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Second Person Arrested In Fatal Polk Hit-And-Run

Photo provided by Bill Landes

Fatal hit-and-run victim Samantha Hasting, 17, is shown with her boyfriend, Luis Reyes.

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By JOSH POLTILOVE | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 19, 2009

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Rodney Cummings

Candy Cummings

Polk County deputies have arrested the husband of the driver they say struck and killed a Haines City teenager Friday night.

Rodney Clem Cummings was in the car with his wife, Candy Cummings, when the vehicle struck 17-year-old Samantha Hasting, sending her flying into a barbed wire fence, deputies said.

About midnight, Hasting's mother and a friend found the girl lying on top of the fence on Bradbury Road.

Hasting, an 11th grader, was a true country girl, and she loved mug bogging and country music, said her uncle, Bill Landes. She loved her family and enjoyed camping with them.

"She didn't have an enemy in the world. If she met you, you was a friend," Landes said. "Everywhere she went, she made friends of some kind."

On Sunday, an anonymous tip led deputies to arrest Candy Cummings, 20, of Davenport. She is charged with leaving the scene of a fatal crash and driving without a valid license, the Polk County Sheriff's Office said.

She was released from the Polk County Jail on Sunday afternoon after $15,500 bail was posted, jail records show, but was arrested again a few hours later after her bondsman determined she was a flight risk and revoked her bond, sheriff's office spokeswoman Carrie Eleazer said.

Rodney Cummings knew his wife did not have a valid driver's license, Eleazer said. He's charged with permitting an unauthorized operator of a motor vehicle and with violation of parole from a previous illegal dumping charge. He's being held without bail.

Eleazer said Cummings and his wife aren't being cooperative.

"Neither one of the Cummings seemed remorseful," she said. "As much as we've tried to impress upon them what they did, they seem more concerned with saving their own skin. … It's very sad that they seemed more concerned about not getting caught then stopping to help this girl that they hit, She might have lived if they'd stopped after they hit her."

Deputies say Hasting left home about 6:30 p.m. Friday to walk less than a mile to her friend's house. Before she left her house Friday night to hang out with a friend, Samantha Hasting sent a text message.

"OK, I'll be there in a little while," Hasting wrote in a text message to Taryn Hall. "I love you."

That was the last thing Hasting ever told her, Hall said.

"She was going to walk down to my house and see me," Hall said. "She never came over."

Hasting's mother had sent her daughter text messages at 9 p.m., but her daughter hadn't replied, the sheriff's office said. The friend also became concerned by about midnight when she realized Hasting had left to visit her hours earlier.

Based upon evidence at the scene, investigators think Hasting was walking north on Bradbury Road, south of Hinson Avenue, when she was struck from behind and thrown about 75 feet into the fence, the sheriff's office said.

Her belongings and debris from the impact were scattered for about 150 feet.

A 911 call was unavailable today, Eleazer said.

The sheriff's office received a tip about 11:45 p.m. Saturday that a car with damage to the front passenger side was in Davenport.

The sheriff's office arrest affidavit said Candy Cummings told deputies she and her husband were visiting family members Friday night in Haines City near the crash scene and left about 6:45 p.m.

She also told deputies she hit something while driving her husband's 1992 Mercury Grand Marquis north on Bradbury Road but did not report the accident because she did not have a valid license and had never possessed a driver license, the affidavit said.

Cummings told deputies she hoped she had hit a large dog, according to the affidavit. The impact knocked off a side mirror and caved in the windshield, the affidavit said.

After the crash she drove back to her home on U.S. 92, the sheriff's office said.

Hall said she and other friends are trying to raise the $6,000 needed for the funeral for Hasting. Friends held a car wash on Sunday and so far have raised $1,700.

The girl's friends are holding a fundraiser from 3 to 6 p.m. today at the Still Water Christian Life Center, at 100 McKay Drive in Haines City, to raise funeral expenses.

News Channel 8 reporter Natalie Shepherd contributed to this report.

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