Calif. Sunday school teacher booked in child death

[cali]

Source: AP


19 minutes ago

TRACY, Calif. (AP) — A Sunday school teacher has been arrested and charged with kidnapping and killing a California girl whose body was found in a suitcase.

Tracy Police Sgt. Tony Sheneman says 28-year-old Melissa Huckaby was arrested late Friday night after voluntarily going to police for questioning about the death of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu.

Sandra's body was found inside a suitcase in an irrigation pond on April 6.

Huckaby previously told a local newspaper that Sandra visited her home March 27, the day she disappeared. Huckaby also said she had left her suitcase in the driveway that day, and that it was missing.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jHjvw1NOFGPL0mQ-JPqYfuNZF1LgD97G6VE00

[Judi Lynn]

1. Exclusive: Woman in mobile home park reported missing suitcase

Exclusive: Woman in mobile home park reported missing suitcase
by Jennifer Wadsworth
13 hrs ago

A Sunday school teacher said someone took her black rolling suitcase from the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park on the day 8-year-old homicide victim Sandra Cantu disappeared.

It’s a huge suitcase, 28-year-old Melissa Huckaby said in a phone interview Friday, waterproof and charcoal-trimmed with an Eddie Bauer logo.

Police have yet to confirm whether it’s the same one found Monday morning that contained Sandra’s dead body.

Farmworkers discovered a suitcase that generally matches Huckaby’s description submerged in a dairy lagoon 2 miles north of the mobile home park where Sandra lived.

For the past year, after moving from Southern California, Huckaby and her 5-year-old daughter has lived at the same mobile home park with Huckaby’s grandparents, Clifford Lane Lawless and Connie Lawless, she said.

More:
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[No Elephants]

2. Wow, committing murder and losing your suitcase, all in the same day.

[UpInArms]

4. ... :(

[Judi Lynn]

7. Unbelievable. Thanks for the photos. Horrendous. n/t

[LisaL]

3. Well that's shocking. A suspect is a female?

How many people here swore up and down the suspect is going to turn out a pedophile with prior convictions?

[rfranklin]

5. She was probably forced by a man to do it!

You're not thinking about this from the correct viewpoint.

[Trajan]

18. Given the historical precedence ...

It would be safe to make such an assumption .... The numbers bear this out ....

I am reminded of OJ Simpson complaining that police were focusing on him because he was the husband ...

Yeah .... and so they should ....

[Epiphany4z]

6. I wonder if she ran over the kid or something

have they released the cause the cause of death yet? I must say I had a feeling it wasn't the usual molestation case....... particularly after they found her fully clothed rite down to her flip flopps

[GoddessOfGuinness]

8. Or maybe she's just twisted.

Psychopathic killers aren't necessarily sexual predators.

[Epiphany4z]

9. maybe ...still

she has been arrested before for theft.....has no history of violence...and her 5yr old is fine.....ahh well sooner or later we will know...

[CreekDog]

12. Serial killers don't usually burst into tears do they?

I think she didn't quite fit the profile we all had in mind, though my original fear was that it was a serial killer and we were going to find that he had a prior history.

[LostinVA]

19. That's a very good theory

[Gormy Cuss]

10. It's always unknown male pedophiles in Stranger Danger scenarios

In this case, referring to the suspect as a Sunday school teacher rather than a neighbor and mother of one of the child's playmates is downplaying the truth that far too often the danger doesn't come from a stranger. This woman is the pastor's granddaughter and that why she was living in this little community in the first place -- she and her daughter moved in with her grandparents about year ago according to another neighbor in the mobile home park.

[Dappleganger]

21. Not surprising to me at all.

Then again, I was a victim of sexual abuse by a female babysitter for several years. Nothing shocks me in that regard...women get by with it more often because they are less suspected than men. Women who do that tend to be quite sadistic. BTW, her b-friend also abused me but she was the leader and instigator. I had some serious issues growing up w/regards to trust and identity.

[XemaSab]

11. How odd

:(

[CreekDog]

13. that's what i thought too

the female with no prior history.

[BR_Parkway]

17. I guess there's no reason to assume no prior history until more is

known about the case and the circumstances. Sadly, the more people look into her past, the more they may find.

[Garbo 2004]

14. Huckaby became extremely chatty with the media of late. Seemed to be implicating herself.

In at least one interview she said she had previously spent time at a farm near the location Sandra's body was found. Then there's the stolen suitcase story and the mysterious note she claimed she found the day after the child's disappearance. And denying that her criminal record was in fact her criminal record. Denied attending the high school records show she attended. Her statements to the media were sometimes contradictory and the police said they also contradicted what she had previously told them and what they knew.

Reportedly "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 charge to which she pleaded no contest." http://cbs13.com/local/sandra.cantu.2.982517.html

Now, according to Sacto TV channel CBS 13, Huckaby is refusing all media interviews.

[shanti]

15. this is wierd

"...The newspaper also reported that Huckaby was released from the hospital on Thursday. Huckaby said she had been in intensive care for "internal bleeding."



http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/1773069.html?commentSort=TimeStampAscending&pageNum=1

[IndianaGreen]

16. Let the shrinks figure out why Huckaby murdered little Sandra Cantu, but...

let's prosecute this monster to the fullest extent of the law.

[LostinVA]

20. We may find out that she didn't murder the little girl, but killed her

As someone posited up thread, ie hut her with a car, etc.

We'll find out sooner or later.

Very odd.

[malletgirl02]

22. That is horrible

I first heard about in a Jack and Jill politcs thread, but there wasn't a link. That is horrible. It's new like this makes me wish that I wasn't able to read.

[fujiyama]

23. Did the autopsy results show that Cantu was absused before death?

I though I remember hearing that they mentioned Cantu was sodomized with various objects.

I still think there's more to this story. Is Huckaby possibly covering in part for someone else that was also involved? Often women are joined by a male accomplice in such heinous sexual abuse. I don't think it's very common for a woman to simply sexually abuse or murder a child in the neighborhood.