I almost want to believe Tommy Croslin’s latest phone confession to Flo Hollars on April 11th, but there are still some things that do not square-up. The very next day he tells his tale to the authorities and they begin to drag the St. John’s River over the next several days.
If this is a truthful story, it still doesn’t make any sense to me. Your best source for Tommy’s account is The Bald Truth or ArtHarris.com. Tommy and Joe Overstreet, the evil cousin, come by Ron Cummings trailer to steal a rifle, or in another version, “borrow” the rifle from Ron so that Joe can go deer hunting, before he has to return to Tennessee. Misty is in on the plot also because she fears that Ron will kill her with one of his guns. Ron has done crazy things with guns before, like play Russian Roulette.
Misty was just coming off a three day binge of drugs and sex orgies and was trying to make-up with Ron for her straying. Later that night (Feb. 9, 2009) Ron and Joe come by to ‘purloin’ that rifle, but it’s gone! Ron had thought to take it away from the trailer. According to this version of Tommy’s, Joe flips out, goes ballistic and kills precious little Haleigh.
Supposedly, Joe had molested Misty many years ago, so she had further reason to fear Joe. Is Joe a killer or he being framed by Tommy and Misty? His love for firearms is widely known and he runs with gang members also, I’ve heard? Flora Hollars, the grandmother of all three, believes that Joe did do it. When he returned to Nashville, after Haleigh went missing, he became sullen and withdrawn, he wasn’t himself anymore, according to Flo Hollars.
But to kill Haleigh over a gun, that makes no sense? Unless he was cranked up on meth, then it doesn’t have to make sense. Going psycho over a gun and killing the child, just ‘cuz she was close by? Maybe Joe really hated Ron, then it would make more sense. But why would Tommy and Misty cover for Joe all this time? Only out of fear of Joe? This is not a believable motive, Tommy was obviously tougher and more streetwise than Joe, from looking at him in news footage.
I believe the real reason for the cover-up is that they were all involved in Haleigh’s disappearance. Perhaps a different scenario plays out. Before he leaves for work that afternoon, Ron tells Misty to give Haleigh some oxycontin to make her sleep and to help Misty sleep, coming off a three day binger as she was. But the child overdoses on the pill. Ron finds out about his daughter’s death from a call he takes from Tommy, so he sends Tommy and Joe over to his trailer to clean things up and to cover it up.
This would better explain why Ron Cummings made so many calls to Misty that night while he was at work. He had a motive to cover it up himself. He was selling drugs, and his own daughter died as a result of his bad judgment. This would also explain why he and Misty got married two months later. Misty and Ron were ‘in bed together,’ so to speak, in a conspiracy to cover-up the death of his daughter, Haleigh Cummings. I would like to believe Tommy’s latest confabulation, but I can’t find a good enough motive for cousin Joe as the killer.
Was Haleigh Cummings Killed at the Trailer? The Bald Truth-artharris.com.
http://www.artharris.com/2010/05/14/was-haleigh-cummings-killed-at-trailer/#more-4327
