Lt.Johnny Greenwood and the mystery HaLeigh Cummings caller

by Timothy Charles Holmseth

          “We received the call at, you know, two thirteen in the morning, sometime shortly after two o’clock in the morning.”
          -Lt. Johnny Greenwood / Public Information Officer / Putnam County Sheriff’s Office 

June 20, 2010

When HaLeigh Cummings was reported missing on February 10, 2009, the public was immediately introduced to an audio recording of the 3:27 a.m. emergency 911 call made by Misty Croslin to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office (PSCO).

Nationally televised news networks, radio programs, newspapers, commentary, and the World Wide Web published and played the same words and recording over and over and over and still do to this day.

The time-stamped event has been etched into the publics psyche and the blessing of the PCSO is all over the news coverage.  

The harrowing sound of a teenage girl’s confused and distracted voice crackling away, the child’s father yelling and swearing in the background, and 911 dispatcher requesting information from each of them, are the sounds and images tattooed on the minds of the American public when they imagine the night HaLeigh Cummings ‘disappeared.’

But the 3:27 a.m. 911 call does not depict the true chronology, nor the chain of actual and true events of what really happened on February 10, 2009.

There is a gaping hole in the time-line and it was created by the PCSO.

On October 2, 2009, Lt. Johnny Greenwood, public information officer, PCSO, told Lise Fisher, reporter, Gainesville Sun, in a video-taped interview, that his department received a report regarding HaLeigh Cumming shortly after two o’clock in the morning on February 10, 2009.  “We received the call at, you know, two thirteen in the morning, sometime shortly after two o’clock in the morning,” he said. 

Greenwood’s revelation, eight months after HaLeigh Cummings was reported missing shows that law enforcement actually received a call concerning HaLeigh much earlier than then the public had ever known. 

The existence of a 2:13 a.m. call creates a period of time totaling almost an hour and a half of law enforcement knowledge and activity between the first call and second call.

And indeed, there was a great deal of activity already occurring.

During the 3:27 a.m. 911 call, there was already a sheriff’s deputy at the residence of 116 Tyler Street. That is the residence of Misty Croslin’s brother, Tommy Croslin.

No record of an official call made to law enforcement and/or subsequent dispatch of an officer to Tommy Croslin’s residence is contained in the existing 911 transcript and none other has ever been made available to the public.

The police radio logs show the officer was at 116 Tyler regarding HaLeigh Cummings.

That is a tremendous problem because HaLeigh had not been reported missing yet.

In effort to obtain a clearer picture of what is being said on the 911 transcription, Write Into Action requested an expert analysis of the 911 transcription.

Mavis Johnson (not her actual name/name on file with Write Into Action) is a 911 supervisor for a police department in a major metropolitan Midwest city. She agreed to analyze the 911 transcription so the public could understand what is being said in the police language and codes of the radio logs.

“There is a lot of information missing,” Johnson said.

Johnson said early on in the transcript a field sergeant is asked to call (by telephone) the dispatcher. “That information that was passed between the dispatcher and the sergeant is crucial, because when there is sensitive information, or information that you don't necessarily want on the dispatch tape, it can be passed on to the sergeant or unit via the land line,” she said.

Johnson said the dispatcher referred to a 10-51, which, in police radio language means ‘follow up investigation.’ “That's pretty universal in the dispatching world meaning somewhere there was a call for service involving the same parties or same address. The address on Green (Ronald Cummings’ address),” she said.

The code, 10-51 that calls out ‘follow up investigation’ is an enormous clue when the mysterious 2:13 a.m. call regarding HaLeigh is considered.

It becomes even more cynical when one learns some of the conversations between dispatch and officers were deliberately being done over the phone so they would not be taped.

“Again, I believe this [information regarding a previous call for service] was passed on to the sergeant 1120 through the phone line, not through radio transmissions. There is defiantly more information that was passed on to officers,” Johnson said.   

Write Into Action contacted Lt. Johnny Greenwood and asked about the un-published communications that took place the night Haleigh Cummings was reported missing - no response was received.

At the time of her analysis of the 911 transcript, Johnson was not familiar with the smaller details of the HaLeigh Cummings case and did not know who Tommy Croslin was. She did not know the significance of the 116 Tyler address that an officer was referencing in the transcription. “Is 116 Tyler a relative’s address? I am a little confused about that,” she asked. “The more I go over that section of the transcript I believe that unit was clearing from another call for service and available to assist in the signal 8 (missing person) call.”

The 911 transcription clearly shows there was a call for service made to the address of 116 Tyler that the PCSO does not want to talk about.

It is not known who made the call.

During the 3:27 a.m. 911 call by Misty Croslin, the deputy at Tommy Croslin’s residence says, “She was seen within her residence about 1 to 1-1/2 hours ago.”

That statement by the deputy creates a tremendous problem for the timeline of events.

Somebody reported HaLeigh Cummings missing at 2:13 a.m. and it couldn’t have been Misty Croslin.

Whoever reported HaLeigh missing at 2:13 a.m. provided law enforcement information that directed a unit to the address of Tommy Croslin. However, there is no record in the official radio log of a unit being dispatched to that residence.

Write Into Action believes the identity of the 2:13 a.m. caller is what the PCSO is trying to hide from the public.

Ronald Cummings made an extremely high volume of cell-phone calls to Misty Croslin the night in question but received no answer from her. The incessant calling of Cummings to Misty Croslin could (in theory) be explained by the fact that Cummings says she was babysitting his children that night (thus he was worried because she wasn’t answering her phone). It wouldn’t be un-reasonable for a father to call law enforcement and ask for a welfare check to be done if he was worried about his children.

However, that could not be the case in this situation.

According to Attorney Terry Shoemaker, his client Ronald Cummings accepted over-time at his place of employment on the night in question. Cummings also stopped at a convenience store to purchase cigarettes, beer and peanuts after he got off work. In fact, in order to get to the convenience store where he purchased his leisure items he actually had to drive right past the turn that led him to his home.

That is not the behavior of a father who 45 minutes prior had made a call to law enforcement requesting a welfare check on his children.

If the 2:13 a.m. call to law enforcement was made by Ronald Cummings, and it is ever revealed that that is the disturbing fact being hidden by the PCSO, there will be a nuclear explosion in the case of missing child, HaLeigh Cummings.

There is no way the PCSO is going to be able to explain to the public how Ronald Cummings could have reported his daughter missing at 2:13 a.m. and then later acted like he had just learned of it when he arrived home at almost 3:30 a.m.

Candidates to be the mystery caller are few.

The first thing Misty Croslin told the 911 dispatcher when she called at 3:27 a.m. was that she just “woke up.”  If Misty Croslin had been the 2:13 a.m. caller, the PCSO would have known that – this was the first and only telephone conversation they had with her.

The 3:27 a.m. time of Misty Croslin’s 911 call, minus approximately 1 to 1-1/2 hours (the amount of time the officer says passed since HaLeigh Cummings was seen within her residence), equates to approximately 2:13 a.m. (the time that Greenwood said the PCSO received the first call about HaLeigh Cumming).

Who called the police?

“We need to know what was said from dispatch to the sergeant. The dispatcher made the request for him to call her so [the dispatcher] had some more information in relation to the call that was not put out over the radio transmissions,” Johnson said.

The American public does not know the identity of the HaLeigh Cummings 2:13 a.m. mystery caller, why the dispatcher and officer suddenly switched to a telephone, or what they said.

State’s Attorney RJ Larizza, State’s Attorney Joseph Boatwright, FDLE Special Agent Dominick Pape, FDLE Special Agent Jason Jolicuer, FDLE Lt. Peter Warren, PCSO Sheriff Jeff Hardy, Chief of Staff Rick Ryan, Major Gary Bowling, Captain Dominic Piscitello, Captain Dick Schauland, Lt. Johnny Greenwood, Detective John Merchant, Detective Peggy Cone and Sgt. Ricky Lyle all know.

They just don’t want you to know.

Those law enforcement officials in the State of Florida will tell the mainstream media they checked videos from sightings of HaLeigh Cummings and follow up calls to the businesses will reveal they had not.

Those law enforcement officials in the State of Florida will allow the public to believe a 911 call came in at a certain time when they quietly admit a call was actually made 1-1/2 hours earlier.

Those law enforcement officials in the State of Florida will go on national television and say a little girl they can’t find is dead with absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support it.

But law enforcement officials in the State of Florida are damn sure not about to tell you who made that 2:13 a.m. call to police about HaLeigh Cummings.

Not even if you ask.

tholmseth@wiktel.com