Saturday marks three months since Haleigh Cummings, 5, disappeared from her home in Putnam County. Investigators say leads are not coming in as fast as they once did.
James Batchelor moved to the back woods of Satsuma for the peace and quite. All that changed Feb. 9 when the little girl who played with her brother down the street just vanished in the middle of the night..
"I look down there and they'd be out there and just having a big time and all -- BAM -- all this happened," said Batchelor, a neighbor of the Cummings family.
Batchelor was referring to the night that Putnam Sheriff's investigators say Haleigh Cummings was snatched from her home.
An intense search followed for several weeks by ground, water and air. Active searching has been abandoned with few clues leading to her whereabouts.
"It's frustrating for investigators. It's frustrating for the family. It's frustrating for the community down there," said Capt. Dick Shauland of the Putnam County Sheriff's Office.
Two tents where Haleigh's parents held round-the-clock vigils are gone.
Even Haleigh's father moved from the home she disappeared from. They lived a short distance from where authorities set up a command center. The command center is also gone, moved from Satsuma to Palatka.
The Haleigh Cummings command center is no longer located at the Putnam County emergency operations center. Tips and leads have dwindled from several thousand to just a few.
"They dropped off from several hundred a day to just several a day now," Shauland said.
Haleigh's house is quiet. The landlord says no one has been around for days. Only pictures, prayers and words of hope are left behind.
"She'll be found one way or another, and I hope to God it'll be alive because the little angel didn't deserve -- she didn't deserve it," Batchelor said.
It must be a horrible feeling to know that the search for your missing child has gone cold. Even though it seemed like her parents gave up that search a long time ago in favor of bickering over custody of Haleigh's little brother.
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