Murder of Sandra Cantu

Sandra Renee Cantu, an eight-year-old second grader at Melville S. Jacobson Elementary School, lived with her mother, grandparents, and three older siblings at Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park in Tracy, California. On the afternoon of March 27, 2009, she returned home after playing at a friend's house, then left again saying she was going to play at another friend's home. When she failed to return for dinner, she was reported missing at 7:53 p.m. Surveillance footage from near her home, later broadcast nationally, showed her crossing the street before moving out of frame.

An extensive search followed, involving local police, the FBI, police dogs, equestrian teams, all-terrain vehicles, and a California Highway Patrol helicopter, along with a $22,000 reward. An early suspect—a local man previously seen kissing Cantu on the lips at a swimming pool two years earlier—was interviewed and cleared. On April 6, 2009, a suitcase containing Cantu's body was found during routine draining of a local irrigation pond. An autopsy found a lip laceration, an elbow abrasion, genital injuries consistent with the diameter of a rolling pin handle, and a bloodstained cloth tied in a noose around her head, consistent with homicidal asphyxiation. Toxicology confirmed the sedative alprazolam in her system, a drug also found in the home and purse of neighbor Melissa Huckaby.

Investigators grew suspicious of Huckaby, a 28-year-old Sunday school teacher living in the same mobile home park whose daughter was a friend of Cantu's. On the day Cantu disappeared, Huckaby had texted Cantu's mother asking her to tell police that something had been stolen. The next day, at a vigil for Cantu, Huckaby reported finding a note stating the child was locked in a stolen suitcase and thrown in water at a specific location; police found her behavior "agitated" and "hyperventilating." Huckaby had a documented history of borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, and was initially not treated as a prime suspect.

After Cantu's body was found in the suitcase Huckaby had reported stolen, investigators intensified scrutiny of her. A retired U.S. Marine and his wife reported seeing Huckaby's SUV at the irrigation pond around the time of the disappearance, and surveillance footage showed Cantu walking toward Huckaby's residence shortly before Huckaby's vehicle was seen driving away. A rolling pin recovered from the church where Huckaby taught Sunday school tested positive for Cantu's DNA and had a bloody smudge and bent handle.

On April 10, 2009, Huckaby was arrested and charged with kidnapping, rape, and murder. Additional charges related to drugging a 7-year-old girl and a 37-year-old man were dropped as part of a plea agreement in which Huckaby pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and kidnapping to avoid the death penalty. In 2010 she was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. At sentencing, Huckaby said she could not understand why she had done what she did; the prosecutor suggested she may have acted for attention. Tracy's community has since memorialized Cantu through school dedications and an annual children's event established by a relative.