Police have arrested a Sunday school teacher in the case of an eight-year-old girl whose body was found in a suitcase dumped in a pond, but authorities said on Saturday that they still do not know the motive for the killing.
Melissa Huckaby, 28, a local minister’s granddaughter, was arrested late on Friday about five hours after she drove herself to the local police station at the request of officers, said police Sergeant Tony Sheneman. She was being held without bail in connection with the death of Sandra Cantu, the San Joaquin County sheriff’s office said.
Sandra disappeared on March 27 and hundreds of volunteers and law enforcement officials turned out to search for her in this northern California town. On April 6, farm workers draining an irrigation pond found the suitcase.
Huckaby walked into the police station on Friday and started a conversation with officers, Sheneman said at a news conference.
“She was calm, cool and collected, then she became very emotional ... She went back and forth from being calm to emotional,” he said.
Eventually, she became “resigned,” Sheneman said.
“I couldn’t begin to even theorize what her motive was,” he said.
“Sandra was very close friends with Melissa’s daughter. They used to play together,” Sheneman said.
Sheneman said police know where the girl was killed but can’t disclose the location. Autopsy results are not yet available, he said. He wouldn’t say whether police believe the slaying was accidental or deliberate, saying that will be an issue for Huckaby’s arraignment and trial.
He said police had started to narrow their focus on a suspect about the same time Sandra’s body was found.
Sheneman had earlier said that interviews with Huckaby in the Tracy Press had revealed inconsistencies that prompted further inquiries from investigators. And he had confirmed early on Saturday that the suitcase belonged to Huckaby.
Huckaby is scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday. She is on suicide watch in an observation cell away from other inmates for her own safety, though there have been no incidents, said sheriff’s Deputy Les Garcia. Huckaby is refusing visits, he said.
Sandra’s aunt, Angie Chavez, said the girl’s mother, Maria Chavez, was devastated.
“It’s not over. This is just the beginning of a horrible nightmare,” Angie Chavez said of the arrest as she stood at the entrance to the mobile home park where Sandra lived with her mother.
Angie Chavez’s husband, Joe Chavez, said Huckaby should face the death penalty.
“You eye everybody with a great deal of suspicion. We’re shell-shocked here,” Joe Chavez said. “Who can you trust at this point? Who do you know?”
Sheneman said investigators hadn’t expected that the suspect would turn out to be a woman.
“It’s unusual for it to be a woman, statistically and according to the FBI,” he said at the news conference.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
Myanmar yesterday published a parliamentary bill proposing the death sentence for those who detain or violently coerce people into working in online scam centers. Internet fraud factories have flourished in Myanmar, part of Southeast Asia’s scam economy, targeting Internet users worldwide with romance and cryptocurrency investment cons. The multibillion-dollar black market attracts many willing employees, but repatriated foreigners have also reported being trafficked to sites in Myanmar and tortured by scam center operators. The draft legislation would allow capital punishment for “violence, torture, unlawful arrest and detention, or cruel treatment against another person for the purpose of forcing them to commit online scams.” The
RSS