Sunday school teacher Melissa Huckaby, 28, has been arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and killing Sandra Cantu, according to Tracy, California police Sgt. Tony Sheneman. Huckaby was booked at 11:55 p.m. on Friday night after “she gave enough info to us during the course of the interview that probable cause was there to arrest her.”
Huckaby is being held without bail at San Joaquin City Jail and will be arraigned on Tuesday for the murder of the 8 year old child who disappeared on March 27 from Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park. The girl’s body was discovered in a suitcase two miles from her home on Monday, April 6.
On Tuesday, the Clover Road Baptist Church became the focus of the police investigation. The church pastor, Clifford Lawless, is the grandfather of the suspect. Melissa Huckaby lived in the same mobile home park as Cantu, and her 5 year old daughter was a friend of the slain girl.
Police seized computers and other items from the church and trailer homes of Lawless and Huckaby. Their focus narrowed to a small shed on the church grounds on Friday. Police reportedly were suspicious upon questioning Huckaby about the suitcase. The woman told them that she had left one on her driveway and it had been stolen from her. She also told police that she found a note the day after the girl disappeared that said, “Cantu, Suitcase, Water.”
Huckaby is currently serving three years probation for petty theft at a local Target store and had been scheduled to appear in court on April 17 to check in regarding her compliance status with a county mental health program.
In another bizarre twist, she told police that she had been hospitalized in intensive care for several days and had been released from Sutter Tracy Community Hospital on Thursday, for what she described as “internal bleeding.”
More photos and arrest press conference video below.
UPDATE: May 10, 2010 – see her court arraignment where she admits to murdering Sandra Cantu.