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A Tracy woman pleaded guilty today to charges that she murdered 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, a surprise move in a case that garnered national attention. Appearing in San Joaquin County Superior Court, Melissa Huckaby, 29, entered her plea to murder with a special circumstance for kidnapping, said Deputy District Attorney Robert Himelblau. Huckaby faces life in prison without the possibility of parole when she is sentenced June 14 by Judge Linda Lofthus. Huckaby's plea in a Stockton courtroom took place at what had been scheduled as a procedural hearing in advance of a trial set for this fall. Prosecutors had been...

The woman accused of raping and murdering 8-year-old Sandra Cantu of Tracy is facing new charges alleging that she poisoned a 7-year-old girl and a man in the months before Sandra died . ... In a complaint filed Thursday, prosecutors charged Huckaby with poisoning the 7-year-old girl, identified only as Jane Doe, on Jan. 17. That's the day that a woman at the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park said her daughter had apparently been drugged with muscle relaxants during a visit with Huckaby.... Huckaby was also charged with drugging a man identified as Daniel Plowman on March 2. The substance...

The judge in the Sandra Cantu murder case agreed to seal her autopsy report Friday, saying if the results were released, there would be "public outrage." "We haven't seen anything like this in San Joaquin County," Superior Court Judge Linda L. Loftus said. "A lot of courts have never seen this kind of case." Both prosecution and defense attorneys were in favor of sealing the report. "In the interest of a fair trial, for both sides in this case, that is the only option," Loftus said. "There would be overriding prejudice if the record is unsealed." She said there would...

It was horrific. A surveillance tape pictured eight year old Sandra Cantu gleefully skipping away from her home in Tracy, California. Sandra's destination was mere yards down the block to play with a young friend. The video was the last image of Sandra alive before she was brutally murdered, stuffed into a suit case and eventually dumped into a drainage pond where she was left in a temporary, watery grave. The alleged murderer, Melissa Huckaby, a 28 year old Sunday school teacher and mother of the slain child's best friend, was the last individual Sandra Cantu saw on that fateful...

TRACY, Calif. (AP) - Prosecutors say they're considering rape and molestation allegations against the woman suspected of killing an 8-year-old Northern California girl and putting her body in a suitcase. Twenty-eight-year-old Melissa Huckaby was arrested Saturday on suspicion of kidnapping and murdering Sandra Cantu. The girl was a playmate of her 5-year-old daughter.

TRACY, Calif. – A California Sunday school teacher was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and killing an 8-year-old girl whose body was stuffed into a suitcase found in an irrigation pond. Melissa Huckaby, 28, was arrested at 11:55 p.m., about five hours after she drove herself to the station at the request of police, according to Tracy Police Sgt. Tony Sheneman.

This morning the news broke regarding the murder of 8 year-old Sandra Cantu. Melissa Huckaby, 28, was arrested and charged on suspicion of kidnapping and killing the young girl. I read this first on Fox News and they had the picture of a Melissa Huckaby, but it was the wrong Huckaby. The first picture is the correct Huckaby. Fox has changed the picture, but there is no mention of the mistake. Several other news agencies did the same thing.