a lot of people think Ronald Cummings is simply a grieving Dad who has been the victim of evil Misty Cummings and her family. They admit he is a criminal and a drug dealer, but "other than that," he is a good guy. I disagree and disagree vehemently. I believe Ronald Cummings is involved with the death of his daughter even while rumors are flying that Misty's cousin, Joe Overstreet kidnapped and killed Haleigh because he couldn't find Ronald's gun that he came to steal (what doofus came up with that idiotic scenario) or that Joe and Tommy, Misty's brother were raping Ronald's daughter while Junior slept and Misty was drugged up. killing her in the process (slightly better, but would YOU want to rape the kid of a guy like Ronald? And would YOU implicate your partner in murder if you didn't want him to take you down with him?).Okay
, recap. Tommy and Misty cook up a scenario with Joe as the fall guy. Why? Seems to me they want to get their sentences reduced. Tommy, the weakest link, the one who probably did help move the body, says he did see Haleigh get put in the water but he didn't do the crime, Joe did. Half truth. Misty can then say she knows what happened but she was terrified of Joe because Joe killed Haleigh and threatened her. Half truth.This means Misty and Tommy know what happened and Tommy dumped Haleigh's body (or helped do so). But, if Tommy didn't commit a crime, why did he help Misty? Oh, yes, she is his sister and he is a drug dealer too. But, then, Misty must be more involved in the crime than he is. She knows what happened and was there when it happened.
Okay, let's
assume Misty killed Haleigh, by accidental drug ingestion or smothering or whatever. She panics, calls Tommy, and he takes the body to the water. He concocts a story with Misty, props the back door open and then Ronald comes home and finds Haleigh has "been stolen." He calls 911, hysterical, and Misty starts with her lies. Ronald is such a dummy he never, ever catches on. Neither does his mother. They both back and support Misty no matter how many times she changes her story or fails a polygraph. They are true innocents.Please! We are talking about Ronald Cummings who clearly does exactly what he wants to do and is proud of it. Even the night Haleigh went missing, he calls home over and over and then asks Tommy to go over to the house. But the minute he arrives home and finds his daughter gone, he does little to ever find out what happened to her. I think OJ did more to find out who killed Nicole than Ronnie did to find out where his daughter went off too. Unless you believe he married Misty to get as "close to the enemy" as possible.
Here is the more probable scenario.
Something happened to Haleigh before Ronald went to work. She may have gotten into the drugs, maybe Oxycontin, that Ron brought home. Maybe Misty wasn't watching Haleigh like a good seventeen-year-old druggie should. Haleigh starts falling asleep, maybe looking a little comatose, but they don't want to take her to the hospital and explain why she has illegal drugs in her system. They think she will "get over it", sleep it off. Ronald goes to work. He calls home to find out what is happening but Misty doesn't want to pick up the phone. Haleigh is gasping for air. She tries to resuscitate her, pushing up and down and up and down on her chest. But Haleigh dies. What is she going to tell Ron? So she just doesn't answer the phone while she tries to figure out what she is going to do. Ronald calls Tommy and Tommy goes to the house and finds a sobbing Misty and a dead child. He calls Ronald back and tells him Haleigh is dead. Ronnie curses and punches a wall and then gets it together enough to tell Tommy he needs to get Haleigh out of there. They work out a scenario that will keep them out of prison for homicide and drugs and then Ronald comes home and tells Misty exactly what to say on the phone.
"You were sleeping."
"You woke up and found the back door open and our daughter gone."
That's all you know, got it? Stick to the story.
Ronald calls 911 immediately, plays the victim and distraught father, Misty tells the exact story she is told to give.
Ronald never looks for Haleigh after he gets home. He doesn't go nuts on Misty who "got his child stole" right out from under her.
Ronald, while willing to go after "whoever took his daughter" and kill them and go to the electric chair, never slaps Misty around to get an answer. He doesn't go knock on doors of people he suspects could have taken and killed his daughter. Instead, he marries the woman who "is responsible" for losing his daughter and does business with all the other possible suspects. He acts like he already knows his daughter is dead from the time he makes the phone call, when getting a hideous tattoo in memory of his daughter, to getting married as though it doesn't matter if Haleigh missing the occasion she supposedly was looking forward to.
The reality is, Ronald probably married Misty because he thought it would legally keep her from testifying against her and he "unmarried" her when his lawyer likely told him that this was not true. When he gets arrested and taken to jail, he doesn't help the police try to con Misty into telling the truth and he warns her that the police are trying to get him to do this. Even in jail, he is sending a message that he is not giving anything up and she better not either.
Thoug
h all of this, Teresa Neves, Ron's mom, never has an unkind word to say about Misty who got her granddaughter killed. She is the mother-in-law any murdering woman would like to have.Ronald Cummings is a criminal with a criminal mind. He is controlling and exhibits purely psychopathic behavior. He may not have loved Haleigh in any deep way that a father should (he is off dealing drugs instead of searching for his missing child and you can see he seems hardly to remember he has a son when he chats on the telephone from jail), but he would likely be really ticked if someone else messed with his kid.
If his drugs were what killed his daughter and Misty was equally responsible, this perfectly explains why the two are so chummy. And Tommy is the third musketeer. Joe Overstreet? The perfect schmuck. Maybe he was promised a gun in exchange for helping move a body. Maybe he was invited over just to be in the house so they could say he took Haleigh. Maybe he wasn't even around.
I hope the truth comes out and come out soon. And when it does, I hope the truth about Ronald comes out as well.
*** For a rousing discussion of my crime scenario and other experts' opinions on the Cummings case, listen to the April 14th recording of the Levi Page Show.
I think you right on target with this one. I always thought thought these people were druggies and knew more than what they were saying....even Grandma T.N. Poor Haleigh.
ReplyDeleteEricka aka @Pugmama2 on Twitter
What do you believe happened to Haleigh?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletePat, fascinating scenario and it makes total sense. I think Nancy Grace has painted a very sympathetic portrait of Ronald, not sure why she seems to have taken a liking to him. I hope the truth comes out soon. No matter who did it - that little girl is gone and that's a tragedy :(
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that Ron was ever "protecting" Misty...
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't believe that Nancy Grace would knowingly protect anyone. That said, I wonder why she hasn't mentioned Crystal or Marie...
ReplyDeleteBetty, I agree, Nancy would not knowingly protect anyone. It just seems that she is very fond of him considering no one knows for sure what happened.
ReplyDeleteNancy Grace? What?
ReplyDeleteWho would she protect? She's too busy allowing Padilla on the show after all his lies regarding Caylee Anthony which never panned out. She has gotten so much wrong the past two days, when a quick search of the news would have given her updated info.
Anon, NG is an advocate for those without a voice; make no mistake. Whether you "like" her or not; she is an advocate for those without a voice and I commend her for that.
ReplyDeleteOk, How do you explain the grandmother of Ronald, who saw Haleigh, Junior & Misty that evening, sitting on the front porch & kids were eating their supper. Remember the grandmother that dropped off the clean clothes for Haleigh to wear to school the next day. Sad but also the same grandmother that had nothing but nice things to say about Misty! I also beleive that Haleigh was taken from that home, 'cause Junior never talked about them being any place else but there. LE are on the right track. . MISTY! Tommy does know something we all agree there. We also agree that this family is full of crimcals & liars!
ReplyDeletePat,
ReplyDeleteLove your dissection and agree that ronald and teresa would not cover for misty if they thought she had any knowledge of what happened to Haleigh.
Makes perfect sense that they know misty has the goods on ronald and maybe even on his mother. Teresa is probably riddled with guilt, and she should be. She offered to PAY a drugged out slore to babysit her grandchildren because she didn't want to. She knew misty wasn't in any shape to babysit!
And, as far as NG goes, she's always a day late and a dollar short, and often wrong at that.
If it did happen as you hypothesized , and
ReplyDeleteif Tommy helped Misty "dispose of" a deceased Haleigh, why was she ratting him out? Early on, she was pointing fingers at him. Why wasn't she afraid he would tell what he knew (misty was responsible for Haleigh's death) if she told on him.
Pat do you think Ron's mother and grandmother might be involved in Ron's drug dealing business? Neither of them work yet they can afford newer vehicles and trips to Vegas.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling when everything is revealed we will learn that Teresa and Annette are no better than Ron.
Thank you for the spot on description of how you think things went down with Haleigh. I agree with you that Ron's behavior is very suspicious. He's the most guilty (sorry excuse for a) human being I have ever seen.
I think this is likely the best scenerio of what happened. All of them had a hand in her death even if not all over them were involved with disposal of her body. I think each of them will be charged with something, maybe itll tie into the drug charges they are already facing.
ReplyDeleteIn any case Ron, Misty and Tommy are going to serve time. Ron can pretty much tell himself he wont have custody of his son ever again.
At first, I thought Ronald was pretty much innocent and Misty was the evil doer. Small children like to imitate adults and Haleigh probably wanted to eat some of that pretty candy the others ate. People that are doped up make terrible baby sitters. Let em all fry.
ReplyDeleteIf only LE could make an arrest. The madness would stop. The strain on the budget would ease. Life in the area could go back to some form of normalcy, leaving it for a jury to decide guilt or innocence. Case closed. For those who seek truth and justice, this is not a happy ending. Thanks, Pat Brown, for seeking truth and justice.
ReplyDeleteIt will indeed be interesting if we ever get a truly straight answer as to what happened to Haleigh. One problem lies in a lack of body or a lack of enough of a body (if they find it) to find out the cause of death. If a drug overdose can't be proven, or asphyxiation proven, or violent trauma or rape proven, then we must rely on the stories told and we know how much those can be believe. It will be a he said, she said, he said, she said....and good luck with that.
ReplyDeleteListening to half the stories out there, I got crazy. Most people are missing elements of the truth, but your scenario is the most plausible one presented with what we know at this moment. Thanks for sharing this!
ReplyDeleteFinally someone who gets it. Great job, Pat!
ReplyDeleteIt sure would be nice to see you as a regular guest (or replacement host) on the Nancy disGrace show. . .
I just posted a link to your post, Pat. http://eyesforlies.blogspot.com/2010/04/pat-browns-speculation-on-haleigh.html
ReplyDeleteYour link at the top of your post didn't work for me. If you get it working, let me know so I can fix my link to you.
What people failed to see is that Misty was not a strong, dominant character. She was the weaker of the two of the them, the submissive one. Ronald was the controlling one, the manipulative one. When you plug that in, it helps you see things more clearly. Not only do they show it on their faces by their tension (Ronald is much more tense than Misty), they demonstrated it in interview after interview.
ReplyDeleteExcellent point, Eyes! Yes, I find it rather amusing that folks think Haleigh is running the show. Ronald is clearly the one who calls the shots. He has a Haleigh tattoo and what tattoo does Misty have? Oh, one with her ex-husband's name gotten after he became an ex!
ReplyDelete"He told me that if I didn`t love him, the only way I could prove that I loved him was this tattoo, and I got this tattoo because I did really love him. And I don`t regret my tattoo at all. I love my tattoo."
Uh-huh. Maybe you just needed a reminder that you are Ronald's property and you better not forget it.
I absolutely agree with you Pat.
ReplyDeleteRon is the ring leader he tightly runs this show.
He is hoping Joe, Tommy and Misty will take the fall, but he is the master manipulator.
He knew Haleigh was dead it showed in his speech and body language.
I pray he goes down for this and not released to further destroy and damage innocent lives.
Another possibility is that Ronald hit Haleigh in a rage but the effects didn't take place until he went to work. Misty may be the girlfriend (at the time) who takes the rap for her boyfriend. She may have told Tommy SHE hit the little girl to get him to help her get rid of the body.
ReplyDeleteMisty also had all day to do the wash but she does it in the evening and she makes a big deal of it. It is possible that seizure from drugs or blunt trauma caused urination on the blanket or vomiting.
ReplyDeleteThe most important thing that Ron said that cannot be ignored within hours of Haleigh's disappearance was this:
ReplyDelete"I'd give my life for my child's life back"
That's evidence that he knew she was dead from the get-go. It can't be ignored now matter which was you look at it.
Oh, yes, THAT was a slip up! Also, I was just watching Misty's stress test interview and interestingly she never mentions running outside to look for Haleigh. Now maybe BOTH of them believed upon seeing the back door propped open that the child had absolutely been kidnapped but usually you run around stupidly all over your house (okay, Misty did THAT she says) and your lawn (in case the child might be lying out there hurt) and down the street to see if their is some car driving away with your kid. It is not natural to note the child is gone and call 911 and do nothing else.
ReplyDeletePat,
ReplyDeleteYour theory makes perfect sense. Have you given any thought to making a living doing this? LOL!
Nancy Grace is covering for Nancy Grace alone, as usual. She is determined that Ron be seen as innocent, and she will never back down, because that was the position she foolishly jumped to right off the bat.
ReplyDeleteTo save face, she would rather see the case unsolved than see Ron proven guilty, IMO.
Truth and justice have never been priorities for her - for proof, just look at her history of being censured as a prosecutor for her dishonest tactics.
P.S. I completely agree with Pat's theory, and have maintained that from the start.
ReplyDeleteIt is the best explanation for why both Ron and Misty feel the need to cover up the truth. One would have to be willfully blind not to see that Ron has been trying to cover the truth from the beginning. There is no way he would do that, unless it was to cover his own arse.
Twenty odd years ago I used to run with the Cummings/Croslin type crowd followed by a 7 year prison stint. I know how the criminal mind works and how the psychopath behaves: first, because I was one and secondly, I interacted with them on a daily basis and survived amongst them. While I've since abandoned that lifestyle and the person I was, I still have the instincts, the reads on people, the ability to pick up on subtle little inconsistencies and the slight subliminal communications of the hustlers, cons, dope fiends, thieves, et al.
ReplyDeleteFWIW and IMO, Ron Cumming's actions, statements and general demeanor throughout this ordeal have set my radar off. It's hard to pin-point exactly what he knows but he knows something he's not saying and Misty knows it too. When Ron and Misty are together and a question they're not prepared for comes out of the blue, there's that hardly perceptible eye contact between the two. Two cons getting on the same page oblivious to the mark, where one is telling the other to follow along. And it's Ron not Misty doing the leading and telling. But at the end of the day: Ron is a bully, not a tough guy or killer. The real tough guys in the outlaw world run with, conspire with and confide in other tough guys, not 17 year old girls.
Tommy seems the dupe. He's a follower and whether he's following Misty, Cousin Joe or both perhaps, I don't know. But it would be interesting to know if he spent a good part of his teenage years with Joe. I'm assuming he was around Misty quite a bit.
Cousin Joe is the dangerous one. Not an in your face, tough guy dangerous. More of the sneak-up behind you, ambush type, at least to those who would pose any sort of real threat. There's some genuine cowardliness in him. And the thing about cowards is they tend to overcompensate with excessive violence (probably some sort of inferiority complex compensation). They don't just grab the purse from the old lady and run, they knock her down and kick her. Oh, and they really like guns; it gives them a sense of being tougher than they are because people are afraid of them especially when people think there somewhat psycho, which is an image they try to project. Anyway, if something really bad and cold-hearted happened to that little girl, he did it, IMO.
I really enjoyed the approach this blog took to the case. With the missing pieces to the puzzle it's hard to make sense of what exactly happened and we may never know entirely, but starting inside the mind of criminals instead of the external circumstances is probably a better tact to make the inferences.
One thing I found interesting, was LE stated that no drugs of any kind ( illegal OR prescription) were found in the home, but on the jail house tapes Misty rattles off the fact that both she AND Ronald possess legal prescriptions.(I imagine this was in addition to what they got off the street-common for addicts)
ReplyDeleteThis makes me think they swept the house before LE was called that night.
RC may have had no choice but to conspire with Misty, if what happened to Haleigh was an unplanned accident.
ReplyDeleteSomeone needs to explain to Misty that giving and giving for a guy and "proving" your love to him is not usually how a girl gets a bad-boy to love her the way she loves him. I don't know if it's common practice to lie and tell potential girlfriend-informants things like "he has a new woman and is crazy for her" in order to get them to talk, but I would be tempted to do this if I were trying to get Misty to talk -- in addition to telling her that RC has thrown her under the bus regarding Haleigh. Ron's hold over her is sort of consistent with his success in charming Nancy Grace. It will be stunning to a lot of people if it turns out that her (NG's) take on all of this was on target.
The whole Nancy Grace phenomenon seems to have emboldened scores of people even more out of their element than she is.
I cannot stand Ron mother. Her voice is creepy and she doesn't appear real to me. They way she takes up for Ron and Misty sickens me also. I would be furious if it were my Granddaughter.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your article Pat. Great job.
"The whole Nancy Grace phenomenon seems to have emboldened scores of people even more out of their element than she is."
ReplyDeleteRumor is that Nancy Grace is going to another show for CBS, a show a la Judge Judy. Prob. her desire for more time with "her twins" and more importantly, credibility and ratings. Clearly, she is no longer up to the job and needs to go - has for a long time. It's cringeworthy. I'd like to see how she spins her way out of this one. I don't think she can do it - she'll end up looking even more ridiculous than she already does.
How sad that everyone wants to blame Ronald and his mother. It appears to me that those two loved that little girl with every fiber of their being. How many men do you know that would take custody of a child with special needs, and not even get child support from the mom? I don't know any! I feel for these two people much more than Haleigh's bio mom.....she wasn't even able to say what time her daughter got home from school....hadn't seen her for a while. Did not have custody of either of her children.....Don't you think the police would have loved to put Ronald in jail for murder, if his past was that bad...but they seem to believe him too. I will pray for him and his mother. I think this will crush them both.
ReplyDeleteIts been interesting reading all these comments. I think Ron did love his daughter and was not directly involved in her death.
ReplyDeleteDeborah, we don't "want" to blame Ron and his mother. We just can't ignore the facts before our eyes, which is what it takes not to see that, at best, he was playing Russian Roulette with his children, as he put his love life and criminal escapades ahead of their well-being.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, you whitewash Ron, yet you nitpick and falsely accuse Haleigh's mother, Crystal.
You say, "I feel for these two people much more than Haleigh's bio mom.....she wasn't even able to say what time her daughter got home from school....hadn't seen her for a while."
That is not true. Crystal had Haleigh that very weekend, while the girl Ron chose to live in and babysit his poor kids was out on a drug and sex binge.
No, Crystal didn't know the exact minute Haleigh's bus let off, but she knew the approximate time.
On a scale of which is worse, I'd say most people would agree that leaving your young children to be reared by drugged-out, immature, irresponsible girls like Misty is much worse than not knowing the exact minute they get off the bus, when you are not the one who ever picks them up. If she ever needed to know the exact minute, she would have found out.
Nitpicking and falsely accusing Crystal, while whitewashing Ron is wrong.
Pat, I think you are leaving one important thing out of your theory that could explain a lot of the strangeness and guilty looking things as far as Ron goes.
ReplyDeleteI believe Ron is a hardcore narcotic addict. The number one thing in Ron's life is to get that next pill his mind and body needs. Everything in his life is superseded by that. When decision making time comes, his addiction and ability to get that next pill is at the top of the list.
I would not be surprised to find out at the time of Haleigh's homocide Ron had a 50 to 100 dollar habit. When faced with a daughter missing the first thing would be is how could this effect him money/pill wise. He saw the potential for losing custody of his son which would probably cost him the equivalent of a day of pills since he would have to pay child support so he stuck with the story she was kidnapped by a stranger and no fault of his. He also saw the possibility he could go to jail for his pill selling and buying and that would stop the pills coming in. I think that is why he never tried or cared about getting to the bottom of what happened to Haleigh.
When there was talk about him going to jail for statutory rape he married Misty to solve that problem and keep the pills coming in. He did not love Haliegh, he did not love Jr. and he did not love Misty, the only thing he loved was his pills and how they made him feel.
I think his whole family knew about his addiction and protected him because they did not want him to lose Jr.
Thank you Pat, for being the voice of reason, in a sea of unreasonable people.
ReplyDeleteI have always known that Ron is guilty, that is the only thing (as of now) that can be proven.
Whatever happened to Haleigh..Ron put her in that situation, his lifestyle and choice of companions sealed her fate. If a parent lets a child play in traffic and the child is killed, the parent is responsible for putting the child in harms' way. His mom is also responsible. What kind of grandmother would refuse to relieve a drugged out teen babysitter of her duties knowing full well the teen didn't want to babysit? That is ASKING for disaster.
I also believe Haleigh was dead before Ron went to work. I really don't believe he intentionally harmed her though, but had something to do with what happened to her and had everything to do with disposing of her..via Tommy and whoever else.
Haleigh never had a chance. It's a wonder she lived as long as she did.
Misty didn't wash squat, they had no laundry soap. OMG, Ron said he hoped StJohn's was a false lead. He doen't eant Haileighs remains found it appears. Now he feels Misty was forced to do something she couldn't bear to tell him. This is according to Terry Shoemaker Ron's lawyer. Ron is on the railroad Joe train. Misty was on a three day drug & sex bender but she couldn't tell him? HAHAHA how ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteI just can't believe all these peeps that are still defending Ronald Cummings and pointing all ten fingers at Misty! Jeezyl, she was still 16 at the time little Haliegh's death occurred! She turned 17 shortly thereafter, now just 18. Just how mature could a drugged up child hayseed be for heaven's sakes! I'll have to hand it to her, she may be illiterate and uneducated but she is no dummy in how to "stand by your man!". She'd lie for that psychopath right to the living end, and she's good at it too. But I've seen every lie in Ronald right from the beginning, starting with his 'Susan Smith' crocodile tears and threatening rant. He's been sliding downhill from there on. His mother too. She knows.
ReplyDeleteBut about Nancy, I believe she has limited experience with just how cunning a dope dealer/dope addict is. This is surprising in view of the fact that her former fiance' was a murder victim, and with all of her previous legal experience. But I think everyone needs to cut her some slack and stop being so critical of the position she took in jumping to Ron's defense and is still doing. I noticed in her last show that her feelings have been hurt over the criticism she is taking and I think we ought to back off and give her a breather. Hopefully the truth will come out, and when it does I think Nancy will gracefully back down; but I agree with Pat, we have only the lies of all the liars to go on at this point and I don't think Nancy should be crucified for any honest mistakes she might have made.
I'm about to pull my hair out over this case. LE had to know that RC was a druggie. He's been arrested plenty of times.for it, but for some reason he is treated as SuperDAD.
ReplyDeleteugh
i think ronald did it and misty is his lil b.... and better not say shit. nancy grace doesnt give a f... about any of those missing persons its just the story she cares about. she makes money off of other peoples pain and suffering and all she has to do is act she cares. shes so damn stubborn she wont admit she changed her mind about ronald, if she has. anyone with half a brain can see this guy is full of shit.
ReplyDeleteMaybe nobody ever brought this point up but Ronald called Misty repeatly throughout the night-something like 132 times.Ain't that strange -even stranger NOBODY even mentions it!
ReplyDelete