PUTNAM COUNTY, Fla. — The Haleigh Cummings case gripped the First Coast in 2009 when the little girl suddenly vanished from her home in the middle of the night.
The lead detective from that case, John Merchant, told First Coast News he knows the person who could break the case wide open.
"I think about it every day," Merchant said. He still thinks about the case 10 years later. He was the lead detective with the Putnam County Sheriff's Office but no longer works there.
"We investigators who worked on the case feel like we know what may have happened, but we can't prove it," he said.
Haleigh Cummings, 5, was at home in Satsuma one February night in 2009 with her little brother and her father's teenage girlfriend, Misty Croslin. When her father came home from work, Haleigh was gone.
Merchant believes Haleigh's father's alibi of being at work checks out. The next day, search teams scoured the neighborhood and divers and boats were in the nearby St. Johns River because two bloodhounds led them there.
Croslin, the adult with Haleigh that night, first told police someone came into the house and took the child. However, Merchant doubts that.
"The child is in the bedroom, literally next to her," Merchant said. "There's a little boy in the bedroom. She's in the bedroom. You have locked doors. There is no forced entry and Misty hears nothing. But yet [Croslin] wants us to believe a stranger came into the house and took this little girl in the middle of the night. I just don't believe that happened."
Merchant said that months later, Croslin changed her story and said she saw her brother and cousin take Haleigh "lifeless" out of the house and to the river.
Merchant said the cousin did not talk to investigators and a secondary search of the river turned up nothing.
Merchant took Croslin to the river. A news helicopter caught images of them on a dock. Why did he do that?
"The hope was to get her to say something, to reach into that soft spot in someone's heart and we didn't get it," Merchant noted. "She said nothing."
Merchant said Croslin eventually recanted her statement about her brother and cousin taking Haleigh.
"There's no indication of any violent struggle or crime at the scene," he said, "so it could be an accident, and someone or somebody in the group is covering it up."
First Coast News asked Merchant, "What would it take to break this case?" He replied, "Misty. She's the one with the inconsistent statements. If she could give us one truthful statement, I think we'd be somewhere."
Croslin has been convicted on unrelated drug charges and is now in prison.
As for where Haleigh is, Merchant believes she is dead. Without going into detail, he said, "The river's close. The river's real close to the back of the house, about 100 yards away."
Although he can't prove it, Merchant indicates the river is where the mystery of Haleigh lies.