And this is what Ron said on NG in response to a caller's question about the lock:
"GRACE: OK. Lili, you might need a second job as a private I.
To Ronald Cummings. Ronald, isn`t the previous owner the reverend?
CUMMINGS: As I believe it is the reverend`s mother and father. And I think they deceased here in the home. I`m not sure. You would have to ask them. But I do know that I personally went to Wal-Mart and bought the deadbolts and the locks that were on there so nobody else had a key to this house.
GRACE: OK, because I believe that he told me, the former owner, the reverend, that he had placed a lock on that back door but you also placed locks as well, correct? Got it.
CUMMINGS: Yes, ma`am, they were there. I took them off and put my own on.
GRACE: To Barbara.
CUMMINGS: I don`t want nobody to have keys in my house because I didn`t want this to happen."
transcript here:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0903/16/ng.01.html
- - - - - - - - - - -
On Issues with JVM, Marie Griffis re-stated the idea that the lock was too high:
"MARIA GRIFFIS, HALEIGH`S GRANDMOTHER: Just the fact that there`s so many conflicting stories about where the children were sleeping at that night. Once they`re all three in the bed together. Then once Junior is in a bedroom by himself and Haleigh is in her room. And now both of them was in their bedroom and she was in her room. And it just makes me more suspicious.
And the back door, how did the back door -- it`s secured by the father. On an interview,
he said he secured that door, and the deadbolt was up high enough, Haleigh could not reach it and open the door. So it leads me to believe somebody had access with a key from the outside or either someone was in the house or either Misty unlocked the door for someone.
It -- it just makes the stuff come tighter together on the girlfriend, to me."
Interestingly, within the same interview, Marie talks about Crystal having been inside the mh from where Haleigh was taken:
"GRIFFIS: I don`t know anything about the TV.
My daughter, Crystal, has been in that house, and she said Haleigh and Junior have beds set up in one room and then there`s a big bed in the room that, I guess, Ronald and Misty would sleep in, and that`s the one that we understand that they were all three in."
transcript here:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0902/13/ijvm.01.html
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Here are more mentions of the lock and Crystal saying she has NOT been inside the mh:
"GRACE: Back to Crystal and Marie. Crystal, have you been in the home since you`ve been there on Monday?
SHEFFIELD: Yes, I have not. No, I have not.
GRACE: You have not? Marie, have you?
SHEFFIELD: No.
GRACE: Do you have any.
GRIFFIS: No, I haven`t been...
GRACE: Do you have any idea what kind of lock was on the backdoor?
GRIFFIS:
No, we don`t. All we know is Ronald said there was a dead bolt on the backdoor on the inside that was up high enough that Haleigh couldn`t.
GRACE: OK.
GRIFFIS: . get to it and that he locked and secured that door before he went to work.
GRACE: Dead bolt. All right, back to the lawyers, Eleanor Dixon, Peter Odom, Gwen Lindsay-Jackson."
transcript here:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0902/12/ng.01.html