CRIMINAL MIND > FORENSICS & INVESTIGATION

MISSING: 5-year-old Haleigh Cummings

By Chuck Hustmyre

"I'll kill him"

Seconds after Misty Croslin's 911 call came in, two Putnam County Sheriff's deputies raced toward Ronald Cummings's trailer on Green Lane, blue lights flashing and sirens wailing.

The deputies arrived simultaneously at 3:40 a.m., 13 minutes after Croslin's frantic call.

Standing in the driveway waiting for them was a visibly distraught Ronald Cummings. He told the deputies he just got home from work and his "dumb bitch girlfriend" told him his daughter was missing.

According to the report one of the deputies filed, "Ronald repeatedly said that someone had taken his child, and also said, 'When I find him, I'll kill him.'"

Cummings told the deputies he had a Beretta 9mm pistol in his trailer, and he warned them that if they arrested Haleigh's abductor, he would shoot the person through the back window of a police cruiser.

As the little girl's father, it was Ronald Cummings who knew the most about Haleigh, and it was he who was in the best position to assist the deputies in searching for her — much more so than Misty Croslin, whom Cummings had only been dating for a few months — yet Cummings was no help at all to the deputies.

"I attempted to get information from Ronald regarding Haleigh," one of the deputies wrote in his report. "However, due to his emotional state, he was unable to provide any useful information."

The deputies had no choice but to rely on Ronald Cummings's 17-year-old girlfriend for help.

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1. Vanished
2. "My daughter is gone"
3. "I'll kill him"
4. "Picked the lock"
5. Four inches or four feet?
6. Unwelcome Help
7. Strange Bedfellows
8. Enemies Closer
9. Sources