STOCKTON, Calif. — A woman kidnapped, raped and murdered an 8-year-old girl and stuffed her body into a suitcase that was dumped in a pond just a few miles from home, prosecutors alleged Tuesday.
Melissa Huckaby, 28, was charged with murdering her daughter’s playmate, Sandra Cantu, in Tracy, a city of about 78,000 people 60 miles east of San Francisco.
Huckaby, who volunteered as a Sunday-school teacher at her grandfather’s Baptist church in Tracy, appeared in a San Joaquin County courtroom for her arraignment in a red jumpsuit and shackles. She trembled and cried as a judge read the charge: one count of murder with the special circumstances of rape with a foreign object, lewd or lascivious conduct with a child under 14, and murder in the course of a kidnapping.
The special circumstances mean Huckaby, if convicted, could face the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors have not said whether they will seek the death penalty.
During Tuesday’s hearing, which lasted only several minutes, public defender Ellen Schwarzenberg asked Judge Richard Vlavianos for a gag order in the case. Vlavianos said that question would be answered by his colleague Judge Terrence Van Oss, who would be presiding over future hearings.
Vlavianos ordered Huckaby to return to court April 24, when she’s expected to enter a plea.
Sandra disappeared March 27, last seen on surveillance-camera video skipping outside the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park where she lived just five doors from Huckaby.
A 10-day search ended April 6, when farmworkers draining an irrigation pond a few miles away from the mobile-home complex found the suitcase containing Sandra’s body.
