TRACY, Calif. — Several thousand people gathered Thursday to remember an 8-year-old girl whom most only knew as a smiling face on fliers but many felt close to after the massive search for her body.
Family members and community leaders recalled Sandra Cantu as an exuberant, loving girl who enjoyed skipping down the streets. She vanished March 27; her body was found last week in a suitcase pulled from an irrigation pond near her home.
“This little girl, Sandra, in two weeks became much more than a little girl who lived down the street in a town in California,” said Tracy Police Chief Janet Thiessen. “Sandra Cantu became our little girl, a child whose spirits touched us as we searched for her and prayed for her safe return.”
An overflow crowd of more than 600 people watched the ceremony on a screen in the high school’s cafeteria and listened to it through speakers on the football field. Many in attendance wore T-shirts with the girl’s face.
Sandra’s relatives, including her mother, father and sisters, lined the front row of the school gymnasium, holding one another and crying at times. Images of Sandra graduating from preschool, blowing out birthday candles and opening Christmas presents played on auditorium screens.
A local Sunday-school teacher whose daughter was a playmate of Sandra’s has been accused of the killing. Melissa Huckaby, 28, who lived just a few doors down from Sandra’s family, was arraigned Tuesday on charges that she kidnapped, raped and murdered the child.
