Lonzie and Haleigh relation hard to dismiss for investigator

PUTNAM COUNTY, Fla. — Lonzie Barton and Haleigh Cummings share strikingly similar disappearances. Action News Jax had previously discovered the two missing children are related.

Captain Dominic Piscitello is one of the lead investigators with the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office on Haleigh’s disappearance case.

Sitting on his desk is a photo of Haleigh’s father Ronald Cummings, when he was in middle school.

“They're getting ready to work on a new age progression of Haleigh around the age of 11 or 12 so it's more current,” Piscitello said.

The cases were more similar than he thought -- Lonzie and Haleigh are distant cousins.

Piscitello said as soon as he heard Haleigh and Lonzie were related, he could not dismiss it as coincidence.

“We actually reached out to the maternal side of the family to talk about that with them -- about that relationship -- and they are distant. There really wasn't a relationship there,” Piscitello said.

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Two months ago Piscitello put himself in the shoes of Jacksonville detectives as they desperately searched for Lonzie.

Action News Jax Law and Safety Expert Dale Carson said the connection forces law enforcement to look at the investigations differently.

“Maybe there was an exchange of information between these two groups about horribly how to dispose of a child or maybe these individuals are connected with somebody else,” Carson said.

Piscitello said they’ve found no evidence linking the two cases other than the family dynamic. He said if there’s one thing he learned with Haleigh’s case it’s to never lose hope.

“We are not giving up, it’s a tough case,” Piscitello said.

WJAX