True Crime All The Time - Melissa Huckaby

Episode Date: December 19, 2016

8 year old Sandra Cantu went missing from the mobile home park she lived at on March 27, 2009. A massive search would begin immediately for the little girl. Suspicion would soon fall on the most unlikeliest of suspects, a 28 year old woman who lived in the same mobile home park and taught Sunday school. The facts of this case are so bizarre that they are hard to believe. Join Gibby and I as we discuss the facts of the case along with an assortment of clips from both families, the ensuing trial, and the actual murderer. Please visit our website http://truecrimeallthetime.com for all the information you need related to the show. You can help support the show through the Patreon button for as little as $2 a month. We will be putting our more and more content on Patreon for patrons only including audio of what hit the cutting room floor. Support our sponsors: Go to http://sockclub.com and receive 15% off your order by using the discount code "TRUECRIME". SockClub is offering this amazing discount to our podcast listeners and we appreciate their partnership. Switch to a Simplisafe home security system and get the best and most affordable protection in the industry. Go to www.simplisafe.com/crime to get $200 off SimpliSafe's Defender package. This is an amazing deal and will not last long. Last but not least, Gibby and I want to thank all of our TCATT listeners! It is amazing how quickly we have climbed the charts and you have so much to do with that. We hope you continue to support us and we'll continue to do our very best to provide you with quality content. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, everyone. If you're hearing that sound, you know what time it is. It's time for another episode of true crime all the time podcast. Welcome to episode six. As always, I'm your host, Mike Ferguson. Sitting across from me is my co-host, Mike Gibby Gibson. Gibbs, how are you today? Good, man. I'm liking the studio. Studio's working out well. Yeah. We can see each other. We know when one person wants to talk and the other. That's right. person's getting is done talking not that i want to look at you but you know yeah at least it helps out i got that part for sure as always please visit our website at truecrime all the time dot com

while you're there click through the amazon banner for any amazon shopping click on our patreon button if you want to donate you can support the show financially for as little as a dollar a month You can also use PayPal to help support the show. Make sure you click on our contact page. Follow us on Facebook at True Crime all the time. Twitter at TC all the time. And Instagram and Tumblr, all that information is there. Make sure you continue to share pages with your friends who like true crime or may like this podcast.

I got to get a couple of shoutouts today. Jess and Kentucky reached out to the show. She's got a case that she's very interested in, and she may even want to co-host on a future episode. So Jess and I are communicating about that. That's pretty exciting. Also, Natalie in Pennsylvania has been very active on Facebook, sharing our posts, and we love that.

We love that interaction. sharing either on Facebook or retweeting tweets on Twitter. Tweets on Twitter, that's hard to say. All that does is get us out to your friends who may be into true crime podcasts, and they'll check out the show as well. So continue to do that for us. Thank you. Gibby, you ready for this episode?

Yeah. It's different. Yeah. Hey, should I use my, uh, Keith Morrison voice. Oh yeah, I didn't tell, I didn't say that, did I? Yeah. So Keith Morrison actually replied to one of my tweets yesterday,

and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. She's like the voice of... He is the voice of true crime. So to have, to have... Maybe he's listening. To have Keith Morrison reach out to you. Yeah, I was excited. Maybe he can do a voiceover for us.

I retreated that all over the place. So this one, this episode's different for us. It's different in the fact that it centers around one murder. So we're not talking about spree killings, mass murder, serial killers. But this is a horrific murder. It involves the kidnapping, rape, and murder of an eight-year-old girl. And it's really the, the, the, true identity of the murderer that that shocks the country. I mean, this is a, this was well known.

It was highly publicized at the time made the national news for sure. So let's start talking about little eight-year-old Sandra Cantu. And you've got to look her up on the web. I mean, this girl was, she was so, just a, so, such a pretty little girl, you know, research in this story. I think was probably one of the hardest ones for me, Gibbs, just because of the subject matter. Sure. I think it's rough on, you know, I mean, you've got girls. You know, I've got a girl, and I got a bunch of nieces and nephew and I actually have a, you know, a little niece that's eight years old right now. So it definitely is tough, you know.

I mean, here you have this beautiful eight-year-old girl, second grade. She's one of the most overly friendly personalities from everything that I've read and viewed. And here she is. She lives in this Orchard Estates Trailer Park, which has like 100 residents in it, which is inside Tracy, California. And every resident in the trailer park just adores her. She's so friendly and she visits a lot of them. See that it's probably not the best thing,

because there's definitely some strange individuals that live inside this trailer park. But, you know, here she is. She's just a super beautiful little girl. Something tragic, you know, ends up happening to her. Well, at eight years old, like you said, she's probably overly trusting. Sure. Naive. Yeah, maybe is the word.

And we'll see as it plays out. Just innocent. Yeah. So on March 27, 2009, Sandra's playing at a friend's house after school until about 4 p.m. I think when she returns home. She walks towards her trailer in the trailer park at 4 o'clock. She's seen on surveillance camera that her, the camera was actually put up by her grandpa a few weeks before

because they were having some issues with some vandalism. So he put it up just to see if they can capture that. And you see her walking up to the trailer at 4 p.m. and then for whatever reason something catches her attention and she walks past the trailer and at that point she's never seen again. Yeah, I had read

something about that it was thought that or that she may have told whoever dropped her off or whatever that she was going to play at another friend's house maybe and I don't know if I read that correctly or not but either way she doesn't return

home. No. And by probably six, six, seven o'clock, the family's starting to get worried. Finally, at 7.53, they call the police. Police come out. They get the surveillance camera footage that you were talking about. Right.

And really, there's only two things on it. There's her walking up to the trailer about 4 o'clock. And then they notice the only other thing they see is about 408. They see one of the neighbor's vehicles driving past at 408 out of the point. park. Otherwise, there's nothing else on it. So, you know, they're, they're not sure what's going on. At that point, Tracy Police, they call on the FBI, and the FBI sends in their card unit, which is their child abduction rapid deployment team. They're there within hours. And, of course, they try to, they start putting together some timelines. They start doing some camising.

interviewing. They also, during this time, they actually received their first tip. It's from a neighbor and the mother of a playmate of Sandra. Sandra's playmate was Madison, a six-year-old girl, and it was her mother, Melissa, that reported that her black suitcase was stolen out front of her trailer in this trailer park. She also called the trailer park manager and reported it stolen somewhere around 5 o'clock that day. So they go and they send a police officer. He talks to her. She tells him what happened.

That she had it out on the front and it's missing. She just says, you know, it's a black suitcase. About the size is basically big enough. You could put a small body in it. Little strange. Yeah, a little strange, you know. But they kind of just kind of write it off. they move forward with what the, you know, they go back a little bit.

The FBI card unit also has a behavior analysis unit that comes with them. And as they put this together, they're saying, look, we're probably looking at for a white male mid-40s, was it, Mike? I think it was 20 to 45. 20 to 45 that they would know, they would have knowledge of Sandra and her mom. they would have knowledge or live in the neighborhood. And I got that wrong. It was 25 to 40. 25 to 40.

And so they're saying that's who we're looking for. That's probably who abducted her. And they also noted that the trailer park was butted up right next to one of the most, the major highway. So it would be easy for someone to come off the highway, stroll through the park. And if they wanted to grab a little girl, you know, they could grab the little girl fairly.

fairly easy be back on the highway and moving on. Let me stop you there because there was a couple of things to go back to what you were saying earlier that jumped out at me. Number one, it looks like they had a very, you call it rapid deployment. Right. It looks like within a very short order, there was a lot of resources coming into this trailer park just based off of the. the call that, hey, you know, my child didn't return home.

Right. Now, this is 2009. In years past, that wouldn't have been the case. No. Right? Because you always hear about older stories where they talk about, well, you got to wait. 24 hours. 24 hours.

Whatever it was. And then you can file a missing person's report. Now, I don't know if that applied to eight-year-old. What, I'm guessing. I'm guessing in the age, right. may have played a little bit more into it. Ratcheted it up. But it does sound like, and a lot of times you hear about,

it took, it took police a while to get going. I mean, we're talking about not only the police, but the FBI, this card unit that you mentioned. You know, I read that,

you know, over that, the course of that weekend, they had dogs, they had horses. They had, ATVs. 26.

police detectives from the Tracy Police Department out there looking. They brought in a helicopter from the highway patrol. Doing thermal thermal imaging scanning. Chips. From chips? California Highway. Yeah, and they had 65 FBI agents out there

walking. That's a serious manpower that they put into Sure. And then top of that, you had just 200 residents. They had on an average 200 residents that were helping by going out and searching different areas trying to canvas neighborhoods and

farms and just, you know, they had divers that were searching nearby pools and ponds and con diver dogs out searching, but they don't really find anything. They do find something at a town dump that

is a pink shirt just like she had on, but they after they bring it to her mom, Maria, you know, Maria's like, this is the wrong size, this is not her size. So, kind of puts them at ease, but they're also nervous because they know from what the FBI has told them that if you have been abducted and the person that abducted you plans on murdering you,

they know from stats that the murder is going to occur within the first three hours of you being abducted. So they know that time is ticking. That's a concern. First three hours. Yeah, The FBI said the stat is, now this is in 2009, sure, that if you're being abducted and the outcome is for you to be murdered, that they will murder you within the first three hours on average. I guess it makes sense. It sounds quick. I mean, these are just the stats that they had up to that point.

But I guess if you just sit and analyze why somebody abduct somebody else, if we're not talking about a ransom situation, which I don't believe most abductions would be, right. Then you're talking about doing some kind of harm to somebody. So it would make sense that it would be that that timeframe. So one thing that I did have to, Mike, and I'm sure you have it in your notes, but, and I don't know how long it took to issue this, at some point there was a $22,000 reward. that was being offered for information in the case.

And the other thing I wanted to mention was that surveillance camera footage that you talked about, that was splashed nationally. I mean, that made the national news. Oh, I bet. It was everywhere. My understanding is that they had an early suspect. And it may have had something to do with the FBI profile that, You mentioned.

And again, right, every FBI profile, for the most part, is going to be a male between 25 and 40. Caucasian male, I should say, because that's what it was. Because statistically, most abductors, killers, serial killers, you name it, are... That's the box that they all fit in. Yeah. They tick, for the most part, the majority of them ticked that box. Caucasian male between whatever age or age, you know, you want to put on it. But I think you're right.

They make, they do the search effort. They can't find anything. So the FBI and the, in the Travis Police Department, determined that the Travis or Tracy? Tracy, I'm sorry, Tracy. So they figured the best place to canvas and canvas pretty heavy is the Orchard Park trailer park, right? There's 100 residents back there. And Tracy, police department,

you know, detectives say, we've got some interesting characters back here. Got some sexual... Registered? Registered. Sex offenders. We've got some drug users. We've got some just straight out weirdos. We haven't been able to pen anything on,

but we have some weirdos back here. Right. And we're not disparaging anybody that lives in a trailer park. listening to this podcast. But this is definitely a trailer park that had its pretty good mix of interesting characters. So where Mike was at it was they have their first man that they're going to interview. He comes forward and admits that, and I think it was, was it the summer before? I had two years earlier.

Two years earlier. If you're heading down the same path, I think you are. He's over at the, I guess it's the local. pool and he goes up to Sandra, which I guess would have been six at the point that time, and brushes her hair out of her face and kisses her. At that point, they talked to him, and he admits that he has a fantasy, a sexual fantasy, about young girls, but he's never acted on it. And he met's that, yes, he did kiss her back then and he was sorry, but, uh, nothing's ever moved forward from that.

And they gave him a polygraph and he passes it. And so, you know, they have to move on to. He's ultimately cleared. Yeah, he's cleared. Polygraph.

But, you know, let's dissect that for a minute because, you know, this is a guy that was witnessed kissing a six-year-old on the mouth. Right. At a local swimming pool. Yep.

Nothing really comes of it. Yeah. I mean, he's cleared and we know that he didn't, kill Sandra, but this guy's got some... Got his own issues. He might have a frog demon. Right.

I just wonder what happened. He might have his own frog demon. Wonder what kind of follow-up the police department did with him, you know. So they clear this guy. So then there's the story about the ice cream truck driver that was told not to bring his vehicle into the trailer park because he was. just known as a kind of a weirdo, sexual deviant guy. So they talked to him, but, you know, he reassures him that, you know, that day she was missing.

He did show up to the park, but a couple of the adult males there made him leave the park, and he left immediately because he, you know, kind of feared, I don't want to say for his life, but he definitely feared that they would take issue with him being there, so he left. and the police verified that it was not an issue. Again, though, they do talk about how he was a strange individual and had definitely had a past. Well, he's a sexual, deviant, ice cream, truck, delivery, driver.

It's what you read in all the books, right? You know, the ice cream man, the candy man. I think if I'm living in that trailer part, I'm acting the same way. You know, don't come in here, get the hell out. Exactly. You know what out of you. That's right.

They're told about another strange resident in the trailer park. So they go and they investigate the stepfather and his stepson. And they immediately come forward and show the Tracy Police Department pictures on their phone of Sandra. And it's pictures with her with her pants on butt. or unzipped, sitting on their laps. Mike, what in the hell is going on in this damn park? It's a strange park. Trailer park.

Yeah, it's not anywhere I would want to live. It's not against a trailer park. It's against the individuals living in this trailer park. It's pretty scary. Here they are. They're interviewing these guys. And so they show these pictures. And then the police look at their laptop.

and they found other inappropriate pictures of underage girls on there. They find some stuffed animal inside the trailer that was used for some form of masturbation. They don't really get into the details, but... I'm going to need details on this because I'm not following the... Yeah, I don't know. The stuffed animal that was used for... What I thought you were going to say was the stuffed animal was... had like some like camera in it or something.

No. That's the path I thought you were headed down. Yeah, it was used for, I don't know, I guess they masturbated on it. I really don't know. And they both had a previous history. And the interesting thing is they both failed the polygraph. Bits and pieces of their story just didn't come out to be true. So they were being investigated a little bit further,

but nothing where no arrest were made. So they're just looking into their stories, trying to put a timeline together on this stepfather and stepson. These are bad guys, but they're bad guys that were found to have ultimately not had anything to do with the murder of this one. Sander Cantu. They probably did some other stuff. That or hopefully they were arrested for something.

I, you know, definitely very, very strange individuals. I hope they took that bear for DNA evidence and further cases. Yeah, exactly. Hopefully they put their gloves on. You know, it's about two nights into it, three nights into it. I know it's not a week yet, but they're holding a prayer vigil at the trailer park. Lots of people are there. The candles are lit, things like that.

The good neighbor next door, which was, Sandra's best friend's mom, she comes pretty frantic up to the detectus on site at the prayer vigil, because on her way to the prayer vigil, she comes across a note that was laid in a general area. And when she went to pick the note up, she's seen on it that the note said something to the fact that it said Cantos is located at the intersection of Bacchette, Water Hall Road. She's in the suitcase in the water, and it was signed witness. And my understanding is that it had the, much like we talked about in the last episode,

it had a lot of misspellings. Yeah, it had the really simple words misspell. Right. Which, which again is somebody trying to thinking that they're smarter than the police, that they're throwing them off, that this is some idiot writing the note. but they're misspelling again like most of the ones you talk about mike there's misspelling the simple word easy ones and then spelling perfectly the the harder words right now this note that she finds and she talks to the police about this was you know a few days later we'll call it a few

yeah but did we talk about the text message that she sends on the day of the disappearance Well, she, you talk about the neighbor? Yes. When the neighbor sends a text message to her grandma. No. So what I had was that the neighbor, Melissa, right. sends a text message to Sandra's mother.

Okay. On the day of the disappearance. Oh. So this goes back to day one. Day one. And she says in this text message, tell the police that I had something stolen around 4 p.m. today. I don't know if that makes a difference or not.

Yeah. That's my understanding of what the text message says. Well, that makes sense because she's called the police, right? She's the first tipster because she calls the police and talks about how her suitcase was stolen out front of her house. Right. Trailer. So we're going back to your story. Yeah.

We just, I didn't know if you mentioned. No, I didn't. No. I knew that she called the police. She called the trailer park. manager reported store. Yes. And she had also sent, which I thought was very strange, a text message to

Sandra's mother saying something similar. Yeah. And she does some strange things. Because the other strange thing that she did was that Sandra's older sister, Miranda, spent the night at the neighbor's house, Melissa's house, on the second day after her sister was missing. How was she probably helped the mom out? How old is Miranda?

Do you know? It's just older. I don't know if she's nine. So she spends the night. And when she's there, the one thing that, you know, she does tell her mom when she sees her next day was that, you know, she was very, very calming and that she, she did ask me if the police or if us, you know, the family, have they found any more evidence? And, of course, you know, I mean, she's young, so she doesn't really know. So, you know, she tells her no. So back to this vigil, so she finds this note, the police obviously take it, and they go to look at the site, which is about two and a half miles away from the trailer park.

And so they look into the area, and it has like seven, eight large ponds. Most of them are irrigation ponds used for the farms around there. Some of them are sewage runoff. And just to make sure I'm clear, this is Bacchetti and Whitehall Road. Piquetti and Whitehall intersection area. So they're looking at the many different ponds. Some are irrigation. Most are irrigation ponds used for the farming.

There's one or two that are like the cow farm runoff. So it's pretty murky, pretty nasty water. But there's no ponds that are clear. So there's none of the ponds the divers can go into. They make attempts to see if they can find anything over there. But basically, at this point, they come up empty. However, they're intrigued by this neighbor that keeps interjecting herself into the case. She's the first one that gives a tip.

She's the one that finds this sporadic note and brings it to their attention. Like Mike said, she's sending a text to the mom on the first day. Kind of a strange text to send. So all these things are just kind of seeming a little bizarre But at this point they're writing it off as her being weird, I think. Yeah, yeah, they're just kind of thinking she's kind of strange. But I will say, and you'll see this in a lot of cases, where it is said that person that wants to help,

that wants to interject themselves into an investigation, is oftentimes a person that has had something to do with it, not all the time, but I've heard that said before. Well, a lot of times they think they're smarter than the police, so they think that they can do that without the police cluing in, but we find time and time again that that's not the case. So at this point, they've been out to Bacchetti and Whitehall. They've searched all the different ponds and irrigation ponds

and all these different bodies of water. They haven't found, they didn't find anything. They haven't found anything. So the police at that point, they have a little bit of suspicion. They think she's a little weird. But they decided to go ahead and let's go take a search of her car. They search her car. This is Melissa, the neighbor.

They search her car and they find what is like a scratched out. There's three words on a blue posting note. And each of the words are heavily scratched out. So they find that, and that's all they really find. So the FBI takes that back and through their technology, they're able to lift the scratch off to see what, because there's variations in the ink that was used. They're able to see three words. They're able to see the intersection, the two street names. And then they see the word water.

So right then, their suspicions rise, right? because they're seeing whatever reason she wrote down the two street names and the word water. You know what that means? Don't mess with the FBI. Exactly. Because the FBI will figure out a way to get you. They've got the tools. So the police at that point go back and search her trailer.

And at the trailer, they do find the full blue posting note notepad. that this one was torn off of. So they have that. They don't really have any other type of evidence or anything that really go at her for. But she's coming up the list. I mean, she's rising to the top at this point. Absolutely.

And they're looking into her. They know she's a single mom. She's a Sunday school teacher. Grandpa's to pasture at the Clover Road Church. She's got a six-year-old daughter. Madison, which was the best friend of Sandra. So they know this part of her. They haven't really dove too much into her rest of her history yet, but at this point they know this. So they want to just kind of clear her and they want to have her do a lie detector. Top polygraph. Polygraph. They

wanted to do a polygraph. So they head over to do that. When they get there, they find out that earlier that day, she started swallowing razor blades. As you would. As anyone would. Normal for that park, I guess. So she swallows a bunch of razor blades. She's taken to the hospital. So they can't communicate with her.

They can't do the polygraph. As we find out, she's going to be in there for about five days. But during this time, they kind of look into her history. And they see that she has a previous petty theft. arrest that she was involved and accused in an arson but never, never formally charged with it. They find out she's bipolar. They look at some medical records and she's bipolar, anxiety, depression. Another neighbor in the park that was upset with her because she took her daughter out of the park

without her permission. And the daughter tells her mom how Melissa gave her something. and the drink and it made her kind of foggy and clumsy and made her not feel well. And Melissa brings her home and acts like, I don't know what's wrong with your daughter. I thought you were okay with me taking her out of the park to go play at another place. This girl's name is Melody, her mom and dad rushed her to the ER. Eventually she's fine, right? She, time goes by, enough time goes by, it wears off. But definitely something was in her system.

But at that time, they don't really look into it. And nothing happens with Melissa, you know, and everybody goes home and it just moves on from there. So we're a week into it. All of a sudden, there's a local farmer. And I don't, what's his name, Mike? Jose. Jose, the local farmer.

He is, him and another farmer are, in the irrigation ponds trying to clear some things. And they see a suitcase that surfaced and washed up against the shore of the pond. And they notice that the zippers are tied tightly with some type of white cordage. So, of course, they call the authorities. The authorities come. They get it out of the water. And they take the suitcase back to the, I don't want to say it wasn't a crime lab.

It's the corners. Corners. So the corner gets it and starts his process. And of course, he cuts the white cord, it opens up the suitcase. Now, the suitcase happens to be a black suitcase. They can up to probably fit a body in as we find out it actually has the body in it.

Might be Eddie Bauer, the addition? Maybe Eddie Bauer, Dission, sure, the nice leather, yeah. So they open up the suitcase. Unfortunately, they find Sandra in it. They find that she's dressed in the clothes that she wore. she's in the fetal position. So at this point, they go ahead and they do their typical examination. They do the blood test during the blood test that comes back that they did find a drug called Benzo.

I think it's Benzozine. What is the drug mark? It's actually Xanax. I mean, it's from the Benzo family. Okay. But what I read was that it was actually Xanax. So they find this inner system, enough medicine to knock an adult. out, let alone a little girl.

But I got, I got to go back to my Eddie Bauer comment. And the reason why I said Eddie Bauer is because that is what Melissa Huckabee reported stolen. Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm sorry. Which is why she reports stolen. I mean, because it's a high end. Yeah, it was a high in suitcase. I actually had it that it was an Eddie, Eddie Bauer.

Okay. I wasn't making a joke. Yeah. Sound like a joke. So, Eddie. So, so, so they find out. She's got the benz. Or the Xanax in her system.

But the reason she died was that she was, the cause of death was being smothered. So if we're into the pathologist report now, right? Yeah. I mean, you have more. I just have that she was drug, undressed, sexual assaulted, dressed back again, smothered, and then put back in the suitcase. Right. So I, you know, the notes that I wrote were from the pathologist's report, you know,

sandered had been strangled with a torn piece of cloth that had been knotted into some type of noose I think they listed the official cause of death as homicidal asphyxiation which I guess would make sense yeah they say they used a rag that had the rubbing alcohol soaked in it because like I said it speeds up the process yeah that's interesting because I didn't I didn't see that and then I think and this is the part that is is a little hard to talk about but You know, the report shows that she was sexually assaulted as well. I think that's where we're going to get into, and I don't know how to jump to that.

Well, I think we got a few things. So we'll leave it at this point that the pathologist showed, was able to show that she was sexually assaulted. Right. So the suitcase is found. Of course, it makes the news. And so that night, the, of the, when the body was found

Melissa texts her grandma around 10 o'clock and says, I see that they say that area is a crime scene, meaning the intersection of Bouchette and Whitehall. And then she follows up with another text

around 1010 saying I hope she was not sexually assaulted. So kind of a weird text message to send your grandma about this. So she sends these two text messages. Now with the suitcases evidence

for the police, they have the actual suitcase, which happens to look just like the one that Sanders, neighbor, Melissa, called and missing. And same manufacturer. Same, Eddie Bauer.

Same color. Same color. So they have this evidence. So then they start talking to the little girl Melody's mom about when she was taken out of the park. and how she wasn't feeling good. And they went back to the hospital that she was at, and they were able to get the blood tested again,

and they found the same Xanax that was in her system. And then the story came out about Melissa had a boyfriend, and he was arrested about a month prior to this for DUI. However, when they talked to him, he said, look, I was with her. she gave me a sports drink it tasted funny she told me you go ahead and drink it anyway I drank half of it didn't want to drink it got up and left

next thing I know I am passed out in my car police are knocking on my window and they are asking me if I've been drinking I haven't they arrested me anyway take me the hospital draw my blood there's no alcohol in it and of course the police retell test that blood and find out that he had Xanax and his system, a strong strength of it as well,

this Benzley. So at this point, they're putting the pieces together, seeing that, well, she's tested it on one kid. She's tested it on a larger person, her boyfriend. And during this time, because the suitcase story comes out and hits the news, there's a local couple. I believe he's a retired Marine. they called the police and say, you know, we noticed a vehicle on the night that this girl was missing, first report missing.

It was a strange vehicle pulled over by a ditch. And so the police interviewed them, and they basically describe Melissa. Well, I think for one thing, they had recognized her from the television. Right. So they didn't know who she was before. But they recognized the vehicle as well, her vehicle. And they interview her and him. And they're like, she came up from the ditch.

And she had, and I don't remember what story she told them. She had a good story. She had to pee. Is that what it was? That's from my understanding. She had to take a squat. I just had to take a squirt real quick. Okay.

Now I'm going to get back to my car. So, you know, they believe her. They move on. It's just another night until they see that this body suitcase was found over there. And they see her picture. So everything starts starting to come together. I mean, the dominoes are falling pretty quickly at this point. Right.

And there's still more evidence to come, but there's a lot of dominoes that are falling into place. She's got some background history. She's got some issues with being bipolar. She's taken some medications. She's got issues with depression. And I think what eventually we see is that, that, you know, she also has issues with she likes attention on her and she doesn't like anybody to come between the attention that she gets from her daughter.

And we're talking about Melissa. Let's go to back up a little bit and the police are ready to search the church where she works as a Sunday teacher. This is where the shit's going to hit the fan. Yeah. So they search her Sunday school room. and immediately realized that there was a window shade cord missing where someone cut it off and retight it,

and that same cord matches the cord that was found on the suitcase. So they take that, bag it up, so they can go ahead and do their analysis on it. Domno. The same time as they're searching the church, they find a metal-like rolling pen that is bent on one end and has small sections of blood on it. It's alarming. They back it up so they can, you know, test that as well. Domino. Domino, yeah, yep, yep. So at this point, they are running the DNA test on these items.

around this same time as they're waiting for the DNA to come back you've got to remember that the police because of the FBI because of the abduction they had live tap wires on Sandra's mom's phone and so I just want to bring that up because what happens is that Melissa is getting out of the hospital finally after swollen those razor blades, she's released. Of course, the police would like to interview her. So, but during this time, they find out that Melissa's grandpa, which happens to be the pastor of this church, he's gone and he's taking Melissa's daughter. So there's nobody at the trailer. So she's

headed back to the trailer. And she gets to her trailer and she calls, at this point, the innocence is still there. There's nothing to do. do with her. So she makes a call to Sandra's mom and ask if her daughter, the other daughter, can come over and play with her daughter, knowing the police hear this, the FBI does, and they know that the other daughter is not there. There's nobody there. So they know that something's up. All right. I got to stop you because I'm confused. You're talking about the older daughter? The older cantu daughter? The older cantu daughter. They're asking, she's asking if she can come over and play with her six-year-old daughter, which isn't even home, right?

But they don't know that. I got you. But the police know that. Because they're monitoring her. Right. So at that point, the police decide that they don't think that Maria will send her other daughter over to the house, but they don't know. So they dispatch officers immediately to go to the trailer. Of course, they arrive.

Maria's oldest daughter, Sandra's oldest sister, is not in there. But at that point, they decide to place Melissa under arrest, and they decided to take her downtown because at this point, they've got some DNA results back, enough that they feel they can move forward. Well, is this where I was going with the pathology report, but I stopped? I think so.

Yeah. So if you want to jump back in now. Right. So according to the pathologist, and, you know, I didn't want to get too far ahead because we hadn't talked about the search of the church. It was noted that some of Sanders' injuries were, it was consistent with the rolling pin with the bent handle that they found in the church. Yeah. That's why I wanted to wait to say that until we had actually said they found the rolling pin.

The other thing that the pathology report revealed was that the, the, the, blood smudge that you had talked about did match Sandra's blood and they had DNA on both handles. Yeah. And at that point, there was no doubt anymore that this was the object that the little girl had been sexually assaulted with. So the police confront her, they're in the interview room. They interview her for about five hours. and some of this you can see on YouTube if you really want to go out there and look at it

of course during this five hours of interview she's denying she has anything to do with it until they bring up they finally okay we've had enough you know you're not going to tell us so we're going to go ahead and tell you we have eyewitnesses

and she brings up they bring up the eyewitnesses the couple that saw her on the side of the road when she was supposed to be taken up taking a pee off the side of the road there by the ditch where they found the body in the suitcase. Once they confront her with that, she all of a sudden she just cries out that it was an accident, that it was a game of hiding seek that her daughter and Sandra were playing, and it's a game of hiding seek that went bad, that she forgot that Sandra got into the suitcase and her daughter zipped it up

and they were playing. She was playing hide and seeking the suitcase. And that when she found the suitcase in the back of her car and opened it up that Sandra was not breathing, she was dead. So at that point she thought the best thing to do was to go ahead and put the suitcase in the pond. And at that point she denied any sexual assault happened

on her part. Borset. Yeah. At that point, I got to go back. Okay. I got to go back. Because there was one piece of evidence that I think we didn't talk about.

And it was some surveillance video from the church that they had. And it was showing Melissa, where she taught the church where she taught Sunday school. Right. Showing her driving away from the church. And they piece that together timewise. and then 30 minutes later returning to that church and they pieced it together timewise with the couple, the Marine, that spotted her,

that they were able to pinpoint it that it was during that 30 minute time frame when she dumped the body that she was spotted at the irrigation pond. So not to back up. I just, that's something I had in my notes that. No, I mean, it's good

because they go back and they get her laptop And on their laptop, they see, so they know it's premeditated from what they find our laptop. Because on her laptop, weeks before this, they find an article that she saved about a young murder that the body was placed in a suitcase. And suitcase was used to dispose of the body. And they find other things about the rubbing alcohol on the rag and how it speeds it speeds it up. You've got to be careful with your Google searches. Yeah. Learn how to clean those.

out. If anybody is following the, what's that guy in Atlanta, Ross Harris, the guy that left his child in the, in the backseat of the car. I don't know, Mike, if you're following that at all. But the Google search history was such a huge part of his trial. They, you know, they ultimately convicted him. But he, you know, he had searched childless life and, I mean, just all these different things. There's nothing that you erase.

that can't be found. Yeah. Well, you know, don't be searching crazy stuff as it is. But if you are, unfortunately, we're searching some crazy stuff for this stuff. That's true. Sorry, I'm throwing you off your game. Yeah, that's all right, though. So at this point, they know it's premeditated. They know she's guilty.

They start collecting the evidence. They put the timeline together. So they know on the 27th at 4 o'clock, she's come home from school or from playing with her friend after school. At 408, they see the neighbor's car going past the camera, which turns out to be Melissa's car. So that point they know, when you see Sandra walk off camera at 4 o'clock, she's walking over to Melissa's house, Melissa's calling her over there. Melissa's having her jump into the car to go. She tells her, let's go to the church with me, do something fun. She gets in. So at 4.08, she drives past her own house on camera.

We know at that point she's given a lace drink at the church that has the Xanax in it, enough to knock out a full-grown adult, let alone a little eight-year-old. At that point, she's unconscious. She's sexually assaulted with a rolling pen. She, at that point, somehow, between the strangling and the smothering

with the rag-soaked and rubbing alcohol, hall. She's dead. She gets redressed. She gets placed in the suitcase in the fetal position. They tie it clothes with part of the cord from off the shade, the blind in her Sunday school classroom. At 5 o'clock, Melissa calls the trailer park manager and reports her suitcase stolen from in front of her trailer. And we know at 550, around 550s, when the witnesses see her at the pond. So before Sandra's mom even calls the police

with concerns of her being missing, you know, now we know that it happened so fast that her daughter was already dead by the time she was reported missing. Right, because we know from what we said in the very beginning, the family doesn't call the police until 7, almost 8 o'clock, 7.53, I think. And we also find out from the FBI behavior people that typically, if someone is going to be abducted with the end being murder, that the murder is going to happen within the first three hours. Again, that's proven here. That's what happens.

Happened pretty quick. So, go ahead. Well, I was just going to say they got her, right? They know it's her. Right. And can we, are we ready to talk about arrest? Sure. Or you got some other stuff.

No, I was going to talk about her, her plea deal. So yeah. Okay. Melissa is arrested April 10th, 2009. They charge her with kidnapping, rape, and the murder of Sander Cantu. We talked about the black Eddie Bauer suitcase that belonged to Huckabee. And we've got some audio of her arraignment that I wanted to play. May I see her, come to learn, Department of 35,000 session.

The Hon. Richard Blasiehawkes, presiding. Melissa Huckabee, fill any arraignment? No, hold it. He's present. You want Ms. Huckabee to have a seat? I think she's by where she is, Your Honor. All right, Ms. Huckabee, there's been a complaint file in case number SF-11-1-539A, the alleges in count one. Murder, and then on about March 27th of 2009, the crime of murder and violation of Section 187 of the Penit of the Penit, was committed by Melissa Huckaby, who at the time in place last before, Senate, did willfully and unlawfully and intentionally with malice of Forthoff, murder Sandra Cantu of human beings.

There were three special circumstances alleged, and the first special circumstances is further alleged that the murder of Sandra Cantoe was committed by defendant Melissa Huckabee, while the said defendant was, was engaged in the commission of the crime of kidnapping in violation of penal code sections 207 and 209. In the second alleged special circumstance, the further alleged that the murder of San Francisco was committed by Moussa Huckoo, while the said defendant was engaged in the commission, attempted commission, or immediate flight after the commission,

or attempted commission of the crime or performance of Ludomisivis Saps upon the person of a child under the age of 14 in violation of penal code section 288 within the meaning of penal code section 190. point two, parentheses A, prevency 17, parentheses E. In the third special circumstance, it is further alleged that the murder of Sanford-Pentoo

was committed by Melissa Huckabee, while said defendant was engaged in the commission, attempted commission, or immediate flight after the commission, or attempted commission, of the crime of rape by instrument and violation of penal code section 289 within the meeting of penal code section 190.2A17K. It also put on notice that the evidence, representative preliminary and theory will also be used for any violation of probation and a request for discovery

Ms. Huckabee on public defender's office, Ms. Hortzenberg, represents you on another case in front of the court. Did you want that office to represent you on this case as well? And I'll go ahead and inquire the public defender's office on this case as well. Thank you, Your Honor. Ms. Worthwood, did you have a moment to talk to or do you need a moment to talk to you? I did speak with her very briefly, Your Honor, and with regard to the complaint that's before the court, we're not at this time, and she was. bring a plea and we are requesting that the matter be continued to the 24th of April for further arraignment in the connection with this matter I understand that

she's had a medication evaluation I would ask the further medication evaluation we commence I'll order for the education evaluation any want to the case come back on the 24th I do your honor also in light of the publicity that this matter has garnered I am requesting that the court at this time make an order, prohibiting both sides from discussing the cases. Mr. Jester, did you have any comments about this one? I'll submit it, Your Honor. All right, so just some audio of her arraignment.

I think towards the end, Gibbs, I want to talk a little bit about women killers, and I know we've got some statistics and stuff that will go over. But so ultimately Huckabee pleads guilty, but not in the beginning. But eventually she pleads, does the plea deal, right? Right. For life in prison. But originally she pleads not guilty and changes her mind. Well, I think that she pleads on this one because she don't, the agreement to the plea is that they can't say she sexually assaulted.

She wants, she doesn't want that. And she avoids the death penalty. Right. Right. Right. But she's, she wanted to make sure that wasn't part of it. So. And she also, I mean, even to this day, right, you know, she never.

would say why, why she did it. Well, we're going to hear that in some of the tapes. So she sentenced to life without parole. The sentencing for Melissa Huckabee to me was very emotional. And you're going to hear that because I got a couple of clips on the sentencing. You can see it on YouTube in video form. And it starts out and they're in the courtroom. You're going to hear some music playing.

what you won't be able to see is that they're showing pictures of Sandra Cantu as this music is playing. And it's just like a slideshow of her, you know, through the years. It's very, very sad. Yeah. Difficult of you. No, very. And then what you'll hear after that is Sandra's aunt and Sandra's father both speak. And then Melissa's mother.

So Melissa Huckabee, you know, the killer, her mother is going to speak to the can't two family. So let's listen to that. We can now rest and know that she will never be able to do this again and that she would like to think about what she has done for the rest of her natural born life. Sandra wasn't the only victim affected by what she has done. Our family, the Tracy community, and the whole world became victims. When she murdered Sandra. I don't believe that I'm not like she hate. I'm everything.

It took the life of a innocent new girl. She didn't do nothing. She's not even old enough to decide to eat ice to get. I stand at my job and nothing changes and nothing's going to change the fact with her I cry. Maria, I miss it, can you too. If I think he'll give you justice, the justice that you deserve, that would be to have the big girl in your arms. All right, so pretty, I mean, pretty emotional stuff.

Sandra's father is actually kind of hard to understand because he was so emotional. At one point, I think he says, I don't feel like I should hate. And then, you know, Melissa's mother talking to the Kantu family, you know, that's got to be hard for her too. But the next clip is it's actually Melissa Huckabee talking at, or sentencing so let's listen to that words cannot confirm how badly I feel with the pain that I have caused you it is not enough that I say I'm sorry but that is all I can do

from the day Sandra has died I've had to live with the consequences of what I've done for the rest of my life I'm going to have to live with these feelings with a responsibility for her death not a day not an hour because I that I don't think of the harm that I cost. I loved Sandra

a great deal. She was sweet and innocent little girl who did not deserve to have such a short life. I alone are responsible for Sandra's death. I would like to apologize directly to you, Maria,

for all the pain that I've caused. I should not have taken Sandra from you. And I want you to know that she did not suffer, and I did not sexually molestered art. I would also like to apologize to Sanders extended family. I know that it had caused you a great deal of grief, but I'm truly sorry. I would also, I'd like to apologize to my own family for what I have put them through. I'm grateful that they'd continue to stand by me, and I thank you for your unconditional love and support. I know how hard this is

been for you as well. But you've continued to stand by me and I can't tell you how much that means to. I'd also like to apologize to my own daughter whom I've lost. I hope that someday you will forgive me. I love you a great deal and I hope to see you again someday soon. I own apology to the people of Tracy, the pleased officers who spent so much time looking for Sandra. I know that this has touched you to be personally, and for that I'm truly sorry. I know in my heart that God is forgiven me, and I know my family has forgiven me,

and I'm asking you, Maria, for your forgiveness. I can't imagine forgiving somebody who would harm my own daughter, but I hope that someday you can forgive me. Maria, I wish I could give you an explanation for what happened. I owe you an explanation. I still cannot understand why I did what I did. Every day, I try to discover my motivation, but I still do not have an answer.

This is a question I will struggle with for the rest of my life. I wish that I could do more to help you. I wish I could bring Sandra back, but I can't. I wish I could turn places with her, but I can't do that either. I know that Sandra's death. will continue to cause you pain. And I hope that this apology will help you in some way by accepting responsibility for what I have done.

I hope that I can give you some peace. Thank you. This is why I took away from that. We covered the Raider sentencing in our last episode, and I didn't buy any of the crocodile tears. I don't know what you thought, Mike. I thought there was some. remorse there. What pissed me off about it was when she denied the sexual assault.

Right. From everything I read, that was proven. Sure. No doubt. And the family knew that, so it just voids anything she said. Right. But the part I didn't like was, I hate when they start out with, I love the victim too. Yeah.

Why'd you kill her? If you loved the victim, why would you, you know, you didn't love the victim. So a couple of things just quickly from that. She didn't, she doesn't understand why she did what she did. She begs Sanders' mother for forgiveness. And she says, this is a question I will struggle with for the rest of my life. So that's it. I mean, that's the case.

But let's talk about why. I mean, what happened was horrible. A little girl, just a beautiful, sweet, innocent little girl. lost her life. Which is rare, right? Yeah, and I think that's where we're going to talk about statistics. Yeah, I mean, we know that. She's killed by a 27-year-old Sunday school teacher.

Right. Which is rare in itself, right, a female killer. Very rare. But even more rare that you have a female child, right, which accounts for less than 10% of murders. So, I mean, it's just a small, all, everything here is it's the rarity. Yeah, when you drill down the statistics. Right. you get to a point where a 27-year-old Sunday school teacher sexually assaulting and killing an 8-year-old girl,

that is less than less than less than 10, you know, whatever, less than 1%, it's a 10th of a percent. Right. I don't know what the real number is, but it's very small. Now, there were some things about Melissa, and you touched on the point that at one point she swallowed a bunch of razor blades, which is... Crazy as all get out. Right. That makes a lot more sense now that you said, I was like, those razor blades are big. That's it.

She took the easy way out. She took the, okay, the little one. She took the little ones. Okay. That makes a lot more sense. Yeah. But, you know, there was a bunch of information on her and her history of mental. health problems. It was said that she had borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder,

and schizophrenia. There was a lot of talk about her cutting herself at different points in her life. And more important, that she was a cutter. More importantly, we have to remember she was a confessed true crime show fanatic. Yeah, that's a little scary for the thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of people that are listening to this show. Yeah. I mean, she, she confessed. She's just a crime show fanatic. But most of you all are great. We love you.

But so she was a cutter. She was an arsonist from some things that I read. She had a history of setting fires. History. Never convicted, but she definitely was accused of two arsons. Yeah. And there was something I, that I wrote down that I read, I don't know if it's a psychologists looked at this case and they thought that this could have been one of those instances of Munchausen by proxy syndrome. I don't know how familiar you are with that, Mike.

Yeah, I'm not. Yeah, I don't know how that would play. Normally, it's basically where in a lot of cases I see you make your own child sick so that you get attention. Right. Like my child is sick. I'm telling my friend. Right.

And I'm getting all this boo-hoo, woe is me. They did say that she loved attention. Right. She didn't like attention being taken away from her. And there was a lot of talk about that that could have been, you know, a big part of the motivation for this.

Although it doesn't seem to fall in line with most of the Munchhausen by proxy things that I've seen. But anyway, it's a very interesting case it's a very sad case because of the victim uh sand or can'too we'll have some pictures up of both of them you know on the different social media somehow Melissa Huckabee gained like 100 pounds in between the time that she was arraigned and her sentencing I don't know how long that took but I'll show you I'll put the

pictures up. Right. Yeah. Depression. What the hell are they feeding them in jail? She must have been, she must have had a big time commissary account or something because she did. I mean, the pictures are like amazing how much weight she gained. Right. In that period of time. All right, Gibby, we're wrapping up episode six. I appreciate it. We appreciate all you listeners and everything you do. Give us feedback. Yeah. Continue to to give us feedback. Reach out to. us. Follow us on Twitter. Follow the Facebook page. Share with your friends. So for Ferg and Gibby and Keith Morrison. And Keith Morrison, who did tweet me, stay safe and keep your own time

ticking.