Fresh evidence on Haleigh Cummings, five-year-old girl who disappeared from home without trace 10 years ago
A new docuseries will be airing never-before-seen evidence connected to the disappearance of Haleigh Cummings, a five-year-old girl who disappeared from her Florida home in the middle of the night a decade ago without a trace and is missing to this day.
February 9, 2009, was just another day for Ronald Cummings. He had left Haleigh and her four-year-old brother in the care of his 17-year-old girlfriend Misty Croslin as he headed for the night shift, but little did he realize his life was about to change forever.
When he got back to his trailer home in Satsuma, south of Jacksonville, around 3 am that morning, he was greeted by Croslin, who told him that she had woken up to find Haleigh missing from her bed. and a cinder block popping open the back door.
The Putnam County Sheriff's Office was called to the scene, and the disappearance kicked off a massive hunt involving hundreds of volunteers spread out across a widespread area, as well as an investigation involving multiple law-enforcement agencies.
But no trace of the five-year-old was ever found, and authorities continue to be baffled at her disappearance. The case is now the subject of a new HLN docuseries called 'Real Life Nightmare,' which will feature evidence that has never been revealed to the public previously, and which will hopefully result in new tips that could help bring closure.
Investigators still believe that Croslin is the key to solving the crime. She was the last to see Haleigh alive, and the evidence seems to implicate her in the disappearance one way or the other.
For one, PCSO deputies found no signs of forced entry into the family's trailer, with Captain Dominic Piscitello revealing that Croslin had taken a shower before they reached the residence and that there were a lot of strange things about her that night that caught their attention.
Furthermore, detectives have described her statements about the night as inconsistent and said that she has changed her story multiple times over the past decade.
In footage from the interview room where she was being questioned by the detective that features in 'Real Life Nightmare,' Cummings can be seen confronting her about the disappearance.
"You didn't wake up", he says, to which she sobs and responds, "I would never let nothing happen to her if I knew something. I wouldn't let someone just take her."
"You didn't get out of bed?" he asks. "You sure you didn't unlock the door?" She answers, "I didn't even hear anything."
The docuseries also includes footage of Croslin walking through the crime scene just days after Haleigh vanished and crying after finding the shirt Haleigh was wearing the night she went missing.
"When these indicators start popping up that her story to us, as far as the clothing is not adding up, that's when everything starts going from the outside and starts focusing right back on Misty again," said John Merchant, a former lead detective on the case.
While Croslin has never been charged in connection to the case, both she and Cummings are currently in prison on drug trafficking charges unrelated to Haleigh's disappearance.