Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Tad Cummins: Rejected by commune, nabbed in student kidnapping

Episode Date: April 21, 2017

Members of a California commune rejected Tad Cummins for membership and instead alerted police they suspected he was the Tennessee teacher wanted for kidnapping a 15-year-old student. KDRV-TV reporter Mike Duffy joins Nancy Grace and Alan Duke in this episode to discuss details of how Cummins tried to hide in a remote community but was caught when neighbors became suspicious. We also learn victim Elizabeth suffered severe emotional trauma but is home with family. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. And as daylight broke this morning, they were able to take Tad Cummins into custody and safely recover Elizabeth without incident. 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. This afternoon, we couldn't be happier to tell you she will soon be on her way back home to Tennessee. As you know by now, pervy high school teacher Tad Cummins busted nearly 3,000 miles from home with his student Elizabeth Thomas. The news is breaking quickly. We have just obtained a statement for immediate release from the Thomas family lawyer. It says, Elizabeth Thomas is in a safe location with family and friends. She is comfortable and resting. She's being evaluated and treated by mental health experts

specializing in trauma. There is no doubt she has suffered severe emotional trauma and that her process of recovery is only just beginning. The family extremely grateful for the thoughts and prayers of the nation and asks sincerely for those continued prayers as Elizabeth becomes able to process the last 30 days. The family asks for privacy as this journey begins. On a personal note, I met Elizabeth for the first time. I was taken aback by who she is. Elizabeth is a little child.

She could easily pass for 12. The primary photo used and reprinted so many times by law enforcement, media, and even our office is inaccurate. She is a little girl in every sense of the word. This was the abduction of an impressionable little child. S. Jason Whatley, attorney at law. Alan Duke, that breaks my heart. Yes, yes. We've gotten to know Jason and all of the work he did to bring Elizabeth Thomas home. It just makes me proud of the podcast that we've done about this case because this is another one of those cases where it ended with a happy ending. Well, before you start patting yourself on the back too much, Alan Duke, okay, did you hear what he said? She's being treated by mental health experts and that she looks like she's 12 years old. I feel awful.

Well, and he said she suffered severe emotional trauma. And when I said a happy ending, a lot happier than the one that some people might have foreseen. Yeah, I was really worried this whole thing would end in a shootout with police. Joining me now, my colleague, Mike Duffy, in addition to Alan Duke. Mike Duffy from KDRV News Channel 12. You know, the case has cracked wide open about Tad Cummins' arrest after Elizabeth Thomas has been recovered almost 3,000 miles away from home. Tell me, Mike Duffy, first of all, it's great to talk to you. I just love you to bits and always have.

Thanks for having me, Nancy. I want to hear your thoughts and your observations about the terrain, about the capture of tag comings, whatever insight you can give us because this is your neck of the woods. Yeah, well, you know, this is an area that did not see this coming. It's a remote part of Northern California. Very few people live there. The entire county has about 45,000 people live in Siskiyou County. So it's easy to see how someone could go there and escape for a period of time. Now, this is also the meeting area of multiple national forests. You have both the Shasta Trinity National Forest.

You also have this popular trail that runs through the area. And people come from all over, backpackers, transients, they go to this place to get away. And it seems that in this case... Okay, wait a minute. Mike Duffy, let me ask you, say, backpackers, transients go here to get away. I noticed a lot of mainstream media was bending over backwards to say, this is not a commune. But is it? What is it? It is a commune. And, you know, I think that what they were trying to say, this is not a commune. But is it? What is it? It is a commune. And, you know, I think that what they were trying to say was that they weren't intentionally going to this place.

What we found in our coverage at KDRV is that they were looking for this commune. It seems that he might have watched a documentary by the name of Commune that came out in 2005, which highlights this commune that people did go to. It's called Black Bear Ranch. It's in a very remote part of the state. He was ultimately found in a town called Cecilville. The entire town of Cecilville probably has about 30 or 40 people in it. So it's not a big place of its own.

About 20 miles north of it in a mountainous area is Black Bear Ranch. And Black Bear Ranch is only about 80 square miles in total. And this area has about six or seven people living in it. But it is a commune. It did start back in the 60s. And it's a place where people still can go to get away. Wow the more people said it's not a commune it's not a commune I knew it is a commune. Okay so you're you're telling me that it is at a commune but you don't think they necessarily were trying to go to the commune whatever you're saying very rugged terrain a place where people want to get lost. Would he have had to have researched this area, Mike Duffy, in order to know it was there? You have to intentionally go there.

We sent our own reporters to this place. It took them multiple hours to even find the commune, to find Cecilville. These roads, even at this point in the year, you know, we're in the springtime. It is April. They still had a hard time getting there because roads were still filled with snow. Active logging is going on in this area. You have to know where you want to go. And also, let me clarify. He wanted to go to Black Bear Ranch.

He wanted to be a part of the community. But the Black Bear Ranch people said, we're not quite sure you fit in here and told him that they had to leave. How do you know that, Mike? We spoke with multiple people who were there. In fact, we interviewed one man who lives on the commune. His name is Peter Laughing Wolf. And he interacted with him one-on-one. He said that Tad Cummings was kind of an aggressive personality. He said that he saw Tad and Elizabeth. He spoke with Tad, but he thought it was interesting because while Tad was aggressive, Elizabeth kind of took a more submissive role.

He said Tad spoke for Elizabeth most of the time when they interacted. That's very odd. Well, what I'm understanding from Mike Duffy joining us is that he wanted to be part of the commune, but they didn't know that they wanted him. So how did that happen? And if they didn't want him there, how did he end up in that cabin overnight? Well, so the cabin is not actually on Black Bear Ranch. It's down the hill in Cecilville. So it's about 20 miles south between Black Bear and Cecilville. And what he did was he arrived in Cecilville. He met up with a young man,

29 year old by the name of Griffin Berry. And he said, you know, we're trying to get to Black Bear Ranch, but we have no more money left. We're out of gas. Griffin Berry politely filled up this guy's tank, gave him 40 bucks, said, you know, best of luck going to Black Bear Ranch. So then Tad and Elizabeth went to Black Bear Ranch. They spent a couple of days there. It sounds like the Black Bear Ranch people said that they wouldn't be a good fit there. So he felt rejected and came back down the mountain, still had no money, still hard on his luck, and met back up with Griffin Berry. Griffin Berry said, you know what?

If you want to work for us, we'll let you live in this little cabin in the backyard and you can do things for us. So the first day they did hard physical labor. Apparently they were moving stones from the river into the yard. It sounded like they were trying to build something of a fence. And it was your Lord in heaven. It was within that time that Griffin Berry was tipped off that, Hey, this could, this guy could be someone really bad. So he goes to the commune. They reject him. Do you know why they rejected him? Did they realize who it was? I don't think they realized who it was. And in fact, they said that they were surprised, but they did realize that something wasn't right. They realized that this person didn't quite fit in to what they wanted. And it's

also interesting, Nancy, this Black Bear ranch is actively looking for people to join their commune, but they still rejected that couple that showed up. For those of you that are not in Mike Duffy's viewing audience there in the Oregon area, Mike was with me for many, many years as a producer, on-air talent, and reporter at HLN. And he can really sink into a story. So, Mike, I've been studying the map. And you really had to know where you were going. You really had to plan this out.

You don't just see a sign on the side of the interstate and go, Hey, let's go to Black Bear or Black Paw or whatever it is, Commune. No, you've got to know about this and know how whatever it is, commune. No, you got to know about this and know how to get there. Exactly where is it, Mike Duffy? So Nancy, Black Bear Ranch is about 60 miles south of the Oregon border. It is, as some people say, one of the most remote places in the United States. You have to know where you're going. You have to want to get to that location. It's very difficult to wander. In fact, our reporters, who work not far away from there, had a very difficult time tracking down Cecilville as it was. It took them hours. They couldn't get past roads that were filled with snow.

And there were other problems in their way. You know where I'm going with this, Mike Duffy. You know me well enough to know how I'm thinking. This is going to be more evidence of premeditation. He didn't just pick her up that morning at Shoney's where she said, you know, I need help. Save me. This is something he had thought out very carefully, and that's going to go against him in a court of law. Now, you're saying it's very rugged terrain. You have to know where you're going.

He was basically rejected from the people at the commune. So how did it all unfold? How was he nabbed, Mike? So he was living in this cabin. He agreed for room and board, essentially, and a little bit of extra money that he would stay and do manual labor just south of the Black Bear Ranch. This was a good Samaritan who took him in. This guy said that he, you know, felt bad for him. His heart went out to him. He thought that this guy was down on his luck. An interesting piece of information that we received is that the two

had said that they had a house fire and that they were from Colorado. So they projected this story. Well, Nancy, it seems that Tad Cummins did all the talking. He sure can tell a lie. I mean, at the get go, Mike Duffy was telling his students he's a multimillionaire. He's a CIA operative. He had a safe house in Costa Rica when things got too, quote, hot for him. I mean, really, it's enough to frankly gag me. OK, all these tall tales he told students. Now they just continue on and these people fell for it. All right. So then what happened?

The young man who ultimately did turn him into authorities, Griffin Berry, said that he was alerted by someone in the town. They showed him a picture of this news report about this manhunt for a man and a young girl from Tennessee. And he, Griffin Berry, says, oh my gosh, that guy is in my backyard. So he ultimately called authorities in Tennessee who alerted the Siskiyou County Sheriff's Department and they were the ones who ultimately made the arrest. So is he going to get the reward, I hope? I certainly hope so myself. But one more piece of information is that they went to this farm. They didn't want to compromise Elizabeth Thomas's safety. And so they were there at about 2 a.m. in the morning. And of course, to get them separated, it would have been difficult. So what they did was they sent Griffin Berry to try to get him to come out. And Griffin Berry said he first honked his horn on his car to

see if he could kind of lure him out of the house. Didn't work. So then he called Tad Cummins to come out of the house and said he had some more work for him. That's when Tad Cummins came out of the house and authorities ultimately made the arrest. At the time of the arrest, have you heard how Elizabeth was doing? I mean, do you think she wanted to be found or is this not what she wanted, Mike Duffy? According to authorities, they both went willingly without any sort of confrontation. So they didn't try to get away. Authorities did say that Elizabeth Thomas went willingly as well.

Mike, now this is a very rural area, lightly populated and a large, large region. This county is a very big county in Northern California. How big is it? It's about the fifth largest county in the state of California. It's 6,500 square acres with about 45,000 people. About 75, 70% of that land is owned and managed by federal and state authorities. It contains the Shasta Trinity National Forest, the Six Nations National Forest, the Marble Mountains, and the Pacific Crest Trail, which is a very popular backpacker trail, also runs through that area. So people go there to get away, but you can easily see how people could also go there to disappear. I would think that Tad Cummins probably had some kind of an idea that he was secure there, that how could anybody, how could the world find him there? I mean, that's just the feeling I think he probably had at some

point. Well, it seems people who live at the Black Bear Ranch also kind of agreed with your sentiment there. They said that when he arrived, he thought it was going to be a kind of place where anything goes. He thought it would be some kind of fantasy. And they said that it was going to be a kind of place where anything goes. He thought it would be some kind of fantasy. And they said that it was clear that his vision didn't align with their vision of what their commune was. CNN is reporting, quoting sources as saying that Tad's words when he realized that he was under arrest and the jig was up, he said, I'm glad this is over, indicating that it had been kind of an ordeal for him. And I can only imagine what Elizabeth Thomas was thinking. When he was arrested by authorities, you could understand why he might have that sense of relief, because according to people who were

helping him out, he was completely down on his luck. He was completely broke and he didn't even have enough money to put gas in his car. So it was clear that he was pretty much at the end of his rope. Well, we know that he left with maybe $4,500 or $5,000 in cash, but that was five, six weeks of being on the road. And that money goes by very quickly, I would think. So I could understand that. He had a number of license plates in his car. So you were talking about that $4,500 that he had. I mean, he was trying to stay below the radar the entire time, including going from state to state, changing those license plates.

So it was pretty clear that he had a plan from the beginning. So, Mike Duffy, what more can you tell us? What do you make of all this? Nancy, what it sounds like is a good Samaritan here in Siskiyou County saw something and said something, and that made all the difference in this case, which had been going on for over a month. And it does say something about these people who, while they may be isolated in the remote part of the country, still care about their fellow human beings. I still think it's a miracle because, you know, Mike Duffy, you and I have covered so many cases where everything goes sideways when the police move in and somebody ends up dead.

You know, Mike Duffy, it's a joy talking to you, even under these circumstances. But I guess they're good circumstances, right? Because you and I have covered so many cases where the missing person is found dead, the child is found dead. And in this case, she is alive and she has a chance for a life now. Mike Duffy, you're awesome. For all of you joining us, I'm Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.