Sandra Cantu
Eight-year-old Sandra Cantu was murdered by Melissa Huckaby, a Sunday school teacher and neighbor in Tracy, California. Huckaby pleaded guilty to murder and kidnapping.
On March 27, 2009, eight-year-old Sandra Cantu went outside to play at the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park in Tracy, California, and never returned. Surveillance cameras captured her walking in the mobile home park that afternoon, and a massive search was launched.
Ten days later, Sandra's body was found stuffed inside a suitcase in an irrigation pond near the mobile home park. She had been drugged, sexually assaulted, and asphyxiated.
Investigators traced the suitcase to Melissa Huckaby, 28, a Sunday school teacher who lived in the same mobile home park and whose daughter was Sandra's playmate. Huckaby, a granddaughter of a local pastor, had lured Sandra to her home.
Huckaby pleaded guilty to kidnapping and first-degree murder with a special circumstance of murder during kidnapping. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The case was notable as female perpetrated child homicides of this nature are extremely rare.
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