SANDRA CANTU - 8 yo (3/2009) - Tracy CA

Sandra Cantu Case:NEW DEVELOPMENTS

Posted by Blink | Amber Alert, Kidnapping, Missing Persons, Murdered, Sandra Cantu | Thursday 9 April 2009 3:24 pm

Tracy, CA- The Hunt for Sandra Cantu’s killer or killers is yielding several new breaking developments.
As brought to you exclusively by Blink on Crime; local reporters and members of the Orchard Estates Community want to know what Fred Williams knows about the luggage Sandra was found in Monday.


Williams, 51, is a member and apparent care taker at the Clover Baptist Church where Police and FBI have recently completed their search and have recovered among other bags of evidence, a pair of work gloves in a crawlspace underneath the structure. Williams met Pastor Lawless at the Church following it’s release by the Crime Scene Investigation Team yesterday, and opened the door for Lawless with his key.


In prior statements, Williams indicated the luggage Sandra was found in was stolen on it’s way to the church’s rummage sale. Sgt. Tony Sheneman of the Tracy police Department confirmed to Blink on Crime there have never been any reports to police of stolen luggage. It would seem that is not the only thing Mr. Williams lied about. There was never any rummage sale planned at the church.
There was however, a yard sale at Fred and Anita Williams home the morning after Sandra went missing. What else was for sale? Matching luggage, possibly?




In other developments, an Oakland resident who Sgt. Sheneman has spoken to personally previously is directly pointing the finger at a man he says he saw on a boat with a young girl resembling Sandra on April 2nd. A source inside the investigation has confirmed to Blink on Crime that Johnny Williams saw Frank Williams being interviewed yesterday and returned to Tracy from his home to hand-deliver Tracy Police his information again.

..If Police say she was already dead by April 2nd, then I am wrong.. But I saw a heavy set man with a thick moustache interviewed on Tv yesterday and it’s him, it’s the man I saw on the boat..

http://blinkoncrime.com/2009/04/09/sandra-cantu-casenew-developments/

http://blinkoncrime.com/2009/04/10/sandra-cantu-case-source-says-arrest-imminent/
Sandra Cantu Case: SOURCE SAYS ARREST IMMINENT

Posted by Blink | Amber Alert, Kidnapping, Missing Child, Missing Persons, Murdered, Sandra Cantu | Friday 10 April 2009 11:47 am

Tracy, CA- Breaking developments coming out of the investigation of the abduction and murder of 8 year old Sandra Cantu. Tracy Police Sergant Tony Sheneman stated during yesterday’s press conference that detectives are narrowing their investigation in one direction, but declined to name a subject.



..We are still looking forward to a conclusion to this, but I cannot tell you what time,” “First of all, there are a lot of things that go on in an investigation that we do not want the public to hear because part of the public would be some of the suspects,” he said. “We do not want them to know what we are doing. We don’t want whoever it is to be tried on television. We want them to receive a fair trial in court. We want them to receive the punishment they deserve there.”
Over the past few days Sheneman has attempted to quell rumors of an imminent arrest, but this afternoon a source close to the case confirmed to Blink on Crime there has been a significant development in Sandra’s case Tracy Police will be announcing at 11:15 am PST.
Check back to Blink on Crime for updates following the press conference

Apr 10, 2009 4:18 pm US/Pacific

Reward Bumped Up To $30,000 In Sandra Cantu Case


TRACY, Calif. (CBS13/AP) ―


The reward leading to the arrest of Sandra Cantu's killer has received a boost.

During a 3:30 p.m. press conference today, Tracy Police Sgt. Tony Sheneman said that Tracy Crime Stoppers is now offering $30,000 for information leading to the arrest of the girl's killer.

F.B.I. agents were at the Clover Road Baptist Church in Tracy on Friday afternoon, searching a shed located on the grounds. Lane Lawless, the church pastor -- and resident mobile home park -- was questioned earlier in the week in connection with the case. The church and his home were also searched.

The Tracy press is reporting that the daughter of Lane Lawless, the minister whose home and church where he worked had been a focus of the case, has a criminal record. Melissa Huckaby pleaded no contest to (this is blank in the news article?)

This morning, a new memorial for Sandra was started for people to offer condolences to Sandra's family.

The Fry Memorial Chapel in Tracy has opened its doors to mourners who can sign a condolence book and leave mementos in honor of Sandra.

The memorial will continue into the weekend before wrapping up on Monday.

As for the investigation, police searching for Sandra's killer say their investigation has been side-tracked by a slew misleading tips.

Tracy police say they have gotten thousands of tips in the search for the person who killed 8-year-old Sandra, but they say they've been frustrated by several time-wasting leads.

One of those false leads popped up yesterday when someone left an envelope outside the mobile home park where Sandra lived addressed "To My Killer, From Sandra".


Police say it had nothing to do with her death, or the investigation. Following bogus leads wastes the time of more than 25 city officers assigned to the case but detectives say any leads, false or not, are difficult to ignore. They have to check out everything.

Meantime, Sandra's family is planning for her memorial. Tracy police say the family of Sandra Cantu has set a public service for Thursday at 1:30 p.m. at Tracy's Merrill F. West High School.

The service will be held in the school's gym, which holds about 2,500 people. Overflow seating will be available in the school's cafeteria.

The family asks that no more gifts be left outside the trailer park at the site where the makeshift memorial had been located. Donations can be made to Crime Stoppers or to the family's fund.
http://cbs13.com/crime/sandra.cantu.2.981929.html

Allegedly Huckabee was/is a thief. Ironic.

Tracy Woman Arrested In Cantu Murder Case Posted: 10:43 pm PDT April 9, 2009 Updated: 2:46 am PDT April 11, 2009 TRACY, Calif. -- A Tracy woman, who was one of the last people to see eight-year-old Sandra Cantu alive, was arrested early Saturday for the murder of the young girl. Melissa Huckaby, 28, had been interviewed by police since early Friday evening and was taken into custody at 1 a.m., authorities said. The arrest ended a wild 16-hour period filled with rumors about Huckaby's possible arrest. She told the Tracy Press and sources confirmed to KTVU that someone stole her waterproof, charcoal-trimmed Eddie Bauer suitcase from the park two weeks ago. She said she had inadvertently left the suitcase in her driveway and it was taken from there. She claimed she had filled the suitcase with items to decorate a classroom where she teaches Sunday school at her grandfather’s church, but forgot her keys and cell phone. Huckaby went into the home to retrieve them and then drove off without the bag. Cantu’s body was found Monday stuffed in a large, dark colored suitcase submerged in a Tracy irrigation pond. “It’s not my grandfather’s,” Huckaby told the paper of the missing suitcase. “It’s mine and someone took it.” At an afternnon news conference, Police Sgt. Tony Sheneman said he did not have any information about the kind of suitcase in which the girl's body was found. She also admitted that Cantu had come over to her mobile home the day the girl disappeared to play with Huckaby’s daughter. Huckaby said she told Cantu that her daughter had to clean her room and the little girl left to go to another unnamed friend’s home. Huckaby said police had interviewed her at the hospital earlier this week, but at Friday's press conference Sheneman would not confirm that the woman had been interviewed. She spent several days in the intensive care unit being treated for what she said was “internal bleeding.” Local investigators and FBI technicians had seized Huckaby’s Kia SUV earlier in the week and meticulously searched it. Evidence teams had also searched the grounds of the church where her grandfather, Lane Lawless, is the pastor. Police were back at the church on Friday afternoon. Sheneman told KTVU early Friday that his department was feeling the pressure for an arrest, but that the media attention given to the case was amplifying any action the department takes. “First of all, there are a lot of things that go on in an investigation that we do not want the public to hear because part of the public would be some of the suspects,” he said. “We do not want them to know what we are doing. We don’t want whoever it is to be tried on television. We want them to receive a fair trial in court. We want them to receive the punishment they deserve there.” Meanwhile, the family of the slain girl has set up a public memorial to her at Tracy’s Fry Memorial Chapel. Starting Friday morning, local residents had the opportunity to visit the facility and leave their condolences and written thoughts about the young girl. Cantu's family was also asking the public to stop leaving items because of the sight of the memorial is a painful reminder. After city workers came in overnight to remove the items, a much smaller memorial remains. A public memorial service for Sandra Cantu is set for next Thursday, April 16, at 1 p.m at West High School in Tracy.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,514435,00.html

I woke up to this news this morning and I am speechless. After work I will have to read more about it...I dont think anyone saw this coming!!! :shock: There has got to be more to this than meets the eye..

Arrest Made in Sandra Cantu Case



TRACY, CA -- Tracy Police arrested 28-year old Sunday school teacher Melissa Huckaby around 2 a.m. Saturday Morning on suspicion of kidnapping and murdering of 8 year old Sandra Cantu. During a 3 a.m. news conference Saturday morning Tracy Police Chief Janet Thiessen, was called in to speak. She said "over the course of the investigation, agents and investigators from numerous agencies, have been instrumental in identifying Melissa Huckaby as being responsible for Sandra's death."

While she would not elaborate on the cause of death, Thiessen went on to say "We have information that Sandra, by the time she was reported missing to us, probably had already been murdered."

The arrest was made more than two weeks after Sandra was last seen outside her home at the Orchard Estates Mobile home park.

Huckaby is the granddaughter of Lane Lawless, the pastor of Clover Road Baptist Church. On Friday, Tracy police and the FBI searched the Church and the surrounding area for a second time looking for evidence in her death.

Huckaby teaches Sunday school at the church.

Earlier this week, Huckaby told the Tracy Press her black suitcase was stolen on March 27th the same day that Sandra disappeared. Sandra's body was found just days later in a suitcase left in an irrigation pond just two miles from her home.

Tracy police now say that Huckaby's story about the suitcase being stolen is a lie, and Sgt. Tony Sheneman confirmed the suitcase Sandra was found in belongs to Huckaby.

Sheneman said during her interview with officers Huckaby gradually came to terms with her situation.

"She was very relaxed for a bit, then she became very emotional, then she became relaxed again, then she became resigned to what was happening," Sheneman says.

Sheneman say he will not elborate on any motive to why Huckaby killed the 8 year old.

Huckaby has been booked in San Joaquin County jail, where she is currently being held.
http://www.news10.net/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=57671&catid=2

andra Cantu Murder: Melissa Huckaby Arrested

Posted by Blink Saturday 11 April 2009 9:09 am

Tracy, CA- At 2:59 AM PST, Melissa Huckaby, 28, was arrested on kidnapping and suspicion of murder charges for 8 year old Sandra Cantu.



Sources inside the investigation have confirmed to Blink on Crime that Huckaby had been on Tracy PD Investigators radar almost immediately. Huckaby was the last person to see Sandra alive, and claimed she frequently played with her 5 year old daughter at the home she shared for the last year with her grandparents Pastor Clifford Lane Lawless and Connie Lawless.



It would seem Huckaby raised immediate flags to police and the community when she told Investigators a black suitcase containing scrapbooking supplies for her Sunday school class had been stolen from her driveway. Huckaby is also due to be sentenced on a theft charge on April 17th, in which she claimed to be mentally incompetent to stand trial. Following a mental evaluation, the court determined she was fit and she pled guilty of the charge.

Melissa Huckaby is the daughter of Brian Lawless, who is also affilliated with a Baptist Church; NOT his dad’s. Blink on Crime has learned that although Melissa has told police she is a Sunday School teacher at the Clover Baptist Church which her grandfather Lane Lawless is a pastor, she is not.

Huckaby is a volunteer Sunday School teacher and Church Choir member at the First Missionary Baptist Church in Bellflower, CA. Located at 9246 Rosser St, FMBC shows both Huckaby’s Father and Uncle, Brett Lawless, are assistant pastors or Bible Class educators in a church completely unaffilliated with their Fathers. Odd.

Why would this woman have access to her grandfather’s church that by all accounts has no more than 15 members and has not had actual services in years? The last confirmed continuing education classes I can track Lawless to is in 2007.

Huckaby claimed to have received a note the day after Sandra Cantu went missing saying “Cantu.. suitcase..water..” with the word suitcase mispelled and at least the word Whitehall in it. Blink on Crime has received an unverified tip the note in question was actually written by Huckaby prior to a suicide attempt which anded her in Sutter Tracy hospital last week in the ICU. Tracy Police were stationed outside of her room in rotating shifts while Investigators continued to build
their case.

By Huckaby’s own admission, she volunteered that as recently as a few months ago, she was interviewed by police regarding a 7 year old girl from the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park who she had taken to a nearby park three times during that week with her five year old daughter. She stated to several reporters in telephone interviews late yesterday afternoon that at approximately 2 am, hours after she returned the young playmate, police showed up at her trailer and told her the child had narcotics in her system. Blink on Crime has attempted to corroberate this information with Sgt. Tony Sheneman of the Tracy Police Department, but Sheneman was unaware of the incident. He has requested that information from Investigators. Regarding the suitcase she claimed had been stolen, she told reporters that she did not have online access to report it, but her myspace page indicates otherwise.


Sgt. Sheneman answered a few questions from reporters last evening indicating that the information that led to Huckaby’s arrest came from her directly. When asked by a reporter if there would be more arrests he stated that he did not anticipate their would be additional arrests in this case, It is my opinion that Sgt. Sheneman chose his words very carefully for a reason. He responded: “not in this particular case ..”

I will go out on a limb on this one and interpret that response for my readers, albeit subjectively, I admit. You have a woman with a history of drug abuse, a juvenile record and current theft charges, who has been investigated for narcotics being found in a small girl, who was taken to a “park” in the evening for several hours . You have a town that is currently investigating 60 Sex Offenders, convicted of various assaults on children, and two recent high profile arrests of men within the school district accused of similar atrocities, awaiting trial. You have an 8 year old child abducted and murdered and I believe her pathology report will show drugs in her system. You have Fred Williams, a church member/caretaker with access to the church and shed who lies about a rummage sale, is seen on video dropping off the “letter to Sandra’s killer” at the memorial site , and lives in a 4,000 sq Ft. home worth over half a mill with extensive rap sheets for him and the Mrs. hanging on the fridge. Was that note to Mel to the Issa to keep quiet?

So.. the question becomes.. Why would she be drugged, for what purpose? I feel strongly this is the tip of the iceberg within Orchard Estates and the Clover Baptist Church. On the comments section of my site, you will note their is a poster who claims Christian Sinclair and Huckaby are “dating.” You will also note that I received some comments from a person claiming to be Sinclair’s child. I checked them out, she is. She posted that the Isuzu Trooper impounded by the FBI had been returned last week. She was correct, but what has not yet been, is his Cadillac, pictured here next to Huckaby’s KIA in the FBI Forensic Bay:


In a 3 am Press conference, Chief of Tracy Police Department Janet Thiessen spoke briefly:

..over the course of the investigation, agents and investigators from numerous agencies, have been instrumental
in identifying Melissa Huckaby as being responsible for Sandra’s death.” “We have information that Sandra,
by the time she was reported missing to us, probably had already been murdered.”


http://blinkoncrime.com/2009/04/11/sandra-cantu-murder-melissa-huckaby-arrested/

carlos1111 wrote:I woke up to this news this morning and I am speechless. After work I will have to read more about it...I dont think anyone saw this coming!!! :shock: There has got to be more to this than meets the eye..

I agree Carlos. We just got back from an out of town trip and I read this. I'm shocked to say the least. I wonder if it was some accident and she was panicked???? I just don't know. Tragic.

TRACY, Calif. (AP) — Police and residents were shocked when the suspect in the killing of an 8-year-old girl found stuffed into a suitcase turned out to be a woman, the mother of the slain girl's best friend.
The motive in the killing had not been determined.
Melissa Huckaby, a Sunday school teacher and granddaughter of a minister, was on suicide watch at the San Joaquin County Jail, where she remained in custody Sunday without bail on suspicion of kidnapping and killing Sandra Cantu.
Huckaby was a "pretty normal kid" who has had difficulties in recent years, an uncle said.
Sandra's body was found in Huckaby's suitcase in an irrigation pond nearly a week ago, police said.
"This was an anomaly in the murder of a child," police Sgt. Tony Sheneman said at a news conference Saturday in this northern California town. "Finding out that it is a woman who is responsible for Sandra's kidnapping and murder, and then finding out it is a member of the community is another blow."
FBI statistics show women are involved in just 7 percent of murders of any sort. Solo killings of children by women are even more unusual.
"It's very unusual for women to be involved in an abduction and murder of a child," said Candice DeLong, a retired FBI profiler based in San Francisco. "Sometimes we see this when the woman is working with a male partner. It does not appear to be the case this time. But this was not a sexually motivated crime."
Sandra disappeared on March 27 and 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 Tracy, a city of 78,000 people about 60 miles east of San Francisco. Police said they received 1,500 tips.
Huckaby, 28, had attended the second of several vigils for the slain girl, Sheneman said.
Sheneman said investigators had not determined the motive for the slaying. Police would not say where or how the girl was killed, though investigators said they believed she died very soon after she was last seen.
Police said autopsy results are not yet available, and they declined to say whether investigators believe the slaying was accidental or deliberate.
Inconsistencies in Huckaby's story led to her arrest, Sheneman said. There are no other suspects and no other arrests are expected, he said. Her arraignment is scheduled for Tuesday.
Huckaby is a granddaughter of Pastor Clifford Lawless, whose Clover Road Baptist Church was the subject of a police search. Huckaby taught Sunday school at the church and lived with Lawless in the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park that also was Sandra's home.
Huckaby's uncle, John Hughes Jr. of Whittier, told The Associated Press his niece was from a good home, but had hit a rough patch in her life and had moved in with her grandparents in Tracy to get past her troubles.
"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 grew up in Orange County and was a "pretty normal kid," he said. As the eldest of nine grandchildren, she played "mother hen" to the younger children when the family got together for the holidays.
After graduating from high school, Huckaby's path appears to have become rockier. She married, had a daughter and was divorced in a few short years. She had difficulty finding and keeping a job, partly owing to the challenges of single motherhood, Hughes said.
"She's had her struggles," he said. "But there's no way (her grandparents) or anybody would be fearful that anything this horrifying could possibly come from that."
Huckaby had been 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.
She was arrested late Friday, about five hours after she drove herself to the local police station at the request of officers.
"She was calm, cool and collected, then she became very emotional," Sheneman said.
It was not immediately clear if Huckaby had hired an attorney to speak for her.
She had worked as a checker at a Food for Less grocery store in a strip mall just east of the mobile park for nearly four years, until she was fired sometime in 2004, said Matt Duncan, an assistant manager at the store now known as FoodMaxx.
"I wouldn't have anything bad to say about her, until now," said Duncan, who has worked at the store off and on for about 10 years. "I would've never suspected her to do something like this."
———
Associated Press writer Don Thompson in Sacramento contributed to this report.

Melissa Huckaby Speaks With Reporter - Sandra Cantu


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgPXjRAglRk (sierra1947)

Sandra Cantu Murder: Family of Melissa Huckaby Speaks

Posted by Blink Monday 13 April 2009 7:18 am

Tracy, CA- On Easter Sunday, The Family of Melissa Huckaby, accused in the kidnapping and murder of 8 year old Tracy resident Sandra Cantu, held an impromptu Easter Service at Clover Baptist Church.