The Disappearance of Haleigh Cummings

On February 10, 2009, five-year-old Haleigh Cummings disappeared from her mobile home in Satsuma, Florida, while her father Ronald Cummings was at work and his 17-year-old girlfriend Misty Croslin was supposed to be watching the children. Croslin told police she had put the children to bed around 10 p.m. and found Haleigh missing at 3 a.m., with a back door propped open by a cinder block. No physical evidence of an intruder was found. Haleigh was never found.

The investigation focused intensely on Misty Croslin almost immediately, as her accounts of events on the night changed multiple times and she failed polygraph tests. She and Ronald Cummings married shortly after Haleigh's disappearance — a decision widely viewed as puzzling — but both were later arrested separately on unrelated drug trafficking charges in 2010. Croslin, facing a lengthy prison sentence, eventually made a series of confessions that were contradictory and that led investigators to search bodies of water in the area without finding remains.

Ronald Cummings's cousin Tommy Croslin — Misty's brother — also confessed to multiple versions of events, variously claiming Haleigh had been accidentally killed and her body disposed of in a local river, or that others were responsible. None of the confessions produced verifiable physical evidence, and no charges were ever filed in connection with Haleigh's disappearance or presumed death.

Haleigh Cummings was officially declared legally dead in 2017. Her case remains one of the most frustrating child disappearances in Florida history, largely because all the individuals who may have relevant knowledge have given contradictory accounts and no physical evidence has emerged to establish what actually happened to her. Misty Croslin was released from prison in 2020 after serving her drug sentence and has continued to deny responsibility.