CA- Weeping suspect accused of girl's rape, murder

Just a gut feel, she is protecting someone, maybe a boyfriend or other person in her life. This entire case is just too weird, no mold for it.

4-15-2009 California:

Softly crying, her feet chained and her hands shackled to her waist, Melissa Huckaby was arraigned Tuesday on charges that she kidnapped, raped and murdered 8-year-old Sandra Cantu of Tracy - allegations that could send her to the death chamber.

Huckaby, 28, shuffled into San Joaquin County Court in Stockton just before 1 p.m., the first time she had been seen in public since her arrest last week. Her lower lip quivered while she stood waiting for the proceeding to begin. Then she regained composure briefly.

But as Judge Richard Vlavianos read off the key charge, Huckaby broke down.

The judge read that she "did willfully and unlawfully and intentionally and with malice aforethought murder Sandra Cantu, a human being," and as the words left his lips, Huckaby wept quietly and closed her eyes.

She cried again as the judge read off the charge of "rape by instrument."

The only time Huckaby spoke was to say, almost inaudibly, "Yes," when asked if she wanted to be represented by a public defender. She did not enter a plea.

The hearing lasted just four minutes, after which Huckaby - by now looking morose and worn - was led by bailiffs out the same side door through which she entered. The next court hearing was scheduled for April 24.

Deputy Public Defender Ellen Schwarzenberg asked the judge for a gag order on all parties in the case, which would prevent them from talking publicly. The judge did not immediately rule on the request.

Huckaby is accused of killing Sandra after the girl went to her house to play with Huckaby's 5-year-old daughter March 27. Sandra was dead before her parents knew she was missing, investigators say. The criminal complaint filed Tuesday gave no details of how she was killed.

The girl's disappearance triggered a 10-day search throughout Northern California. Her body was found in a suitcase 2 miles away on April 6 by farmworkers draining an irrigation pond. Huckaby told a reporter for the Tracy Press before her arrest that the suitcase was hers, but had been stolen out of her driveway.

(eAdvocate Post)

Prosecutor says little
Outside the courthouse, county District Attorney James Willett made a few terse comments after the hearing, offering little information about where he intends to head in the case. He said he has not decided whether to pursue a death sentence if Huckaby is convicted.

"We'll have no comment with regard to the evidence obtained," Willett said. He noted that Huckaby is already undergoing mental evaluation for a petty theft conviction this year, and "obviously any mental issues will have an effect on this case."

Schwarzenberg asked during Tuesday's hearing for "further medication evaluation" of Huckaby, but the defense attorney did not explain her request.

The formal charges facing Huckaby are kidnapping and murder, with three special circumstances added to the murder charge that make her eligible for execution. Those allege that the killing was committed during a kidnapping, involved a lewd or lascivious act on a child and involved rape with a foreign object.

Among the 100 people who filled the Stockton courtroom were Sandra's aunt and uncle, Angie and Joe Chavez, who wept during the hearing - particularly as the rape charge was presented. Sandra's father, Daniel Cantu, also came to court, but Sandra's mother, who was sedated after being told of her daughter's death, apparently did not.

The rape allegation was particularly difficult to accept for a family already in mourning, Angie Chavez said.

"This is terrible, just terrible," she said, crying, before the hearing began.

Huckaby's father, Brian Lawless, and several other relatives of the Sunday school teacher left the courtroom as soon as the arraignment ended and declined to comment.

Before the hearing, they said they were mystified that she could be the killer described by investigators.

"My daughter is a loving mother," Lawless said as he arrived at the courthouse. "I never saw her raise her voice to her daughter. ... She loves children."

Authorities have not gone into detail about how they believe Sandra died.

Focus on church, home
However, sources close to the investigation have told The Chronicle that the girl was deliberately killed at the Clover Road Baptist Church, where Huckaby teaches Sunday school and her grandfather is pastor. The church is two blocks from the mobile home park where Sandra lived and where Huckaby resides with relatives, and police and FBI agents searched it several times before Huckaby was arrested.

Investigators with search warrants went back into the church and Huckaby's home Tuesday evening but did not say what they were looking for.

If Huckaby is convicted and sent to Death Row, she will join just 15 women there among 680 condemned prisoners in California.

In fact, instances of women committing crimes such as the ones Huckaby is accused of are so uncommon that criminologists interviewed Tuesday struggled to come up with similar examples.

Only 5 percent of pedophiles in America who abuse girls are female, said David Finkelhor, director of the University of New Hampshire Crimes Against Children Research Center, and the victims are almost always older than Sandra was.

"There are cases of a woman acting alone, but more frequently you get a situation where it's a woman working in cahoots with a guy," he said. "What's being described here is very rare." ..News Source.. by Demian Bulwa,Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writers