Handcuffed To The Ocean

This is the third installment of what Chuck told me on September 11, 2009. I frankly discounted most of what he said because of the throat slitting/alligator allegations. But later, when allegations about Joe Overstreet threatening both Tommy and Misty with a knife to the throat came out, I reviewed this interview and gave it more credence. In the next installment you’ll see what I did with that information and what the PCSO did with it as well. I’m confident that the PCSO did not find any blood in the mobile home. So I think you’ll find the next installment interesting and it does shed a good light on the PCSO and how they follow up on things.

Chuck stated that Misty was in court the other day and Misty’s brother received a restraining order against Misty because Chuck thinks Misty is crazy.  Chuck feels that she is psychotic because she is into drugs too bad.

Chuck stated that Jerome is the closest person to the girls.  Chuck stated that Danny was living in the apartment with them but Chuck felt that he would not give any information to Steve.

Chuck stated that he did not have any information regarding the back screen door being propped open with a brick.  He felt like it might be a set up.  He stated that the story has changed so many times he is just not sure.

Chuck stated that Greg Paige (White Boy Greg) was actually dating Misty.  Chuck has Greg’s number but was not able to retrieve it from his telephone.  Chuck stated that Greg was questioned extensively by the police after Haleigh went missing.  Chuck stated that Greg was very helpful with the information he provided the police.  Chuck stated that the even the drug dealers are trying to help the police because this is a baby that everyone is looking for.

Greg Page

Chuck stated that White Boy Greg is a drug dealer.  He also stated that Jerome has been a drug dealer for 27 years.  Chuck stated that Greg sells crack, cocaine, pills, weed, everything.  Chuck stated that Greg was dating Misty and that Jerome has actually had sex with Misty.  Chuck stated that at one point Jerome was dating NayNay and at another tine he was dating Amber.  Chuck feels like Jerome will sit down and talk to Steve.

Chuck stated that Amber and NayNay were with another drug dealer and Jerome took them under his care so that he would be able to get information from them so he could find out what happened to the baby.

Jerome Williams

Chuck stated that the police tried to link Jerome to the incident for a while because Ronald owes Jerome about $3,000 to $4,000.  Jerome told the police that it did not matter how much money Ronald or anyone owed him, he would not go after the baby, he would go after the person that owed him the money.

Chuck stated that he does not know who actually carried Haleigh down to the river.  Chuck stated that NayNay keeps saying that Misty is 100 percent behind the crime.  Chuck stated that NayNay cries when she tries to tell the story.

Chuck stated that Cobra, the bounty hunter, has been down there trying to help find the baby, but he has been doing stupid stuff and has gotten in trouble with the police.

Chuck stated that Amber Brooks and Khristina Prevatt are both in the county jail.  Chuck stated that Amber could give Steve a lot of information about Ronald Cummings.

Chuck stated that he was planning to meet with a girl, (redacted), this afternoon and that (redacted) is really good friends with NayNay and Amber.  Chuck stated that he could probably get her drunk and could get some information out of her.  Chuck stated that he would call Steve if she would agree to talk to him.

Chuck stated that he has heard that it is Misty that is responsible for what happened to Haleigh.  Chuck could not get specific information regarding who would have cut Haleigh’s throat.  He stated that everyone is pointing the finger at Misty saying she did it to keep herself from getting in trouble with Ronald.  Chuck stated that they cut her throat so that it would bleed and attract the alligators to the body.  Chuck stated that he got his information from Amber Brooks and Kristina Prevatt.  Chuck stated that Kristina was talking to another individual and he was there listening and that is how he got his information from Kristina.  Chuck stated that she was telling this information to Jerome Williams and a couple of other “brothers”.  Chuck stated that both he and Jerome went to the police with the information. 

Chuck stated again that he was not present at the party but Kristina was and he overheard Kristina say that the baby overdosed on drugs and they cut the baby’s throat and threw her into the creek.  Chuck stated that Jerome was there at the same time.  Chuck feels that Jerome knows more about the incident than he does. 

Chuck stated at the present time Jerome is in the St. Johns County Jail.  Jerome was originally arrested and put in the Putnam County Jail and he requested to be moved to the St. Johns County Jail because he felt like there were too many people that knew him in Putnam County and he was coming forward with his information to help the police to solve the Haleigh Cummings incident.    Chuck stated that Jerome is black.  Chuck stated that Jerome is the one that took care of these girls, specifically the ones on the street with no where to go.  Chuck stated that although Jerome had his faults he was actually a very kind person.  Jerome was the one that would take the girls in and feed them and clothe them when they did not have any place else to go.

Chuck stated that when Kristina is on cocaine you can get any information out of her that you want.  Chuck stated that the day that Kristina was talking to Jerome she was “pretty high”.  Chuck stated that Kristina would only tell someone in her “group” what had happened when she was high, she would not tell just anyone.  Chuck was not sure which other girls were present at the time, but he thought it was Amber Brooks, and (redacted).  Chuck feels that if kept in confidence ….. at this point Chuck named some names of people that he thought might be willing to talk. These names have been redacted as they are not public figures.

Amber Brooks Mug Shot

Chuck stated that the sheriff’s office told him that they are hearing the same story that Chuck has told them but they won’t follow up on anything until they know it is 100% accurate. Misty has failed four polygraphs. We’ve told the police that Misty is 100% behind this.

Chuck feels that it is more than likely that whoever cut Haleigh’s throat did it at the river because there was no blood in the trailer.  Chuck felt that whoever committed this crime did a real good job of planning the crime.  He felt that they did not want the baby found.  Chuck feels like Misty is involved but because she is so young there had to have been someone there helping her. He did not hear anything about weighing the body down with cinder blocks.

More to come from Chuck.

Hank Croslin called me one night and said I had to go out right then and talk to Chuck. Chuck knew everything that happened to Haleigh. I met Chuck the next morning at the Dunkin Donuts in Palaka.

When I first talked to Chuck and he mentioned that Haleigh’s throat was cut. I completely dismissed what he told me. Later, I came to believe that this might have indeed happened. It was too outrageous for me to get my head around it at that time. I did record this conversation with Chuck and later gave a copy of the recording to the PCSO. We’ll talk about that later. I changed Chucks name and deleted some other names of people who have not been publicly associated with the Haleigh Cummings case. Those known to be associated with Misty and the events of that night, I have left their names in. This conversation with Chuck was  in September 2009, well before anything had been said about shell harbor.

Steve Brown

The following investigation was conducted by Steven K. Brown of Millennial Investigative Agency on September 11, 2009.  The following individual was present:  Chuck.

Chuck stated that he had a great desire to help in any way that he could to help solve this case.  Amber Brooks and Kristina Prevatt (aka NayNay) were known prostitutes.  Amber has a baby by Ronald Cummings.

Chuck stated that the rumor that he has heard regarding the three day weekend involved Misty Croslin, Amber Brooks, Kristina Prevatt, Greg Paige (aka, White Boy Greg) and Luckadue (Chuck did not know his real name, he thinks Luckadue is his real last name)  Chuck stated that Luckadue is Black and White Boy Greg is mixed.  Chuck stated that all of them have been questioned by the police.  Chuck stated that he was not with the above mentioned people on the weekend in question.  Chuck got his information about the weekend from the girls because they were very close with him. Chuck said he has known them for quite a while.  He said that they would get together and “party”.  Chuck defined partying as getting together and hanging out and drinking and maybe smoking some marijuana.  Chuck stated that the girls would do more drugs, but he did not but he did drink mostly Jim Bean and Crown Royal which is his favorite.  Chuck stated that Misty is known to have a drug problem.  Chuck said that he was aware that she has smoked crack and takes pain pills, etc.  Pills like Roxies and pain pills etc.

Chuck stated that he has heard that it is Misty that is responsible for what happened to Haleigh.  Chuck could not get specific information regarding who would have cut Haleigh’s throat.  He stated that everyone is pointing the finger at Misty saying she did it to keep herself from getting in trouble with Ronald.  Chuck stated that they cut her throat so that it would bleed and attract the alligators to the body.  Chuck stated that he got his information from Amber Brooks and Kristina Prevatt.  Chuck stated that Kristina was talking to another individual and he was there listening and that is how he got his information from Kristina.  Chuck stated that she was telling this information to Jerome Williams and a couple of other “brothers”.  Chuck stated that both he and Jerome went to the police with the information.

Chuck stated that he has heard the following accounts of the morning in question:  They were all partying, they were high, and they were drunk.  The baby got a hold of some narcotics and overdosed on the narcotics.  Chuck stated that there is also a rumor that stated that the baby’s throat got cut and was thrown into the lake.  Chuck said that the people he has heard that was “there” was:  Kristina Prevatt. Amber Brooks was not there because she and Misty had gotten into an argument (about what he was not sure) and they were no longer friends so she left earlier that evening.  Chuck stated that White Boy Greg, Luckadue and Kristina Prevatt and some other people that Chuck did not know were at Misty’s that evening.  Chuck stated that everyone knew that Ronald Cummings was not at the party and most people agree that he was at work.

Now I don’t personally believe the story that Haleigh overdosed on drugs  that caused  Haleigh’s death. We’ll get more into that in the next post. If there is any doubt about Nay Nay’s chosen profession see the below photos taken from the site BackPage:

I know many of you have been waiting for the next Haleigh Cummings blog post. It has been uploaded and will appear on Sunday, probably in the evening. In the mean time, I’d like you to consider taking a look at my latest book, 5 Things Women Need to Know About the Men They Date.

It is available on Amazon as an e-book for $4.95 and as a paperback for $7.95. Frankly it’s not very long (77 pages) and can be read in one sitting. However, I think you’ll be entertained by the stories as well as learning some things. It’s good for both men and women who are in the dating scene, regardless of your age. For $4.95 don’t take a chance on a new person in your life until you read this book.

This is from the forward in the book:   This book is not a work of fiction. It is based on true cases worked by the author. The names, locations, amounts of money involved, and in some instances other details have been changed to protect the privacy of my clients and also those scumbags who took advantage of my clients.

One of my favorite dive sites in West Palm Beach in Spearman’s Barge. But before I talk more about about this great dive site, I want to thank my good friend Lazaro Ruda for allowing me to use a few of his photos and the video clip at the end. For more images, visit him at the www.thelivingsea.com.

Spearman’s has a greater abundance of yellow, blue, black, and silver marine life than any other sunken barge in West Palm Beach and is also tied to a tale of murder-for-hire and a missing million dollars.

Robert Spearman loved snaring spiney lobsters and shooting Nassau groupers for dinner.  In 1966, he opened a diving business named Little Fin and spent his weekends under the calm ocean.  He learned that the big game fish preferred the larger boxy structures of artificial reefs to the smaller crevices formed by rocks and corals.  Business expanded, Little Fin grew into Spearman Marine Construction, and Robert sank his first and only artificial reef.  The large- lipped, heavy-bodied fish schooled to a new home.

In November 1985, Robert found his second wife, Anita, bludgeoned to death in her bedroom.  Anita was the assistant city manager of West Palm Beach and well-liked by business associates and personal friends.  Five months later, police arrested Robert and charged him with his wife’s murder.  Days before the court proceedings started, Robert transferred close to a million dollars to his ex-wife to hold until the good citizens declared him innocent.

During the trial, the prosecutor showed that Robert Spearman answered a murder-for-hire ad in Soldier of Fortune magazine and enlisted two gunmen, one an owner of a strip-tease bar in Tennessee.  The jury convicted Spearman and sentenced him to life in prison, plus twenty years at Zephyrhills Correctional Institute.

In the cool spring days on chain-gang duty, Spearman handed out hundred dollar bills to fellow inmates for information on how to break out of jail and get even with the prosecutor.

Finally, he devised a plan to charter a helicopter to fly into the grass compound, carrying two machine guns and four hand grenades, and snatch him free.  On the day he presented the cash to his would-be-pilots, he was arrested by undercover agents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Three days later, Spearman hung himself with a bed sheet in his cell.

Anita’s murderers were tried and convicted.  Spearman’s cremated remains were scattered at sea.  Anita’s children won a libel suit against Soldier of Fortune magazine for 12.4 million dollars for printing the ad.  The magazine has stopped running such ads.  The million dollars given to the ex-wife?  She says Robert gave the money to her as a gift and refuses to return it to the State.

And the sunken barge?  The rectangular structure rests on a rise in a sparse patch of sand and rocks.  A row of rusted iron railings at the southern end has a circling school of grunts and snappers that at times block the view of the barge.  Lobsters and morays peek out along the pitted base.  And a goliath grouper roams the outside greeting divers before he slips inside and hides in the shadows.

Please visit Lazaro Ruda’s The Living Sea to view the video: https://vimeo.com/43056003

Until next time,

Honeymooners go for the romance, fishermen for the hook and line, and divers/snorkelers for the gorgeous reefs. I don’t fish, but Kitty and I act like newlyweds everywhere we go, and we both loved the ocean. So I hit two out of three.

Irish Luck

Last July, my good friend Walter Burns invited us to go with him and another friend Carol Chesser for a boat ride to Key Largo and to stay a week for fishing and snorkeling. No way was I turning that down.

My past experiences of diving and snorkeling in the Keys were fun, but the charter boats always seemed to be overcrowded, taken to reefs that had other boats anchored around them, and I always seemed to bring bad weather and rough seas with me. But Neptune was smiling on me this trip. Every day was blessed with flat, lake-like seas, water warm enough to bathe in, and the visibility on the reefs stretched for miles. OK, maybe not quite that far, but several hundred feet.

Kitty

Under the boat

 

 

Into the water I went. Oh, yeah. Lots of fish. The daytime temperatures reached into the mid-90s, so I guess the hull of the boat provided some shade, and all reef creatures moved into the filtered light. Fine with me, as I don’t like to swim far. Isn’t that the purpose of the boat? Instead of swimming a great distance, motor close.

I stayed with the sergeant majors as the sun tracked across the sky. These guys were merciless when it came to attacking the Sargasso weed. The palm size fish would hit the grass with such intensity, bits of the yellow strands would cloud the water. The black and yellow fish would hit the floating grass in onesies, twosies, then in mass so that the ocean was a blur of fins.

 

 

Brain coral

 

 

Then there are times, I like a quieter ocean. To watch the light dance across a bluish-white sand. Often, away from the madding action along a reef line, there is a coral structure sitting out on the plains, its own oasis.

The water was shallow enough to hover above the coral and study it. Flashes of solid yellow or blue fingerlength fish dart around the curves, indentations, and caverns that are a part of the structure. And with a little concentration, one can watch the polyps spread out and latch onto pieces of food floating by in the water column. It seems a quiet place, but the longer I observed, I noticed it was just as busy as the major reef, but on a smaller scale.

 

 

 

Anemone

 

 

One of the creatures in the ocean that seems to captivate me is the anemone. The long fingers reaching upwards, swaying back and forth with the current. With some of the species, I like to hold my hand near-by and watch them reach over and explore by fingertips, palm, and the back of my hand. Sometimes, it feels like tape bouncing along my skin. Caution should be given at this point. Not all anemones are friendly, and can leave you with a nasty infection. Know your cnidarians before attempting this.

 

 

All in all, this was the best vacation I had in the Keys. Every day the ocean was flat, the water warm, and the skies a peaceful blue. They were the type of days that you hated to see the sun set.

 

I will return.

 

Until next time.

Which seas are considered the “7 Seas”? Historical scholars cannot agree on which ones to include or excluded. These muses of wisdom say it depends on which civilization you’re talking about. It seems the Romans had a different set than the Greeks who had a different set than the Arabians. From my limited history in grade school, I think the most romanticized sailors were the Arabians, thus in their world the 7 Seas are: Adriatic Sea, Arabian Sea, Black Sea, Caspian Sea, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and the Red Sea.

Fueled by stories of Sinbad from my childhood days (OK, I still like stories and movies of Sinbad), I’ve always wanted to travel the routes he sailed. And when the Eurythmics had their hit song, “Sweet Dreams”, the lyrics were forever planted into my mind. You know the song: “Sweet Dreams are made of this,  Who am I to disagree,  I travel the world and the 7 seas,  Everybody’s looking for something.” 

Thus on my bucket list is to swim in the 7 seas.

Adriatic Sea - View from Hotel

Last October, while with my wife on her victory trip of beating breast cancer, we went to Tuscany. In the middle of the two weeks there, we scheduled a side trip to the eastern shore of Italy and visited the town of Rimini and splashed into the Adriatic Sea. For a Florida boy, the water was a little cool. While in West Palm Beach our ocean temperatures were still in the upper 70s. Here in the waters that have seen battles by the Arabians, Greeks, and Romans, I’d say warmth of the sea was just below mid-70s.

Into the water I waded. Had to get in, didn’t come all this distance just to wimp out.

In the summer time, this beach is a tourist destination. There is barely enough of the sandy beach to go around for the thousands of blankets needed by the bikini wearing sun worshipers. In October, the place is deserted. The hotel we stayed in was the only one open. Season closes October 1st. The hotels were boarded up for the winter. It looked like the town was abandoned. Thus, my wife and I didn’t have to share the beach or the water with anyone. The way I like it.

The sea was calm, and with the hard packed sand bottom, it was easy to wade out from shore, letting my body adjust to the temperature. The  Eurythmics’ song blaring in my head. Visions of Sinbad sailing in the distance.

Swimming in the Adriatic Sea

I love the oceans and the salty seas. It must have something to do with the water and our bodies being mostly composed of water and salt. I feel a true connection that cannot be broken.

The swim was relaxing. I didn’t quite swim out to the horizon and back, but I did go far enough to have a nice workout. It felt amazing to be in the same waters that eons of history have been written upon.

Now, I’m trying to decide which sea I should visit next, and how I can combine more than one on a journey.

Until next time, “Sweet dreams are made of this.”