Chris's Crime Forum

Pastor's granddaughter arrested in Sandra Cantu slaying

Henry K. Lee,Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writers

Saturday, April 11, 2009

(04-11) 07:59 PDT TRACY -- A Sunday school teacher was booked early today on suspicion of murder and kidnapping in the slaying of 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 after she drove to the Tracy Police Department to be interviewed. She was booked at 3:25 a.m. today at San Joaquin County Jail in French Camp, where she is being held without bail.

"She revealed enough information that we had probable cause to arrest her for both kidnapping and murder," Tracy police Sgt. Tony Sheneman told reporters. During her interview, "she was very relaxed for a bit, then she became very emotional, and then she became relaxed again, and then became resigned to what was happening," Sheneman said.

No motive was disclosed in the slaying, and authorities have not said how Sandra was killed pending the results of an autopsy. Huckaby is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.

Huckaby's arrest capped an intense investigation in a case that has transfixed the region and sent shockwaves through Tracy, a city of 84,000 that is considered the gateway to the Central Valley.

Reporters descended on the onetime farming community, which was the focus of similar media attention in December when four suspects were arrested in the torture and kidnapping of a 16-year-old boy.

Sandra's disappearance last month from the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park on West Clover Road fueled an intense search for her by law enforcement and volunteers, and the fear and anguish was evident in the faces of those who attended nightly candlelight vigils at the mobile-home park.

Those emotions transformed into grief - and anger - after the body of the little girl with brown eyes and light brown hair was found stuffed into a suitcase in an irrigation pond two miles north of her home.

Huckaby is the granddaughter of a pastor who lives at the mobile home park. The suspect had claimed that a suitcase belonging to her had disappeared on March 27, the same day Sandra disappeared.

The little girl went missing after telling her mother she was going to a friend's home to play. The last official sighting of her was on a surveillance video taped that afternoon, showing her skipping merrily outside her home.

Huckaby's arrest followed a weeklong focus on vehicles and property associated with her family.

Over the past week, police searched Clover Road Baptist Church, on West Clover Road about a quarter-mile from the park, as well as a shed on the property. Investigators also questioned its pastor, Lane Lawless, who is Huckaby's grandfather, and seized a phone and computer belonging to Lawless and his wife, Connie.

Connie Lawless has said that they welcomed the police scrutiny and that investigators were probably interested in them because Sandra played with their 5-year-old great-granddaughter. Connie Lawless was elected to San Joaquin Valley's Republican Central Committee in 2006 and lost a re-election bid two years later, according to the county registrar of voters.

The couple did not immediately return a phone call for comment today.

Huckaby had previously said that Sandra visited her home on the day of her disappearance to play with her daughter. But Huckaby told the Tracy Press that she had turned Sandra away because her daughter needed to pick up her toys and Sandra went to another friend's home.

Huckaby told several reporters Friday that she had left her Eddie Bauer suitcase in the driveway that day, and that it was missing. She claimed that she later found a note that had the words "suitcase" and "water," as well as the street near the irrigation pond where she was found.

The Tracy Press also 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 declined to elaborate to the newspaper.

Debi McComber, 37, a longtime resident of the mobile home park, said this morning that she and her neighbors were stunned by the arrest of Huckaby, whom she described as a seemingly normal and "nice" parent who mostly kept to herself.

"It's a shocker - I can't believe it," said McComber, a teacher in the Tracy school system. "The town will be shocked and relieved in the same breath - relieved that there's not some serial killer out there molesting kids. But it still doesn't bring Sandra back."

McComber added, "She was right down the road and we couldn't stop it. That's what's heartbreaking. I don't know what her motive would be to take her. Why would you take someone else's kid? She had her own kid."

McComber said she recalled first meeting Huckaby at the mobile home park's swimming pool last summer, after Huckaby and her 5-year-old daughter moved into Lawless' mobile home.

"I would have never suspected it," McComber said. "She has a daughter, a 5-year-old daughter. Everybody's wondering what was the motive."

McComber said video footage released by police shows Sandra turning toward Huckaby's mobile home.

"No wonder why Sandra went looking that way," she said. "That's where they live. The house is down that way."

E-mail the writers at hlee@sfchronicle.com and dbulwa@sfchronicle.com.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... .DTL&tsp=1

Wow I don't quite know what to think about this development,what would make this woman kill this little girl.I am going to make a stab at it and think she obviously has a problem,umm upstairs.Maybe schizophrenic,or bipolar,maybe an untreated problem.Any thoughts?

Well, IF she did it, then I would say the same thing, Chris. It's the only explanation I can come up with. Hopefully, if it was her, her own daughter didn't suffer any type of abuse...

DA: Rape may be alleged in Calif. girl's slaying

By MARCUS WOHLSEN and GARANCE BURKE – 4 hours ago

TRACY, Calif. (AP) — Prosecutors say they're considering rape and molestation allegations against the woman suspected of killing an 8-year-old Northern California girl and putting her body in a suitcase.

Twenty-eight-year-old Melissa Huckaby was arrested Saturday on suspicion of kidnapping and murdering Sandra Cantu. The girl was a playmate of her 5-year-old daughter.

San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Robert Himmelblau said Monday that a homicide charge against Huckaby could include the special circumstances of rape with a foreign object, lewd and lacivious conduct with a child and murder in the course of a kidnapping.

Himmelblau wouldn't provide more details. Huckaby is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.

Sandra's body was found in a suitcase in an irrigation pond last week.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

TRACY, Calif. (AP) — The woman suspected of killing an 8-year-old girl found stuffed into a suitcase is being held in an observation cell where jail staff monitor her mental health, officials said.

Meanwhile, the families of the suspect and the slain girl attended Easter services Sunday at separate churches, struggling to cope.

Melissa Huckaby, a 28-year-old Sunday school teacher, is in custody at the San Joaquin County Jail, held without bail on suspicion of murder and kidnapping of Sandra Cantu. The girl was a playmate of her 5-year-old daughter, Madison.

Huckaby's father, Brian Lawless, said he did not believe his daughter was capable of what police accuse her of doing.

"I just can't comprehend. There are no words," he told reporters. He said Huckaby lived for her daughter and "was that same way with other children. She loved other children."

Sandra disappeared on March 27, and her body was found April 6 by farmworkers, stuffed in a suitcase in an irrigation pond. Huckaby was arrested early Saturday.

Police declined to give details but said said inconsistencies in Huckaby's story during questioning led to her arrest. They said they have no motive for the slaying.

On Sunday, citizens in this city of 78,000 people about 60 miles east of San Francisco were still coming to grips with Huckaby's arrest and Sandra's death.

Sandra lived with her mother down the street from where Huckaby lived with her grandfather, Clifford Lawless, pastor of Clover Road Baptist Church.

About 400 parishioners, including members of the Cantu family, packed into a high school cafeteria to hear Journey Christian Church Pastor Scott McFarland's Easter sermon.

Journey was one of more than a dozen churches that mobilized members Sunday to pray for the Cantu family. McFarland sent a special message to the family that, like Christ, Sandra's spirit had risen to heaven.

"Jesus is out of the tomb and Sandra is too," McFarland told The Associated Press after the sermon. "She's not in a grave, she's not in a suitcase. She's in heaven and celebrating the best Easter ever."

About 20 parishioners and an equal number of reporters filled the Lawless' church on Sunday. Clifford Lawless and others offered prayers for Sandra's family.

It was not clear if Huckaby had hired an attorney. Lawless family members said jail officials had denied their requests to visit her, and they have not spoken to her since the arrest.

San Joaquin County Sheriff's Deputy Les Garcia said the mental health staff has not cleared Huckaby to have visitors and she is still in an observation cell. Huckaby also turned down media requests for interviews, Garcia said.

Huckaby's uncle, John Hughes Jr., told The Associated Press his niece was from a good family but had hit a rough patch. He said she had moved in with her grandparents in Tracy about a year ago.

"They opened their home up to her to try to get her life back on track. I think a lot of families have problems like that," Hughes said.

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.

Huckaby grew up in Orange County and was a "pretty normal kid," her uncle said. As the eldest of nine grandchildren, she played "mother hen" to the younger children at holiday gatherings.

After graduating from high school, Huckaby's path appears to have become rockier. She married, had her daughter and was divorced. She had difficulty finding and keeping a job, partly because of the challenges of single motherhood, Hughes said.

Sandra's uncle, Joe Chavez, said he found it difficult to contain his rage toward Huckaby's family.

"I want to go over there and beat the crap out of those people, but I'm not going to do that," he said as he stood at the entrance to the mobile home park where the little girl lived with her mother. "I just want to vent my anger but it's not in me."

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Link

Was Sandra killed in nearby church?

By Malaika Fraley, Matthias Gafni and Denis C. Theriault

Bay Area News Group
Posted: 04/12/2009 09:31:45 PM PDT
Updated: 04/13/2009 08:51:31 AM PDT


TRACY — The deeply devout family of Melissa Huckaby, the mother and Sunday school teacher accused in the slaying of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, gathered Sunday for somber Easter services in the church led by Huckaby's grandfather.

According to news reports that emerged hours later, that church may have been the same place where the second-grader was killed.

Inside the tiny building, just half a block from the mobile home park where Sandra last played, came a stirring sermon — about the strength that rises from pain — meant to balm not only the Huckaby family's own anguish, but also a community's.

"People think we're going on, business as usual," said Brett Lawless, Huckaby's uncle, who delivered the sermon at Clover Road Baptist Church to a congregation of about 20, plus a throng of reporters. "Nothing will be as usual."

At more than a dozen churches Sunday across this small Central Valley city, grief-stricken residents — including members of Sandra's own family, who joined 400 parishioners in a converted high school cafeteria — came together to mourn Sandra.

Authorities, so far, have declined to say how or where Sandra was killed. But CBS News, citing unidentified investigators, said Tracy police now believe the killing took place inside Clover Road Baptist Church, where Huckaby's family offered a prayer Sunday on Sandra's behalf.

Asked if the television report was accurate, Tracy police Sgt.
Tony Sheneman said he could not "confirm or deny it'' because of the ongoing investigation.

Huckaby, 28, whose 5-year-old daughter was a playmate of Sandra's, was arrested late Friday. She remains at San Joaquin County jail without bail and is set to be arraigned Tuesday.

Sandra, last seen wearing her Hello Kitty T-shirt two weeks ago at the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park where she lived, was found dead last Monday — her body stuffed into a black Eddie Bauer suitcase at the bottom of a nearby irrigation pond.

The break in the frantic hunt for Sandra's killer came when Huckaby told journalists covering the case that the suitcase had been stolen from her driveway the same day the girl disappeared.

So far, Huckaby has turned down all media requests for interviews. Her family said Sunday that they have not been allowed to speak to her since her arrest and they know nothing of the investigation and what may have happened the day Sandra disappeared.

"This is completely outside of what we know of Melissa," her grandmother Connie Lawless said after Sunday's services, which were open to the public. Her husband, Clifford Lawless, is the pastor at Clover Road Baptist Church. "It's been difficult for all of us. It's surreal."

Huckaby's father, Brian Lawless, said he was at a preachers conference in Salinas when he learned of his daughter's arrest. He told his wife, Judy, who had been on a planned vacation to Northern California with Huckaby's daughter, Madison, since the day after Sandra went missing.

"We just cried together on the phone," Brian Lawless said. "We just cried and tried to figure out how we are going to get through this."

He said family members were struggling to "wrap their heads around" the allegations against Huckaby, whom he described as an excellent mother who showed patience and compassion to all children.

Huckaby was raised in Orange County and graduated from Brea-Olinda High School in 1999. She moved to Tracy seven or eight months ago to help her grandparents, then decided to stay and enroll her daughter in kindergarten, family members said.

Her father said Huckaby's only known emotional issues stem from a divorce.

Just days before her arrest, Huckaby was released from the hospital. Relatives said she suffers from ulcers.

Huckaby also has had criminal problems in recent years. She pleaded no contest earlier this year to a count of theft and was scheduled to be sentenced on that charge this Friday. In addition, the Los Angeles Times reported, she was convicted of felony property theft in Los Angeles County in November 2006.

The Times also found court records that show Huckaby, under her maiden name, Melissa Chantel Lawless, had filed for bankruptcy protection in 2003.

John Hughes Jr. of Whittier, Huckaby's uncle, said she'd been enduring a rough patch lately, often struggling to find and hold jobs, partly owing to the challenges of single motherhood.

For Sandra's family, the pain and puzzlement remained just as fresh as the day before, when police delivered news of the arrest.

Sandra's uncle, Joe Chavez, said Huckaby should face the death penalty if convicted.

"Why would you do that?'' Chavez asked. "How would you feel if somebody took your daughter like that?"

Paul Burgarino of the Bay Area News Group and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12129980?nclick_check=1

Suspect Huckaby has area ties

A Topeka man may be able to provide some answers for law enforcement investigating the California woman who was arrested Saturday for allegedly killing an 8-year-old girl and stuffing her into a suitcase.

Melissa Huckaby, a 28-year-old Sunday school teacher in Tracy, Calif., was taken into custody over the weekend in connection with the kidnapping and death of Sandra Cantu, a story which has been in the national news since the girl went missing March 27.

Huckaby was once married to and had a child with Johnny Huckaby, who lived in Topeka for several years but may not have been a native Topekan. Their daughter wasn’t the child Melissa Huckaby is suspected of killing.

Melissa Huckaby was using local lawyer Ward Rowe to help obtain child support from her ex-husband.

Phone calls to Rowe on Sunday weren’t immediately returned, but records showed multiple claims were filed through Shawnee County District Court, the most recent in February, to obtain the money Johnny Huckaby owed. His wages were garnished in order to collect, but the court records don’t indicate where he was employed.

According to reports from the San Francisco Chronicle, Melissa Huckaby was pregnant with Johnny Huckaby’s daughter, who is now 5, when the two separated and later divorced. Johnny Huckaby filed for a marriage license with Amanda Mays, of Topeka, a little more than a year later in 2006.

Members of the media were unable to reach Johnny or Amanda Mays Huckaby in Topeka since the news of Melissa Huckaby’s arrest. Reports indicate the couple may have moved to Arkansas.

Their last known phone number in Topeka has been disconnected, and a new resident moved into their last known address in October.

The resident said Sunday that Shawnee County sheriff’s deputies were at his house looking for Johnny Huckaby on Saturday, the same day Melissa Huckaby was arrested. It wasn’t known whether the deputies’ search was related to the arrest, as phone calls to the sheriff’s office weren’t immediately returned.

Johnny and Amanda Mays Huckaby have several listings in district court records for debts unpaid to local medical care providers and a local bank.

Melissa Huckaby also had problems with debt in California, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, and had one arrest for petty theft. Relatives said the churchgoing mom hit “a rough patch” in her life and moved in with her grandparents in Tracy, a city of 78,000 people about 60 miles east of San Francisco.

Melissa Huckaby was on suicide watch Saturday at the San Joaquin County Jail after being booked on suspicion of kidnapping and killing 8-year-old Sandra. The girl’s body was found in one of Melissa Huckaby’s suitcases in an irrigation pond in Tracy nearly a week ago, police said.

After the disappearance of Sandra, who often played with Melissa and Johnny Huckaby’s daughter around the neighborhood, hundreds of volunteers and law enforcement officials turned out to search for her. Pictures of the girl with dark brown eyes and light brown hair were posted all over the city.

Tracy police Sgt. Tony Sheneman said Melissa Huckaby attended the second of several vigils for the slain girl.

On April 6, farmworkers draining an irrigation pond found the suitcase containing the child’s body.

Sheneman said investigators have no motive for the slaying. Police declined to say where or how the girl was allegedly killed.

Inconsistencies in Huckaby’s story led to her arrest, Sheneman said. There are no other suspects and no other arrests are expected, he said. There also was no word on who was caring for Melissa and Johnny’s daughter while the mother was being held without bail until arraignment Tuesday.

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Jaxon Van Derbeken, editor Michael Taylor and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Taylor Atkins can be reached at (785) 295-1187 or taylor.atkins@cjonline.com.

http://cjonline.com/news/2009-04-12/sus ... _area_ties

(sic) very very sic person..
Im wondering if the church had something to do with it also.. maybe some kind of cult ritual??

The accused killer of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu separately told three of her friends that she was once raped herself.

According to the Tracy Press, none of the friends knew one another and they were told the story by Huckaby at different times.

One friend was from vocational school, another a high school classmate, and the third person was a fellow employee.

Huckaby claimed that ten years ago, shortly after high school graduation when she lived in Orange County, California she was asked out on a date by a police officer.

The Tracy Press reports Huckaby alleged that during the date, “…the police officer handcuffed her, shoved her in the back seat of his car and raped her...”

Each of those told of the rape said a decade ago when the incident allegedly occurred, Huckaby was not getting along with her family, had lost her first serious boyfriend, and her friends had left for college.

One friend read a passage from a letter written by Huckaby, which said, “I just wasn’t meant to live, I guess. No one wants me or even cares if I live or not, and I’m just in the way, anyways.”

Additional letters written by Huckaby indicate she had been suicidal since the sixth grade.

The Cypress Police Department told the Tracy Press there was an investigation into the rape ten years ago and the accused officer was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Huckaby, 28, was arrested Apr. 10 and is charged with the abduction, rape, and murder of Sandra. Huckaby is scheduled to appear in court on Apr. 24.

link

I have to wonder if she had a partner in this,something just isn't quite right about this case.Doreen I was wondering as well if someone from the church was involved as well.