Melissa Huckaby pleaded guilty to murder Monday within the Sandra Cantu case which surprised everybody. The woman that taught Sunday school entered in this plea into what was really supposed to be a procedural listening to in advance of the Melissa Huckaby trial scheduled for fall 2010. Huckaby is on trial for the kidnapping and murder of Sandra Cantu who was 8 years old. Under a plea agreement that was reached with the San Joaquin County District Attorney, Huckaby will be sentenced June 12th to a prison term of life without the possibility of parole.
Melissa Huckaby escapes death penalty
In exchange for Melissa Huckaby pleading guilty to murder in the Sandra Cantu case, prosecutors took the death penalty off the table and dropped all other charges against her including child endangerment and furnishing a harmful substance for allegedly drugging a 7-year-old girl and a man within the months before Sandra died. The San Francisco Chronicle says that a Melissa Huckaby trial could have very easily resulted within the death penalty had a jury convicted her of killing Sandra Cantu, whose body was found April 10, 2009, in a suitcase in a Tracy, Calif., irrigation pond.
The case of Sandra Cantu Melissa Huckaby
Sandra Cantu was last seen on March 27, 2009, skipping near her home on a surveillance video. Huckaby, mother of one of Sandra Cantu’s playmates, was arrested only four days later and at first charged with murder and 3 special circumstances alleging the murder was committed during a kidnapping, involved a lewd or lascivious act on a child, and involved rape with a foreign object.
Details of Melissa Huckaby and Sandra Cantu
Melissa Huckaby told FOX40 News and local newspaper The Tracy Press her suitcase was reported stolen from the driveway of her mobile home the day Sandra Cantu went missing. However, a report was never filed for a missing suitcase according to the police investigating the Melissa Huckaby Sandra Cantu case. FOX40 News says that Huckaby’s interviews with various media outlets led many authorities to suspect the Sunday school teacher in connection with the disappearance and murder of Cantu. She was arrested April 8th.
Sources for the article
The San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/10/BAH01DC7P9.DTL&feed=rss.news
FOX40 News
http://www.fox40.com/news/headlines/ktxl-news-huckabypleadsguilty,0,7232594.story?track=rss
