Missing girl's father struggles to remain patient

Waiting for HaLeigh
Missing girl's father struggles to remain patient
Posted: Sunday, September 20, 2009 ; Updated: 12:29 AM
Ronald Cummings has become nothing if not patient.

Agonizingly patient.

His moments turn on a small wheel, worn smooth by repetition over the 222 days since his little girl, HaLeigh, disappeared.
"I play with my son," Cummings said last week in the office of his attorney, Terry Shoemaker. "I take care of him. Whatever he needs. And pray for my daughter in the morning and at night before I go to bed."

HaLeigh Ann-Marie Cummings was 5 years old when she disappeared from her father's blue doublewide trailer in the Hermit's Cove area of Putnam County the night of Feb. 9.

"Smiling. Always smiling," Cummings said when asked to describe his missing child.

She was three feet tall and weighed 39 pounds.

"Happy -- very happy," Cummings added, as his 4-year-old son, Ronald Jr., playfully tried to distract him. "Stubborn. Very smart -- very, very intelligent."

Cummings, 25, said law enforcement officers don't want him to join search groups or go looking for his daughter on his own. But he has to help somehow, which is why he intends to keep giving interviews, such as the one last week in offices of Mowrey Shoemaker Beardsley in St. Augustine.

Father's vow

He said he's not going to respond every time someone suggests that he or his wife had something to do with HaLeigh's disappearance. But he has vowed to keep the little girl's name and picture in the public eye.

"All this stuff that's said about me on TV ... I don't try to counteract with it," Cummings said. "I'm not trying to get back on there and throw punches back at someone that threw punches with us.

"Rather than do that, we'd rather sit back and just allow HaLeigh's face to be ran across the TV over and over. If they have to rake me across the coals every day, all day, to put my daughter's face on national TV every day, then that's great.

"Whatever they want to do, as long as her face stays out there until she comes home."

The ordeal has already cost him so much, including friends, Cummings said.

"I know who my friends are," he said. "Three of my best friends are helping me. Terry Shoemaker, Dan Mowrey and Brandon Beardsley."

Last day

The last day Ronald Cummings saw his daughter was a Monday. He was working as a crane operator at PDM Bridge in Palatka.

Misty Croslin, his girlfriend at the time, was at home with HaLeigh and Ronald Jr.

The little girl with long blonde ringlets was put to bed at 8 p.m. because it was a school night, Croslin said.

She said she last saw HaLeigh around 10 p.m. and went to bed herself between 10:30 and 11.

Croslin, 17, said she woke to get a drink of water shortly before 3:30 in the morning. She saw a light on in the kitchen. A cinderblock, or brick, had been laid against the back door, propping it open, she said.

She reported the disappearance to 911 Dispatch at the Putnam County Sheriff's Office at 3:27 the morning of Feb. 10. Cummings had gotten home from work minutes before.

He can be heard yelling in the background as Croslin spoke to the dispatcher:

"I just got home from work; my 5-year-old daughter is gone. I need someone here now. ... If I find whoever has my daughter before you all do, I'm killing them."

Response

Deputies responded 13 minutes later, accompanied by a K-9 unit from the Palatka Police Department. The team scoured the area and picked up a scent. They followed it down a wooded path toward the St. Johns River and found a small footprint in the dirt.

Officers reportedly said the trail doubled back to a street in front of HaLeigh's home and looped around a nearby block. It went down another street that led to the CSX rail crossing at Buffalo Bluff Road.

That's where the dog lost the scent.

Hundreds of searchers poked for days through the pine woods and palmetto scrub. They looked from the air, on the water and scratched at the ground with walking sticks.

Investigators questioned and cleared 44 registered sex offenders who live within five miles of the home.

Every day for the past seven months, dozens of people following the case have posted their opinions on the Internet.

Hundreds of bloggers pore over every word, parse every sentence and analyze every facial expression by Cummings and his wife, who were married March 12 in a civil ceremony at his grandmother's house.

Some who post their comments on the Internet have blistered Cummings for his manner during television interviews. They said, among other criticisms, that he seemed pessimistic from the outset.

"It is discouraging," he said last week. "But I haven't lost hope at all to find my daughter alive."

Far and away, the majority use their blogs to point fingers at Cummings or his wife -- or both -- for what happened.

Polygraph

That intensified after Misty Cummings reportedly flunked a polygraph.

The family asked Tim Miller, owner of the Texas-based search and recovery group EquuSearch, to arrange for the test.

Miller was quoted as saying after the August test that she failed "miserably."

"In the first place," Shoemaker said, "you don't fail 'miserably.' You pass or fail.

"But, more important, there are a lot of people that pass that are lying, and there are a lot of people who fail that are telling the truth.

"Even in the best-case scenario, I think the only thing they say is they're 85 to 87 percent reliable."

Cummings understands there was a time when parents seldom were suspected of harming their children. Experience has hardened that collective heart.

He knows that these are different times and said this is how he can help.

He pressed on, fielding questions, appearing cautious and eager at the same time.

Frustration still came through, but it was carried on carefully chosen words.

"I think (investigators) have got tunnel vision since day one," he said. "I think (Misty Croslin Cummings) has been their primary focus instead of exploring other options."

No depth

Detectives have been conducting an almost superficial inquiry, Cummings added.

"I think there's definitely some things that they might have looked at simply. But that's it. Simply," he said. "But they never went into any depth with them, I don't believe.

"I believe that, if they did, they might find what they're looking for."

He and his new wife occasionally talk about the case, but not very often.

"Every once in a while we discuss exactly what was said at some point in time between somebody or whatever ... what somebody said on TV," said Cummings. "A lot of it's where we know it's untrue, and they're just shooting it out there."

Shoemaker said he and Cummings are "hoping to get an investigator to come in and start looking at some different areas and come in with a fresh set of ideas."

"If people start looking at the same thing over and over again, it all starts looking the same," he added.

There's not much activity in Cummings' life these days. There's even less peace.

"You can't get away from this at all," said Cummings. "Me and my son playing together is about the only 'hobby.' ... (Misty) hangs out with me, and we play with Junior together.

"We just do whatever he wants to do, basically, and have fun together. While we're waiting the arrival of his sister."

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