Police have arrested a Sunday school teacher on suspicion of kidnapping and killing 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, whose body was found stuffed into the teacher's suitcase in an irrigation pond.
The teacher, Melissa Huckaby, 28, of Tracy, Calif., was Cantu's neighbor, and Huckaby's 5-year-old daughter was one of the girl's playmates.
The teacher, Melissa Huckaby, 28, of Tracy, Calif., was Cantu's neighbor, and Huckaby's 5-year-old daughter was one of the girl's playmates.
Huckaby has said in a published interview that Sandra had visited her home March 27, the day she vanished.
Though Huckaby owned a suitcase that she said was stolen after she left it in her driveway -- evidently the same suitcase in which Sandra Cantu's body was found April 6 -- it appears police did not believe her story.
"Ms. Huckaby has been arrested and will be booked at the San Joaquin County Jail for kidnapping and murder," Tracy Police Chief Janet Thiessen said.
Huckaby drove herself to the Tracy police station to submit to questioning Friday night, and was placed under arrest about five hours later, just before midnight.
"She revealed enough information that we had probable cause to arrest her for both kidnapping and murder," Tracy Police Sgt. Tony Sheneman said.
Sheneman added that Huckaby initially took the charges hard.
"She became very emotional," he said. "Then she became relaxed again, then became resigned to what was happening."
Huckaby is a Sunday school teacher in Tracy, a northern California town of about 78,000 people about 60 miles east of San Francisco. She lives in the same trailer park where Sandra Cantu disappeared and is the granddaughter of a local pastor whose Clove Road Baptist Church was the scene of a very intense police search last week.
Huckaby was also scheduled to appear in court April 17 to check in with a county mental health program as part of a 3-year probation sentence for petty theft.
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