Exclusive: Tommy Croslin Says He Lied To Cops
April 30th, 2010
"Snip"
By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, © artharris.com, all rights reserved
In a blockbuster twist, and possible setback, to the Haleigh Cummings murder case investigators are working so hard to build, The Bald Truth has learned Tommy Croslin now claims he lied to police about dropping by Ronald Cummings trailer at 10 p.m. the night the five year old Haleigh vanished.
“He lied to the cops to get out of jail,” adding that Putnam County detectives were recently made aware of his retraction. “It’s no secret.”
Last year, when Croslin was behind bars with no way out of the Putnam County Jail with no money and there was no way Croslin could come up with five grand.
“Tommy said they (investigators) kept pressuring him to tell them something new about Haleigh, “so he made up going to the trailer at 10 p. m., and they reduced his bond to $5,000, and he was able to get out of jail.”
investigators aren’t buying his new spin and still aim to use the 10 p.m. drop by in the time line–all part of Putnam County Sheriff Jeff Hardy’s Herculian efforts to make a murder case as airtight as it can be with no body, no weapon and no confession, before he hands it over to the State Attorneys’ homicide prosecutors.
Sources tell me a grand jury would likely be empaneled to hear a pitch for probable cause then they believe they have enough to obtain arrest warrants.
That visit, The Bald Truth reported, was prompted by a call from Ronald Cummings at work, asking him to check on his then 17 year old girlfriend, Tommy’s sister Misty. After going AWOL, on a three day drug and sex binge-revenge romance with another man, she was back, exhausted and declaring she didn’t want to babysit that night.
Beyond fueling suspicion that Misty may not have been home, leaving details of Haleigh’s demise to explode with horrific rumors; Tommy’s admission was the first time anyone else had admitted being at the trailer during the murky timeline Misty had been unable or unwilling to fill in–until she fingered Tommy and cousin Joe as perps.
“I was mad at Ronald that day,” Chelsea Croslin tells The Bald Truth, “because he wouldn’t roll down his window so we could wave at Haleigh. He was in a hurry.”
Back at the trailer, she says Tommy later reported Haleigh was happy, doing wheelies on her bike, and playing with her brother, Junior, and Tommy’s children. Misty cooked dinner. At 6 p.m., Tommy says he dropped by and smoked a joint with his sister.
Tommy’s wife has said she believes he was home that night babysitting their three kids when she returned from nursing school about 10:15-10:30 p.m. that night and Tommy was there.
She went to bed and thought Tommy had, too, she told me, and has been his consistent alibi
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