Calif. Sunday school teacher booked in death of Sandra Cantu

Left: Sandra Cantu

April 11, 2009
Associated Press

TRACY, Calif. - A Sunday school teacher was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and killing 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, whose body was found in a suitcase in an irrigation pond.

Melissa Huckaby, 28, was arrested at 11:55 p.m. Friday, about five hours after she drove herself to the local police station at the request of officers, said police Sgt. Tony Sheneman."She gave enough information to us during the course of the interview that probable cause was there to arrest her," said Sheneman. No other arrests were made.

Police did not say how Sandra died or give a possible motive. Sheneman wouldn't go into specifics but told The Associated Press that interviews with Huckaby in The Tracy Press had revealed inconsistencies that prompted further inquiries from investigators."I want to know why she did it, if she did it," the slain girl's aunt, Angie Chavez, said in a phone interview with The Associated Press early Saturday. She said she had no indication earlier that Huckaby could be a suspect.

Huckaby's family had been questioned at length during the investigation, and their home and vehicles had been searched, Sheneman said.Huckaby was being held without bail at the San Joaquin County Jail, with arraignment set for Tuesday, according to the county sheriff's Web site. Sandra disappeared on March 27 and hundreds of volunteers and law enforcement officials turned out to search for her.

Right: Melissa Huckaby

Pictures of the girl with dark brown eyes and light brown hair were posted all over Tracy, a city of 78,000 people about 60 miles east of San Francisco. Police said they received 1,500 tips.

On April 6, farmworkers draining an irrigation pond found the suitcase. Sheneman confirmed early Saturday that the suitcase belonged to Huckaby.

At an early morning news conference, Tracy Police Chief Janet Thiessen said investigators had worked on the case tirelessly."We have information that Sandra, by the time she was reported missing to us, that she probably had already been murdered," said Thiessen.

"It has helped us to bring Sandra home, again not in the way that we would've hoped, but that was out of our hands shortly after she went missing." Neighbor Barbara Sokoloski, whose home is behind Sandra's, described Sandra on Saturday as "a friendly sweet little girl who always went around trying to find somebody to play with." "It's too bad that kids these days can't go out and play like we did when I was a little girl," said Sokoloski, 69.

Huckaby had previously told The Tracy Press that Sandra visited her home on the day of her disappearance to play with her 5-year-old daughter. But Huckaby said she'd turned Sandra away because her daughter needed to pick up her toys and Sandra went to another friend's home. Huckaby also said she had left her suitcase in the driveway that day, and that it was missing.

The Tracy Press reported that Huckaby was released Thursday from Sutter Tracy Community Hospital, where she spent several days in intensive care for what she described as "internal bleeding." Huckaby is a granddaughter of Pastor Clifford Lawless, whose Clover Road Baptist Church was the subject of a police search. Huckaby taught Sunday school at the church and lived with Lawless in the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park that also was Sandra's home. Lawless did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment Saturday.

.

Huckaby was scheduled to appear in court on April 17 to check in with a county mental health program as part of a three-year probation sentence for a petty theft she pleaded no contest to. In an interview with the newspaper on Friday, Huckaby said someone else by the same name was facing charges for the attempted November theft from Target.