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Archives > Volume 7 Issue 26 - April 14, 2009 Source claims Sandra Cantu murdered by Sunday School teacher in a church...
CBS News has learned that police in Tracy, California believe 8-year-old Sandra Cantu was murdered in the church where her accused killer was a Sunday school teacher. CBS News story here
Melissa Huckaby, 28, was arrested early Saturday morning and charged with kidnapping and murder. Huckaby's grandfather is pastor of the Clover Road Baptist Church, near the mobile home park where Sandra Cantu's family lives. Police searched the church Friday in the hours before Huckaby was arrested, filling a van with evidence bags. Police and residents in Tracy responded with shock when the suspect in the murder of a young girl turned out to be a woman, the mother of the slain girl's best friend. Melissa Huckaby was on suicide watch Saturday at the San Joaquin County Jail, where she is held on suspicion of kidnapping and killing Sandra. The girl's body was found in one of Huckaby's suitcases in an irrigation pond nearly a week ago, police said. "This was an anomaly in the murder of a child," police Sergeant Tony Sheneman said at a news conference Saturday. "Finding out that it is a woman who is responsible for Sandra's kidnapping and murder, and then finding out it is a member of the community is another blow." Huckaby attended the second of the several vigils for the slain girl, Sheneman said. Prosecutors said Monday they may include rape and molestation allegations in their murder charge against the woman suspected of killing an 8-year-old Tracy girl and putting her body in a suitcase. San Jose Mercury News story here San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Robert Himmelblau told The Associated Press on Monday that a homicide charge against Huckaby could also 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 conviction on any of the special circumstances would make Huckaby eligible for the death penalty or life in prison without parole, Himmelblau said. The district attorney has not determined whether his office will seek the death penalty in the case, he said. For more on this case see vol7_iss24 and vol7_iss25. In other news... 
Florida prosecutors plan to seek to the death penalty against the mother of slain Florida toddler Caylee Anthony. MyFoxOrlando.com story here Prosecutors filed papers Monday of intent to seek to have 23-year-old Casey Anthony executed if she is convicted of first-degree murder in her daughter's death, said Danielle Tavernier, a spokeswoman for the State Attorney's Office in Orlando. Anthony claims that Caylee, who was 2 when she disappeared in June, was kidnapped and has pleaded not guilty. Her trial has been tentatively set for October. Anthony's legal team already has lawyers who are qualified to defend death penalty cases and are prepared "for a vigorous defense," said Marti Mackenzie, a spokeswoman for Anthony's attorney, Jose Baez. For more on this case see vol6_iss78.
Meanwhile, an Orange County deputy sheriff accused of improperly investigating a tip that might have led investigators earlier to the body of missing Caylee Marie Anthony was told Friday that the Sheriff's Office plans to fire him. Orlando Sentinel news story here An internal investigation found Deputy Richard Cain negligent. He intends to appeal, a sheriff's spokesman said. Roy Kronk, an Orange County meter reader who found Caylee's remains on December 11, told investigators he'd had called the tip in several times months before the discovery but the deputy who responded - Cain - was rude to him. Cain did not immediately tell investigators he checked out Kronk's tip in August. Deputies found out about Cain's role only after Kronk alerted authorities. 
"Lie to me" star Tim Roth told a British tabloid that he was abused as a child and teen. London Daily Mail news story here "I'm a victim of child abuse. It happened during my childhood up to my early teens and although I'm not going to say who it was, he's long gone now - and I hasten to add it wasn't my father or mother. Things happen to you in your life but you don't want to consider yourself a victim - you want to be a survivor and the first thing that helps you do that and helps you get through it is speaking and finding your voice. I'd been wanting to direct a film for years and told my agent to start looking for a script. The first one that came through the door was the one for The War Zone. If you are a survivor of abuse and you get the opportunity to tell a story about that subject, then you can really get in there and tell the truth. It was a fantastic chance for me to exorcise a lot of demons. I'm very proud of the film and proud of the fact that it's even been used as a teaching tool."
The Vermont Legislature is considering a bill that would legalize so-called "sexting" between teenagers. Fox News story here Sexting refers to the exchange of explicit photos and videos via mobile phone. Under current laws, participants can be charged with child pornography, but lawmakers are considering a bill to legalize the consensual exchange of graphic images between two people 13 to 18 years old. Passing along such images to others would remain a crime. Supporters told The Burlington Free Press they don't want to condone the behavior but they don't think teenagers should be prosecuted as sex offenders for consensual conduct. The bill passed the state Senate earlier this month. The House Judiciary Committee will hear testimony on it this week. For more on teens and cell phones see eGuide/cell phones.
The former stepfather of a 12-year-old girl killed in Vermont last year has pleaded guilty to transportation of child pornography. MSNBC News story here The plea by Raymond Gagnon was accepted by U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez in San Antonio on Monday. Gagnon faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced in July. He still faces a related child pornography possession charge in Alabama, where he lived before moving to San Antonio in April 2007. Authorities searched Gagnon's home after his former stepdaughter, Brooke Bennett, disappeared in Vermont last summer. She was found dead a week later. Her uncle, Michael Jacques, has been charged in the killing. Police said Jacques had called Gagnon several times when the girl was first reported missing. For more on that story see vol6_iss46, vol6_iss47, and vol6_iss48.
Over the last 30 years, a Nashville, Tennessee teacher invited teenagers over to his house, gave them drugs and alcohol and secretly recorded them having sex, according to local police and federal prosecutors. ABC News story here Louis J. Levine, 52, who taught in several Nashville-area schools and had worked at youth camps and a local science museum, was arrested on child pornography charges and allegedly admitted to at least one incident of recording a teen performing a sex act. Police and federal prosecutors say they continue to investigate Levine, who allegedly invited students over to drink and do drugs and then allowed them to use a small building behind his house known as the "Little House" to have sex, which he secretly recorded. On some occasions, Levine allegedly gave the teens drugs, including marijuana and ecstasy, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case. The alleged incidents are believed to have occurred over a period of three decades, and several adults who were teenagers during the 1970s and '80s told police similar stories of drugs and sex at Levine's home, according to the police. Channel 4 learned that Levine worked as a science teacher at a high school specifically for drug- and alcohol-dependent students. WSMV news story here The school, which had been run by Cumberland Heights, closed in June. For more on teacher abuse see eGuide/educator abuse.
A Florida teacher who had sex with a student was rearrested after she traded messages with who she thought was a 16-year-old boy via Facebook, police said. clickorlando.com news story here Cynthia Horvath, 45, a former teacher at Warner Christian Academy, was ordered in February to not have contact with minors when she was sentenced to a year of house arrest on charges of having sex with one of her students. A woman whose daughter attends Warner Christian contacted police in March when her daughter told her she noticed Horvath using Facebook to converse with other students. When police looked into the claims, they said they found Horvath's Facebook page and noted that a number of her "friends" appeared to be of high school age.
The Archbishop of Dublin said Thursday that an upcoming report on child sexual abuse involving Catholic priests will likely reveal that thousands of youngsters were abused from 1975 to 2004. MSNBC News story here The report "will shock us all," said Diarmuid Martin, during Mass at Dublin's Pro-Cathedral. The archbishop said the report, compiled by the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation, is expected to show that "thousands of children or young people across Ireland were abused by priests in the period under investigation and the horror of that abuse was not recognized for what it is." The government-appointed commission was set up to investigate abuses within the Dublin archdiocese in 2006, the same year the diocese admitted that up to 102 of its priests were suspected of abusing children. The report is studying how complaints of child sexual abuse were handled. For more on clergy abuse see eGuide/clergy abuse.
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