Published February 13, 2009, in The St. Augustine Record

Media pour into missing girl’s small hometown

SATSUMA, Fla. — Crystal Sheffield stood up from her chair after an interview in front of a Fox News camera.

A producer removed the earpiece from Sheffield’s ear, and then she broke down into her sister’s arms.

She seemed to say the words, “Where is she?” If she didn’t say them, they were undoubtedly on her mind.

Sheffield’s 5-year-old daughter, Haleigh Ann-Marie Cummings, was reported missing Tuesday morning from her father’s home here, an unincorporated hamlet about 10 miles south of Palatka.

Less than 12 hours after Haleigh went missing, a memorial was held in Orlando for Caylee Marie Anthony, the slain 3-year-old whose mother has been charged with first-degree murder.

Caylee’s case has been national news since she was reported missing in June. By Thursday, Haleigh’s story also had garnered nationwide attention, giving Sheffield, a 23-year-old from Glen St. Mary in Baker County, an outlet to show her daughter’s picture to the world but denying her a moment to be alone with her thoughts.

About 20 television-satellite trucks and scores of reporters, photographers, cameramen and producers — from as far away as South Florida and Atlanta — assembled on a lot not far from where Haleigh lives with her father, Ronald Cummings, waiting for any kind of update from authorities. (By press time nothing had changed; Haleigh was still missing.)

Putnam County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Steve Rose walked between the rows of vehicles Thursday afternoon, dispelling a rumor that a sex offender had confessed to kidnapping the girl.

Rose, whose charge it is to deal with members of the media, said he has fielded calls from all of the major television networks. Earlier, the sheriff made appearances on a number of the morning shows.

Sheffield’s 21-year-old sister, Sarah Sheffield, and her mother, Marie Griffis, walked with her between the trucks after the Fox interview when they were stopped by a West Palm Beach-based TV news crew.

Sarah Sheffield asked that they not ask about the past between her sister and Cummings, as some already had.

“We’re not concerned about what has happened,” Sheffield said. “We’re just concerned about getting Haleigh back.”

She understood why reporters would ask about custodial or abuse issues but said those things would not help find the girl.

She wore a button with Haleigh’s picture on her tank top. Her sister wore three on her green shirt.

Norman Lewis, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Florida, said the attention news gatherers and news consumers give to stories such as Caylee’s death or Haleigh’s disappearance is an understandable extension of “all of our fears as parents.”

While the “presence of journalists may, on the surface, seem unseemly,” they play an important role, gathering information and getting it out to the public, Lewis said.

But that role of telling a story can flirt with becoming a menace.

After studying the Virginia Tech community’s reaction to the media’s presence in the wake of the 2007 campus massacre, Lewis found a universal sense among students and residents that they couldn’t wait until the throng of reporters and cameras left town.

In the hours after the bloodshed, a TV crew tracked down a victim at a hospital to get an interview. After that first one, he spent several hours talking with reporters, telling his story of being shot over and over.

CNN commentator Nancy Grace conducted interviews with Crystal Sheffield and Griffis, her mother, during the course of her show Thursday night, hours after they told the same story to Fox.

Instead of asking victims to repeatedly talk about the horror they’re living in, Lewis said, media outlets should assign a pool reporter and share the footage so to not burden the family.

“It can create an atmosphere that infringes and impinges upon that healing process,” Lewis said.

Outside of the subdivision, the Sheffield family gathered near a white fence with supporters and police staff. A stuffed Mickey Mouse was propped against the fence under a sign that read, “Our prayers are with you Haleigh.”

Above the fence, antennae from a number of the satellite trucks were visible, beaming Haleigh’s face into millions of American homes.

“We just want to get her back,” Sarah Sheffield said as her sister, mother and father started to walk away, toward the next interview.

A version of this article was printed Feb. 13, 2009, on Page 1A of The St. Augustine Record.