The father of a missing 5-year-old Florida girl said he suspects his daughter was snatched from her bed before dawn Tuesday.
Haleigh Cummings has been missing since 3 a.m. Tuesday, when her father’s girlfriend called 911 to say the child had vanished from her Putnam County home. “All I want is my child … please … all I want is my child,” Ronald Cummings told reporters Wednesday, his voice breaking. A nationwide Amber Alert says the girl was last seen wearing a pink shirt and underwear. The case is being investigated as both a missing person’s case and as a child abduction. “Until we get new information, we’re putting every resource, every detective on it from both angles,” said Putnam County Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Johnny Greenwood. “It could be that Haleigh wandered off or she was taken. We just don’t know right now.” As of early Wednesday afternoon, police do not have any suspects, he added. Ronald Cummings’ girlfriend, 17-year-old Misty Croslin, was watching Haleigh and her 4-year-old brother, he said. Croslin told a 911 dispatcher that she had gone to the bathroom in the middle of the night Tuesday and returned to find the girl gone and a brick on the floor, according to CNN affiliate WJXT-TV. The station’s Web site printed the text of the 911 call, which included this exchange: Dispatch: OK. All right, you said your back door was wide open Caller: Yes, with a brick. Like, there was a brick on the floor. Like, when I went to sleep the door was not like that.
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WJXT: Read what was said during 911 call
WFTV: Watch Haleigh’s father make a tearful plea
The brick was actually holding open the door to the trailer, Greenwood said. “There was no reason to believe someone had broken in, no windows were broken, the door wasn’t broken,” he told CNN. Croslin, Haleigh’s brother and Haleigh were apparently sleeping in the same bed in the double-wide that they share with Cummins, Greenwood said. Police said Croslin had put Haleigh to bed at 8 p.m. and then went to bed herself at 10 p.m. Three hours later, Croslin made the discovery that the little girl was not tucked in. On Wednesday, Haleigh’s grandmother Marie Griffis told reporters that she feared the worst. “She’s out there somewhere, I can feel her. I can feel her presence,” Griffis told CNN affiliate WFTV-TV. “She’s screaming.” Watch grandparents plead for girl’s return » Haleigh’s mother Crystal Sheffield wept as she stood in front of reporters. “I just want whoever’s got her to bring her home,” the girl’s mother said. “That’s all I want, is my baby home.” Watch mother’s tearful plea » Griffis said that her daughter and Ronald Cummings had a “rocky relationship” and that the two took turns spending every other weekend with their daughter. Crystal Sheffield lives on the Florida/Georgia line and has been interviewed by law enforcement, according to police. Investigators are looking into various angles of the case, including finding out the location of 44 registered sexual offenders who live within a five-mile radius of the Cummings home, Greenwood said.
Though that number may sound high, it encompasses both Putnam and Palatka counties which are separated by the St. Johns River, the law enforcement spokesman told CNN. Anyone with any information is encouraged to call the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office at 386-329-0800 or the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Missing Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse at 888-FL-MISSING.
