New Twist in Haleigh Cummings cast of Characters

Art Harris here

April 20, 2009

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth

In a dramatic new twist in the case of missing Haleigh Cummings, two young women with close ties to the father of the missing five year old, Ronald, and his new bride, Misty Cummings, were arrested and booked Monday morning into the Putnam County Jail on charges of cocaine possession.

Amber Nicole Brooks, 20, of Palatka, Florida, the mother of Cummings’ 20-month old son, Jordan, was arrested by Putnam County sheriffs deputies, booked into jail at 8:04 a.m. and charged with cocaine possession, smuggling “contraband” into a detention facility and failing to appear for another outstanding warrant.

Bond was set at $2,512.00 for the three felony charges, according to the Putnam County Jail log.
Also arrested and booked (at 8:39 a.m.): Kristina Renee Prevatt, 18, aka “Nay Nay,” the party pal of Misty Cummings...

On Monday, Prevatt was charged with possession of cocaine and trying to smuggle contraband into a detention facility, records show. Her bond was set at $2008.00...

She also says Amber Brooks borrowed her car recently, and got it stuck in the mud, reportedly running from a man with a machete. She says Misty still had clothes in her trunk from that lost weekend, but they have since been removed.

Prevatt describes this and more in our exclusive television interview between her and pro bono private investigator and bounty hunter William Staubs, aka “Cobra,” who is expected back in Satsuma late Monday.

As for Amber Brooks, in a recent exclusive interview with The Bald Truth, she [says] she once lived with Ronald and took care of Haleigh and her little brother, Junior, before their son, Jordan, was born, then split with Cummings who she said has paid no child support, and raised their son as a single mother.

With a previous drug arrest on the books, Brooks has been struggling to raise their son, who has been quietly cared for by her grandmother in Palatka, but Jordan’s future may be up in the air after a surprise visit by Ronald Cummings Sunday.

Indeed, just before 10 p.m. Sunday night, April 19, according to a 911 call [as was] heard on a police scanner, Brooks’ grandmother called the Putnam County Sheriff’s dispatcher to report Cummings had pulled up outside her house in his purple Nissan Ultima and sent Haleigh’s little brother, Junior, to her door to ask for his little brother, Jordan.

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When the grandmother refused, she told police, a black man who was apparently with Cummings appeared and asked for the child. That’s when my source says he heard the grandmother tell 911 she locked the door and called police, who confirmed the incident, including a BOLO (be on the lookout) for Cummings and a police cruiser that was dispatched.

“That’s how I understand it went down,” said PCSD Captain Dick Schauland in a phone interview with The Bald Truth.

Lt. Johnny Greenwood, also a PCSD spokesman, confirmed the arrests of Prevatt and Brooks. He said both had been cooperative in previous interviews with task force detectives when questioned about Haleigh’s kidnapping, but saw no connection with that case and the arrests.

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“I don’t know how investigators may want to talk to them. I know they’ve talked to them already…and they’ve been cooperative the whole time,” Lt. Greenwood tells me. “Usually, charges like that might be used as leverage, but in this case they’ve already been cooperative.”

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Cooperative or not, one investigator on the case told me Monday the task force would explore whether the cocaine arrests might be still be used to “squeeze” the women for any undisclosed information that might help move the stalled case forward.

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“We’re waiting on that one tip to come in. Somebody knows something,” Lt. Greenwood tells me. “Somebody out there knows what happened. It’s just gonna take them slipping up and telling somebody, or somebody hears something. That’s all it’s going to take, one tip.”

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In the exclusive interview with Prevatt, Nay Nay, as everyone calls her, says she picked Misty up after a fight with Ronald mid-week before Haleigh vanished, drove her to meet Page, and off they went on their party girl weekend—and had a surprise encounter with Brooks. Her account dovetails with what Page, or “White Boy Greg” as he’s called on the street, told us in his exclusive sit down.

Both describe Page’s brief romantic hook up with Misty, and her physical altercation with Amber Brooks at a party where witnesses tell me the cat-fighting women had to be physically pulled apart.

While Amber tells me Ronald Cummings rarely saw their son, friends say Brooks remains bitter that Misty moved in with her ex, and may have been angling to take away her son. Investigators theorize a number of dynamics at play, including a Misty who may have been jealous of the women who had previously had children by her main man.

Kim Picazio, lawyer for Crystal Sheffield, tells me Brooks described to her how Cummings would “smack” his son, Junior, causing nose bleeds —a similar account Brooks told me as well — but a police source says Amber also praised Ronald as a fine father who did not abuse the kids in a recent interview with the task force.

“She tells people what she thinks they want to hear,” said a lead investigator in the stalled missing child case.

In an exclusive interview, the task force official who asked that his name not be used, tells me investigators on the Haleigh case would be exploring any conflicts between the bit players in this twisted epic of Jerry Springer proporations, in an attempt to learn more from the two women about Haleigh’s disappearance than previously shared under police questioning.

Sources tell me sheriff’s investigators interviewed Brooks last week after she also met with investigators for Putnam County Department of Family Services who questioned her about Ronald Cummings alleged abuse–charges leveled by Haleigh’s mother, Crystal Sheffield, who is trying to regain custody of their son, Junior.

Through his attorneys, Ronald Cummings has denied any physical abuse towards the children, and maintains he’s the better parent by a longshot. tsk.

DFS has previously investigated Cummings and reportedly found his use of physical punishment within the acceptable bounds of parental discipline.