Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Court filing reveals how Tad Cummins pressured Elizabeth Thomas

Episode Date: April 7, 2017

Elizabeth Thomas’ father is asking a court to force witnesses to disclose everything they know about how Tad Cummins plotted to make the high school freshman his wife. Cummins, 50, is one of Tennessee’s most wanted fugitives after allegedly running away with his young student. This episode looks at revelations from a new court filing by her family. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Breaking right now, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation confirms a sighting of 15-year-old Elizabeth Thomas and Tad Cummings. TBI says Cummings used cash to purchase food items, but did not buy anything else of significance. Elizabeth Thomas was brand new to the Cullioca School in Murray County. She started as a freshman this year, entering the public school system for the very first time. She's 15. He's 50. This is Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

TBI says that Cummins was a teacher. A student reported seeing Cummins kissing Elizabeth in his classroom in late January. Police arrested Elizabeth's mom, Kimberly Thomas, last year. They charged her with five counts of child abuse and neglect. Cummins told two students he's a father figure to Elizabeth. He stole my daughter from me. As sheriff's deputies race to Mitchell International Airport in the search for Elizabeth Thomas, a schoolgirl abducted by her pervy teacher, Tad Cummins, bombshell now

brand new court filings. Send a strong message from Elizabeth's father claiming the pervy teach, Tad Cummins, threatened Elizabeth. She did not want to go with him and more, more facts coming out in the search for Elizabeth Thomas. I'm Nancy Grace.

This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Anthony Thomas, Elizabeth Thomas' father, has gone to court to depose witnesses who claim they have knowledge about Tad Cummins' inappropriate relationship with his daughter. deputies race to the International Airport on a tip that Elizabeth was en route on a flight with Tad Cummins. An early morning tip came from a passenger on a Delta flight from Minneapolis who reported that Tad Cummins and the girl, kidnapped girl Elizabeth Thomas, were on the plane. Officers raced to the airport to find out the latest. Deputies and TSA agents were on the case. Media showed up according to a passenger from Louisville,

Cassandra Miller. As we all know, 15-year-old Elizabeth Thomas has been taken by her teacher, Tad Cummins. I'll get back to you on what's going on at that airport and what went down, but Alan Duke is with us. Let's talk about what the father is saying this morning. Alan, what do you know about these court documents? It's a real bombshell what he's claiming. What this does is it sets the stage for Jason Watley, the lawyer that we've been talking to, for the father to do some questioning. Repeatedly, when we've talked to him, he's made a comment saying, well, they're now not talking to me. They've shut down. I can't talk to these witnesses to find out. So this is his way of getting a subpoena for witnesses to force them to disclose details that might help find Elizabeth Thomas.

What I'm learning in this filing is incredible, including the fact that, catch this, Alan. Now, this is after, after the school is put on alert that pervy teacher Tad Cummings is kissing a student on the lips in class. Cummings was a chaperone, possibly the only chaperone on a student field trip that Thomas was on in late January. Remember, the kissing incident was January 23. I saw the pictures, but I didn't know that Elizabeth, his victim, was on the trip. Not only that, he went repeatedly to the girl's home without the parents' knowledge and pressured her to go out on dates with him, threatening, quote, repercussions at school if the girl didn't go along with him.

That Elizabeth told her friends, even her siblings, she felt overwhelmed and quote, over her head with the teacher, that she was afraid of him, but was afraid of what would happen if she said no, that he would repeatedly show up where she worked at Chick-fil-A, sometimes against the girl's wishes, and many times she asked co-workers to lie when he would pull in and say she wasn't there. That he told Elizabeth that her future college and work career was ruined because of the kissing incident and tried to make her feel guilty about basically his suspension from the school.

That, you know, her whole future was down the crapper. Another student found Elizabeth sleeping alone on a hospital bed in Cummins' classroom early, early one morning before classes began, indicating they had been spending time alone before the school was open to students. That repeatedly she told the friend who dropped her off at that Shoney's that morning that she did not want to go and that she didn't even want to spend the whole day with him. And she told the friend she was meeting someone other than Tad Cummings. I mean, it goes on and

on. I'm just touching. I'm just hitting the tip of the iceberg, Alan. What do you think? What are we going to find out next? That's what I'm wondering. And that's what this is all about. As I said, some of these people are hesitant now to talk to Elizabeth's father's attorney. In fact, here's a quote from the statement that the family put out. Perhaps the most concerning element has been the hesitancy of some persons to fully cooperate in sharing information that they know.

What we heard Jason tell us was that the father of this student refused to allow him to talk to her, that kind of thing. But we keep every day another shoe drops, and we still don't know where Tad Cummins has taken this child. You know, I've got the documents right here in my hand. First of all, I want to thank Simply Safe, our sponsor today, and our continued efforts to find Elizabeth Thomas. We're not giving up on her. Other media may. Other investigators may.

But we are not giving up the hunt for Elizabeth Thomas. Her life has already been forever altered. She's never going to be the same girl she would have been if she had not been kidnapped by her teacher. That said, what can we do now to help Elizabeth? SimpliSafe is helping us do that. SimpliSafe makes home security affordable and available for regular people, not just millionaires living in gated communities somewhere, but regular working people like me and you that work for a living and have a family to support and protect. If you go to simply safe dot com slash Nancy you get another 10% off

that $14.99 price tag a month. One of the many things I like about Simply Safe it's not married to your home landline or your cell phone. So many cases I've covered, the home invaders or the burglars, they cut your line and then get into your home. You pick up your phone, it's dead. Okay, that's not just in the movies. Not so with SimpliSafe. They have their own independent and protected line and it's so easy to install they have a video i looked at the video my nine-year-olds could do it probably better than me actually simply say thank you for being our partner and our sponsor i'm proud to be your partner now alan i'm going to go back to these documents and in paragraph a it says the morning morning Elizabeth disappeared, she told her little friend that she was seeing another teen.

She wouldn't even divulge to her friend who was really meeting her. But she did say she was having second thoughts and that she wanted to go home. She made up a name for that person. Thomas. Yes. Yeah, used the name Thomas. Yeah, use the name Thomas. That Tad Cummins, unbeknownst to the dad, had been showing up over and over at his home, threatening the little girl if she didn't go with him, she'd flunk out of his class at school. I mean, this girl had never even been in public school before. She'd been homeschooled her whole life.

And then a teacher tells her that? Heck yeah, I'll go out to lunch with you if you're gonna throw me out of school if i don't she didn't even know any better she told her sister and friend she was scared of tad cummins and felt that she couldn't say no to him you know that just makes me sick and can you believe that according to this document tad cummins and they were on his facebook i saw the pictures of him with all these other young girls taking them on a quote field trip and elizabeth was on the trip and this is after he's been caught kissing her on the mouth at school what was the school thinking? It defies my understanding.

And I don't know, and I hope, that the fact that his wife, Jill Cummins, worked at the Board of Education as an executive assistant, I hope that had nothing to do with it. Well, let me tell you something. My twins today went on their very first away-from-school, out- school out of the city field trip okay and i'm about had a fit let me tell you something you know where mommy was this morning at 6 a.m

up in that school parking lot smelling the breath of the school bus driver. Oh, yes, I did. I got right up in her face and said, oh, thank you so much. Smelling her breath and checking her out. She thought you were just being extra friendly. Why, this Nancy Grace lady is so friendly. And then I walked all over that school bus. I mean, it was a charter bus because there were so many, they wouldn't fit in a school bus. It was all the third grades stuck together.

And looked at the bathroom looked at every seat walked up and down you know like i was just going oh hey i was looking everywhere to see if there were any adults in there that i didn't know checked out all the chaperones of course if parents had been invited i'd have been right up in there alan but sadly it was just the teachers i checked them all out out, looked at them, saw who all was going, where my children were sitting. And then I sadly and irritably went and sat in my car until they left. I started to follow them, but Lucy and John David are on to me. I mean, I know they'd look out the back window and see me.

You know, so I didn't do it. But I wanted to, Alan. But can you imagine a teacher has kissed your girl in the mouth and then they have him chaperoning a field trip with her? Uh-uh. No, Alan. N-O. Where was the disconnect on this? Something disconnected someplace. What? Don't throw your California phraseology on me. Disconnect. That's just outright stupid. Okay. I'm putting it out there. You've lived in LA long enough. It's rubbed out your emails. I didn't go to some middle Georgia school. I went to Carrollton, Georgia, Carrollton High School. We learned that at West Georgia College. I learned those big words. Disconnect. So it's just flat out S-T-U-P-I-D to send this child on a trip with him. Why is he

taking anybody anywhere after he's been caught kissing a girl in the mouth? If I were all the other parents, I'd be mad too. Not just Elizabeth's parents. Disconnect. That's the only word. And that's the word that I learned. My grammar teacher taught me that one. Putting perfume on the pig. So tell me, what is the latest that law enforcement is saying? Check the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. And they've not said anything about this case, at least on social media or really publicly now for more than a week. The last thing that we've heard from them was the confirmed sighting in Oklahoma City that dates back to March 15th. And then the false alarm in Nebraska a week ago.

And then the other false alarm this week. This brings up this question. What do you do if you think you see Tad and Elizabeth? What do you do? 9-1-1. 9-1-1. Don't try to call the TBI. Yeah, forget about it. Now, hold on just a moment. I want to go back to that woman who tried her best, the passenger aboard a Delta flight from Minneapolis who reported Cummins and Thomas were on the plane. I mean, how could they? Let's just say they were not on the plane. Let me just say that right now. They were not on the plane, but thank you, lady, who called it in for trying. But let's just say

they tried to take a flight. They'd have to. I don't know. I mean, I don't know if TSA would catch it or not. If they came in with his driver's license and his ID, if you have a minor, you don't have to have ID for the minor. I think it would have done all kinds of red flags. I don't think that they could not get spotted and get on a commercial flight in the USA. I don't think that can happen. Well, they're living somewhere and they're eating somewhere and nobody has spotted them since that sighting in the Walmart in Oklahoma, Oklahoma City. And that was just two days after they vanished. The other Nebraska McDonald's sighting, which looks so much like them. I don't think that was not them. See, I thought it did.

The guy had this pork chop beard and his belly was a little bit bigger, believe it or not, than Tad's. Well, you're paying a lot more attention to his belly than I am. I thought it looked like them with a change of hair. But when you look, when you really look, you see that it's not them. So that was a false sighting. This Delta sighting was a false sighting. So are we just going to lay down and accept that they're gone? No.

And there's nothing we can do about it? No. I think that the sightings, even the false sightings, are a good sign because it means people are aware all over the country. And they have a general idea. But please, people, look at the pictures that are posted on CrimeOnline.com. Look at those and really get that in your head because they could be down the street. They could be in your backyard in the woods camping. You may see them. Who knows? I think that they're probably changing their appearance even more. Well, another thing is I'm sure he's intimidating her and lying to her.

You know that because he's already lied to everybody else. Why would he stop now? I think he's probably gone ahead and shaved his face completely. There's some reason that he chose to color his goatee as opposed to cutting it off. And I wonder what that is. Must have been one of those CIA tricks he learned. Vanity. Vanity, thy name is Tad Cummins.

Cummins, white male, six feet tall, about 200 pounds, brown hair. I think he weighs more than 200 pounds. Yeah, he does. He looks like he's two feet. Believed to be armed with two handguns, tip line 1-800-TBI-FIND or 911. And if they're going to be cited, it's going to be somewhere like Walmart getting provisions. He loves Walmart. A superstore somewhere like Walmart. As the days pass, this is going to be more and more under the radar. But I, for one, have not forgotten it. That is the important thing. The reason the lawyers and the prosecutor and the police talk to us and let us know things is because we need information to keep you interested in this case.

Because out of sight, out of mind. We're going to keep following this. You may get tired of it, but I don't think people are. We don't need to let this guy go under the radar and be forgotten. You know, I hope i never see him again except when he's handcuffed and booked but for her i mean she's got a chance at a real life not so much for him but it's amazing to me he can just turn his back on his wife his children his grandchildren everything for what we're not giving up on Elizabeth. Yes, there are other cases that have bubbled up to the surface

since Elizabeth was kidnapped by her school teacher, but we're not giving up as we also cover those cases. Please don't give up on finding Elizabeth Thomas and bringing her home. Again, Simply Safe, thank you so much for making this podcast possible and being our partner in finding Elizabeth Thomas and so many others we are searching for. Finding missing people, solving unsolved homicides, highlighting crimes and social injustice. That's what Crime Stories is all about. I want to thank you for being with us.

Alan, as always, thank you, friend. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.