I Know of No Priest in Our Diocese Involved in Sex Abuse of a Minor. What Melissa Huckaby Heard, Steinbock Testimony Part Two, by Kay Ebeling, City of Angels, November 4, 2010

I Know of No Priest in Our Diocese Involved in Sex Abuse of a Minor. What Melissa Huckaby Heard, Steinbock Testimony Part Two

By Kay Ebeling
City of Angels
November 4, 2010

http://cityofangels8.blogspot.com/2010/11/i-know-of-no-priest-in-our-diocese.html

As soon as I heard that Melissa Huckaby murdered 9-year-old Sandra Cantu in a church basement March 27, 2009, I got a chill. The Santillan vs. Bishop of Fresno trial had been in progress the previous weeks in Fresno, right in the middle of the Highway 5 ride between Tracy, California, where the murder and rape took place, and Wasco, where the molestations by Monsignor Anthony Herdegen of the Santillan brothers took place. The murder weapon Huckaby used was a rolling pin used to press out communion wafers in the Clover Baptist Church. As soon as I heard about the murder, I felt there might be a connection, with the extensive news coverage of the jury trial especially when Cardinal Roger Mahony testified. As the jury began deliberation in Santillan vs. Bishop of Fresno, Melissa Huckaby interrupted her preparation to teach a Sunday School class and took Sandra Cantu on a ride to the church.

At City of Angels, today we are running Day Two of the testimony of Bishop John Steinbock in that trial. The Bishop of Fresno's first day of testimony is here in Part One of this series posted October 28, 2010.

This story of the connection between Cantu's murder and the Fresno trial has been simmering at City of Angels Blog for a while. I've thought about going North to visit Huckaby in prison and ask her, was there a connection between the trial and the mania inside your head the day you murdered Cantu? Was it a coincidence that you murdered Cantu just hours after Catholic leaders did a PR routine under oath testifying they knew nothing of pedophile priest crimes? I thought of traveling to interview Huckaby and ask her those questions, but now City of Angels is going the other direction to Albuquerque, to write about Servants of the Paraclete starting next week. We can always visit Huckaby in prison years from now. She isn't going anywhere.

Meanwhile here is more official transcript from March 23, 2009, day two of Bishop Steinbock's testimony. Part 3, in this series "What Melissa Huckaby Heard" will be transcript of the trial from March 26, 2009, the day before Huckaby interrupted her work scissoring magazine pictures for a Sunday School project to murder Sandra Cantu in the basement of the church where her grandfather was pastor.