SANDRA CANTU - 8 yo - Tracy CA

Record Staff Writer
May 24, 2009 6:00 AM

She was a teenager with a wide grin, posing for her high school yearbook,
just 10 years before she became the weary Melissa Huckaby seen
throughout the world staring sullenly into a jailhouse camera.
In the decade that transpired between those starkly different images, her
life had slowly unraveled. The pieces of the Tracy woman's past that
have emerged since her April arrest in connection with the rape and
murder of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu illustrate a young woman's disastrous
downward spiral.
Yet those details - the ones known publicly, at least - likely only scratch the surface of the
28-year-old single mother, who spent her years after graduating from
high school bouncing between homes and toxic relationships, battling
depression and building a small criminal record.
Huckaby's high school companion Emily Fontes still cannot comprehend how her
long-lost friend ended up accused of such inexplicable crimes.
"It's really difficult to imagine she could be capable of something like
this," Fontes said. "The second I saw her booking picture, I just lost
it. I was hysterical."
Fontes and then Melissa Lawless were inseparable during their last two years at Brea
Olinda High School in Orange County, Fontes said. They performed on the
dance squad together, wrote notebooks full of messages to each other
and fought over a boy.
"We were just normal teens. We didn't get into trouble," Fontes said.
Still, her friend struggled with dark emotions that Fontes, at the time,
chalked up to typical teenage tribulations. Huckaby argued frequently
with her mother. She felt depressed and entertained thoughts of suicide.
They graduated in 1999, and Fontes moved away for college. When she returned
one hot summer, she noticed her friend was wearing long sleeves. She
had been cutting herself, Fontes said. Huckaby declined to talk about
it.
In 2001, Fontes was engaged and asked
Huckaby to be her maid of honor. But Huckaby stopped returning her
calls and, as Fontes put it, "fell off the face of the earth."
"I just couldn't find her," Fontes said. "I didn't know if she was OK."
They would not reconnect until about four years later, when Huckaby reached out through a social networking Web site. It had been a trying period.
In 2002, she was living in Tracy with her grandparents, Lane and Connie
Lawless, in the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park when she took out a
restraining order against an ex-boyfriend.
In court papers filed in San Joaquin County Superior Court, she said the
21-year-old man, who had an extensive criminal record and a restraining
order from a previous marriage, had stalked and threatened to kill her.
The same year, she was sued by the local hospital for amassing more than $10,000 in unpaid medical bills.
In 2003, she filed for federal bankruptcy protection. She was pregnant, on
leave from her grocery store job and receiving $600 a month in
disability payments.
She listed $5,200 in assets and $26,000 in debt.
Eight days later, she married her child's father, Johnny Huckaby. They moved
to Orange County and separated a little more than a year later,
divorcing in 2005.
In an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America" last month, Johnny Huckaby said his ex-wife
struggled with depression but that he never thought her capable of
hurting a child. In divorce papers filed in
Orange County Superior Court, Melissa Huckaby accused her estranged
husband of domestic violence, alcohol abuse and child abduction,
accusations he denies.
She won custody of their daughter, Madison, and stayed in Southern California, at one
point moving back in with her parents, Brian and Judy Lawless,
according to court papers.
That was about the time she contacted Fontes. Her old high school friend was thrilled.
Huckaby had returned to school, received a vocational degree and was
working. "I was just so relieved that she was
OK," Fontes said. "I was happy for her, even though it sounded like she
had had some difficulties."
If there was any break from the chaos, it was short-lived.
In 2006, Huckaby was convicted of petty theft in Los Angeles County and
served a short jail sentence. The next year, she was investigated in
connection with two small arson fires in a home she rented in La Palma
but was not arrested, police said.
Huckaby and her daughter moved back in with her grandparents in Tracy by summer 2008, according to court documents.
Connie Lawless, who said she is convinced her granddaughter is innocent, said Huckaby returned to help her grandparents.
"Our health hasn't been so good," she said. "We've always enjoyed our
granddaughter and her little girl. ... I think she's a great mom."
Some mobile home park neighbors would say they knew little about Huckaby and
rarely saw Madison, who became one of Sandra's playmates. Huckaby
started teaching Sunday school at her grandparent's small Baptist
church down the road.
Huckaby was arrested again in late 2008, this time charged with stealing from a Target
store. A judge ordered two doctors to evaluate Huckaby, and they agreed
she was competent to stand trial but that there was evidence of mental
illness, although court records do not indicate a diagnosis.
Prosecutors agreed to drop the petty theft count from her record if she completed a
yearlong mental health program, court papers say.
Huckaby was still enrolled when, in January, a woman in the trailer park
accused Huckaby of taking her 7-year-old daughter and drugging her.
Tracy police said they investigated and had no evidence to make an arrest at
the time, but Huckaby has since been charged in that incident as well.
On March 6, her last appearance in mental health court, Huckaby's counselor said she was making progress.
Three weeks later, Sandra disappeared from the mobile home park. Her body was
found April 6 stuffed in a suitcase and dumped in a nearby dairy lagoon.
In the meantime, Huckaby had missed her scheduled court hearing three days earlier.
Police arrested Huckaby on April 10 on charges she murdered Sandra. Police
called her in for questioning that day after she granted an interview
to a local newspaper and, police said, provided statements inconsistent
with those made previously to investigators.
At the San Joaquin County Jail, Huckaby was put on suicide watch. In
recent court papers, her ex-husband said she had swallowed razor blades.
Police have released few details about Sandra's alleged murder, and anyone
involved with the case is now prohibited from speaking about it because
of a judge's gag order.
As she tries to make sense of the allegations, Fontes, Huckaby's high school confidant,
recalls their e-mail exchanges four years ago, now a bittersweet memory.
"She sounded great," Fontes said. "She sounded like she really had everything together."
Fontes has written Huckaby a letter and sent it to the jail. She has not heard back.

Investigators have found disturbing information on the computer of Melissa Huckaby, the Sunday school teacher accused of the abduction, rape, and murder of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu. According to authorities, Huckaby’s hard drive contained multiple Internet searches about a murdered child in Israel. The child, 4-year-old Rose Pisam
disappeared about a year ago and was missing for months. Later, the
girl’s grandfather was arrested and confessed to stuffing Rose’s body
in a suitcase, which he dumped in a local river.The similarities between the Sandra Cantu murder and the Rose Pisam case are startling:

• Huckaby lived with her grandparents
  in the same mobile home park as the Cantu family—Rose’s mother, Marie
  Pisam, 23, was living with Ronnie Ron, 45, the girl’s grandfather.
  
• Huckaby’s grandfather was the pastor at a church in Washington State during the 1980s where allegations of abuse
  were raised—Rose’s grandfather and mother were in a romantic
  relationship (Rose’s mother was married to Ron’s son Benjamin at the
  time).
  
• Sandra’s body was found inside a suitcase in a drained irrigation ditch—Rose’s body was stuffed inside a suitcase placed in a river.
  

Huckaby has not yet entered a plea in the case and is scheduled for another court hearing June 12.

STOCKTON, CA (AP) - The prosecutor in the Sandra Cantu murder case
wants a judge to enter a plea for defendant Melissa Huckaby if the
Tracy Sunday school teacher refuses.
Huckaby will be in San Joaquin County Superior Court on Friday for arraignment on murder, rape and kidnapping charges.
She was arrested in April for the death of the 8-year-old Tracy
girl, whose body was stuffed into a suitcase and tossed into a canal.
Friday will be Huckaby's fourth court appearance.

The woman accused of raping and murdering 8-year-old Sandra Cantu of
Tracy has repeatedly failed to enter a plea, so a judge must do so on
her behalf if she refuses again this week, a prosecutor wrote in court
papers.
When Melissa Huckaby, 28, returns to San Joaquin County Superior
Court in Stockton on Friday, she will be making her fourth appearance
since being charged in Sandra's slaying. Each time, she has declined to
enter a plea.
If Huckaby declines to enter a standard not-guilty plea Friday,
then a judge should do it for her because the case needs to move along,
Deputy District Attorney Thomas Testa wrote in court papers filed
Tuesday.
The prosecutor also asked that a date be set for Huckaby's
preliminary hearing, signaling that he does not intend to bring the
case to a grand jury, in which testimony is heard behind closed doors.
"I think the public is growing impatient with the lack of a plea,
and the prosecutor is seeking a vehicle to move this case forward,"
Steve Clark, a defense attorney in Santa Clara County and former
prosecutor, said Wednesday.
At Huckaby's last court appearance on May 22, her attorney, Deputy
Public Defender Sam Behar, told Judge Linda Lofthus that he needed more
time to review 1,000 pages of evidence that he had recently received.
A day before that hearing, Testa filed new charges of child
endangerment and furnishing a harmful substance, accusing Huckaby of
drugging a 7-year-old girl and a man in the months before Sandra died.
Huckaby, who is the mother of one of Sandra's playmates, was
arrested April 10 and charged with murder and three special
circumstances that make her eligible for execution if convicted. Those
allege that the killing was committed during a kidnapping, involved a
lewd or lascivious act on a child, and involved rape with a foreign
object.
Prosecutors have not decided whether to pursue the death penalty.
Huckaby is being held without bail at San Joaquin County Jail in French Camp.

STOCKTON, Calif. -- Stockton attorney
Al Ellis is preparing a lawsuit against media outlets that identified
his client, Melissa Huckaby, by name and photo as the woman who was
arrested by Tracy police in the slaying of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu.However,
in this case, there are two women named Melissa Huckaby and both share
a number of unfortunate similarities -- and not just their names.Both
are from the Tracy area, both have 5-year-old daughters, both are
divorced, both are Sunday school teachers and both are 28 years old.However,
the Melissa Huckaby who was misidentified as a suspect lives in Manteca
now, and after she was mistakenly taken for the suspected killer, she
was subjected to death threats, verbal abuse and embarrassment, the
attorney said.Her former husband, who lives on the East Coast, saw her picture with the information and called her about the situation.The
media outlets to be named in the suit were not immediately identified.
The outlets mistakenly took her image from the woman's MySpace page,
apparently thinking that she was the Melissa Huckaby that was arrested
in Tracy, the attorney said.

STOCKTON, Calif. — A Sunday school
teacher pleaded not guilty Friday to charges she kidnapped, raped and
killed an 8-year-old Northern California girl and drugged two other
people.
Melissa Huckaby's lawyer, Sam Behar, entered the plea on behalf of the
28-year-old defendant, who sat quietly beside him during a 10-minute
hearing in San Joaquin County Superior Court.
Huckaby is accused of killing Sandra Cantu, a playmate of Huckaby's young
daughter, who went missing in March. A massive search for Sandra ended
10 days later when her body was found stuffed in a black suitcase
pulled from an irrigation pond a few miles from the mobile home park
where she lived.
Huckaby also pleaded not guilty to charges that she previously drugged a 7-year-old girl as well
as a 37-year-old man, whom police believe she had been dating. The girl
lives in the same mobile park where Huckaby lived just down the street
from Sandra.
The plea came after increased pressure from prosecutors, who filed a request this week asking Judge
Linda Lofthus to enter a plea for Huckaby if she refused to do so
herself. Behar had repeatedly requested more time to review hundreds of
pages of evidence in the case."I think we just needed to move things along," prosecutor Robert Himelblau said after Friday's hearing.
Huckaby is charged with murder with the special circumstances of rape,
kidnapping and lewd or lascivious conduct with a child under 14, which
could make her eligible for the death penalty if convicted. She also is
charged with two counts of furnishing someone a harmful substance and
one count of child endangerment in the drugging case.
The judge scheduled a preliminary hearing for Huckaby to start on Sept. 24.

A Tracy woman pleaded not guilty Friday to charges that she raped and
murdered 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, asserting her innocence three days
after the prosecution urged the judge to move the case along.
Melissa Huckaby, 28, making her fourth appearance in a Stockton
courtroom since her arrest in April, entered not guilty pleas to murder
and special circumstances that make her eligible for execution if
convicted.
She also pleaded not guilty to charges of child endangerment and
furnishing a harmful substance for allegedly drugging a 7-year-old girl
and a man in the months before Sandra died.
Huckaby's preliminary hearing will begin Sept. 24 and will last at
least six days over the course of three weeks, said Judge Linda Lofthus
of San Joaquin County Superior Court.
Asked by Lofthus if she waived her right to a continuous
preliminary hearing - one that proceeds from start to finish without
the court breaking for other cases - Huckaby said, "Yes." She smiled
several times during the brief hearing as attorneys chatted and made
small talk.
Huckaby, who is the mother of one of Sandra's playmates, was
arrested April 10 and charged with murder and three special
circumstances. Those allege that the killing was committed during a
kidnapping, involved a lewd or lascivious act on a child, and involved
rape with a foreign object.
Prosecutors had urged Lofthus to enter a plea for Huckaby if the
defendant did not do so herself Friday, saying the case was dragging.
They have not decided whether to pursue the death penalty.
Huckaby is being held without bail at San Joaquin County Jail in French Camp.
||||||
Posters Note: Wow! I am certain that Sandra was not smiling as she was being raped and murdered by the cretin.

The family of 8-year-old murder victim Sandra Cantu will join city
officials at a Tracy park on Wednesday to plant a tree in the girl’s
memory.

Sandra’s favorite color was pink, so Tracy police
Officer Irene Rose thought it fitting to make the memorial tree a pink
crepe myrtle.

City workers will plant the seedling at Kenner
Park , which lies right next to the school Sandra attended — Jacobsen
Elementary School — before she was kidnapped, raped and killed on March
27.

At the base of the tree will rest a brass plaque engraved
with Sandra’s birth and death dates and the inscription “In remembrance
of Sandra Cantu.”

Sen. Barbara Boxer donated the 2-foot-tall
tree and some money to help care for it for a couple years, according
to the city. Tracy sign company Sign-a-Rama donated the plaque.

Crepe
myrtles get to be about 15 to 20 feet tall, said city superintendent of
parks Don Scholl. Once it takes root, he said it should last for
decades.

The family wants Wednesdays’ dedication to stay
low-key, said Rose. A representative from Boxer’s office should show
up, as should several city park commissioners, police and other local
officials.

“The family, they wanted to keep it a local service,”
Rose said. “They wanted a quiet memorial, buy anyone from the public is
welcome to come.”

Rose said she talks to the family every day, and said they’re holding up OK, but still struggling to cope with the loss.

“I think reality is now starting to set in more,” Rose said. “But the community has been very supportive.”

A
Southern California family in May donated a playhouse in Sandra’s
memory. The city, police and other members of the public gathered at
Jacobson Elementary late last month to see the school install the
pink-and-white house.

Also, a company called Landscape
Structures, Inc., recently donated a $46,500 playground to the school.
The company’s subcontractor, Ross Recreation, put up $4,000 to cover
the cost of shipping and delivering the playground, according to the
city. Construction is scheduled to start this summer.

Meanwhile,
donations have continued to pour in for Sandra’s family, Rose said. To
date, Tracy Crimestoppers has received nearly $40,000 in donations.
Just this week, a local car club sent in some money for Sandra’s family
raised from a recent memorial car show.

“People still want to help,” Rose said. “It’s very touching.”

TRACY - A pink crape myrtle sapling now lives at
Kenner Park in remembrance of the slain 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, whom
Tracy residents have christened Tracy's Angel.
The park is adjacent to Jacobsen Elementary School, where Sandra was a second-grader.
"Everything about Sandra" is represented in the tree, said her mother, 42-year-old Maria Chavez.
It will provide shade for those who need it, she said. It will live on.
And pink was her favorite color. "It's going to have beautiful flowers
for a beautiful child," Chavez said.

"That's her," said Sandra's grandmother, Dolores Chavez, 67.
Sandra's life was taken in March, but three months later, Tracy residents
haven't forgotten. About two dozen people gathered in a Wednesday
ceremony at Kenner Park to plant the tree and dedicate it to Sandra.
"It seems like it just happened yesterday," said Nancy Soto, 54. "I didn't know the family, but I want to be here for support."
Teresa Fabre, a 41-year-old Tracy resident, said: "It would be a waste of her
precious life for us to forget her. This tree is good for the
community."
The monument also is a reminder for Tracy to be mindful and vigilant of any dangers to children, City
Manager Leon Churchill said. He said the city is taking more steps to
promote child safety with education programs and patrolling measures.
"We can't predict tragedy, but there are some things we can do," Churchill said.
The memorial tree and the funds to care for it were donated by U.S. Sen.
Barbara Boxer. City workers planted the crape myrtle Wednesday. A brass
plaque with the inscription "In remembrance of Sandra Cantu" and
Sandra's birth and death dates was placed on the base of the tree.
The tree could reach up to 20 feet and live about 30 years.
Other memorials include a hand-made pink and purple playhouse that was
donated to Jacobsen Elementary in memory of Sandra by a Southern
California couple. Recently, a $46,500 playground was donated to the
school by a landscape structure provider.
"I'm just overwhelmed by all the support," Dolores Chavez said. "It's fantastic that so many people care."

STOCKTON — A secret grand jury is expected to
convene this month to decide if Tracy’s Melissa Huckaby should stand
trial in open court on charges she kidnapped, raped and murdered
8-year-old Sandra Cantu, sources said.
The grand jury is scheduled to meet for two weeks beginning July 20.
The
grand jury proceeding would take the place of Huckaby’s preliminary
hearing set for Sept. 24. It also threatens to keep from the public key
facts of the case — like Huckaby’s alleged motive and how Sandra was
killed — until the jury trial.
Huckaby, 28, is charged with kidnapping, rape with a foreign object, lewd and
lascivious acts on a child under age 14 and murder. The charges stem
from Sandra’s March 27 death.
Sandra was last
seen in the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park where she and Huckaby were
neighbors. Farm workers found the girl’s body 10 days later, stuffed in
a suitcase and dumped in a dairy pond two miles north of the mobile
home park. Huckaby faces a potential death sentence.

Poster's Note: This letter to the community was sent to the Editor of the local newspaper. I felt that it was important to include it her as it, in a way, speaks to the dedication of our Blamily here.

EDITOR,

As a resident of Tracy for more than 16 years, I admit I
had no real idea what the word “community” meant until a few months
ago.

As I was entrenched in a search for my cousin, Sandra
Cantu, I learned the true meaning of the word community. From the
littlest to the biggest deeds, a community really came together. I
could feel the compassion and support. Volunteers who had never met
little Sandra came out to search and knock on doors. Young and old
placed signs. Strangers brought food and drinks and offered their
help. Merchants offered their services and donated paper, food goods
and much more. There were daily prayer vigils and hundreds of attendees
offering their love and support.

This came not just from our community but from other cities and states as well. Others shared their
personal stories to offer hope, for no one wanted to give up. It is
humbling to remember the outreach of so many. You can’t help but
question humanity during such an awful tragedy — but when you see the
love of so many, you realize that the good so outweighs the bad.

My definition of community is clear to me now. To me, it is another
extension of family, and without it, I don’t know if any of us would
have gotten through. I am thankful for our community, for it has been
the glue that has kept our family going. I have forever been touched
and inspired to give back, for I know firsthand that it does truly make
a difference.

The ex-husband of Melissa Huckaby, the accused killer of a Northern
California girl, this week was granted full custody of the couple's
daughter, according to court records.Johnny Huckaby and
grandmother Judy Lawless of Cypress settled a custody fight over
5-year-old Madison Huckaby on Monday – the same day that a court
hearing was scheduled on the matter in Orange County Superior Court in
Orange. Lawless, Melissa Huckaby's mother, is allowed visitation of her
grandmother.As part of the agreement, Lawless is forbidden from allowing Madison to have contact with her mother, court records state.Melissa
Huckaby is in San Joaquin County Jail on charges of kidnapping, raping
and murdering 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, as well as poisoning another
girl and man. Sandra was a playmate of Madison. Huckaby grew up in Brea and La Habra and lived in Cypress before moving last year to Tracy, where the crimes occurred. This
spring, Johnny Huckaby filed paperwork to get custody of his daughter,
who had been in Melissa Huckaby's care since the couple separated in
August 2004 after a little more than a year of marriage. After her
April arrest, Madison lived with Lawless, Melissa Huckaby's mother.In
court papers, Lawless stated that the father had no contact with
Madison for about four years, while Johnny Huckaby contended that he
was denied access to his daughter. Johnny Huckaby was granted temporary
custody of Madison in late April, when Madison moved to Arkansas where
he lives."(Johnny Huckaby) anticipates that (Melissa Huckaby) will likely never be released," wrote attorney Ann Thompson.Court papers state that Lawless failed to show that it would be detrimental for Madison to stay with her father."Madison is doing exceptionally well in her father's custody," Thompson said.Lawless
was given the right to a week of visitation this summer and a month in
future summers. During winter break, Lawless can see her granddaughter
for a week after Christmas.Thompson could not be reached for comment. Lawless' attorney, Kevin Qualls, declined to comment through a receptionist.The
Stockton Record recently reported that a secret grand jury is scheduled
to decide later this month if Huckaby should stand trial in open court
in the murder case.