Missing Girl's Mom Opens Up to Geraldo

This is a rush transcript of "Geraldo At Large," from February 21, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

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(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

GERALDO RIVERA, HOST "GERALDO AT LARGE": When Ron Cummings is seen on television, most often, he is crying or in mourning or other conduct appropriate to a father whose daughter has gone missing. But the family on the mother’s side tells a much different story and a much different image emerges of Ron Cummings. Crystal, is not a fact that he was abusive to you?

CRYSTAL SHEFFIELD, HALEIGH'S MOM: Yes he was. He — when I first got pregnant with Haleigh, he punched me in the back of the head and before then, he was verbal. I mean he was just very abusive.

RIVERA: What did he call you?

SHEFFIELD: Stupid *EXPLETIVE DELETED*. You stupid *EXPLETIVE DELETED*. You *EXPLETIVE DELETED*. I mean you name it, he said it.

RIVERA: Describe when he punched you when you were pregnant.

SHEFFIELD: We were living in Leesburg at his mother’s house. And I had just found out I was pregnant. We were both doing cocaine and I stopped and I walked in the bedroom and he was doing it.

And I was like, you know, how are you gone do this in front of me after I just found out I was pregnant and I just stopped? And he got very pissed off and I had my — I was facing — I had my back turned to him. He punched me in the head and then I turned around and he kicked me off the bed.

RIVERA: And he knew you were pregnant when he kicked you?

SHEFFIELD: Yes he did. He knew.

RIVERA: And was he abusive, basically, throughout your relationship?

SHEFFIELD: The whole time. I mean his mother knew, his granny knew. His granny even told me once, um, I don’t know why you’re with him.

RIVERA: Why did you stay with him?

SHEFFIELD: Because I was scared to leave.

RIVERA: Are you frightened of him even today?

SHEFFIELD: Yes I am.

RIVERA: Why?

SHEFFIELD: Just because of all the things he’s done to me.

RIVERA: Are you fr— frightened that he’ll come after you?

SHEFFIELD: Sometimes I am. I mean he’s called and wanted me to come back several times and I have went back a couple times just to be with my kid and he was still the same and I left. It hurt to leave em but I’m not gonna put myself through that.

RIVERA: Do you believe his story about what happened?

SHEFFIELD: No, I don’t. I mean I know he loves Haleigh and — [PAUSES] — his temper, I mean it could get bad enough for him to hurt Haleigh. But I do know he loves Haleigh. Haleigh is his heart and everybody knows that.

RIVERA: Has he ever hit Haleigh?

SHEFFIELD: Um, my cousin, Candice, told me when we got down here for this incident, that, um, he come to her house — it was Ronald, Haleigh, Junior and Misty. And Haleigh bumped into him or smarted off to him and she said he just backhanded her. And she fell flat on her face on the porch.

RIVERA: Marie, you have a picture of Haleigh.

MARIE GRIFFIS, HALEIGH'S GRANDMA: Yes.

RIVERA: Do you want me to see it?

GRIFFIS: Yes. You get it.

RIVERA: Alright this is a picture, a disturbing picture, that shows Haleigh with an obvious black eye, a cut on her nose and the — a bruise that goes from the top of her left eye all the way down to the left side of her cheek.

Now I understand the school records indicate that she had an accident at school. Are these injuries the result of that accident?

GRIFFIS: Uh, that’s what we were told, that she fell at school and — or who was pushed at school by — by another child and that she fell catching the sidewalk and that was the results of it. But if you fall on the sidewalk, why didn’t her hands get skinned, her knees get skinned?

SHEFFIELD: [OVERLAP] The nurse said that all she had was a scratch on her nose.

RIVERA: So you — you — do you believe that Ron Cummings hit this child?

SHEFFIELD: I don’t know if he hit her or if she fell down or any other incident happened. But that did not happen at school. The nurse said she had a scratch on her nose.

RIVERA: And you have witnesses that he has hit this child?

SHEFFIELD: Yes.

GRIFFIS: Yes.

RIVERA: Do you believe that Ron Cummings knows who took Haleigh?

SHEFFIELD: Yes. I mean he’s told my brother and my fiancé that he knows — he’s 75 percent sure he knows where his daughter is. He said on TV that he had no enemies.

RIVERA: Is that true?

SHEFFIELD: No. He’s got plenty of enemies.

SHEFFIELD: I know when he’s really crying, that is fake.

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