- November 5, 2024
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By: Ray Boone and Jonathan Simmons
When Michael Cummings, 46, called 911 the morning of Jan. 11 from his home at 6 Point Pleasant Drive, he said he’d been performing CPR on his ex-wife for “hours.”
A dispatcher asked why he hadn’t called earlier. “Because I can’t, man,” he replied, according to an arrest affidavit.
Flagler County Sheriff’s Office deputies who arrived at the house found the ex-wife, 44-year-old Faith Lorraine Cummings, naked, dead and bloodied.
They’ve charged Michael Cummings with her murder.
Michael Cummings was stained with blood when deputies arrived. He told them that when Faith Cummings had arrived home from work, the two had argued — because, he told deputies, he’d found out she was cheating on him.
But then, he said, he’d gone to sleep. He heard a “thump,” he said, but thought she was “playing games.” He said he didn’t actually wake up until he heard his dog barking, then heard water running and found Faith Cummings lying in the spare bathroom. He dragged her onto the bed and began performing CPR on her, he said.
As deputies investigated, Michael Cummings was belligerent — they initially arrested him on an obstruction of justice charge when he refused to leave the house.
He’d told a deputy, crying, “I did not do anything wrong, and no one better not come near me with handcuffs.”
And it became clear that the evidence didn’t match his account.
Faith Cummings had several lacerations to her head and neck and “apparent bruises all over her body,” including a black eye that was swollen shut.
A forensic specialist who performed a bloodstain pattern analysis said she found blood stains in the guest bathroom with multiple castoff stains on the walls and ceilings.
The stains, she said, were not consistent with a fall. She told a deputy that it appeared that Faith Cummings “was being hit with a weapon.”
The Medical Examiner’s Office determined that Faith Cummings, 44, died from blunt force trauma to the head with asphyxiation. It also called the death a homicide.
Michael Cummings is being held at the Flagler County Detention Facility without bond.
“Our detectives have worked around the clock to solve this case and have done an outstanding job,” Sheriff Rick Staly said in a news release. “This case again proves that you never know what is going on behind closed doors.”
