Good morning Monkeys!
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NANCY GRACE Transcript 3/26/09
MISTY CUMMINGS: We have a very good relationship. She wants to be right on my hip the whole time. She don`t want to leave me. We always did make-up and hair. And every morning, (INAUDIBLE) like a queen to school.
Did I drive her to school? I didn`t drive her to school in a while, actually. She -- Daddy has been driving her to school lately. When he has a long night at work and he don`t want to get up or (INAUDIBLE), then I`ll drive her to school, along with my nephew, too. I have the kids 24/7.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Everything in turmoil in the investigation regarding little Haleigh. Straight out to Art Harris, investigative journalist. Art, I understand new claims are emerging. Explain.
ART HARRIS, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: Well, there are new claims now by Ronald`s lawyer, saying that the abuse photos that were submitted by -- by Crystal`s lawyer are not accurate. They have their own photos taken by his mother the day of the injury on the playground, and they have their own timeline.
As far as the investigation, I can tell you, Nancy, that investigators are looking at conflicts and comparing stories that have been told by Misty to see what statements may differ between the stories and statements she`s given.
GRACE: OK, you are seeing photos provided by Artharris.com. That is the photo that school authorities say resulted from this little girl falling off monkey bars, a fall on the playground. But the father is firing back with his own photos. His photos, just delivered to us, show the progression of those very same injuries. We see how they change over days to come, and she ends up at the hospital where a CAT scan is ordered.
Not only that -- straight out to attorney for biological mother Crystal Sheffield. Kim Picazio is joining us. Kim, you are making the assertion, the claim that Misty Croslin Cummings, now Haleigh`s stepmother, entertained another man in the home the night Haleigh goes missing?
KIM PICAZIO, ATTORNEY FOR HALEIGH`S MOTHER: No, I don`t believe we`ve officially made that claim. I believe that we think a lot of things happened that night that have not been told to the media. We`ve spoken with numerous eyewitnesses that allege seeing Misty out that night. I believe the police have that information. I don`t know if they`ve questioned the particular individual that she was alleged to be out with that night. But I believe we have a concrete understanding now of what happened that night, and it`s not Misty`s version.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RONALD CUMMINGS, FATHER OF MISSING 5-YR-OLD HALEIGH CUMMINGS: I`m not here to answer any questions. I`m here to plead for the life of my daughter.
CRYSTAL SHEFFIELD, MOM OF MISSING 5-YR-OLD HALEIGH CUMMINGS: When me and Ronald were together he had nothing to do with the children. I took care of them. I did everything. He had nothing to do with them and then when I left he decided he wanted to take them from me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hitting in the face until bloodied, hitting with sticks, hitting with belts. I could go on and on.
CUMMINGS: I have nothing to do with this. I`ve been slandered into being a sorry father. I was seeing in most cases the fathers don`t get custody of their children. I take good care of my kids the three years I had them by myself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Straight out to the attorney for biological mother of little Haleigh, Kim Picazio, is joining us.
Miss Picazio, you have just told me on live TV that you have not said Misty Croslin-Cummings had another man in the home. Let me refer you to a statement that you made March 26, 2009 to FOX 35. They`re reporting from Satsuma, Florida.
They say you, Kim Picazio, shared new details about what happened the night Haleigh was taken and I read, "Picazio says Ronald, Jr., Haleigh`s brother woke up when a man came into the house to see Misty Croslin. He stated to his mother he saw a man in black clothing take Haleigh. She says, are you asleep? And he says I woke up. The man had squeaky shoes and the couch was bouncing, says Picazio."
Now, did they misquote you?
KIM PICAZIO, ATTORNEY FOR CRYSTAL SHEFFIELD, HALEIGH`S MOTHER: I believe that should not be a quote. And again, we have a lot of theories and none of us were there that night. Ad with regard to Misty`s statements to the press and with regard to her statements to the police, they`re clearly inaccurate.
We have uncovered people, eyewitnesses that have seen her out that night with another individual. Whether or not she propped open the door and allowed a person in that night, we don`t know. None of us were there, but we surely know that she was not home with the children that night according to our eyewitnesses.
With regard to statements, these are things that I think, not things that I know, none of us do. I wasn`t there.
GRACE: With me is Kim Picazio, she is a well respected member of the Florida bar. I want to go out to our lawyers. Eleanor Dixon, Joe Episcopo, Peter Odom. If this is true, if this is true, what the FOX News Channel, the local 35 News, is saying Picazio told them, and it`s in quotes, that Misty Croslin-Cummings had another man in the home that night with squeaky shoes and the sofa was bouncing.
If that`s true, the timeline police have constructed right now means absolutely nothing, Eleanor.
ELEANOR DIXON, PROSECUTOR: You`re exactly right, Nancy. And remember the only person who have given the police a timeline is Misty and we don`t know how truthful that is at this point. We`re getting more and more information every day.
GRACE: Peter Odom?
PETER ODOM, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: If this is the only evidence of a guest in the home that is the statement of a 4-year-old child, this is reckless disregard for the truth and it should not be repeated until there is some verification, Nancy.
GRACE: Peter, have you ever prosecuted a child molestation case?
ODOM: I have.
GRACE: For the state?
ODOM: For the state.
GRACE: And in that case, did you believe what the child told you?
ODOM: In every case.
GRACE: But you say in this case not to believe what the child says.
ODOM: But, Nancy, it is -- it would have been irresponsible for me as a prosecutor to not get some kind of verification, some kind of corroboration.
GRACE: I would like to see Odom`s face. Let me remind you, Peter Odom that it has been nearly two decades since the requirement in your jurisdiction for corroboration for a sex attack on a woman or a child.
ODOM: Well, not legally required, Nancy.
GRACE: That`s absolutely correct. So what you are saying is not founded in the law.
ODOM: Correct, but in every case I prosecuted with a child victim we always found corroboration before we went public with it.
GRACE: To Joe Episcopo, thoughts?
JOE EPISCOPO, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Pardon me?
GRACE: Thoughts? Weigh in.
EPISCOPO: Well, my thoughts. First of all, if this is true, then Misty is implicated in the kidnapping. She`s passed the polygraph. So I don`t know. I think it`s kind of unreliable and certainly a 4-year-old needs to be corroborated in order to bring any kind of a case.
I`ve prosecuted and defended these cases. A 4-year-old is generally not even competent to testify because they don`t know what perjury is.
GRACE: And we also have to take into account, not Miss Picazio, the attorney, but she is relying on what her client and their contacts are telling her.
To Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst and author of "Dealbreakers," the mother is filing a custody suit against the biological father and when that happens, al sorts of claims are made in court. I believe I would want verification of this as well and believe me, Bethany, I`ve prosecuted many cases on nothing but the word of a child.
BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST, AUTHOR OF "DEALBREAKERS": Well, I mean, in child custody cases the parents often say horrible things and you`ve said before on your show that family court is one of the most dangerous courts in the United States because parents become so angry at each other, but the only way to get at the truth with Junior is to have a trained professional do a lot of play therapy with him and see what he acts out.
And they should have a camera rolling the entire time to make sure that no suggestions are made because a man coming into the house dressed in black could just be the bogeyman in this child`s mind or maybe she was having sex with someone else, that`s why the sofa`s bouncing, and that would be a good explanation as to why Misty used the other bathroom and not the bathroom in -- that was adjacent to the bathroom, but one other quick thing.
You know, Crystal`s lodging all these claims, but she failed to pay child support for many years, so that`s negligent as well.
GRACE: Out to T.J. Hart, program and news director of WSKY 97.3 FM, joining us from Florida. T.J., is there anything to support this claim against Misty Croslin other than what the mother`s sources are telling?
T.J. HART, PROGRAM & NEWS DIR., WSKY 97.3FM, COVERING STORY: Yes. I spoke with a private investigator by the name of William Staubs (ph) who is investigating this case and he spoke with Ronald and he says that Ronald confirms that Misty had a friend that he -- that she had been with a week before and possibly even the night of the disappearance.
GRACE: I want to go.
HART: And this could play right into this as well.
GRACE: To Detective Lieutenant Stephen Rogers, the former member of the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. Stephen, you have investigated so many cases. Police seem to be at a standstill in the search for Haleigh. Will this shed new light?
DET. LT. STEVE ROGERS, NUTLEY, NEW JERSEY, POLICE DEPARTMENT: Well, I`m sure it will. The police are not going to let that statement of that 4-year-old or any information they get. They`re not going to disregard that. They`re going to look into this and that might change that timeline you talked about, Nancy.
GRACE: And back to Art Harris. The photos you`re seeing are coming from Artharris.com. Art, you originally told us about photos where little Haleigh had horrible bruises and so forth. We then uncovered a document from the school showing she had fallen from the playground that day.
Now the father has sent us. Ronald Cummings has sent us photos, time- progressed photos of how those bruises and injuries seem to get worse to manifest more over the next few days. What do you make of it, Art?
ART HARRIS, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST, ARTHARRIS.COM, INTERVIEWED MISTY CROSLIN, HALEIGH`S NEW STEPMOM: Well, they are coming back, Nancy, with time-stamped photos and statements from Ronald`s mother, Teresa Neves who took little Haleigh to a nearby hospital and she had a CAT scan. They had documented the medical treatment and the progression of these injuries.
So it`s a very powerful comeback that has documentation.
GRACE: Right.
And to Dr. Bruce Levy, medical examiner joining us from Tennessee. Dr. Levy, if Haleigh was abducted by a stranger, would you expect to find some trace of them in the home?
DR. BRUCE LEVY, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST, MEDICAL EXAMINER: Well, it`s almost inevitable that somebody, if you come into a room, you`re going to leave something of you behind. The real trick is finding it and analyzing it. But, you know, going back to what they were saying before about the injuries, it`s not unusual for injuries as they progress to appear worse after a day or two than they initially appeared. So you have to take that into context as well.
GRACE: Very quickly to tonight`s "Case Alert.` Broward County Florida judge, Ian Richards, a hero. Richards literally jumped to the defense of a woman in court after she was attacked in court by a defendant she sent to jail for domestic violence.
As the victim was being pummeled and chased, Richards jumps over the bench to help. The defendant eventually taken down in custody.
Tonight, Judge Richards, we salute you.
And tonight at your request, new photos of the twins. They`ll be on the Web tonight. I hope you like them. Lucy found potato chips. I didn`t give them to her. Here she is with the doorman, Angel.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: People are so upset that they want to blame somebody. Have you been unfairly blamed?
MISTY CROSLIN, RONALD CUMMING`S WIFE, LAST SEEN HALEIGH: A lot of people are trying to blame me for something like that, but I would never hurt any little kid. I love Haleigh more than anything in this world. That was like my baby. They used to call me stepmom. You know? They`d rather be with me than their own mother.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Allegations emerging through the biological mother`s lawyer that girlfriend/babysitter now teen bride, the stepmother of little Haleigh, who went missing in the middle of the night, entertained another man in the home the night Haleigh disappears.
Now the attorney is denying that that was a statement that she made.
With me is Marlaina Schiavo, our producer. Did you speak to Miss Picazio prior to tonight`s show and what did she say?
MARLAINA SCHIAVO, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER, SPENT TIME WITH MISSING HALEIGH`S FAMILY: I have spoken to Kim Picazio, Nancy, and she has said that she has her own sources on this. She has spent a lot of time in Satsuma and she has people who say that Misty was out partying that night. And she also says that Junior, Haleigh`s little brother, came -- said that he saw a man in black and it corroborates with the stories that she`s been hearing around Satsuma.
GRACE: So Miss Picazio, are you asserting that Misty Croslin had a man in the home the night Haleigh goes missing?
PICAZIO: Again, I can`t make that assertion. I`ve given what my sources have revealed to me, to the police and also I`ve given them to the Department of Children and Families because that would be a neglect issue with regard to the kids if she was out partying that night, she left the children home alone. Then Ronald should be chastised for leaving them in the care of someone who he knows is doing that.
This household was -- there are things that went on in this household I hear that I wouldn`t even let my own children watch on TV. So -- it was conducive to rolling out the red carpet for something to eventually happen to one of these children. Something now has happened.
GRACE: Miss Picazio.
PICAZIO: I`d like to know if that has a link.
GRACE: Miss Picazio, your client alleging the biodad has a sex, drugs and rock `n` roll lifestyle. Isn`t that the pot calling the kettle black? I mean, your client lost custody for a reason.
PICAZIO: No, but my client was doing drugs in the household. We`ve never denied that. After she broke up with Ronald she put herself, voluntarily, in rehab. Stayed there for a week. Didn`t have insurance so they told her she had to leave. She has been clean and sober ever since.
She has visited her children. She`s been an involved parent. She had no idea that she could ever change the custody situation or she probably would have before now.
GRACE: Everyone, we`ll keep you posted, but right now I want to tell you about a story regarding "Dancing with the Stars." Take a listen.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0903/26/ng.01.html
