Trigger warning: There are details of sexual assault and crimes against a child.
On March 27, 2009, 8-year-old Sandra Cantu suddenly went missing. At first, the girl's family thought it was a kidnapping for ransom. However, the truth behind this is much darker.
Sandra's family was living in Tracy, California - a suburb of San Francisco about 60 miles away. Sandra lived in a trailer park with her mom Maria, three siblings, and grandparents. Sandra was described as always being happy and outgoing. She often loved to play with her friends around the neighborhood, and made friends very easily, with kids and adults.
On March 27, 2009, Cantu played at a friend's house after school until approximately 4:00 p.m., when she returned home. She later left home saying that she was going to play at another friend's house. When she did not return for dinner, Maria reported Sandra missing to the local police at 7:53 p.m. When the police came over, they asked for a description of Sandra, and what she was wearing that day. Maria told them she was wearing a pink Hello Kitty shirt and black leggings.
The police canvassed the area. They knocked on the neighbor’s doors and asked if anyone had seen Sandra. No one had.
A CCTV near the Cantu's residence captured a bubbly Sandra skipping happily down the street. That was the last time she was seen alive.
By the next day, the police had called in the FBI, and the search expanded with more help from volunteers, police dogs, and divers searching the nearby river searching for the missing 8-year-old. A $22,000 reward was offered for information in the case, and Sandra’s case was all over the media.
The police received some information about several sketchy characters that either lived in the mobile park or were around the area on March 27, including Sandra's dad Daniel, an ice cream man, and even a man who lived next door to the Cantu who people believed was a pedophile, but eventually, they were ruled out.
The police became very attached to this case, and they were disappointed that every lead was a dead end. A candlelight vigil was held for Sandra, with an estimated 6000 people coming together. but it was ruined by a distraught woman. The woman ran up to the police who were at the vigil and told them that she found something. This something was a letter, and it was found by a neighbor of the Cantu’s named Melissa Huckaby, a 28-year-old Sunday school teacher. She also mentioned to them that her suitcase was stolen from her driveway on the 27, but didn’t think it was important.
The letter said:
“Cantu locked in stolin suitcase. Thrown in water onn Bacchetti Road and Whitehall Road. Witness.”
The letter was sent in for testing, but the police were suspicious right away. The handwriting stood out to them, and there were a lot of misspelled words. The police still wanted to check it out, and a dive team was sent to search the area. The bodies of water that were searched were mostly sewage dumps, and nothing was found.
The detectives found it odd, for Huckaby’s frantic behavior fell so quickly into a calm state when she mentioned her missing suitcase and coincidentally found a note that specified the child was trapped in a suitcase. The police decided to do some further digging on Melissa. They brought her in for questioning and talked to neighbors about her.
Melissa had a history of mental illness, and many people said she did a lot of weird things for attention. When the police brought Melissa into the station, they asked her where she was on March 27. Melissa said she had been decorating her classroom at the church. She told the police that she made a phone call about the stolen suitcase while she was there. Melissa’s phone records were obtained, and they showed that she did make a phone call at 4pm. The police didn’t actually know if Sandra disappeared at 4pm and believed that Melissa was still their prime suspect, they just needed more evidence.
Despite the combined efforts, the search for Sandra came up empty until a week later.
On April 6, 2009, the police received a phone call from an employee working at an irrigation pond. The employee said they had discovered a suitcase when they drained the pond.
Sure enough, a black suitcase tied with a white string was found. It had the overwhelming smell of decomposition, and it was transferred to the medical examiner’s office.
A child-sized body dressed in a Hello Kitty shirt was cramped into the suitcase. The same Hello Kitty shirt Sandra was last seen in.
Dental records confirmed that the child in the suitcase was Sandra. She had a cut on her lower inner lip and an abrasion on her left elbow. Her genitalia was injured without any presence of foreign DNA found. She had alprazolam, an anti-anxiety medication, in her system even though she was not prescribed that drug. The cause of death was concluded as homicidal asphyxiation. Sandra was likely strangled with a piece of cloth knotted into a noose.
As evidence began to pile up, such as Sandra’s body tucked into a fetal position in the suitcase, it suggested that they should have been looking for a female killer, placing Huckaby at the top of the priority list.
An ex-marine and his wife saw a woman with dark-colored hair, presumably Huckaby, at the irrigation pond in Sandra’s missing hours, where she claimed she "just had to pee real quick". In the CCTV that captured Sandra’s last moments, Sandra was heading in the direction of Huckaby’s house, and a few minutes later, Huckaby was seen driving away.
The police had an overwhelming feeling that their killer was Melissa Huckaby, and they wanted to interview her again. The police went over to Melissa, but they discovered she had tried to commit suicide by swallowing razor blades. Melissa was in the hospital, and the police were not allowed to see her until she was released.
The police seized Melissa’s car. Inside the car, a post-it note was found. The post-it note had been written on, and the words were scribbled out. It was sent in for testing, and the testing proved that the words “Bachetti Rd., Whitehall Rd., and water,” were all on the note.
A warrant was obtained for Melissa’s home. A notebook was found under Melissa’s dresser. The notebook had the same paper as the letter that Melissa gave to the police during the vigil. They knew it was Melissa who wrote the note because of the paper, and the indents found on a different page. The suitcase also matched Huckaby’s supposedly stolen Eddie Bauer suitcase. And, the handwriting on the note that pointed out the location of the body was examined, and it matched Huckaby’s writing.
A search warrant was obtained for the church where Melissa taught. Inside her classroom, the police found a white string that had been cut from the blinds. They also found a rolling pin had a "bloody smudge" on it as well as a bent handle, authorities said.
Despite the pile of evidence they had against Melissa, they wanted more. The police decided to tap her phone and waited until she got out of the hospital.
On the day she was released, she called the Cantu family. Melissa asked Sandra’s sibling to come over and play with her 5-year-old daughter. The police raced over to her home and discovered that there were no children in her house at the time. Melissa probably was trying to lure another child into her home. Melissa had also texted the Cantus on the day Sandra disappeared about her missing suitcase.
Melissa was arrested on April 10, 2009, but the police wanted more evidence. They obtained a warrant for her computer and discovered that this was not an accident. It was premeditated. Melissa had searched for how to kill a child, and she looked up another murder where a father killed his child and got rid of the body by putting it in a suitcase.
Melissa had a history of drugging people, including another child, and the Alprazolam was found in her purse and in her home.
According to Huckaby, it was a game of hide and seek gone wrong. Sandra dropped by to visit Huckaby’s 5-year-old daughter that day. Sandra hid in a suitcase with the help of Huckaby to surprise Huckaby’s daughter. Then, Huckaby loaded the suitcase up and went to church. She went on with her day and forgot about Sandra. When she remembered, Sandra was no longer breathing. She tried to cool her off with a wet towel. Panic-stricken, she decided to get rid of the suitcase.
However, the story was conflicting with the evidence found. Sandra’s private part was assaulted. Sandra’s injuries and DNA matched a rolling pin found in a church where Huckaby taught in. Huckaby’s purse had a bottle of alprazolam, the same drug Sandra had in her system. It was also determined that one of the blinds in the church had a missing cord that matched the cord used to tie shut the suitcase.
The prosecution’s theory was that Melissa lured Sandra over to her house. In the surveillance footage, Sandra is seen looking over in the direction of Melissa’s home and walking over. They said Melissa asked Sandra to come to the church to help her decorate. When they got to the church, Melissa gave Sandra some juice that had the medication in it and waited until Sandra passed out.
Melissa eventually took a plea deal to avoid the death penalty. She pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and kidnapping. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Sources and Further Reading
Wikipedia: Murder of Sandra Cantu
Written by David
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