Whodunnit? Haleigh Cummings' Homicide Suspects Winnowing Away

With the Haleigh Cummings search turned homicide investigation, public attention is turned to the question "Whodunnit?" Simon Barrett of Blogtalkradio, who has been following the case since Haleigh first disappeared a year ago February, reported Sunday that Steve Brown, a private investigator hired by Haleigh Cummings' mother Crystal Sheffield, says he knows the answer to the "Whodunnit?" question. According to Barrett, Brown indicated that the suspect would surprise those familiar with the case.

In a April 13 report, Barrett talked of a male tipster whose information led to the Shell Harbour Boat Ramp search on the St. John's river, saying his identity "leads to a very intriguing possible chain of events that does tie directly to one of the folks currently experiencing the hospitality of the Florida jail system."

What exactly the tipster statement means is uncertain. Almost any chain of events would tie to Misty Croslin Cummings, jailed on drug charges, simply because she was the babysitter responsible for watching Haleigh Cummings on the night the 5 year old vanished. And tying the case to one of the parties in jail does not necessarily mean that the jailed person is the killer.

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PI Works to Get A Decades Old Death Ruled Homicide

All these years have gone by, and Barb Thompson still clenches with teary-eyed anger when she lingers outside this little house at 114 Twin Peaks Drive.

She stood here 10 years ago, too. In December 1998. The day after her daughter, Ronda Reynolds, a 33-year-old former state trooper, was found dead inside. Curled up in the bedroom closet with a bullet in her brain.

Reynolds' husband said she had killed herself. So did the sheriff's department and the county coroner.

Thompson didn't buy it. Not then. Not now.

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Slain Father Had Hired Private Investigator

Durban man Johan Lotter, fearing for his life and those of his wife and children, had hired private investigators after receiving death threats in the week leading up to his murder.

Lotter, 53, and his wife, Magdelena, 52, were slain at their Thames Drive, Westville, home at the weekend.

Their children, Hardus and Nicolette, appeared alongside Mathew Naidoo, Nicolette's boyfriend, on two charges of murder in the Pinetown magistrate's court on Wednesday.

Lotter had been strangled, and his wife died of stab wounds.

Private investigator Brad Nathanson said Lotter had approached him last week after receiving several SMSs and a letter threatening his life.

Investigator Specializes in Blood-Spray Analysis

The spray of blood means more to Les Guttmann than it does to most of us.

The lone investigator of the Fruita Police Department’s force of about 15 officers has never really gotten an answer to the question of when the small city of nearly 6,500 last investigated a homicide.

But if a murder did occur on Guttmann’s turf, the former Los Angeles patrol officer might get a try at solving it by calling on his expertise in blood-spatter forensics.