Haleigh Marie Cummings #18 8/6/09 - 8/30/09

[Thunder Bunny]

You know how transcripts have been know to be wrong?  Transposed incorrectly?  You know how if I tell someone something and then they are under pressure (say, camera) to repeat it and they repeat it wrong?  Or if I tell my mother in law I'm going to work and she doesn't stop and think I work twelve and fourteen hour shifts, in her mind I work eight....I'm just wondering if the Preacher "said" it wrong.  Or if in his mind everyone works eight hours....I sure would like to ask him. 

Course, as you all say, it's stupid that LE hasn't come right out and TOLD us what hours Ronald worked.  Would clear ONE QUESTION off the desk.  Sheesh.  Jersey, you might be right...them withholding could very well be hurting the case and causing these rumors that they spend so much time putting out. 

[Searching]

Bringing from AH. I felt the more, the better.

Quote from: 2Spunky on Today at 01:34:42 PM
I was asked on behalf of the families to post this.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 
 
First Baptist Church of Welaka                                             
638 3rd Avenue
Welaka, FL 32193
(386) 467-3251
August 16, 2009
Time:　3:00 PM
 
 
"Prayers of Love and Hope for HaLeigh's Safe Return"
　
Please join Ronald Cummings and family in "Prayers of Love and Hope for HaLeigh's Safe Return".
 
Five year old HaLeigh Ann Marie Cummings has been missing since the early morning hours of February 10th, 2009.
 
Ronald Cummings pleads, “Bring my baby home, I love and miss her with all my heart.”
 
To HaLeigh, Mr. Cummings says, “HaLeigh, Baby, I will never stop looking for you”.
 
Her family invites everyone to share in this service of hope and prayer with Pastor Mike Stanley.
 
Please come and join in a candle lighting chain of Love and Hope.
 
The service will be held on the front lawn at First Baptist Church of Welaka.
Sunday, August 16, 2009 at 3:00 PM.
　

[Heart]

Bringing from AH. I felt the more, the better.

Quote from: 2Spunky on Today at 01:34:42 PM
I was asked on behalf of the families to post this.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 
 
First Baptist Church of Welaka                                             
638 3rd Avenue
Welaka, FL 32193
(386) 467-3251
August 16, 2009
Time:　3:00 PM
 
 
"Prayers of Love and Hope for HaLeigh's Safe Return"
　
Please join Ronald Cummings and family in "Prayers of Love and Hope for HaLeigh's Safe Return".
 
Five year old HaLeigh Ann Marie Cummings has been missing since the early morning hours of February 10th, 2009.
 
Ronald Cummings pleads, “Bring my baby home, I love and miss her with all my heart.”
 
To HaLeigh, Mr. Cummings says, “HaLeigh, Baby, I will never stop looking for you”.
 
Her family invites everyone to share in this service of hope and prayer with Pastor Mike Stanley.
 
Please come and join in a candle lighting chain of Love and Hope.
 
The service will be held on the front lawn at First Baptist Church of Welaka.
Sunday, August 16, 2009 at 3:00 PM.
　

Thank you Searching!

[Searching]

Bringing from AH. I felt the more, the better.

Quote from: 2Spunky on Today at 01:34:42 PM
I was asked on behalf of the families to post this.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 
 
First Baptist Church of Welaka                                             
638 3rd Avenue
Welaka, FL 32193
(386) 467-3251
August 16, 2009
Time:　3:00 PM
 
 
"Prayers of Love and Hope for HaLeigh's Safe Return"
　
Please join Ronald Cummings and family in "Prayers of Love and Hope for HaLeigh's Safe Return".
 
Five year old HaLeigh Ann Marie Cummings has been missing since the early morning hours of February 10th, 2009.
 
Ronald Cummings pleads, “Bring my baby home, I love and miss her with all my heart.”
 
To HaLeigh, Mr. Cummings says, “HaLeigh, Baby, I will never stop looking for you”.
 
Her family invites everyone to share in this service of hope and prayer with Pastor Mike Stanley.
 
Please come and join in a candle lighting chain of Love and Hope.
 
The service will be held on the front lawn at First Baptist Church of Welaka.
Sunday, August 16, 2009 at 3:00 PM.
　

Thank you Searching!

Your welcome.    Praying for Haleigh.

[Heart]

Fury says:

Please excuse me for butting in, but the Saturday print edition of The Palatka Daily News had coverage about the search south of Welaka. Since the newspaper is put to bed well before midnight the night before, the search of Mud Springs was done on Friday.

Headline of story reads: No sign of Haleigh in Friday Search.

http://www.artharris.com/forum/index.php/topic,136.msg60646.html#msg60646

[cookie]

thank you Searching for the article from AH...

in regards to the hours that Ron worked,,,it is what the pastor said, not what Ron had said and could very well have been said wrong... as Thunder stated above....jmo....the standard for working a shift is normally 8 hr shifts, so perhaps that is where that came from?
I agree, something like that could easily be cleared up by LE...

[Heart]

Haleigh's family remains divided 6 months later

Grandmother wants peace but sees too many issues

    * By Dana Treen
    * Story updated at 7:27 PM on Sunday, Aug. 9, 2009

Six months into the unsolved disappearance of Haleigh Cummings, those who deeply love her believe she is still alive.

It’s about the only thing the two families closest to the investigation of her disappearance agree on.

With Monday marking the six-month anniversary of her case and next week’s arrival of her sixth birthday, her divided family has even scheduled separate events in Putnam County.

“It doesn’t matter what anybody says, we just want the safe return of Haleigh,” said Annette Sykes, whose grandson Ronald Cummings is Haleigh’s father. “Nothing else matters.”

Cummings and Crystal Sheffield, the long-estranged parents of Haleigh and her 4-year-old brother Ronald Jr., see each other only to exchange the boy at a pre-arranged stop in Florahome, about midway between Cummings’ home in southern Putnam County and Sheffield’s in western Baker County.

Tension between Cummings, Sheffield and their families has hummed like high-voltage background noise since the beginning of the case.

Sheffield’s mother, Marie Griffis, said law enforcement authorities have asked the two families not to have contact beyond the exchanges of Ronald Jr.

“I feel like that maybe if the families could speak with each other and put differences aside that maybe it would help the case, but there is too much going on down there and it is being pushed our way to blame us for what happened in Putnam County,” Griffis said from her home outside Sanderson where Sheffield also lives.

She said her family has been accused of abducting Haleigh and hiding her with family out of state.

She said she has no idea how her granddaughter vanished but said the kindergartner was living with Cummings and his 17-year-old girlfriend when she was reported missing.

“I don’t know what, I don’t know how but they were the last people to see my granddaughter,” Griffis said. “They’re the last two people to see her. They’re accountable for her whereabouts.”

Cummings said he and former girlfriend Misty Croslin — who he has since married and is now Misty Cummings — have been unfairly targeted.

“There should have been more attention to Crystal’s family,” he said. “I think they should have paid more attention to everyone rather than just me and Misty.”

He said questioning should have been broader.

“They didn’t have the big picture,” he said. “Why do they not question everybody?”

Cummings: It went ‘personal’

In recent interviews at Sykes’ Welaka home where Ronald Cummings, 25, and his wife live, he told the Times-Union the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office focus was shortsighted.

Standing outside wearing T-shirts with Haleigh’s likeness, Ronald and Misty Cummings said they gave dozens of hours of interviews in February and March, including her longest, which she said occurred just before the couple were married.

“I think the longest time I was in there was eight hours,” she said.

Ronald Cummings said the investigation went in the wrong direction.

“They took a child-abduction investigation and made it a personal investigation,” he said. “Instead of keeping the focus on finding Haleigh, they made the focus on Misty and what she was doing one weekend and what happened six months ago and what happened seven years ago. It was tunnel vision.”

Cummings has cut off interviews with investigators.

“Besides ‘No I didn’t have nothing to do with my child being missing,’ what do you say?” he asked.

Maj. Gary Bowling, director of law enforcement for the department, said detectives would like to interview Cummings again but have been resisted.

The interviews with Misty Cummings have produced different pictures, he said. She was alone with Cummings’ children the night Haleigh disappeared. She has told authorities she woke up about 3 a.m. and found the 5-year-old missing.

“We’ve said from day one Misty’s story is absolutely filled with inconsistencies,” Bowling said.

Cummings was at work the night his daughter vanished and came home as the 911 call to authorities was being made.

He has not worked since that last night shift, then lost his job because he did not stay in contact, according to the company. Cummings said he has not been able to find another job and does not know if he can go back to work.

“Each day gets harder and harder,” he said.

He moved from the mobile home where Haleigh vanished and said he still cannot go there.

“We don’t even want to be in that area,” he said.

Cummings, who has a minor criminal background, was arrested early Thursday after an altercation with a brother of his wife and her parents.

Sykes, who saw part of the fight, said Cummings’ arrest was another difficult turn, a distraction from an attempt to heighten awareness of Haleigh’s disappearance.

“We’re trying to do something positive for Haleigh and then something like this happens,” she said Thursday.

Theories abound

Pressures have come from all sides and been kept alive on the Web where bloggers argue and speculate, said family members and others in the case.

Griffis said she has become accustomed to accusations.

“If  there is inconsistencies that the police know about on our side of the family, they need to come question us,” she said. “I want them to question us.”

Mainstream media attention has waned, she said.

“All the interest is just that, it is in the blogs,” she said.

She has been accused of masterminding an abduction, that Haleigh is somewhere with other family members, she said.

She has asked to take a lie detector test and was given a voice stress analysis.

The next step should be for detectives to name those who are no longer suspects, she said.

“You need to start excluding the people that you know do not have this information,” she said.

Bowling said it takes rock-solid alibis before detectives can eliminate anyone and those have not been established. He said the best that can be done is assign degrees of suspicion to people.

“Where is the responsibility in saying somebody is not a suspect?” he said.

Sheffield, 24, is more blunt about Cummings.

“I really do feel like he is covering for Misty and she is covering for him,” she said.

In the early months of the case, a small, vacant building in Satsuma was painted purple and opened as an information center and informal listening post near the Satsuma neighborhood where Haleigh disappeared.

The Haleighbug Center was closed after Sheffield had medical problems that included seizures. Shirts and posters, donated toys and other items were brought to Baker County where Sheffield lives on family property with her fiance, their toddler daughter and his two children.

“I searched all I could down there,” she said. “My body couldn’t take it.

“Sometimes I sit and I think and I think and I think about where she could be and it drives me crazy.”

Griffis said the sense of loss deepens every day.

“It is just a lot of not knowing,” she said. “We are constantly questioning why this happened.”

Not giving up

Posters with Haleigh’s face that were once pasted to storefronts and car windows are fewer and fewer.

At Ronies Food in Glen St. Mary, a laminated poster still stands beneath a window sign advertising a lunch menu.

Jamie Taylor, whose family owns the restaurant, said taking it down would be like giving up. She said it seemed as if detectives never had much to go on.

“It’s kind of hard to take it down,” she said. “I know if it was my daughter I wouldn’t take it down until she was found.”

Both families hold on to the belief that Haleigh is alive and have organized reminders of her upcoming birthday and that it’s been six months since she’s been seen.

“I believe she is still alive,” Griffis said. “And that Ronald and Misty they are the key to it.”

Among the events will be a school supply drop-off and a prayer vigil the families have organized independently. A balloon release is scheduled to increase awareness that she remains gone.

“We don’t want World War III,” Sykes said. “It doesn’t matter what anybody says we just want the safe return of Haleigh.”

http://www.jacksonville.com/news/metro/2009-08-09/story/haleighs_family_remains_divided_6_months_later

[Jerseygirl345]

You know how transcripts have been know to be wrong?  Transposed incorrectly?  You know how if I tell someone something and then they are under pressure (say, camera) to repeat it and they repeat it wrong?  Or if I tell my mother in law I'm going to work and she doesn't stop and think I work twelve and fourteen hour shifts, in her mind I work eight....I'm just wondering if the Preacher "said" it wrong.  Or if in his mind everyone works eight hours....I sure would like to ask him. 

Course, as you all say, it's stupid that LE hasn't come right out and TOLD us what hours Ronald worked.  Would clear ONE QUESTION off the desk.  Sheesh.  Jersey, you might be right...them withholding could very well be hurting the case and causing these rumors that they spend so much time putting out. 

This is so confusing on Ron's work hours that day. I also remember readin in the news paper that Ron work 8 hours and now i am going to have to dig it up again but i did find this article...

Misty is the key to the investigation and we are trying to work through inconsistencies in her account of the critical time period," Bowling said.

Investigators also met Wednesday with Cummings, he said.

"We are satisfied with the interviews that we have had so far with Ronald, and his account of the eight hours in question," Bowling added.

http://www.zimbio.com/Misty+Croslin/articles/27/Haleigh+Cummings+new+stepmother+not+cleared

[Jerseygirl345]

If the 8 hours of his work shift is correct then it explains the timeline from 7pm to 3am..

PUTNAM COUNTY, FL -- After Ronald Cummings and his new wife, Misty Croslin Cummings, appeared on The Today Show Friday morning, the Putnam County Sheriff's Office commented on what was said.

For the first time, investigators mentioned their concerns about inconsistencies with Misty Cummings' story about what happened the night 5-year-old Haleigh Cummings disappeared.

Captain Dick Schauland confirmed Friday morning that investigators do have concerns about the timeline Misty has provided.

Schauland told First Coast News, "What happened during that eight-hour time period from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. when she found the child missing and what occurred during that time is what [investigators] are trying to straighten out."

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/mostpopular/news-article.aspx?storyid=133696&provider=top

[Heart]

  HaLeigh Cummings’ Grandmother, Teresa Neves, Brutally Interrogated and Threatened with Imprisonment by Putnam County Sheriff’s officials

listen http://writeintoaction.com/HaLeigh%20Cummings%20Staubs%20Holmseth%20Putnam%20Threaten%20Teresa%20Neves.mp3

August 7, 2009

by Timothy Charles Holmseth

At a scheduled meeting on Monday, July 13 between Putnam County Sheriff’s Department officials and Teresa Neves, paternal grandmother of missing five year-old HaLeigh Cumming, PCSD officials viciously berated the heart-sick grandmother and threatened her with imprisonment.

  The only people present at the private meeting were Putnam County Sheriff’s Department officials: Detective Peggy Cone, Captain Dominic Piscatello, Undersheriff Rick Ryan, as well as Teresa Neves.

Within hours of that meeting Ft. Lauderdale Private Detective William ‘Cobra’ Staubs, who says he has contacts, knew all the details of what was done and said at the meeting.

Staubs’ version is consistent with others who know about the meeting (audio attached.)

“They tore her ass up,” Staubs said. “Listen man, she could be committing suicide tonight, I mean, it was that bad,” he said. “Man they got her f---in crying man - they tore her ass up. They tore her ass up!”

“She went to the cop station to find out what happened to her f----n grand-daughter,” Staubs said, expressing dismay at what the officials did to Neves. “That’s f----in grandma man! Grandma lost her kid!”

According to Staubs, the officials were accusing Neves of disclosing their investigative tactics.

“[The police] are going to send everybody out,” Staubs said, disclosing a prediction he received from his inside source at the department. “They’re going to start threatening everybody. They’re trying to control it.”   

Expressing outrage at the recent tactics of the PCSD as it appears to become more and more paranoid each day, Staubs said the investigation seems to be hopelessly challenged and is in need of an investigation conducted solely by the FBI.

“You better figure out what you’re going to do. Are you going put an innocent grandma who’s hurting, looking for her kid, in jail? Or are you going to get the right police on this case?” Staubs said.   The only people present at the private meeting were Putnam County Sheriff’s Department officials: Detective Peggy Cone, Captain Dominic Piscatello, Undersheriff Rick Ryan, as well as Teresa Neves.

Within hours of that meeting Ft. Lauderdale Private Detective William ‘Cobra’ Staubs, who says he has contacts, knew all the details of what was done and said at the meeting.

Staubs’ version is consistent with others who know about the meeting (audio attached.)

“They tore her ass up,” Staubs said. “Listen man, she could be committing suicide tonight, I mean, it was that bad,” he said. “Man they got her f---in crying man - they tore her ass up. They tore her ass up!”

“She went to the cop station to find out what happened to her f----n grand-daughter,” Staubs said, expressing dismay at what the officials did to Neves. “That’s f----in grandma man! Grandma lost her kid!”

According to Staubs, the officials were accusing Neves of disclosing their investigative tactics.

“[The police] are going to send everybody out,” Staubs said, disclosing a prediction he received from his inside source at the department. “They’re going to start threatening everybody. They’re trying to control it.”   

Expressing outrage at the recent tactics of the PCSD as it appears to become more and more paranoid each day, Staubs said the investigation seems to be hopelessly challenged and is in need of an investigation conducted solely by the FBI.

“You better figure out what you’re going to do. Are you going put an innocent grandma who’s hurting, looking for her kid, in jail? Or are you going to get the right police on this case?” Staubs said.

http://writeintoaction.com/

[Heart]

HaLeigh Ann-Marie Cummings Missing for Six Months and Birthday School Supply Drive Event Planned

        Missing Five Year Old HaLeigh Cummings. (PRNewsFoto/Crystal Sheffield)

GLEN ST. MARY, FL UNITED STATES
   
   
 
Missing Five Year Old HaLeigh Ann-Marie Cummings from Satsuma, Florida

GLEN ST. MARY, Fla., Aug. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- HaLeigh Cummings disappeared from her home in Satsuma, Florida, approximately 75 miles east of Gainesville, during the early morning hours of February 10, 2009. She is 3' tall and weighs 39 pounds. She has blonde hair and brown eyes. It has now been six months since her disappearance.


HaLeigh's mother Crystal Sheffield continues to search for her daughter and is not giving up her fight.

"Although it has almost been six months since HaLeigh's disappearance, I still have hope that my daughter will come home. I will continue to do whatever it takes to keep her face out in the public for everyone to see. I ask if anyone out there knows anything to please call Crime Stoppers or your local police. HaLeigh is about to be six years old, I am begging once again from the bottom of my heart for whoever has my sweet daughter to let her go. Please, she needs to be home with her family, she does not belong with anyone else. This is tearing my heart out of my chest, a part of me is missing and that is HaLeigh. Every day I wake up wondering if I will get a call saying they found my angel. HaLeigh, mommy and daddy love you more than anything in this world, we will never give up on you. Someone out there knows something, please just let someone know if you do. I will not mention your name, all I want is my daughter home safe and sound. I LOVE YOU ALWAYS HALEIGH. - Crystal Sheffield (Mommy)."

HaLeigh's maternal grandmother Marie Griffis has not given up the fight either.

"It's been an agonizing six months since my granddaughter's disappearance and it is pure torture waking up each morning wondering where she may be; if she is okay, if she is being fed, clothed and given 'love' most of all. More importantly is where is HaLeigh? I never imagined ever having to go through such pain, but we will get up and continue in our daily task of finding HaLeigh. Although there have been obstacles in the way that have slowed us almost to a stop in our search for HaLeigh, we have pushed through that and now are back on track. This is just the beginning of our efforts to find HaLeigh. We will never stop looking for HaLeigh and never give up even when the road gets rough, it's rough every day but we will prevail.

Please, if anyone has information pertaining to HaLeigh's disappearance, please call and report it to the authorities listed. I beg that if you have HaLeigh. please just drop her off somewhere; in a hospital, fire department, local supermarket or shopping mall. Someone out there has her or knows what happened! I am begging of you, please come forward so we can end this nightmare. Tell someone what you know, I wouldn't want anyone to have to go through this kind of pain."

The Sheffield / Griffis Family are sending this information to the entire Southeastern Unites States to ask that the public please keep an eye out for HaLeigh wherever they might live. Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to contact the Putnam County Sheriff's Office at 386-329-0808 or Crime Stoppers at 1-888-277-TIPS. The link to the FBI Missing Person page for HaLeigh is http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/kidnap/cummings_h.htm. A reward of $35,000 is available for information leading to her recovery or the conviction of anyone involved in her disappearance. You may remain anonymous.

Along with the six month mark of HaLeigh's disappearance, a very special event is also soon approaching - HaLeigh's Sixth Birthday on August 17, 2009. In honor of HaLeigh Cummings' Sixth Birthday, her family will be working with HaLeigh's school, Browning Pearce Elementary School on collecting school supplies that will be stored and distributed to students who are in need. The Sheffield / Griffis Family is calling this effort "HaLeigh's Closet" to honor HaLeigh's belief that "Sharing is Caring". Children in need of school supplies will be able to go to "HaLeigh's Closet" to get these supplies.

Please help us to honor this special day by visiting us at Riverfront Park in Palatka, Florida on Saturday, August 15th from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM to drop off your donations of school supplies for "HaLeigh's Closet". HaLeigh's school has grades Pre-K through 5th grade. A school supply list can be found at http://www.putnamschools.org/index/SchoolSupplyList.pdf. All supplies will be immediately delivered to the school for later distribution by the faculty.

If anyone would like to help in honoring HaLeigh and cannot attend the event, you can purchase supplies online at www.staples.com and have them shipped to HaLeigh's grandmother Marie Griffis, as the school officials have requested. If your purchase is $50.00 or more, shipping is free. If under $50.00, shipping is $9.95. The shipping address for Marie Griffis is 12222 Mud Lake Rd., Glen St. Mary FL, 32040. All school supplies will be immediately delivered to HaLeigh's school for later distribution by the faculty. Only school supplies will be allowed as donations: no monetary donations will be accepted.


SOURCE Crystal Sheffield

http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/08-10-2009/0005074653&EDATE=

[Heart]

Ron’s Interview with Fox Jacksonville

Of particular interest is the close up of Ron Cummings’ eye with a very dilated pupil.

more...

http://justiceforhaleigh.wordpress.com/

[cookie]

Morning all....

[klaasend]

Ron’s Interview with Fox Jacksonville

Of particular interest is the close up of Ron Cummings’ eye with a very dilated pupil.

more...

http://justiceforhaleigh.wordpress.com/

[no rose colored glasses]

Good Morning    According to Staubs, the officials were accusing Neves of disclosing their investigative tactics.   Well if that was what she was doing I don't blame them for being mad.

[Heart]

JON M. FLETCHER/The Times-Union
Crystal Sheffield has been blunt in her belief that Haleigh's father and stepmother are at fault.

[no rose colored glasses]

Ron’s Interview with Fox Jacksonville

Of particular interest is the close up of Ron Cummings’ eye with a very dilated pupil.

more...

http://justiceforhaleigh.wordpress.com/

His pupils look huge, but I'm not sure what that all means 

[Heart]

Six months since Haleigh disappeared

Updated: Monday, 10 Aug 2009, 9:58 AM EDT
Published : Monday, 10 Aug 2009, 9:58 AM EDT

PUTNAM COUNTY, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - It has been six months since anyone has seen Haleigh Cummings. The Putnam County girl has been missing since Februrary.

According to investigators in Putnam County, Haleigh was kidnapped early on February 10th.
The last person to see the five-year-old was her father's girlfriend, now wife, Misty Croslin, who placed the 911 call alerting police to Haliegh's disappearance.

Though authorities still have no suspect in the case, police say the Cummings case is not yet cold. A gathering of various law enforcement agencies on June 5 determined that there are still leads to follow up on. If you have any information on Haleigh's disappearance, please call 911.

http://www.myfoxorlando.com/dpp/news/cummings_case/081009_haleigh_six_months_mis

[islandmonkey]

Haleigh's family remains divided 6 months later

Grandmother wants peace but sees too many issues

    * By Dana Treen
    * Story updated at 7:27 PM on Sunday, Aug. 9, 2009

Six months into the unsolved disappearance of Haleigh Cummings, those who deeply love her believe she is still alive.

It’s about the only thing the two families closest to the investigation of her disappearance agree on.

With Monday marking the six-month anniversary of her case and next week’s arrival of her sixth birthday, her divided family has even scheduled separate events in Putnam County.

“It doesn’t matter what anybody says, we just want the safe return of Haleigh,” said Annette Sykes, whose grandson Ronald Cummings is Haleigh’s father. “Nothing else matters.”

Cummings and Crystal Sheffield, the long-estranged parents of Haleigh and her 4-year-old brother Ronald Jr., see each other only to exchange the boy at a pre-arranged stop in Florahome, about midway between Cummings’ home in southern Putnam County and Sheffield’s in western Baker County.

Tension between Cummings, Sheffield and their families has hummed like high-voltage background noise since the beginning of the case.

Sheffield’s mother, Marie Griffis, said law enforcement authorities have asked the two families not to have contact beyond the exchanges of Ronald Jr.

“I feel like that maybe if the families could speak with each other and put differences aside that maybe it would help the case, but there is too much going on down there and it is being pushed our way to blame us for what happened in Putnam County,” Griffis said from her home outside Sanderson where Sheffield also lives.

She said her family has been accused of abducting Haleigh and hiding her with family out of state.

She said she has no idea how her granddaughter vanished but said the kindergartner was living with Cummings and his 17-year-old girlfriend when she was reported missing.

“I don’t know what, I don’t know how but they were the last people to see my granddaughter,” Griffis said. “They’re the last two people to see her. They’re accountable for her whereabouts.”

Cummings said he and former girlfriend Misty Croslin — who he has since married and is now Misty Cummings — have been unfairly targeted.

“There should have been more attention to Crystal’s family,” he said. “I think they should have paid more attention to everyone rather than just me and Misty.”

He said questioning should have been broader.

“They didn’t have the big picture,” he said. “Why do they not question everybody?”

Cummings: It went ‘personal’

In recent interviews at Sykes’ Welaka home where Ronald Cummings, 25, and his wife live, he told the Times-Union the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office focus was shortsighted.

Standing outside wearing T-shirts with Haleigh’s likeness, Ronald and Misty Cummings said they gave dozens of hours of interviews in February and March, including her longest, which she said occurred just before the couple were married.

“I think the longest time I was in there was eight hours,” she said.

Ronald Cummings said the investigation went in the wrong direction.

“They took a child-abduction investigation and made it a personal investigation,” he said. “Instead of keeping the focus on finding Haleigh, they made the focus on Misty and what she was doing one weekend and what happened six months ago and what happened seven years ago. It was tunnel vision.”

Cummings has cut off interviews with investigators.

“Besides ‘No I didn’t have nothing to do with my child being missing,’ what do you say?” he asked.

Maj. Gary Bowling, director of law enforcement for the department, said detectives would like to interview Cummings again but have been resisted.

The interviews with Misty Cummings have produced different pictures, he said. She was alone with Cummings’ children the night Haleigh disappeared. She has told authorities she woke up about 3 a.m. and found the 5-year-old missing.

“We’ve said from day one Misty’s story is absolutely filled with inconsistencies,” Bowling said.

Cummings was at work the night his daughter vanished and came home as the 911 call to authorities was being made.

He has not worked since that last night shift, then lost his job because he did not stay in contact, according to the company. Cummings said he has not been able to find another job and does not know if he can go back to work.

“Each day gets harder and harder,” he said.

He moved from the mobile home where Haleigh vanished and said he still cannot go there.

“We don’t even want to be in that area,” he said.

Cummings, who has a minor criminal background, was arrested early Thursday after an altercation with a brother of his wife and her parents.

Sykes, who saw part of the fight, said Cummings’ arrest was another difficult turn, a distraction from an attempt to heighten awareness of Haleigh’s disappearance.

“We’re trying to do something positive for Haleigh and then something like this happens,” she said Thursday.

Theories abound

Pressures have come from all sides and been kept alive on the Web where bloggers argue and speculate, said family members and others in the case.

Griffis said she has become accustomed to accusations.

“If  there is inconsistencies that the police know about on our side of the family, they need to come question us,” she said. “I want them to question us.”

Mainstream media attention has waned, she said.

“All the interest is just that, it is in the blogs,” she said.

She has been accused of masterminding an abduction, that Haleigh is somewhere with other family members, she said.

She has asked to take a lie detector test and was given a voice stress analysis.

The next step should be for detectives to name those who are no longer suspects, she said.

“You need to start excluding the people that you know do not have this information,” she said.

Bowling said it takes rock-solid alibis before detectives can eliminate anyone and those have not been established. He said the best that can be done is assign degrees of suspicion to people.

“Where is the responsibility in saying somebody is not a suspect?” he said.

Sheffield, 24, is more blunt about Cummings.

“I really do feel like he is covering for Misty and she is covering for him,” she said.

In the early months of the case, a small, vacant building in Satsuma was painted purple and opened as an information center and informal listening post near the Satsuma neighborhood where Haleigh disappeared.

The Haleighbug Center was closed after Sheffield had medical problems that included seizures. Shirts and posters, donated toys and other items were brought to Baker County where Sheffield lives on family property with her fiance, their toddler daughter and his two children.

“I searched all I could down there,” she said. “My body couldn’t take it.

“Sometimes I sit and I think and I think and I think about where she could be and it drives me crazy.”

Griffis said the sense of loss deepens every day.

“It is just a lot of not knowing,” she said. “We are constantly questioning why this happened.”

Not giving up

Posters with Haleigh’s face that were once pasted to storefronts and car windows are fewer and fewer.

At Ronies Food in Glen St. Mary, a laminated poster still stands beneath a window sign advertising a lunch menu.

Jamie Taylor, whose family owns the restaurant, said taking it down would be like giving up. She said it seemed as if detectives never had much to go on.

“It’s kind of hard to take it down,” she said. “I know if it was my daughter I wouldn’t take it down until she was found.”

Both families hold on to the belief that Haleigh is alive and have organized reminders of her upcoming birthday and that it’s been six months since she’s been seen.

“I believe she is still alive,” Griffis said. “And that Ronald and Misty they are the key to it.”

Among the events will be a school supply drop-off and a prayer vigil the families have organized independently. A balloon release is scheduled to increase awareness that she remains gone.

“We don’t want World War III,” Sykes said. “It doesn’t matter what anybody says we just want the safe return of Haleigh.”

http://www.jacksonville.com/news/metro/2009-08-09/story/haleighs_family_remains_divided_6_months_later

Why is ROn trying so freaking hard to divert any attention from himself or Misty, they were the last to see her and he's so d@mn defensive about anyoe getting into hhis "personal" business....but, isn't that what LE HAS to do???? Why stop cooperating with LE unless he has something to hide??? I just don't get it, uf he really wants his daughter found he should answer any and all questions they have, I don't care if he thinks they are relevant or not just get over your worry about yourself and aswer LE's questions and that goes for Misty too. After reading this article, it's pretty clear to me who the focus of the investigation is on and I agree that these two indeed hold the key. He needs to quit whining and man up already as this is n't about what he wants, it's about Haleigh

[islandmonkey]

Bringing from AH. I felt the more, the better.

Quote from: 2Spunky on Today at 01:34:42 PM
I was asked on behalf of the families to post this.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 
 
First Baptist Church of Welaka                                             
638 3rd Avenue
Welaka, FL 32193
(386) 467-3251
August 16, 2009
Time:　3:00 PM
 
 
"Prayers of Love and Hope for HaLeigh's Safe Return"
　
Please join Ronald Cummings and family in "Prayers of Love and Hope for HaLeigh's Safe Return".
 
Five year old HaLeigh Ann Marie Cummings has been missing since the early morning hours of February 10th, 2009.
 
Ronald Cummings pleads, “Bring my baby home, I love and miss her with all my heart.”
 
To HaLeigh, Mr. Cummings says, “HaLeigh, Baby, I will never stop looking for you”.
 
Her family invites everyone to share in this service of hope and prayer with Pastor Mike Stanley.
 
Please come and join in a candle lighting chain of Love and Hope.
 
The service will be held on the front lawn at First Baptist Church of Welaka.
Sunday, August 16, 2009 at 3:00 PM.
　

Is this a different pastor than the one with Ron in February/March........I thought his name was Terry Wright IIRc