Ronald Cummings's Enemies

by Pat Brown

Lots of speculation is swirling again now that Tommy Croslin and Misty Croslin are making more statements about the night that five-year-old Haleigh Cummings went missing. She has never been found.

Tommy claims Joe Overstreet strangled Haleigh but, for some reason, Tommy helped him get rid of the little girl's body. Misty says she hid under a blanket while Tommy and Joe did something, and she doesn't exactly know what it was. Joe says, "I didn't do it," referring to the Haleigh's homicide, but he doesn't actually say if he did anything else. Neither Misty, Tommy, nor Joe has said anything about Ronald Cummings, Haleigh's father.

Which leads me back to the most interesting statement ever made by Ron Cummings(right):

"You keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

Who are these enemies Ronald Cummings is speaking of? Misty? How is Misty, who is his ex-girlfriend, ex-wife, and Haleigh's former stepmother, his enemy? She might have been Haleigh's enemy at one point in that she neglected Haleigh's care and possibly brought dangerous male companions around her. She might have left drugs about, which Haleigh could have gotten into.

Even more curious: Ron said "enemies," not "enemy." Who could the other enemy or enemies be? Is he speaking of Tommy Croslin, who is Misty's brother and the receiver of a beheaded rat in his mailbox? Is he speaking of Tommy and Misty's cousin Joe Overstreet, who supposedly ended up with a gun belonging to Ronald?

Why would Misty, Tommy (left), or Joe be Ronald Cummings's enemy? Let's take a look at the definition of "enemy." An enemy is "a person hostile or opposed to a policy, cause, person, or group, especially one who actively tries to do damage; opponent."

Why would Misty, Tommy, or Joe be hostile toward Ronald? He had just lost his child. How could Misty, Tommy, or Joe be a threat to Ronald? How would they be able to damage him?

There is only one answer to that. They know something extremely detrimental to Ronald which could harm him worse than the loss of his child. The only thing I can think of is that he had something to do with the loss of his child.

Ronald Cummings appears to have done damage control; he took actions to neutralize any threat against him. He used two different techniques. One was to threaten and the other was to buy. He delivered a very clear message to Tommy Croslin with the decapitated rat. Talk, and, I will chop your head off. Tommy, therefore, had to have knowledge of what happened to Haleigh that night and be physically terrified of Ronald. Or he had knowledge of what happened that night to Haleigh and committed an act of his own that was so egregious that Ronald could easily blackmail him.

And what did Ron do about Misty (right)? He bribed the then 17-year-old with what a girl like that would want most. A pretty ring, a wedding, and, well, maybe marriage, although a lot of young girls are more into the first two than the actual state of matrimony. Misty clearly had some level of involvement in what occurred that night at the trailer, so a pact with Ronald to show solidarity gave her, in return for her silence, a level of safety and an appearance, to some extent, of innocence (because no father of a murdered or abducted child would marry a person he really felt was guilty of such a crime). Of course, Ron also might have mistakenly thought that making Misty his spouse would prevent her from testifying against him in court.

And then we have Joe Overstreet. How did Joe get caught up in all of this? What does he know? Was he there? Why would he kidnap, kill, or assault a child because he can't find a gun? This story pushed by Misty and Tommy makes little sense. Unless, perhaps, Ronald gave him the gun to shut him the hell up, maybe a gun he wanted to get rid of. Could the gun be the cause of death for Haleigh? Did the gun go off in Ron's hand and Haleigh end up shot? There is no blood in the trailer, but this doesn't mean it didn't happen. Depending on the caliber of the gun, how well Haleigh was wrapped in her bedding, and if she had any drugs in her system that might have slowed down blood loss, Haleigh could have died of a gunshot wound, leaving no blood behind once the body and bedding material were removed.

Did Joe (left) take a bribe for his silence and get himself into a lot of hot water? Maybe he was being truthful when he bluntly stated he "didn't do it," as in he didn't have anything to do with Haleigh's actual death. That doesn't mean he wasn't somehow in the mix that night. Now that Misty, Tommy, and even Ronald have him tossing Haleigh to the alligators, he has a three-against-one problem. If he speaks up in any fashion, he puts himself at the crime scene and, therefore, he could end up being charged with a crime far worse than the one he might have committed. If Joe was there, he is not going to say a damn thing.

Let's return to the original 911 call. What we find are two people trying to persuade law enforcement of their own innocence in the matter. Misty is trying to prove she was unaware of what happened that night while she was asleep, and Ronald is trying to prove he would be willing to kill whoever did whatever to Haleigh before he arrived home from work. The fact that he has shown little interest in following through with his threat leaves only one person as the main suspect in the death of Haleigh: Ronald himself.

Misty, Tommy, and Joe might have been there, might have partied, might have done drugs. Haleigh might have been sexually abused, but if Ronald had no part in what happened to Haleigh, he would have followed through on his claims of wanting to do damage to whomever hurt his daughter. Instead, he marries one of her "killers," threatens one of the other "killers" to keep his mouth shut, and may have bribed the third "killer," as well.

Ronald made a lot of phone calls home that night, yet there is no proof that he didn't leave work at some point and walk in on whatever shenanigans were going on. All we know is that Misty conveniently "woke up" just before Ronald conveniently arrived home. Misty, therefore, couldn't have been involved, and Ronald couldn't have been involved, or at least that is what they want us to believe.

As statement analyst Peter Hyatt will tell you (check out our discussion on my blogtalkradio show, Profile This!), there is a lot of truth in "them thar lies." Pay attention to the words -- "blanket," "water," "brick," "gun" -- and pay attention to the order in which statements are delivered, starting with the 911 call. You'll find the players are actually telling you what happened. Of course, to make any arrests, proof of exactly what happened must include strong physical and behavioral evidence that can be used in a court of law. That is why, at this moment, no one is standing trial for the murder of Haleigh Cummings.

One thing is for sure, though, at least from the information we have to date: Ronald Cummings is in bed with his "enemies," and, I would think most detectives and profilers would agree, there is something seriously wrong with this picture.

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