Haleigh Cummings Case: Ron, Misty and Hank Busted For Drug Trafficking

BREAKING NEWS

Courtesy Channel 9

 

Putnam County, FL- Late wednesday evening Ron Cummings, father of missing Palatka child Haleigh Cummings,  her stepmother,  Uncle  and two others were arrested on drug trafficking charges.

Misty Croslin Cummings, Ron Cummings , Hank Croslin, Hope Sykes and Donna Broch were all the subject of a month long drug sting.

All 5 were arrested on 6 counts of prescription drug trafficking and have been booked into St. John’s county jail, where Misty Cummings will appear this morning to hear the charges against her.

Misty Cummings was the last person to see Haleigh Cummings alive, and has been unccoperative in the investigative efforts to find her since failing a recent polygraph test.

Check back to blinkoncrime.com for this developing story.

Related Posts:

143 Comments

  1. Dierdra says:

    Meant deaf! sorry, but I csnnot even believe that whole existense. He is a true SCUM in my vocabulary. She was young and stupid. Too SAD. All in the name of drugs.

  2. kyrasmommy says:

    I think it is a crime that these people can produce offspring!

  3. ChicagoJudy says:

    I think pothole makes some good points upthread. Quitting school at age 12, hooking up with a grown man with children, being responsible for two small kids in a trailer, being verbally abused by the man who is now supporting you… Misty’s coming from a difficult place. I’m not saying she’s totally innocent in Haleigh’s disappearance; it’s just that she’s a dumb kid – she sometimes looks like a deer in the headlights. If she goes to jail and Ronald doesn’t, there’s something wrong.

  4. chery says:

    its so sad- I want a child so bad yet I just turned 45. Here is young people putting drugs before kids & throwing them away. I feel sorry for Misty- she was just a lost sheep- no guidance, no good mentors to steer her in some good direction, no hope of future, & unaware of her resources to get her out of her situation- to her she wasnt in a situation. She didnt see anyone around her prospering, reaching for goals, exceeding the norm…I dont know why but I feel pity for her. THat is not excusing her behavior. She knows what she did was wrong- I agree for sure

  5. Gigi says:

    Such a sad world for those caught in the cycle of crime, poverty, drugs, abuse…..the list goes on and on…I saw it often in my years in educational administration….it truly is a cycle and a hard one to break….therefore the need for mentoring on a daily basis…and still that does not always save even one. And the truth shows in the mug shots almost every time….notice the looking down….that is shame….shame and guilt…..and it does not take a body language pro to see that. Any of these that played a part in Hayleigh’s disappearance must be punished and those who didn’t must be rehabilitated in some way even behind prison walls. The ways of the world are taking too many….pray, pray for the innocent ones. It could have been you or me born into this sordid life…

  6. susan says:

    re 88 pothole: good post. it is really important to look at the bigger picture in this case in order to step up prevention. thanks for your perspective.

  7. Lo says:

    Sorry, but my sympathy for Misty and whatever problems she had growing up stop right where she becomes involved with something like this happening to a child. I do believe she’s a product of her environment but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s responsible for her own actions and she holds the key to what happened to an innocent special needs child. Even if Haleigh is no longer alive, she deserves a proper burial at the very least. It makes me sick when I think about how Haleigh’s own father and grandmother had Misty living with them after this. Haleigh’s own bio mother was on Nancy Grace and said she had never directly asked Misty about that night. How can those people who are supposed to be closest to this child not demand answers and point out the inconsistancies in her story?! Sick!

  8. lulusmoon says:

    I’d like to think that Ron was working with LE to get to the truth, but that’s in all probability wishful thinking. Let the truth come out and any and all involved be dealt with swiftly.

  9. NancyS says:

    Blink!
    I hope you are not in one of the rainy or snowy venues with your new case. I was wondering if you or one of your editors can prepare a new thread for Caseys hearing on monday please?

    As a matter of fact, I was in Orlando, on this very case.
    More to follow, and yes, I will be covering.
    B

  10. Sagemom says:

    Blink;
    I am off topic here but I just wanted to post an article that I just read in my county of Illinois. It is a cold case and I feel so much like you and some of your amazing followers could help this young man with this unsolved murder of his sister.

    Sage- I have made an inquiry on this case. I will keep you posted if we are able to profile it.
    B

  11. NancyS says:

    Thank you Blink for ALL that you do…

  12. suz says:

    Pothole, i’m with you. Ron is a creep who should have been convicted of statutory rape for messing with that young girl (yep, he was in felony territory in FL due to their age difference before he quickly married her, imho to avoid charges).

    I feel sorry for the whole lot of them.

  13. mycatcocoa says:

    suz, you FEEL SORRY for the whole lot of them????? are you serious???? the only ones i feel sorry for are hayleigh, and her poor, pathetic siblings and/or half siblings, for being born into this hideous group of low life losers.

    My cat, welcome to BOC, but is my rule that we dont “name call” and we don’t call out other posters for their personal opinions if stated respectfully.
    B

  14. Keefer says:

    Lord, Lord, Lord…it just goes from bad to horrible with these people, doesn’t it? Question: I realize that police have ‘cleared’ Ron, and I remember something about he and Misty having a fight before he left for work and, via cell phone, while he was at work, but was this the norm for them? I am curious if on this particular night “something” might have happened to this child before Ron left for work and Misty took care of evidence and disposal? Just a theory…oh, and Misty looks like nine miles of bad road for her age…those drugs must really take a toll on a person if a 17-18 year old has bags the size of Texas under her eyes, she is tore up from the floor up!LOL!!!

  15. NGBoston says:

    In this mornings News—-Wow! So these are the rumblings we’ve heard mention of. Nothing can ruin Tim Miller or Texas Equusearch’s credibility or reputation as far as most are concerned. Tim Miller did the right thing by terminating the relationship with Donna Brock once he was aware her intentions had gone astray. Amazing what greed does to affect human nature. It is sad that this development took the focus off of finding Haliegh Cummings.

    http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-misty-croslin-donna-brock-20100122,0,6915774.story

  16. lisah says:

    had there been some legal consequences for these folks upon the commission of their first crimes, perhaps it would have never gone this far
    one would think that the school would have kept ‘tabs’ on Misty, once she ‘quit’ school at 12 – that’s a far cry from a beligerant arrogant troubled youth quitting at 16/17.
    what kind of parent would let a 12 year old quit school?
    DCS or child welfare officials should have been all over ma and pa croslin then, had they been held accountable for their child maybe she would not have turned out the way she did
    in no way am i giving misty a pass, all the choices she’s made were hers and hers alone, but think about it, how can a girl with a 7th grade education know what’s best for two small children? she was never looked after or nurtured or guided, how would she be able to impart that on two little kids? quick answer, no one really gave a shit about her, so she didn’t really give a shit about them, that was never instilled in her
    and look at ron, three kids lives in a trailer park, has a criminal past, chooses an underage girl as his live in nanny with benefits that’s sure easier than looking for and checking our and paying for adequate child care, right?
    kids like this will always take the easy way, cuz they’ve never been told or shown anything different
    i don’t feel sorry for misty, all her decisions are her own

  17. lisah says:

    i apologize for the ‘trailer park’ comment – my folks live in a trailer park, there is absolutely nothhing wrong with them, but just like the projects, which i lived in breifly, there are the good and bad in them, half were happy with thier govt subsidized living and the other half used it for what it was, a stepping stone to something better.

  18. NGBoston says:

    #88-They are BOTH equally to blame, IMO. It is true that unfortunately–many failed Misty C. in her early life. That is still no reason or excuse for her keeping silent now. While I agree that Ron Cummings may have not been directly involved in the action of Haliegh’s actual disappearance (meaning he didn’t do it)–I still believe that even he knows more than what he is letting LE in on. Absolutely, positively he has not ever been a positive role model for anything—let alone a Father or raising any of his children.

    Misty must take responsibility for her own actions, regardless of whether she was a minor when any of her criminal activity took place. While you raise many, many good points from a human interest perspective in your post which are certainly valid—Misty C. must be broken and should make some type of a deal with LE and stop witholding information. She knows what happened to this child–bottom line and it is despicable that she would place her own life above this child’s just to save her own sorry hide.

  19. Karen C. says:

    NGBoston- Thanks, I read that, and I’m glad to see Mr. Miller (whom I have tons of respect for) is responding instead of ignoring this. Even good and smart people can be “played”; that may well have been what happened here. Addicts can be really good at assimilating when necessary in order to improve a short-term situation and they can lie like no one else. $3000.00 to, it seems, get to “party” with the scintillating Misty for a while (until someone figures it out)? Oh, Yeah!

  20. bluewillow says:

    Pothole, 88- Really good post, very good points. Not that it excuses Misty for the choices she is making but yes, I think you made several really good points.

  21. Lynn F. says:

    There seems to be a big problem with investigations and convictions in Florida. John Couey held Jessica Lunsford in the home he shared with his sister and another person, raped the little girl for days, buried her alive, and his sister and the other resident were never prosecuted although they knew he had the child in his room and were aware of the search for the mmissing child. Summer, Caylee, the list goes on.

    I believe that Ron Cummings knows more about what happened to Haleigh than he indicates. The initial TV appearances he was wailing about his missing daughter, yet there wasn’t a tear in his eyes — ala Susan Smith. Then in the 911 tapes where he reported Haleigh missing, there’s more anger than worry being expressed, and he’s uncooperative with dispatch when they asked for Haleigh’s birth date, states that “they took” his daughter, swears at Misty, accuses her of losing his daughter, and threatens to find and kill whoever took his daughter. Then he marries Misty (the same person he accused of losing his daughter) and his mother insists that Haleigh is alive. I heard one report where Junior told police that the night Haleigh disappeared, he went looking for Misty and saw her on the couch with someone “and the couch was jumping up and down.” Misty supposedly notices Haleigh missing and doesn’t call police or call Ron, but waits until he comes home? Nobody can be that stupid and their actions are more the actions of guilty people.

    Nancy Grace verbally attacks Haleigh’s biological mother for expressing a belief that drugs were involved in Ron and Misty’s household as Grace was buying Ron’s story completely. Grace also never missed an opportunity to compare her love and concern for her twins to Ron’s love for his daughter, and criticizes Haleigh’s mother for leaving Haleigh with her father. I doubt that Haleigh is alive, and who is to say that she was alive when Ron left for work the day she disappeared?

    In my experience as a former police officer, now a psychiatric nurse, it isn’t a bit unusual for children to become victims of all sorts of abusive behavior when living in a household where drugs are being used and abused. When AA talks about finding a higher power, most people believe that they are talking about finding a belief in God, but if one is abusing drugs and/or alcohol, the substance is their higher power and in order to attain sobriety, one has to find something that is far more important in life than the substance. I have seen far too many cases where children are prostituted to keep their parents in drugs and it’s reprehensible. Every day in America, children are being sentenced to death by being left in the custody of parents who are unable or unwilling to protect and care for them. There are no consequences borne by “the professionals” who leave these children in homes where they are unprotected and neglected. It will be amazing if the truth ever comes out about what happened to Haleigh.

  22. MsEnscene says:

    #121 Lynn F. Great post.

    A young, very tender, caring friend of ours had to stop his job with our state’s child protective services because he could no longer face the inevitable…that children he worked so hard to get out of abusive and drug addicted homes would be given back to these same parents only to be neglected, or beaten again and too often killed.

    I was glad to see him quit, frankly. He couldn’t sleep nor eat and was becoming severely depressed. He tried to make a difference, but he felt defeated and couldn’t think of the children he had helped for thinking of those he’d “lost”. Maybe he just wasn’t tough enough for the job.

    We often hear “It’s all about the children” as if they were society’s main focus. That seems to be just a platitude that we like to mouth from time to time. I don’t think what is happening continually to children in our society would be occurring so frequently if we really believed that children were really that important.

  23. SadieBlue says:

    Lynn F and MsEnscene, I don’t know what to say after reading both of your posts, but things just look so dismal for the children out there. Years ago (in 1996), when I lived at Fort Polk, in Louisiana, a mother who lived across the street from me put her 8 month old baby in the tub and went downstairs and forgot the baby (she was drunk). The baby drowned. I did not know anything was happening until the police showed up. And at that time I was in my home with my 5 month old, playing happily with her. It stuck me so hard at that time, and still does, how something so awful and tragic happended just across the street from me, and all I could say was “if I had only known she was in trouble, I would have done anything to help her”. And that is the truth. If I had known she was in that tub, I would have ran to her so fast! I’m so sad now thinking of it. That is what is happening all over. So many times, these things happen and no one knows, so we can’t help. And it is so much worse when it has been brought to someone’s attention and then nothing is done. It is like an adult standing in the bathroom and watching the baby die while the mother is down stairs, isn’t it? I wish so bad there were a way to help all of these children. I live in FL, have my whole life except for that brief time in Louisiana and a short time in Germany, and the fact that we are often in the news over child deaths is so frightening to me. The world is sick and scary, but it is made worse by the fact that our lawmakers do not keep those that do these things behind bars and step up and protect those who can’t help themselves. Not too long ago we had a man here beat his girlfriend’s two year old to death after she woke him up wanting juice. She was so precious looking in her picture in the newspaper. Once again, it hurt to know that my family and myself were so peacefully sleeping while she was being tortured and murdered. That is what haunts me, the fact that myself and so many others, like yourselves and all those on this blog, would step in to help in an instant if only we knew an action were taking place, but when something happens behind closed doors, what do we do? Poor Haleigh was behind those doors, shut up with drug users, a whole family full of them. Someone should have stepped in, because too many people knew and should have predicted this. They stood by and allowed this to happen. The same as those in the Couey case (disgusting filth is what they are). Blink – what can we do? Just point us in the right direction and we will act, we just need to know what to do. Thank you for listening/reading.

  24. SadieBlue says:

    Sorry, Blink, I do have a link to those two cases I mentioned. They are here: the Fort Polk case: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1817&dat=19970905&id=_IIfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=FqYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3178,571816

    And for the local case (it is brutal, so you may not want to look it up): http://www.dreamindemon.com/2008/12/19/dennis-peewee-creamer-killed-haleigh/

  25. Capri says:

    Why on earth is Leonard Padilla going to bail Misty out??? West Coast News is reporting Lenny’s plans. Any insight, Blink?

    Yawn.

    Respectfully Capri- You are kidding right?

    My insight is LP misses the limelight and his google searches are way down.

    He is not going to receive the cordial level of respect he got from OCSO in this jurisdiction, these guys are OVER it.
    B

  26. Mariann says:

    Leonard Pedillo is at it again! He is attempting to bail Misty out of jail now!
    http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-haleigh-cummins-misty-croslin-bond-20100204,0,541272.story

  27. kris says:

    all i have to say is she looks demonic and he looks like a wacko

  28. MsEnscene says:

    Leonard says that he has learned “my lesson” from Casey Anthony. He’s not bailin’ Misty C. out until she tells him where Haleigh’s body lies! So sad, feelin’ so bad! Miz Misty, you in a heap o’trubble, girlfriend!

  29. MsEnscene says:

    Leonard Padilla, according to HLN News today, has given Misty Cummings’ parents a car.

    Someone is wading into waters he should avoid or is just a soft-hearted cuss. Surely he doesn’t think that he can get info from any of these people.

  30. C.J. says:

    Dear God,

    Please bring Haleigh back home.

    Amen.

  31. Shortcake says:

    They are currently searching the St John’s River today for a body based on a tip.

    http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-haleigh-cummings-river-searched-20100413,0,5155311.story

  32. Ragdoll says:

    Haleigh, you’ve captured my heart. I’m so sorry your innocence was not protected. You should be enjoying your child hood, the smell of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies, a pink frilly bedroom and Santa Claus.

    Please tell us where you are boo (((((((((HALEIGH)))))))) <3

  33. Vern says:

    Long time Canadian lurker; first time poster. My immediate thoughts on this are that Misty’s attorney is putting out there that “Misty contributed info that led to this latest search, and that “someone” else perpetrated the crime.” Articles are also stating that “the suspect is in custody.” Meaning Ronald??
    Somehow, my own belief is that if Misty gave the info for this latest search … then Misty is probably perpetrator but blaming someone else for it.
    After listening to that 911 call umpteen million times and the sheer hatred in Ronald’s voice when yelling at her about “how can you let my kid disappear?” — it wasn’t him.

  34. NancyS says:

    ITs okay to come home baby girl……

    Blink can you start a new thread for us to share info on this new break in the case? if there is anyone in Florida can you please share your news with us that are not there thanks in advance!

  35. justiceformorgan says:

    I agree Vern ~ there is absolutely no way Ronald had anything to do with his daughter’s disappearance.

  36. NancyS says:

    Blink?
    Do you think this is her? what are your sources sayin girlfriend?

    ?
    B

  37. Randie says:

    “Joe Overstreet, Misty’s cousin was taken in for questioning on Tuesday night with Florida agents at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation……He was in Florida when Haleigh went Missing. Shawn Sirgo, Joe’s attorney, said that he has know Joe for about 3 years and he believe in him and that he is a neat guy and has lots of integrity.”

    What!?!

    1. “…he is a neat guy…” what kinda of statement is that. This isn’t junior high school.

    2. “…has lots of integrity…” Should the words pedophile and integrity BE in the same sentence???!!!

  38. MsEnscene says:

    Lenny Padilla is spewing on NG again about this case.

    Says the baby “was dead when Tommy and Joe got there to the home”. He says all they did was help Misty with the body. Who knows? Crazy stuff all’round in this case.

    Nancy gave her condolences to “poor Ronald” and Teresa Neves tonight. She did not extend the same sympathy by even mentioning the child’s mother, Chrystal Sheffield, whom Miz Nancy treated so appallingly on her show. Mess Nancy has lost it, and will lose this viewer in the future. None so blind as those who cannot see. Look up, Miz Nancy! I predict through your bombshells on this case and your attitude, ratings will plummet.

    I will not be easily convinced that this guy, Cummings, who married whom LE describes as the “key” to Haleigh’s mystery and protected her for over a year, is not, himself, the “lock”.

    Why all the womanly concern for Cummings on the Internet? There is psychologically something very interesting about it and deserves some real investigation, even if he is proven to be innocent of his child’s disappearance. Methinks the love for Ron is misplaced, but we shall see. JMO.

  39. NancyS says:

    Why all the womanly concern for Cummings on the Internet? There is psychologically something very interesting about it and deserves some real investigation, even if he is proven to be innocent of his child’s disappearance. Methinks the love for Ron is misplaced, but we shall see. JMO.

    What type of investigation are you suggesting takes place? Misplaced love for Ron? I am not getting this theory……

  40. Randie says:

    I have to fine the link…………….

    They are saying they found Haleigh bones………….

  41. angel says:

    I just created a petition entitled johns law: no longer silence children, because I care deeply about this very important issue.

    I’m trying to collect 100 signatures, and I could really use your help.

    To read more about what I’m trying to do and to sign my petition, click here:
    http://www.change.org/petitions/johns-law-no-longer-silence-children?share_id=UEXcxvRlfc&pe=nsfd

    everyone plz go sign

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment