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	Breaking News: Arrest Made in Cantu Murder Case Fox 40 April 11, 2009 http://www.fox40.com/pages/landing_local_headlines/?BREAKING-NEWS-Arrest-Made-in-Cantu-Murde=1&blockID=263869&feedID=190 TRACY - Police announced early Saturday morning they have arrested 28-year-old Melissa Huckaby for the kidnapping and murder of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu. No other arrests have been announced in the case. Huckaby lives with her grandparents in the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park and is a Sunday school teacher at the nearby Clover Road Baptist Church, where her grandfather, Lane Lawless, is the pastor. Investigators called Melissa Huckaby to the police department for questioning around 7pm Friday. Five hours later, she was placed under arrest in connection with Cantu's murder. An unmarked police car transported Huckaby to the San Joaquin County Jail around 2am, at which time she was booked for the crime. "She gave enough information to us during the course of the interview that probable cause was there to arrest her," said Tracy Police Sgt. Tony Sheneman. Sandra Cantu disappeared from the mobile home park on March 27th. A massive search for the child included hundreds of volunteers and law enforcement officials. The search ended April 6th when farmworkers who were draining the irrigation pond to water fields found a suitcase containing Cantu's body. Pictures of the girl with dark brown eyes and light brown hair were posted all over Tracy. The slain girl's aunt, Angie Chavez, said in a phone interview with The Associated Press early Saturday that she was happy to learn of the arrest. "I want to know why she did it, if she did it," Chavez said. During the news conference, Tracy Police Chief Janet Thiessen said investigators worked the case tirelessly in the hopes of finding Cantu. "We have information that Sandra, by the time she was reported missing to us, that she probably had already been murdered," said Thiessen. "It has helped us to bring Sandra home, again not in the way that we would've hoped, but that was out of our hands shortly after she went missing." Police did not state how the girl allegedly was killed or the motive. FBI agents and Tracy Police had searched the mobile home Huckaby shared with her grandparents, as well as her SUV. The church where she taught had been the focus of several FBI searches, most recently Friday evening when evidence was collected from inside a shed on the church property. FOX40 News spoke with Huckaby by phone Friday, at which time she claimed the large black suitcase containing Cantu's body had been stolen from the driveway of her home on the same day the child disappeared. Early in the investigation, Huckaby told authorities Cantu had come over to her mobile home to play with her 5-year-old daughter on the day she disappeared. Huckaby said Cantu left for another friend's home when told her daughter was too busy cleaning up her toys. Court records obtained by the Tracy Press show a 28-year-old Melissa Huckaby pleaded no contest in January to a felony charge of second degree commercial burglary and a misdemeanor charge of property theft. The criminal complaint said she served time in Los Angeles County and that she tried to steal something from a Target store in November. The complaint says she’s on probation in San Joaquin County and is due back in court for sentencing on April 17th.
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