STOCKTON, Calif. -- The family of an 8-year-old Tracy girl allegedly kidnapped, raped and murdered by a Sunday school teacher braced Friday for an emotional day in a Stockton courtroom.Melissa Huckaby, 28, was scheduled to enter a plea to murder and kidnap charges with three special circumstances allegations -- rape with a foreign object, lewd or lascivious conduct with a child under 14 and murder in the course of a kidnapping in the death of Sandra Cantu.
A conviction on any of the special circumstances would make her eligible for the death penalty.
Augie Chavez, Cantu’s aunt, will be among the family members attending the hearing.
“We all are planning on being there,” she told KTVU. “I think it’s important to represent Sandra and show we do care about what happened.”
Chavez said the family has had a difficult time dealing with the murder.
“(We’re ) holding up the best we can,” she said. “We have our good days and bad days-- more bad days than good days, unfortunately.”
“It’s everything all wrapped together,” she continued. “You have sadness. You have anger. You have moments of happiness remembering Sandra and the funny things she used to do. It’s just difficult.”
When asked what she would say to Huckaby, Chavez said: “I would just want to ask why. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why. It is just why. That is what I would say to her.”
At her initial court appearance last week, Huckaby broke down and cried as the special circumstances enhancements were read at her arraignment. In the ensuing days, a gag order has been issued surrounding the case.
Cantu disappeared March 27, and was last seen on a surveillance camera skipping outside the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park where she lived just five doors down from Huckaby.
An intense 10-day search ended on April 6, when farmworkers draining an irrigation pond a few miles away from the mobile home complex found the suitcase that was later determined to contain Sandra's body.
Police have said Sandra was found wearing the same clothes she had on when she was last seen: a pink "Hello Kitty" T-shirt and black leggings.
Huckaby was arrested hours after she told a Tracy Press reporter that the suitcase was hers but it had been stolen the day Sandra went missing.
In the days after Sandra's body was found, police searched Clover Road Baptist Church, interviewed Huckaby's grandfather, Pastor Clifford Lawless, and took items from the family's home. Huckaby lived with her grandparents.
No comments:
Post a Comment