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.

Tweet

Haleigh: Year Later, Only Questions

by Pat Brown

A year ago today, a little girl named Haleigh Cummings was reported missing at 3:30 in the morning by her father and his underage, live-in girlfriend. They said five-year-old Haleigh somehow vanished from her bed in their Satsuma, Florida, home.

The case remains a train wreck. A year later, Haleigh is still missing, and both her father, Ronald Cummings, and his girlfriend/wife/ex-wife, Misty Croslin, remain suspects in her disappearance.

 There are those who still believe Haleigh will be found, perhaps hidden by her biological mother or sold into a child sex ring. Most, however, believe Haleigh died that night and someone has gotten away with her murder, at least for the past year.

The perplexing question is WHO got away with what? What happened to Haleigh? Did she accidentally ingest and overdose on the drugs Ronald Cummings and Misty Croslin clearly were dealing and/or using? Did someone fail to keep an eye her, leaving her to toddle off  down the path behind the house and drown? Did someone get angry with her and kill her in a rage? Or did drug dealers steal and murder her as some sort of message to Daddy and Misty, his drug-dealing partner in crime?

Some of the facts of the case still remain sketchy, and the police haven’t been exactly forthcoming with details to fill the gaping holes in the story. We know Haleigh was last seen sometime on February 9th, the day before she vanished. We know Ron went to work that evening and Misty, then 17 years old, was allegedly watching five-year-old Haleigh and her two-year-old brother, both Ronald Cummings’s biological children with another woman.

Exactly when Ron went to work and what exact hours he can prove he was there have never been made clear. But, at 3:30 in the morning, Misty Croslin placed a phone call to 911:

"I can't find our daughter," Croslin said to the 911 operator, referring to Cummings’s daughter. "She was in her pajamas. We were sleeping."

Then Ronald told them:

"I just got home from work. My five-year-old daughter is gone. I need somebody to be here now," Cummings said. "If I find whoever has my daughter before y'all do, I'm killing them. I don't care. I'll spend the rest of my life in prison. ... I don't care."

Misty claimed the little girl disappeared out of the very room where she and the younger brother slept and was carted out the back door, which was found propped open with a cement block when the police arrived.  She said that she found the child missing when she got up to go to the bathroom and just then, Ronald arrived home. 

Although they seemed to check out the house, they didn’t appear to do much of a yard or neighborhood search, but called 911. While Misty tried to describe the child’s clothing, Ronald ranted about how his “dumb bitch girlfriend” had told him that his daughter was missing. Ronald repeatedly said someone had taken his child and that “when I find him, I will kill him.”

  

In the days, weeks, and month to follow, no trace of Haleigh is uncovered. Ronald and Misty spend little time searching for her and more time on watching TV, getting tattoos (that hideous one of Haleigh that looks like Chucky on his leg and the name of Ronnie on Misty’s back, even though they supposedly weren’t romantically involved any more), marrying each other, divorcing each other, and, finally, spending their valuable time dealing drugs and getting arrested. Now, both of them are likely heading to prison where certainly they won’t be able to find Haleigh. 

Through all of these shenanigans, Misty came out looking much worse than Ronald. She failed the polygraph and voice stress tests, couldn’t keep her story straight, and didn’t pull off too good of an act of despair. Ronald, on the other hand, gained a fairly strong fan club, people who believed he was at work when Haleigh went missing and cried convincingly on the 911 call and on camera.

But, finally, doubt is beginning to surface about Ronald’s character. He swore up and down to Geraldo that he had absolutely no involvement with drugs, and whaddya know, turns out he was a liar.

Okay. So now we know Ronnie is not a saint. And he lies. And he is a drug dealer. What else might Ronald be lying about? Let’s rewind back to the night Haleigh vanished. Here are some questions I have. What do you all think?

•  Does Ronald do enough of a search for Haleigh when he arrives home?
•  Do we have proof that Haleigh couldn’t have died before Ronald went to work?
•  Could Ronald have disposed of Haleigh’s body on the way to work, at the work location, or on the way home?
•  Could Ronald have instructed Misty to dump Haleigh’s body somewhere while he was at work so he would have an alibi?
•  Was Ronald faking sobs on the 911 call and during his television interviews?
•  Why does Ronald immediately say he is going to kill the guy who stole his child rather than hoping police find her and save her life?
•  Could the guy Ronald be talking about actually be himself? Sometimes liars pick a truthful situation and change either the person involved or the time of the event in order to tell the story somewhat truthfully but take themselves out of the perpetrator’s role.
•  Why is Ronald willing to get himself the death penalty for killing the guy or guys who “took his child” but not willing to beat up Misty for lying to him about what happened to his daughter?
•  Why would Ronald continue to live with, sleep with, and marry a woman who won’t tell him what she knows about his child’s disappearance?
•  Why doesn’t Ronald seem to care about his other child, Junior?
•  Why would Ronald say Haleigh would be happy he was marrying Misty? Wouldn’t he want his daughter to be able to attend the wedding and celebrate with him this special day?
•  How could Ronald get married while his daughter was somewhere dead or being raped and tortured?
• Why would Ronald spend money on a tattoo of Haleigh rather than use the money to find her?
•  Why, if Ronald thinks some guys came and took Haleigh, doesn’t he try to find those guys?

I believe Ronald is a manipulative, calculating, pathologically lying criminal who exhibits all the traits of psychopathy.

Usually, in cases where children go missing in the night, the male is responsible for the death of the child and the girlfriend/wife lies for him and sometimes takes the rap. I think that’s what happened in this case.

What do you think? Does Ronald know what happened to Haleigh, and is he the perpetrator of a crime against this child?

Tweet

How to Become a Suspect 101

by Pat Brown

When a cable-news show host asks whether a particular character should be a suspect in a crime we're discussing, I talk about behavior, traits, or circumstances that might draw the attention of police. Sometimes I get mail from people who believe someone I or the police have named as a possible suspect is being unfairly targeted. Others want to know why I don't jump to name someone they're sure committed the crime. And sometimes I'm just playing devil's advocate when I see red flags being ignored or getting too much attention.

Red flags -- certain behaviors or traits of a person or the circumstances surrounding them, are just that: indicators that the person should be looked at more carefully as a potential suspect in a crime, but not considered guilty unless other evidence supports the accusation and the accusation is proven in court.

Four cases come to mind as examples in this class of How to Become a Suspect 101: The Quantico Marine case of 1983, the bizarre Madeline McCann case, the Haleigh Cummings saga, and the recent Balloon Boy case.

Bad Luck:

This is the No. 1 issue that will get you in trouble and connect you to a crime, whether the bad luck just happened to you or you created it by actually being the perpetrator. Richard and Miyumi Heene called 911 in a panic because their six-year-old son, Falcon, was supposedly aloft in a balloon Richard made, drifting across the skies in a silvery flying saucer-shaped airship. Later, the child was found to be hiding in the house and ignoring the shouts of searchers. The police say they are filing charges because the spectacle was a publicity stunt and the child was never in the balloon.

The incident occurred at the Heene residence. There was no one around but the family, and the balloon belonged to them. Either the kid was being a naughty boy and the parents got in trouble because of him, or the parents are lying.

Cpl. Lindsey Scott was in investigations at Quantico Marine Base (book about his ordeal available at Amazon) at the time a young woman was raped and her throat cut. His bad luck: the victim described her attacker to a sketch artist and when the drawing was complete, Lindsey Scott's workmates said, "Wow! That looks just like Scotty!" Scott also drove a gold Buick; although it didn't have the white top the girl saw on her attacker's car, it was still the color and make she described.

When Haleigh Cummings (on left below with the various suspects) and Madelaine McCann went missing, they disappeared from locations where their parents were supposed to be. Misty Croslin, Ronald Cummings's underage girlfriend who watched his kids while he worked, claims she was asleep when someone came into the house and snatched the child from the bedroom she shared with the children. Maddy McCann supposedly was taken while her parents left the child alone with her younger siblings and went off drinking at the resort restaurant.

In all these cases, particular individuals are now linked with each crime. These persons-of-interest could have been involved.

Alibis:

Okay, so they could have done it, but did they? Do they have alibis which will clear them? Lindsey Scott admits he wasn't at home when the victim linked to him was attacked. Scott was out and about, going back to his recently vacated apartment to clean an oven (no one saw him) and looking for a foot bath to buy for his pregnant wife (no one really remembers seeing him in the store).

Misty Croslin claims she was sleeping, which isn't much of an alibi; Ronald Cummings claims he was at work, but there is no proof the crime couldn't have been committed before he went to work.

The McCanns (pictured left with Madelaine in the red circle) were the last people to be with their daughter before they supposedly left her unattended and available to be taken from their room at the resort. The Heenes were home with their children when the boy supposedly climbed into the balloon, or the boy pretended he went up in a balloon and hid in the house. No one has a particularly good alibi.

Past behaviors:

The Heenes are publicity seekers who have already done one reality-TV show: an episode of "Wife Swap." Richard Heene, who met his wife in acting school, was pitching producers for a new show for his family just before the balloon incident, suggesting he might have been trying to get attention. But Heene has behaved so bizarrely in raising his children -- chasing tornadoes with them and letting them be extremely adventurous and curious -- that on this particular day maybe the kids just outdid themselves.

Misty likes to use drugs and party. She hooks up with an older man, Ronald Cummings, and plays Mommy to his two little children. Cummings has a questionable history of drug involvement and a controlling nature. So it's easy to think Misty may have been out partying, the child ingested drugs, or Misty might be covering for Ronald if he beat the child to death before he went to work.

The McCanns left their three children alone in a hotel room so the couple could have fun. Automatically this awakens suspicious of what else they would do, such as give the kids prescription medicine (both parents are physicians) to make them sleep while the parents were away.

Lindsey Scott is the only one who doesn't have any questionable past behaviors.

Post-Crime Behaviors:

The Heenes were more than eager to do television appearances. Richard Heene said, "Wow!" and then hung his head when his son Falcon blurted out on "The Today Show" that he hid because "They were doing a show." No longer so hungry for the public eye, Heene became angry at the cable networks for asking questions and insisted all future questions be in writing.

The McCanns never showed remorse for leaving their children unattended. They dressed nicely every day and continued normal routines such as jogging. Kate McCann said she never had problems sleeping after Maddy "was taken."

Misty Croslin couldn't keep her story straight about the night Haleigh went missing. Ronald Cummings boldly told reporters he has never been involved in drugs despite his long list of drug arrests. Ron and Misty married soon after Haleigh went missing, as if this were a time to celebrate. No one can tell me they had to get married at that time: they were already living together, so the sanctity of marriage doesn't seem to be an issue.

Lindsey Scott's behavior remained credible after the crime.

The Suspects:

The Heenes will most likely be charged with more than one crime, possibly including contributing to the delinquency of a minor and making a false police report. I will be curious what actual proof police have that the balloon episode was a hoax. Richard Heene's behavior sure looks squirrelly, and the kid rather outed him (As Art Linkletter said, "Kids say the darndest things."), but Falcon may not have meant what he said exactly as it sounded. That's why police must have more evidence: conflicting stories, something on the computer, maybe even notes detailing a "story" of a little boy going off in a flying saucer balloon.

Neither the McCanns nor the Croslin/Cummings duo have been charged with any crimes, yet no evidence in either case points to abduction by a stranger. Because the parents have no alibis and their behavior is questionable, both in the past and after the crime, they remain suspects to some degree. So until evidence shows up to convict them or someone else, we will have to continue to wonder about their guilt.

Poor Lindsey Scott. He got convicted of the crime and spent four years in Fort Leavenworth until he got an appeal and was freed for lack of evidence. Truly, he got a bad deal. He became a suspect because the victim's info matched him and his car and because he couldn't account for his time. Nothing was questionable about his behavior and no physical evidence linked him to the crime. Since his release, another suspect has come into view: he is a drop dead look-alike to Scott, he was driving a gold Buick with a white top during the time of the crime, and he had a cousin who maintained the usually locked area on the base where the victim was taken.

I don't have a problem with the Heenes, the McCanns, or Misty Croslin and Ronald Cummings being suspects; they should be. However, the investigation of Lindsey Scott should have been downplayed until there was more evidence that made him look a whole lot worse. Of course, none should be convicted without substantial evidence proving that they, and only they, could have committed the crime.

Some say the possible involvement of these people shouldn't even be discussed, because we are in effect convicting them without a trial in the court of public opinion. This is ridiculous; we can't convict someone with an opinion or a speculation. Of course, we must be careful not to slander or libel someone by making claims about the person (creating "facts" that do not exist based on guesswork) or stating they are guilty instead of hypothesizing that they might be guilty. People are responsible for their behavior, and it's not illegal for someone to discuss it in public, (even if it is somewhat gossipy). We all make choices in our lives, and our choices follow us. If they lead the public and the police into suspecting we are involved in a crime, we are responsible.

Good behavior won't always protect us (look at Lindsey Scott's unfortunate incarceration), but it should give us better odds of avoiding becoming a criminal suspect -- and the talk of cable television.

Tweet

Going to the Chapel

by Donna Pendergast

After twenty-two years as a prosecutor, I thought that nothing could surprise me.

I was wrong!

Last weekend, Ronald Cummings, the father of Haleigh Cummings— who has been missing since February 10th—popped the question. With family and friends looking on, Cummings, 25, proposed to his 17-year-old girlfriend, Misty Croslin, at Chili's restaurant. She said yes. On Monday, Croslin showed off her ring outside of the Putnam County courthouse in Palatka where the couple went to apply for a marriage license.

What the heck?

As you may recall, five-year-old Haleigh was with Croslin on that night a month ago when she was reported missing from her mobile home in Satsuma, Florida. Left to care for Cummings' two children, Croslin put Haleigh to bed around 8:00 p.m. that night in the bedroom that Haleigh shared with her brother, her father, and Croslin herself.

Croslin has told authorities that someone came into the home to take the girl in the middle of the night. She claims to have discovered Haleigh missing when she woke up to go to the bathroom around 3:00 a.m. The back door was found ajar, propped open by bricks. Haleigh's 4-year-old brother, Ronald Jr., later told family members that a man dressed in black came into the mobile home and took Haleigh from her bed.

An Amber Alert was issued immediately and a massive search initiated using tracking dogs, sonar equipment, and helicopters. The search revealed nothing. Despite investigating thousands of tips, authorities in Putnam County have made no arrests in the case to date. Intense scrutiny has been focused on a number of registered sex offenders who live within a short distance of the 5,000-member Satsuma community.

The case gained attention from the onset with the national press focusing on tawdry family information as much as Haleigh's disappearance. A 17-year-old girlfriend left to care for her 25-year-old boyfriend's children, and a biological mother who is engaged to her stepbrother all make for great fodder on Internet message boards and TV talk shows.

But this family is certainly fanning the fire with their recent escapades. After begging for donations in the frenzy of media attention, Haleigh's father went out of town last week to have a tattoo of Haleigh inked on his leg. This week, news of an engagement and a ring to accompany the "happy" news have caused people to ask where the money is coming from to fund the tattoo, the ring, and the dinner at Chili's.

The most recent Internet speculation—that the marriage is intended to create a spousal privilege so one spouse cannot be compelled to testify against the other—appears unfounded. Florida statutes do not provide for spousal immunity when it relates to a situation where a child is injured.

So why are they doing it? I don't understand. What is with these people? Where are their priorities? How can Cummings even contemplate getting married while his daughter is missing and possibly dead, or in the hands of a sex offender? You would think that any father would be more focused on getting his daughter back than on proposing to an underage girlfriend who had to drag her mother along to the courthouse to fill out paperwork for the marriage. What is going on here?

Cummings has recently been quoted as saying, "Everybody is probably going to take this marriage thing the wrong way, but it's not."

I don't know what it's "not" but I know what it is. In a word, incomprehensible.

Statements made in this post are my own and are not intended to reflect the views, opinions or position of the Muchigan Attorney General or the Michigan Department of Attorney General.

Tweet