Lonzie Barton Update: Missing 21-Month-Old Boy Related To Haleigh Cummings, A Girl Who Went Missing In 2009


In an update on the case of missing Lonzie Barton, authorities are still searching for the child who allegedly vanished after a carjacker ran off in his mother’s boyfriend’s car while he was in the back seat. The 21-month-old in Jacksonville, Florida hasn’t been found yet, but in an interesting coincidence, it’s been discovered that he’s related to another child — Haleigh Cummings; she went missing in 2009. First Coast News reports that Lonzie and Haleigh are distant cousins.

The family relationship is on Haleigh’s mother’s side of the family, the report explains.

Haleigh Cummings (Photo Credit: First Coast News]
Haleigh Cummings (Photo Credit: First Coast News]

Haleigh disappeared in the middle of the night from her Putnam county home in 2009. The little girl is still missing.

Captain Gator DeLoach with the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office reveals that detectives assigned to the Haleigh Cummings case will be contacting the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office “to look for similarities in an effort to resolve both cases.”

Haleigh’s great-grandmother, Annette Sykes, says that she’s praying Lonzie’s family.

“We understand exactly how they feel. To realize that not only is Haleigh missing but so is her cousin. I don’t even know the words for it.”

Sykes says she doesn’t know if there’s a connection between the two cases, but finds it ironic that both were with siblings when they disappeared.

“It gave me cold chills,” Sykes says.

In a report out by the Orlando Sentinel, investigators aren’t optimistic about finding Lonzie Barton. William Ebron is now a suspect in the case, the Jax Sheriff’s Office announced via Twitter on Saturday. Ebron is the boy’s mother’s boyfriend who said he went back inside the apartment to get something while Lonzie and his 5-year-old sister were inside his car waiting to pick up their mom on Friday. The car was running and the 5-year-old went inside the apartment to tell Ebron that she was “scared” of a man outside. According to Ebron, he says he then heard the vehicle speed off.

When authorities began their search, they found the car several blocks away with the car seat inside it, but there was no sign of Lonzie.

The Jax Sheriff’s Office reveals that now that the facts have come together, Ebron is definitely considered a suspect. He quit cooperating with investigators and has lied about Lonzie Barton’s disappearance.

Tom Hackney, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Chief of Detectives, said Ebron’s story has been wrong all along.

“Without a doubt, the report that he gave, that his car was taken by some unknown suspect and left by some unknown suspect is a lie and is not true.”

Hackney doesn’t have a good feeling about Lonzie’s disappearance.

“We’re still going to work this as a child abduction because, honestly, I don’t know what happened to Lonzie. I can’t say at this point and time whether Lonzie is alive or dead.”

Ebron, 32, was arrested late Friday and is charged with “two counts of child neglect in a different case.”

As for Lonzie’s parents, his mother and father aren’t suspects in the case. They’ve been cooperating with police and investigators don’t believe they had anything to do with the boy’s disappearance.

The longer Lonzie Barton is missing, the less hope investigators have.

[Photo Credit: Florida Dept. of Law Enforcement via Fox 10]

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