The search for Haleigh Cummings Action News Jacksonville - admin Posted by admin on Jan 26, 2012

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Haleigh Cummings home is only a speck on the map of Palatka county. Even from a birds-eye view, it is hard to see the homes in Haleigh's neighborhood. Finding a six year old girl has been even harder.
"Each one of those plots were searched the best they could be," says George Pottorf, who has been searching for Haleigh since the day she went missing.
Each step behind Haleigh's neighborhood takes you deeper and deeper into the woods. Action News found that once we hit certain spots in the woods, you could barely see a person in front of you, let alone a scrap of evidence at your feet. They are woods, a forest, that only experts can get through. Woods so deep and so thick, that even our camera had a hard time getting through some of the thickest terrain in Florida.
This is the first time the public gets to see why a search on this land is so difficult.
"You don't want to find anything, that's the key," says Pottorf. "Actually, you're hoping for a good result and obviously if you find what you are looking for, it's not going to be a good end result."
Pottorf has the training necessary to find the clues that could lead to a break in the Haleigh case. He owns hundreds of acres right next to Haleigh's home and knows the land well. As a lieutenant with the Florida Fish and Wildlife, George is also an expert in the water. In the early hours of the investigation, George searched for Haleigh by boat too.
"On the very first day, we spent probably about 16 hours out here. We were hoping to find just a cold wet little girl."
The area Haleigh was taken from is filled with razor sharp palmettos, vines and shrubs. Finding a shred of evidence is almost impossible for the untrained eye.
"That's why we like trained searchers to be able to try to identify recent items, versus something that's been there awhile," explains Pottorf.
Most of the woods aren't walkable. Searchers needed four wheelers just to get through. In these woods, even the most obvious piece of evidence can be hidden by nature.
You would think someone would pull off the road and say lets search right here, it's going to be easy but in reality it's hard.
"In reality its going to be tough, at least the first 50 feet is going to be," explains Pottorf. "Trying to walk through there with the hollowed out sections, your foot would go in but your body would keep going, people were constantly tripping."
While searchers hunted for clues they were also worried about things hunting them. The woods are filled with deadly spiders, ticks, rattle snakes, cottonmouths and pygmy rattlers.
Pottorf says potential evidence created problems in the search too.
"A lot of times searchers would find remains [...] which are obviously animals," he said.
Satsuma woods are filled with animal bones. Each time some are spotted, George says the search has to stop.
"Obviously we'd have to stop, mark it, tag it, if we thought there was anything suspicious about it, especially in the later weeks. Obviously in the early weeks you're not going to have that type of deterioration, but it held up the investigation several times."
Search crews went through four thousand acres of thick North Florida country side searching for Haleigh, and there are thousands of acres left to be searched. These acres become just a spot from the sky, but people believe that spot may hold the answers to find Haleigh.
The Department of Children and Families became aware of the allegations of drug use by Crystal. DCF requested a random toxicology test of Crystal Sheffield, during the course of their investigation, as they found it relevant to investigate Crystals fitness as a parent. At that time, in June 2009, I learned from DCF that Crystals infant daughter, Chloe, not even one (1) year of age, had been born with illegal narcotics in her system due to Crystals drug use during her pregnancy. The DCF caseworker had not informed me of this DCF case against my client, and I had no prior knowledge of the case until that time. DCF dismissed the investigation against Ronald Cummings, without explanation.
Duration : 0:3:3
http://toenews.com/news-items-about-fitness/the-search-for-haleigh-cummings-a...

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News & Politics

Tags:

• misty croslin
• ron cummings
• amber alert
• florida
• homicide
• tommy croslin
• searches
• Haleighbug
• Kim Picazio
• Crystal Sheffield
• drugs
• arrest
• missing child Haleigh Cummings
• Satsuma
• Florida
• killing fields

[thejoker2f]

what kind of sick person would do that

[DotiBump]

Probably a crackhead.

[jimmys3160]

@DotiBump it could be anybody doesn't mean its a crackhead

[DotiBump]

@jimmys3160 I meant Tommy Croslin, A specific Crackhead

[scenegta]

XD Cummings but i guess since this is serious its not funny

[ThElYrICs159]

god my name is haleigh im scared. it also sounds weird to hear my name on the news lol

[whoopee95]

that was an awesome story matt did there, i hadn't seen it.. Matt rules when it comes to Haleigh Coverage

[ElSadisticoTheGreat]

Haleigh 404'd

[thejoker2f]

yea lol

[SlowAndSteady2]

Wow