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Haleigh Cummings Update: Misty Croslin Sentenced to 25 Years in Unrelated Drug Case

Haleigh Cummings Update: Misty Croslin Sentenced to 25-Years in Unrelated Drug Case
Haleigh Cummings (Family Photo) (Family Photo)

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (CBS/AP) Haleigh Cummings has been missing for over a year and a half, and on Friday her ex-stepmother, who is believed to have been the last person to see Haleigh alive, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for unrelated drug charges.

PICTURES: Haleigh Cummings Missing

Croslin and Haleigh's father, Ronald Cummings, who divorced shortly after Haleigh disappeared, were arrested along with three others in January following an undercover operation. The others, plus Cummings, have each been sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Croslin told police that she put Haleigh to bed, along with the girl's 4-year-old brother, at around 8 p.m. and that when she woke up at 3 a.m. Haleigh was gone and the back door of the north Florida house she shared with Cummings was propped open by a cement block. Cummings reported her missing when he returned from work.

Almost immediately investigators started to see holes in Croslin's story.

Croslin has changed her story a few times since, pointing fingers at "the other side of the family," referring to Cummings' family.

In April, Putnam County Sheriff Jeff Hardy announced that they no longer considered Haleigh's case a missing person case and were treating it as a homicide. That announcement came as investigators were searching a section of St. John's river, about five miles from the Cummings house.

Although police have stopped short of naming Croslin a suspect, they did bring a handcuffed Croslin to a search site on the river at one point in the hopes that she would give them more information about what happened to Haleigh the night she disappeared.

Croslin pleaded no contest to the drug charges in August, and her attorney told reporters yet another version of events surrounding Haleigh's disappearance. In this version Croslin says she did see what happened to Haleigh the night she vanished from her home in Satsuma, Fla. According to her attorney, Misty heard Haleigh being attacked by her cousin, Joe Overstreet

No one has been arrested in connection with Haleigh's disappearance.

COMPLETE COVERAGE OF THE HALEIGH CUMMINGS INVESTIGATION


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