Sandra Cantu – The FBI has joined the search for Sandra Cantu, the 8-year old girl who vanished Friday afternoon while playing in a park near her mobile home in Tracy, California.
Little Sandra Cantu is four feet tall, weighs 45 pounds, and was last seen wearing a Hello Kitty t-shirt, a striped dress and black leggings.
Sandra’s cousin says the little girl lived with her mother and grandparents and that the father has never been in the child’s life and may be living in Mexico.
“She’s got a fiery personality,” said her cousin, Janet Anderson. “She is very — and this is what scares me — she’s very friendly. She just loves everybody and is very trusting.”
Candice Vega says just two weeks ago she warned her little cousin about being safe.
“I told her, ‘Gosh, you’re so pretty and cute and little’. I said, ‘you know you’re not supposed to talk to strangers, right?’ She said ‘yeah’. I said, ‘because there’s a lot of bad people who like to take pretty, little girls like you’. She said, ‘Do you know anyone who’s been kidnapped?’ I said, ‘No, but I see it on TV all the time’.”
She describes Sandra Cantu as a happy girl who was close with her family and wasnt the type to run off.
The family told police about an incident at the mobile home park pool two years ago, when a middle aged male resident came up to the then 6-year-old and kissed her on the mouth.
Police say they’ve searched several homes in the mobile home park and have no persons of interest and no evidence of an abduction.
“She’s an awesome sister,” said her sister Simone Chavez. “She’s always happy. She’s always doing cartwheels. And I want her to come back home, you know?”
The mobile home park has less than 100 units. There are about 80 registered sex offenders living in a five-mile radius around it.
On Monday night, Tracy police and FBI agents searched six locations, some in the mobile home park and some in Tracy, and all of them connected to two men.
Authorities did not call the men suspects, and did not name them publicly. They said both live in the mobile home park but did not say how or if they are related to Sandra.
“We’re looking for evidence that will lead to the discovery of Sandra’s whereabouts,” Tracy Police Sgt. Tony Sheneman told reporters Monday night. “We operate on the assumption she is alive and well.”
Sandra Cantu came home from school about 3 p.m. Friday and asked to go play with a friend who lived a few houses down in the same mobile home park.
“I told her it was OK,” Sandra’s mother, Maria Chavez, told reporters while dabbing tears. “And that was the last time I saw her.”
And that’s the latest news on the disappearance of missing 8-year old Sandra Cantu.
Tags: girl abducted, missing girl, sandra cantu
March 31st, 2009 at 10:38 am
Sandra Cantu photos:
April 7th, 2009 at 8:28 am
A clip from a surveillance video from Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park showing missing 8-year-old Sandra Cantu on March 27, the last day she was seen.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:32 am
April 9th, 2009 at 4:04 am
R.I.P. Sandra!
We’ll catch the killer and slice hm into very small pieces…
April 11th, 2009 at 6:59 am
Melissa Huckaby Arrested For Sandra Cantu Murder
Police announced early Saturday morning they have arrested 28-year-old Melissa Huckaby for the kidnapping and murder of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, who disappeared from the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park in Tracy, California on the afternoon of March 27th.
Sandra’s body was found 10 days later, stuffed into a suitcase and dumped in a farm pond. Earlier Friday, Huckaby had told reporters a suitcase had been stolen from her on March 27 – the day Sandra disappeared.
Huckaby was booked into the San Joaquin County Jail Saturday morning on suspicion of kidnapping and murder after voluntarily coming in for questioning.
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.
FBI agents had searched the mobile home Huckaby shared with her grandparents, as well as her SUV.
Huckaby is a Sunday school teacher at the nearby Clover Road Baptist Church, where her grandfather is the pastor.
However according to local Fox40 News, she has a prior police record, convicted of felony charge of second degree commercial burglary and a misdemeanor charge of property theft and served time in Los Angeles County.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Melissa Huckaby Molested Sandra Cantu
Prosecutors said Monday they may include rape and molestation charges, in addition to murder, in the case against the Sunday school teacher accused of killing an 8-year-old Northern California girl and putting her body in a suitcase.
Melissa Huckaby, 28, was arrested Friday on suspicion of kidnapping and murdering Sandra Cantu. She is scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday.
Formal charges have not been filed, but San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Robert Himmelblau said Monday a murder charge against Huckaby could include the special circumstances of rape with a foreign object, lewd and lascivious conduct with a child and murder in the course of a kidnapping.
A decision on which, if any, special circumstances to include in the charges hasn’t been made, but a conviction on any of them would make Huckaby eligible for the death penalty or life in prison without parole, Himmelblau said.
The district attorney’s office hasn’t determined whether to seek the death penalty, he said.
On April 6, Sandra’s body was found in a suitcase by farmworkers draining an irrigation pond located only a few miles from Sandra’s home in the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park.
Huckaby lived with her grandparents five doors down from Sandra in Tracy. The little girl was a playmate of Huckaby’s 5-year-old daughter, Madison.
Police have not said how, where or why Sandra was killed, but Sgt. Tony Sheneman said investigators believe she acted alone.
“We have not been provided with one (a motive),” Sheneman said Monday. “We don’t know why a mother would kill another mother’s child.”
Neither Himmelblau nor Sheneman would provide details on any evidence leading prosecutors to consider the sexual assault allegations.
“I was hoping that wasn’t the case,” Sandra’s aunt, Angie Chavez, said through tears. “I’m in shock. The whole thing is unimaginable.”
April 17th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Please know that our hearts (the world mourns with you)are sadden and broken by this event, my prayers and my heart goes to you and your family. To the family of Sandra please be strong let the Lord Almighty be your strength and do not be angry at the Lord, he did not cause this to happen, but the evil that surrounds this world did. Please cling closer to the Lord only He will give you comfort, peace, and rest, I know cause He has been there for me He has never let me down no matter what loss of pain I go through, I know you will always miss Sandra and her beautiful smile, I bet you might at times even tend to blame yourself, but please don’t, know it was not your fault, cling to Our Heavely Father, Get to Him for only He can give you comfort, in such time of agony and pain.
My prayers will continue to be with you and all your loved ones .. rest assure you will one day see your little precious angel alive and well in Heaven, when we get to be called by Him to go home, but for now just be strong and give it all to Jesus, All to Jesus all surrender.
With sincere concern, and Love,
Janie Manrriquez from Texas