Haleigh Cummings

Case background and investigation

Haleigh Ann-Marie Cummings, a kindergarten pupil, lived with her father, Ronald Cummings, in the Hermits Cove area of Satsuma in Putnam County, Florida. According to News4Jax, she was last known to be asleep on the evening of February 9, 2009, beside her younger brother, while her father worked an evening shift and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Misty Croslin, looked after the children.

CNN reported that Croslin told police she put the children to bed at about 8 p.m., went to sleep about two hours later, and woke at about 3 a.m. to find Haleigh gone and a cinder block propping open a back door. Haleigh was reported missing on February 10 and an AMBER Alert was issued. WUFT reported that law enforcement at local, state and federal level took part, that the volunteer group Texas EquuSearch organised search parties, and that about 1,000 people joined searches over several weeks.

Investigators said in August 2009 that the evidence had reduced the likelihood that a stranger was responsible, according to CNN, and that Haleigh's father and her mother, Crystal Sheffield, were not considered suspects. CNN also reported that authorities said physical evidence contradicted Croslin's account of the night and that she had not given a detailed account of those hours, while stopping short of naming her a suspect. Croslin has said in interviews that she does not know what happened.

Croslin and Ronald Cummings married after the disappearance and later separated. In January 2010 both were arrested with three other people in an undercover drug investigation that authorities described as separate from the missing-child case. WUFT, citing the Florida Department of Corrections, reported that Cummings received 15 years and Croslin 25 years for drug trafficking. Action News Jax reported that Cummings was released in October 2022 and arrested again that December on unrelated allegations.

In April 2010, divers and deputies searched the St. Johns River near Satsuma for several days. ABC News reported that Sheriff Jeff Hardy then announced that information received had led investigators to believe Haleigh was most likely dead, that the case was a homicide investigation, and that several unnamed persons of interest had been identified. No arrest followed.

Haleigh has not been found, and neither Croslin nor Cummings has been charged in connection with her disappearance. Her case is listed among Florida's unsolved AMBER Alerts, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has issued several age-progression images, the most recent in September 2024. The Putnam County Sheriff's Office continues to ask anyone with information to come forward.