Haleigh Cummings (5) disappeared some time between the night of February 9, 2009, and the early hours of the next day. That night, she and her younger brother, who was 3, were staying under the care of 17 year old Misty Croslin (pictured above), their father’s live in girlfriend. The father, Ronald Cummings (also pictured, with Misty), was working that night and arrived to their trailer at around 3 am. By that time, Haleigh was gone.

According to Misty, she’d gone to sleep at around 10 pm in the same room as the children, but had woken up shortly before Ronald’s arrival to find Haleigh missing and the back door of the house held open with a cinder block. Police found no signs of forced entry. Haleigh’s little brother claimed to have seen a man in black take his sister but it’s uncertain how seriously his account was taken, given his age, and even his own father dismissed it later.

All this happened in Satsuma, Florida, the same state that was at that time in the midst of the Casey Anthony case. In fact, February 10, 2009, the day Haleigh was reported missing, was the same day of the memorial service for Caylee Anthony, whose remains had been found two months earlier.

And just like in Caylee’s case, the police soon started looking into Haleigh’s inner circle, particularly at Misty, who gave several inconsistent statements about the night in question and allegedly failed four polygraphs. Eventually, more than a year later, Misty and her brother Tommy accused their cousin Joseph Overstreet of taking Haleigh. They said he’d come to the Cummings’ house to look for a machine gun and when he couldn’t find it, he took the little girl instead. Through his lawyer, Tommy Croslin claimed that Overstreet had thrown Haleigh’s body in the river. Misty said she’d lied because she was afraid of her cousin and that he’d sexually abused her when she was a kid. The river was searched and no body was found, and Overstreet has never been charged. Neither has anyone else, and Haleigh’s fate remains a mystery.

Tameka Anderson (25) has been missing since February 23rd, 2010. The mother-of-two was last seen in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at the Telco Federal Credit Union. Tameka went there to withdraw money from the ATM, which she planned to use to buy a car. After leaving the credit union, Tameka called multiple family members to tell them that she was headed to Galvez, Louisiana with an acquaintance to buy the vehicle. The car was never purchased and Tameka never returned home. She has never been seen or heard from again.

The acquaintance Tameka was with that day has not been publicly identified. It appears that Tameka’s family is unaware of that person’s identity. However, they do believe that this person had something to do with Tameka’s disappearance. In fact, Tameka’s aunt told reporters that she does not believe the acquaintance had any intentions of helping Tameka buy a car. The aunt explained, “I believe it was a setup. They knew she got her income tax. She told them how much money she had.” Still, investigators stated that they were unable to find any evidence of foul play and news about Tameka’s case seemed to fade as the months and the years passed.

Over time, Tameka’s family members grew frustrated with the lack of support from their community. Tameka’s brother believes that people in their community are sticking to “street code”, which means they refrain from speaking up or getting involved in the bad things they witness. Tameka’s brother attributes this to the rate of unsolved crimes in the Baton Rouge area. All of Tameka’s family members believe that someone has more information about Tameka’s disappearance that they are not sharing. Tameka’s aunt told reporters, “Someone saw something that morning. Someone saw Tameka get into a car as she left her house that morning. But nobody is talking.”

Alexis Murphy (17) was last seen by her family and friends on August 3rd, 2013. That day, Alexis left her family’s home in Nelson County, Virginia, to head to the town of Lynchburg for a hair appointment she had planned in preparation for her upcoming senior portraits. At the time, Alexis was an avid social media user with a decent following for a young teen from a small town in Virginia. She posted several tweets throughout the day on the 3rd. At 5:04pm, Alexis tweeted “burg bound !” to indicate she was headed to her hair appointment. Her final tweet was posted at 5:40pm, presumably before her appointment began. 

Alexis was seen for the last time that evening at 7:15pm at a gas station in Lovingston, Virginia. The image posted above on the right was captured from CCTV footage at the gas station. She disappeared shortly after this footage was captured. Her family reported her missing later that evening when she did not return home. The FBI joined the case two days later.

On August 11th, 2013, 48 year old Randy Allen Taylor was arrested on kidnapping charges in Alexis’ case. Investigators were led to Taylor after they found that he, too, was at that gas station in Lovingston on the evening of August 3rd. In fact, surveillance footage shows Taylor opening the door to the gas station convenience store and Alexis walking in. The footage shows that the two did not speak and it did not appear that they knew each other at the time of this interaction. Additionally, investigators found that Alexis’ final cell phone pings were located close to Taylor’s camper located off US 29 near Lovingston. 

Who is Eklutna Annie?

On July 17, 1980, the skeletal remains of a female were found in a heavily wooded area approximately one mile south of South Ekluta Lake Road close to milepost two in Eklutna, Alaska. Based on the state of her remains, she probably died at least in 1979 and had been stabbed in the back, resulting in her death. She was dubbed “Eklutna Annie” by investigators and her case remains unsolved.

Between the ages of 16 and 25, she is a white female with a possible Native American admixture who stood between 4′11″-5′4″ (149-162 cm) in life, had a slim build, and had light brown hair with a red tint. Due to the state of her remains, her eye color and weight could not be determined. She was found with numerous pieces of clothing and accessories that may aid in her identification. She was found wearing red knee-high high-heeled vinyl boots with a nylon zipper on the side, a wide copper bracelet with three (3) inset turquoise pieces, a turquoise and brown shell necklace with a heart pendant, gold twisted metal loop earrings, a white shell ring with a brown inset ring, and a ladies Timex chain-linked wrist watch with gold plate with a brown face and white hands. Near her body was a brown leather jacket, which inside the pockets were matched to the brand Salem. Nearby was also a light colored sleeveless knit sweater, which may have been white, light gray, or beige in color, along with a pair of jeans. Just four years after Jane Doe’s discovery, a confession to her death was made.

Robert Christian Hansen was a serial killer in the Anchorage, Alaska area. Between 1971 and 1983, he abducted, raped, and murdered at least 17 women in the area. He normally killed his victims by hunting them as they ran in the woods near his home. In 1984, Hansen confessed to murdering at least 17 women, including Eklutna Annie. However, it is believed that he murdered many more based on a map Hansen had marking the locations of his victims, which had more than 17 marks on it. Hansen claimed that Eklutna Annie was his first victim and that she was either a topless dancer or a prostitute. He claimed that she and or her family may have lived in Kodiak, Alaska, approximately 400 miles south of where she was discovered. Hansen claimed to have killed her when she tried to escape his vehicle while trying to transport her to his own residence. As a result, he was sentenced to 461 years in prison with no chance of parole and he died in 2014. Decades later and after extensive investigation, Eklutna Annie remains unidentified.

At 52-years-old, serial killer Velma Barfield - also known as the ‘Death Row Granny’ - became the first female in the United States to receive the death penalty after its reinstatement in 1976. Velma confessed to multiple murders using arsenic between April 1969 and February 1978.

Her victims included her second husband, her mother, her boyfriend, and three elderly people who she was entrusted to look after. They each became violently ill with nausea, diarrhoea and vomiting before succumbing to the poison. Velma’s first husband, Thomas Burke, had also suspiciously perished in a house fire but she always insisted that this was just a freak accident. Her motive was often monetary gain, except in the case of her mother’s murder; Velma had long-harboured feelings of resentment towards her mother, as she had remained silent while Velma was physically and sexually abused by her father for years.

Barfield was executed by lethal injection on 2nd November 1984 at Central Prison in North Carolina, becoming the first woman to die in the United States via this method of capital punishment. While on death row, she devoutly practised her Christian faith and showed genuine repentance for her crimes.

Velma chose one bag of Cheez Doodles and Coca-Cola for her last meal, and when asked for her final words she made the following statement: