Friday marks the fourth day that Law Enforcement is searching an area of The St. Johns river some 5 miles from the trailer that Haleigh Cummings called home.

Police divers are scouring the river for any evidence connected to the missing child. On the ground reports are that the media is very much still present. The police are keeping them some distance from the actual search area and this has led to a couple of testy moments.

The major event on Wednesday was the police bringing Misty Croslin to the site. They spent some time standing on the boat dock talking. HLN is claiming that on several occasions she gestured towards the water. However the 20 second video clip that was replayed about 10 gazillion times on HLN last night did not show her doing that. I find that odd,I would have thought that if they had captured such a ‘Bombshell’ event they would have wanted to air it.

Obviously the video was taken by a helicopter from a distance away, however some analysis shows some interesting features by their omission. It is hard to identify some in the group, but clearly there was a handcuffed Misty Croslin. We think that the tall gentleman to the right is Major Gary Bowlen of the PCSO. The rest we are not so sure about.

OK, so what is missing in the video? There are two people that I would have expected to see but do not. I personally would have expected Capt Dominic Piscatello to have been involved. The real shocker though is the absence of Misty’s lawyer Robert Fields. I find it inconceivable that he would not have wanted to be present at such an event. I mentioned this fact to a journalist friend of mine who closely follows the case, he too found it odd. But he also pointed out that in the past Misty Croslin has gone ‘rogue’. Doing things against the judgment of her council.

Clearly the visit to the site was not just an opportunity for Misty Croslin to stretch her legs and get some fresh air. She was there for a purpose, but what might it have been? I know that many readers will go ‘well that’s obvious’. Actually it is not so obvious as one might think. I posed the question to my journalist friend, I rather liked his answer.

I believe there were two reasons, firstly they wanted to scare the cr@p out of her, and secondly they wanted to scare the cr@p out of her.

This actually makes good sense. The police clearly are taking this search very seriously.

Once again it is time to revisit the activities on the evening that Haleigh Cummings went missing. Due to my internet connection being down and AT&T dragging their heels to fix it, time is on my hands to reflect on that night.

I am not sure where I picked up this gem, but recently I read the phrase ‘there is truth in every lie’. This is a very deep and meaningful statement. If you think back over the last 14 months the police have been firm in their stance that this was no stranger abduction. That means that whatever happened was by a family member or a friend.

14 months is a long time to keep a story straight, the problem is how to determine the nuggets of truth from the mountains of information and disinformation that have been disseminated. You can also view this as separating fact from fiction, what is real and what is Memorex?

That very much has been the problem facing the PCSO.
The vast majority of the players are disreputable in some shape or form. I am not sure that they are evil, more they are a product of today’s society. They are not Gen X, nor Gen Y, they are Gen Me. Everything revolves around ‘Me’.

I am sure that people will disagree with my analysis, but, if nothing else it might be thought provoking.

I am just going to use some very ‘cherry picked’ items.

I think that it is a fact that Misty Croslin had just come off a three day booze, drug, and sex binge. No-one seems to doubt that.

I also do believe that Ronald Cummings was at work the evening of the disappearance. I have heard wild claims that he snuck out and killed Haleigh, but I am pretty certain that the investigators have checked this out, and have discounted that idea. In my mind, Ronald was indeed at work.

Now we enter the realm of finding the truth in the lies.

Tommy Croslin enters the picture. Although he and Misty do not always see eye to eye they are close. For months Tommy had no information to offer. That suddenly changed when he started feeling the heat. Suddenly his amnesia is healed and out comes the story that at around 10pm on the night of the disappearance, he went to the trailer and saw no lights on, banged on the door and got no response. He assumed that either everyone was sleeping, or no-one was home.

Another person who some say had a vested interest in making Haleigh Cummings disappear is her biological mother Crystal Sheffield. Sorry folks, you are barking up the wrong tree. Crystal may not be the ‘parent of the year’, in fact I wouldn’t let her within five miles of a child. But in her own way she does care about her children. It is just that drugs have derailed her progress in the adult world.

The last person that I want to bring into the equation is Cousin Joe Overstreet. But more on him later.

The other people don’t count. They are not worth muddying the waters with, they are all entertaining, disreputable, and about as much fun as a sack full of rattlesnakes, but they make the story more complex that it needs to be.

I am going to remove Crystal from the equation, her $12,000 motive (back child support) holds no water. I also seriously doubt that she has the capacity to plan a crime like this, never mind carry it out!

Lets take a look at Cousin Joe. There are some things in his background that do seem to indicate that this might be his kind of gig. However reality says that he makes a great scapegoat rather than perpetrator. I have no inside track with the PCSO, they are always polite to me, and they always respond in a prompt and professional manner to my questions so this is pure guesswork on my behalf. The one thing that I do know for sure is that if they thought Cousin Joe was involved, he would be cooling his heels in jail right now. He is not Mr. Clean, it would be easy to pick him up and sweat him. So, I cross Cousin Joe off the list.

And then there were three!

We have Ronald, Misty, and Tommy. To the best of my knowledge none of them had any motive whatsoever to harm Haleigh Cummings. It is however possible that all three are implicated.

I was talking with a good friend and investigator earlier today, and he very much laid out a scenario that I have to give some credence to.

Ronald is not happy with Misty, she has been gone for three days and he has had to look after the children himself. Misty just wants to sleep, the drug binge has taken its toll. They argue a little, and Ronald goes to work.

Misty is out of steam, she feeds the kids, and just needs a quick 24 hour nap. Junior is no problem, she puts him to bed and he is off to sleep in no time flat.

Haleigh is not quite so easy to deal with, she is a bouncy little girl, she wants to talk and play. How about slipping her half a Roxy or Oxy Misty thinks. It is the ‘babysitter’ of the modern world!

Haleigh does calm down, and go to sleep. Alas Ronald has not. He is pissed at Misty over her going AWOL for the previous three days. He calls and texts, till Misty has had enough. She wants sleep, not a fight. Misty turns her phone off and welcomes sleep.

Ronald Cummings is very annoyed, he is at work, has no way of talking to Misty. He calls Tommy Croslin, “get your butt over to the trailer and find out what is going on”.

The police have heard this story, and I have no doubt that they have checked it out. There is apparently a cell phone record that supports the call (not the content, but the point-to-point) connection.

To delve deeper, we need to once more get into determining fact from fiction.

The fiction says that Tommy went to the trailer, saw all the lights were out, knocked on the door, and when no-one answered went back home.

This is where the story gets very interesting. The possibilities are endless, yet still lead to the same result.

Lets look at what Tommy said, he went to the trailer and no-one was there. But, could this be a fact hidden in the fiction? One scenario that seems to play out is that Tommy did get an answer at the door, a groggy Misty invited him in. He explains that Ronald called and is pissed. They look at the children, JR is fast asleep, Haleigh is dead.

It is from this point on that the big lie starts. However there are shades of truth in it. You just have to look in the right places. Is it possible that the Van that mysteriously moved was the vehicle used to dispose of the body? The search site is only 5 miles from the trailer. There is also the question of a blanket, was this used to wrap Haleigh in?

I am not saying that I have this all correct, I am merely offering one scenario that fits the criteria.

The variables are many, I have tried to take many of them out of the equation. The one thing I am absolutely certain of is that when the PCSO do bring formal charges in this case there will be a ripple effect. We have asked them on several occasions about some of the ancillary players. The answer has remained constant, their focus is on finding Haleigh Cummings, once that goal is reached, the boxing gloves are coming off. There are a number of people that are going to be getting an unwelcome knock on the door.

The Haleigh Cummings story has done little to elivate Putnam County in the view of the world. It is just a small county in Florida. It does not brag any great tourist attractions, in fact few people had ever heard of the place prior to Haleigh Cummings. But I have the greatest respect for the PCSO and I am convinced that they will bring justice for Haleigh Cummings

Simon Barrett

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