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Crystal Sheffield Holds Junior

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, © www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

Two months before Friday’s police search, a grieving mother hunting answers requested a parent update from frustrated Putnam County detectives working the Haleigh Cummings mystery, only to learn investigators had no break, but were working hard to follow up some 4,000 tips they’d run down, and remained committed to finding her daughter, and analyzing more forensic evidence.

While sources close to the case told me police did not consider Haleigh a stranger abduction, then or now, theorizing it more likely a child snatch by someone with ties to, or familiar with, the Cummings family, they couldn’t tell Crystal much, says her attorney, Kim Picazio. She joined Crystal for the sheriff’s department briefing in Satsuma that also included Sheffield’s mother, Marie Griffis. Read the rest of this entry »

Haleigh With Attitude!

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c) www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

“I remember watching Haleigh Cumming’s mother break down in front of the cameras,” says Crystal Sheffield’s mystery benefactor in an exclusive interview with The Bald Truth.

“She was just shaking and sobbing, and talking about how much she missed her daughter, and I kept thinking, ‘This poor lady.’ I couldn’t imagine what she was going through, facing $12,000 in back child support and selling bracelets and t-shirts to raise money to keep people interested in finding her missing child.”

The angel donor asked that her last name not be used, but her first name is Barbara. She’s a Texas oilfield analyst with no children of her own, just a big heart for single, working mothers struggling to get by. She doesn’t tithe to a church, she tells me, but believes in giving back, shunning the big name charities to give 10 per cent of a nice income directly to individuals in need. Crystal Sheffield fit her bill, she says. Read the rest of this entry »

Misty Cummings, then Croslin, Talks About Last Night With Haleigh

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, © artharris.com, all rights reserved

According to co-workers within earshot of Ronald Cummings at Palatka, Florida’s PDM Bridge, Misty Croslin sounded hysterical when she called one night weeks before the 17 year old babysitter reported his daughter, Haleigh, had vanished while he was at work and she was asleep with the kids.

“I remember she called him in tears, because the little girl was giving her fits and he told her, ‘Whip her, just whip her and make her be quiet,’” recalls fellow crane operator Eric Zastrow, 32, in an exclusive interview with The Bald Truth. “He said, ‘Just whip the little brat, she needs to understand it’s time to go to bed, or put a movie in for her.’ Then he hung up.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Bald Truth With Greta in Alaska; We interview Palin’s Parents minutes apart

By Art Harris, (c) www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

WASILLA, Alaska–What a political whirlwind…four weeks on the road reporting for Entertainment Tonight and The Insider, a Presidential campaign slugfest unlike anything I’ve ever covered, snapshots of history in the making, politics as bloodsport–and entertainment–with the future of the country hanging in the balance.

For starters, it was backstage with Barack Obama in Denver, where my featherweight Sony HD 1080i was the only news camera rolling as he met voters one-one-one, a charismatic personna who comforted one fan as she burst into tears in his mere presence.

“What’s wrong, don’t cry,” said the Democratic Presidential nominee, embracing her.

The next woman, from Alaska, handed him folk art, a clay sculpture of an Eskimo and a polar bear. Really. This before anyone knew her governor would burst on the scene as the new political Madonna of the rival party. Read the rest of this entry »