Arrest In Murder Of 8-Year-Old Calif. Girl

Sources Tell CBS News 28-Year-Old Sunday School Teacher Is Charged With Kidnapping And Murder Of Sandra Cantu

TRACY, Calif., April 11, 2009

The booking photo of Melissa Huckaby taken Saturday, April 11, 2009. The 28-year-old Sunday school teacher was arrested late Friday night and charged with kidnapping and murder after voluntarily going to police for questioning in the death of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu. (AP/San Joaquin County Sheriff)

(CBS/AP) CBS News has learned that an arrest has been made in the murder of eight-year-old Sandra Cantu in the Tracy, Calif.

Sources say the suspect is 28-year-old Melissa Huckaby, a neighbor whose own daughter was one of Sandra’s playmates.

Huckaby has been charged with kidnapping and murder.

In a phone interview on Friday, Huckaby told CBS Station KPIX that Sandra visited her home March 27, the day she disappeared. Huckaby also said she had left a suitcase in the driveway that day, and that it was missing.

Sandra’s body was found 10 days after she disappeared, stuffed into a suitcase and dumped in a farm pond.

Huckaby is the granddaughter of the pastor of a nearby church that was searched extensively Friday by police investigators.

Huckaby taught Sunday school at the church, according to The Associated Press.

Soon after that search, Huckaby drove herself to the police station, where she was questioned until early Saturday morning.

KPIX reports that at 2:25 a.m., police drove Huckaby out of their headquarters in an unmarked car, headed for the San Joaquin Jail, where she was booked on charges of kidnapping and murder.

"We have information that by the time (Sandra Cantu) was reported missing to us, she had already been murdered," Police Chief Janet Thiessen told KPIX.

She would not elaborate on Sandra's death nor a possible motive.

KPIX also reports that Huckaby was recently convicted for petty theft in San Joaquin County. According to court records, the judge ordered her to be examined by physicians after Huckaby claimed she was not mentally competent to stand trial. It was determined that she was competent and she pleaded guilty.

Huckaby was also convicted in November of 2006 for petty theft at the Bellflower Superior Court in Los Angeles County.

Cantu's disappearance had left the city of Tracy on edge, wondering how a little girl could just vanish so close to home.

The last time her mother saw Sandra alive, the little girl was going outside to play with friends, and surveillance vide

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