Husband charged with impeding investigation
PALM COAST — When Flagler County Deputy Christopher Crego arrived at Michael Cummings’ Palm Coast home early Thursday morning, Cummings greeted the officer in a panic.
“My wife Faith Cummings is not breathing and I had tried CPR but she is still not breathing, you need to help,” Cummings said, according to Crego’s report.
The deputy noted there appeared to be blood on Cummings’ pants. He followed Cummings to the master bedroom where his wife was lying face up on their bed and not breathing. Cummings told Crego he’d performed CPR on his wife "for hours" prior to the officer’s arrival.
She was later pronounced dead and detectives are continuing to investigate what is now being called a suspicious death.
Michael Cummings, 46, told deputies his 44-year-old wife may have fallen after taking a shower. But he became defiant and refused to leave his home while detectives and crime scene analysts investigated, Crego reported. Deputies arrested Cummings and charged him with obstruction of justice, a misdemeanor, after he refused multiple requests over nearly three hours to leave the home. He was released from jail late Thursday night after posting $500 bail.
Cummings could not be reached by phone Friday and a message left for him was not returned.
While Cummings gave detectives a statement, Sheriff Rick Staly said outside the couple’s home on Point Pleasant Drive late Thursday morning, “there are circumstances that say that we need to look further into this."
“These are middle-aged people, mid-40s, which always raises concern,” Staly said. “Most people don’t pass in their 40s. So we want to handle this as a death investigation until such time as we determine that, A, it was a medical issue, or, B, it was a homicide.”
An autopsy is scheduled to determine the exact cause of death.
Crego, according to his report, noticed a “large amount of used syringes” lying on the ground as he entered the couple’s home. Faith Cummings had apparent bruising on her right eye and blood on her face. He asked Michael Cummings to step out of the bedroom when paramedics arrived and began treating the woman, but Cummings became upset and refused to leave.
He then walked back into the master bedroom and said, “I tried to give her compressions and breaths for hours,” the report states.
While speaking with deputies later, Cummings began crying and said he “did not do anything wrong and nobody better come near me with handcuffs,” the report states.
He continued to refuse to leave the house even after detectives asked him to go to the Sheriff’s Office headquarters to give a statement. He was subsequently arrested for refusing to leave the scene.
It was not the first time Michael Cummings has been charged for refusing to obey an officer's orders. He was arrested in January 2012 in Port Orange and charged with obstructing an investigation there, records show.
According to a Port Orange police report, Cummings continued to yell at four men and “escalate the situation” as an officer tried to investigate an assault report outside his house. Court records show the charge was dismissed after Cummings completed a six-month pre-trial intervention program.