

In no way were Miller or Brock official agents of law enforcement, sources tell me, or agents would have to read Misty her Miranda rights, that she was a target and that anything she said might be held against her.

“Detectives didn’t know where they were all the time,” says one insider close to the investigation,”but they knew how to find her if needed.”

Indeed, when Misty Cummings returned from her initial road trip week ago, she spent a few days in Satsuma, then joined back up with Brock who Miller describes as “the mother she never had,” for the brief New York foray back into fame, her second bite at the Big Apple after The NBC Today Show with Ronald.

Then it was back to Florida, and Satsuma, where Brock let her off at a gas station in Satsuma Saturday night, a bit of a come down, Miller tells me.

By then, Misty’s initial anger had passed, he says, with Donna reporting back she’d actually gotten a kiss on the cheek from her new friend, who also told her, ‘I love you.’

Now that Miller has confirmed his Undercover Mama, he says he still has compassion for Misty, who “didn’t stand a chance” with the upbringing she received. “But the only reason we did this is to help find Haleigh.”

Whether Misty or anyone is ever arrested or charged with a crime remains up in the air, but at least for a time, if she ever winds up behind bars, Misty Croslin Cummings can say she got a taste of the good life, with mini-makeovers, hair and nails, a little spoiling, and a sympathetic shoulder to cry on and confide in, thanks to Miller and TE special agent Donna Brock.

With her lawyer, Robert Fields, resigning last week after she kept ignoring his advice, Misty may well feel alone in the world; her father has moved back in with brother Tommy; her mother remains behind bars, and sister in law Lindsay tells me she can’t come home again—though they’d welcome her – until and unless she asks the judge to drop the TRO against Tommy.

Meanwhile, her grandmother, Flora Hollers, in Nashville, asks me to relay a message to her that she will drop everything and drive to Satsuma to pick her up, if she wants to come home to live with her. The family, by in large, seems relieved Ronald is out of her life, for now.

But those close to the case can only hope an isolated Misty will reveal what investigators believe she’s holding—information that just might solve the case.

Miller says she asked to speak with detectives several days ago, so Brock drove her in and sat with her, as investigators laid out what her future could look like if they make a case against her: she may be too young to get the death penalty, but life in prison is a possibility, she was told.

“We still don’t’ believe she’s giving us straight information,” a source close to the case tells me. “She keeps telling us the same thing over and over again, and we have information that shows it’s not true…At some point, she has to make a decision if she wants to stay the course, or is she going to tell us.

“We’ve told her, ‘We are going forward with the case, no matter what your commitment is, and the moment we can prove you had something to do with the disappearance of Haleigh, we will proceed with criminal charges against you.’”

http://www.artharris.com/2009/10/12/exclusive-misty-cummings-undercover-mama/#more-3224

[Faith]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuTJyc1tP6A&feature=player_embedded


Art Harris on Nancy Grace: Misty drug bust Big break for Haleigh Cummings By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, © www.artharris.com (http://www.artharris.com), all rights reserved
As astounding as it sounds, it was 18 year old high school dropout Misty Croslin who turns out to be the alleged mastermind behind the Satsuma gang that couldn’t deal straight, playing right into the hands of a young undercover cop who befriended her and bought enough painkillers to earn her six felony drug trafficking charges, a cell in the St. John’s County, Florida Jail and and possibly decades behind bars if convicted.


“She took the lead,” Putnam County Sheriff spokesman Lt. Johnny Greenwood told www.artharris.com (http://www.artharris.com). “She befriended our undercover officer who made seven drug buys; Misty was at all seven,” although she has only so far been charged with six counts.


Ronald Cummings was also charged with selling copious amounts of illegal painkillers (Loritab, Roxycodone, Percocet, Vicodin) to an undercover cop with the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department who worked Misty and friends for a month, buying a total of 339 pills worth $3,900, enough to earn them decades behind bars if convicted.



Also arrested and charged with trafficking were three other alleged confederates–Tommy Croslin, Jr., Ronald cousin Hope Sykes and Misty confidante Donna Brock.


As the babysitter who reported five year old Haleigh Cummings missing, then married her father, Ronald, a month later, police say Misty remains the key to cracking the case, and legal experts say her drug bust gives them the crucial leverage they’ve been looking for to pressure her to talk.
She denies she knows what happened to Haleigh, that she was asleep when she vanished last Feb. 10 and woke up to find the little girl gone.
What a difference a year makes. With her bond set at almost one million dollars, Misty looked forlorn, like she was having a bad day in the blue jail jump suit she wore to her first appearance Thursday morning before a circuit judge who asked if she had a lawyer and whether she understood the charges against her.



She said she did, and had a lawyer, who told me he’d advised her not to speak with detectives investigating Haleigh Cummings…at least not just yet.


http://www.artharris.com/2010/01/22/misty-croslin-drug-bust-big-break-in-haleigh-cummings-case/

[Faith]

Police Reports Detail Misty Croslin Drug Deals! (http://www.artharris.com/2010/01/27/police-reports-detail-misty-croslin-drug-deals/)


1/27/10

It was three days before Christmas when Misty Croslin made her first drug deal with a customer her family overheard her call “Jake,” someone who drove a white car she didn’t know was wired, who had heard she had connections and asked her to score. To hear law enforcement tell it, Misty was princesss of the little big time, the organizer who put the deals together.

This time, Jake wanted 45 Roxycodone, and one of six police reports we’ve posted below detail how he handed her $750 in a McDonald’s parking lot in Palatka, Fla. and she gave him the pills handed to her by a white man in a big truck poilce are now tracking as part of the probe.

But until last week, when she was arrested and charged on six drug trafficking charges that could bring her decades behind bars, her bond set at $950, Misty had no idea her best customer was an undercover cop, or UC, as the police reports we obtained call him.

That day, Dec. 22, the first police report says, Misty and brother, Tommy, climbed into a car they didn’t know was wired for audio and videotape, and just before 5 p.m., she scored what Jake had ordered. He’d be calling again, and again, buying a total of 303 pills in all, worth $3,900, police have recalculated.

Her ex husband, Ronald Cummings, remains behind bars charged with three counts of trafficking; he tells a Florida reporter detectives in the Haleigh case have always paid him a visit, as we were told the day of the arrests they would be doing, using the busts to leverage information about his missing five year old daughter.

And that’s how the deals went down, in three nearby counties, from the Flying J truck stop off I 95 in St. Augustine, where Misty was heading when she told Jake she was “freaking out” because it was her biggest deal ever–155 Hydrocodone she said her confidante, Donna Brock, had given her to sell—for $800.

Over the next few weeks, Jake would call, and Misty would deliver, according to the reports, Misty always the common denominator in the deal as she brought Ronald along for three deals, and his cousin, Hope Sykes, along for another.

All are now behind bars, including Brock, charged with various counts of trafficking, and police have started grilling the players about what they know in the Haleigh Cummings case. If they do find Haleigh as a result of pressure from the busts, that would indeed be the biggest score of all.

misty dec 22 2009 report (http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/misty-dec-22-2009-report.pdf)
Misty Jan 8-2010 report (http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Misty-Jan-8-2010-report.pdf)
misty jan 12 2010 report (http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/misty-jan-12-2010-report1.pdf)
misty jan 13 2010 report (http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/misty-jan-13-2010-report1.pdf)
misty jan 14- 2010 report (http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/misty-jan-14-2010-report.pdf)
misty jan 18- 2010 report (http://www.artharris.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/misty-jan-18-2010-report.pdf)

[LiveLaughLuv]

EXCLUSIVE: “Misty No Drug Dealer!” —Dad


By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c) www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

It was a shock to me,” Misty Croslin’s father, Hank, Sr. tells The Bald Truth in an exclusive interview after learning his 18 year old daughter was behind bars charged with six counts of drug trafficking and held on a whopping $950,000 bond.

“When I heard police were calling Misty a big drug dealer, the (so-called) ‘mastermind’ or ringleader, I couldn’t believe it,” Hank told me. “She’s never been a ringleader of anything. Misty is a follower, not a leader.”

And her brother, Tommy? “He’s an addict, not a criminal,” his wife, Lindsay, tells me. Oh, and an alleged thief who apparently stole to feed his habit, according to police reports obtained by The Bald Truth (see below), and now sits behind bars on a no hold bond for allegedly trafficking drugs with his sister that violated probation on the burglary charges.

In face of what sources close to the case tell me is a “slam dunk,” with hours of audio and videotape of the month long investigation allegedly showing Misty Croslin and others around Satsuma, Florida and nearby counties scoring prescription painkillers from locals and selling more than 300 pills worth almsot $4,000 an undercover cop named Jake, her father called it a misunderstanding, and described Misty as a lost teenager just trying to fit in.

“If she bought some pills, she was just doing people favors,” Hank Croslin explained. “If you know Palatka, this ain’t nothing but a cesspool of drugs and pills. But Misty’s no drug dealer!”

more at the link:
http://www.artharris.com/2010/01/28/...roslin-family/