Sandra Cantu

Case background and investigation

Sandra Cantu was an eight-year-old second grader who lived with her family at the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park in Tracy, California. She disappeared from the park on March 27, 2009. According to the Wikipedia summary of the case, she was last recorded on the afternoon of that day near her home and was reported missing that evening, which prompted a large search of the area by police and volunteers.

Ten days later, on April 6, 2009, her body was found inside a suitcase recovered from an irrigation pond on a dairy farm. NBC Bay Area reported that the pond was about two miles from her home. CNN likewise reported that the suitcase was found in a pond ten days after the girl vanished.

Police arrested Melissa Huckaby, then 28, a neighbor in the same mobile home park whose young daughter was a playmate of Sandra's. ABC News reported that Huckaby was a former Sunday school teacher who lived with her grandparents and her daughter, and that her grandfather was the pastor of a nearby church. Prosecutors charged her with murder, kidnapping, lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14, and rape by instrument, according to CNN, and the special circumstances alleged made her eligible for the death penalty. She initially pleaded not guilty. A gag order kept most of the evidence, including autopsy results, sealed while the case was pending.

On May 10, 2010, Huckaby changed her plea. According to ABC News and CNN, she pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and kidnapping and admitted the special circumstance of murder committed during a kidnapping, in an agreement that removed the possibility of a death sentence. The remaining charges, including the sexual assault allegations, were dropped as part of the plea agreement.

On June 14, 2010, San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Linda Lofthus sentenced Huckaby, then 29, to life in prison without the possibility of parole, CNN reported. In court she apologized to the Cantu family, said that she alone was responsible for the girl's death, and said she could not explain why she had done it. She denied having sexually molested the child. The judge lifted the gag order at the hearing and said she would consider unsealing case documents.

NBC Bay Area reported that, according to a probation report, Huckaby claimed the girl had climbed into the suitcase as part of a game and that she later found her unresponsive; that account was her own and was not a finding of the court. Huckaby's conviction rests on her guilty plea, and no motive was established in court.