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Archives > Volume 7 Issue 27 - April 17, 2009 Police look for other Huckaby molestation victims...
Police are searching for any other alleged victims of a Sunday school teacher accused of raping and killing an 8-year-old girl from Tracy, California. CNN News story here
"We are asking the public if they have any indication that any of their children may have had inappropriate contact with [the suspect] to contact us," Tracy Police Sergeant Tony Sheneman said Tuesday evening. "There has been no indication that this has happened. But she is a Sunday school teacher and did have contact with children, so that is why we are asking." Melissa Huckaby, 28, was arrested and charged with killing and raping 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, a friend of her 5-year-old daughter. Huckaby, wearing red jail scrubs over a white T-shirt, was in court Tuesday for an arraignment. She was charged with murder, kidnapping, the performance of a lewd and lascivious act on a child under 14 and rape by instrument. For more on this story see vol7_iss24, vol7_iss25, and vol7_iss26. Melissa Huckaby attempted suicide days before her arrest and was hospitalized after swallowing three X-Acto knife blades, reports CBS News correspondent John Blackstone. CBS News story here She remains under suicide watch after being formally charged. The ex-husband of Melissa Huckaby said his former wife suffered from depression and other mental health problems but he didn't believe she was capable of violence. ABC News story here "I do believe the emotional issues came into play quite often in her lifetime," Johnny Huckaby told "Good Morning America's" Chris Cuomo in an exclusive interview today. "She did suffer from depression. She did have issues with ... her self-persona, who she saw herself as," Huckaby, 26, told "GMA." Huckaby said his former wife was prescribed medication at one point. "So I imagine at some point in time, she did see somebody for the problems," he said. ABC News has learned that Melissa Huckaby was admitted to a local hospital in the days after Sandra's disappearance and that she'd had at least two other relationships with men she claimed abused her. "My initial reaction was shock and complete disbelief," Johnny Huckaby said. "It's not something you want to think anyone possibly [is capable] of doing - let alone somebody that you knew. And that's a mother of your child." Huckaby said he holds out hope that the allegations against Melissa weren't true, particularly for his daughter's sake. Women are rarely sexual predators - only about 5 percent to 15 percent, according to experts - and when they do molest children, they are more often accomplices. ABC News story here While rare, women do commit sexual acts against children. Research reported in a 2000 article in the Journal of Sex Research cites well-accepted studies by David Finkelhor and Diana Russell that found women may account for up to 5 percent of the abuse of females and 20 percent of males. Meanwhile, trouble in Tracy... 
The town of Tracy, California is saying goodbye to 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, but the folks in this San Francisco suburb are also struggling to understand a rash of crimes against their children. ABC News story here
On the day that a preacher's daughter was arraigned on charges of raping and killing Sandra, a man who had been a substitute teacher in Tracy's schools for the last five years was in another courtroom in the same superior court to face charges he molested about a dozen children and possessed child pornography. These twin shocks came just months after an emaciated teenager, with shackles still around his ankle, escaped the clutches of the family he had been living with. "This area has never experienced anything like this," Tracy Unified School District spokeswoman Jessica Cardoza told ABCNews.com. "These past few months have been very difficult." The area was particularly alarmed in the days after Sandra went missing, she said. "We didn't know if someone in the community would be preying on another child," she said. Sandra's private funeral services were held Wednesday. Her casket, covered in messages written by her family and her second-grade classmates, was carried down the street in a horse-drawn carriage. ABC News has learned that the woman charged in her death, Melissa Huckaby, has received credible death threats, prompting high security during her court appearance. Tracy also made the news back in December when a 17-year-old emaciated boy came into the In-Shape Sports Club with a padlocked chain around his ankle, asking a gym employee to hide him. He was dirty, seemed confused and appeared to have been beaten, police said. For more on this story see vol6_iss75 and vol6_iss76. In other news... 
A 14-year-old girl allegedly married to polygamist group leader Warren Jeffs when she was 12 may be placed permanently in Texas state custody. AP News story here Family and Protective Services Commissioner Anne Heiligenstein said during a legislative hearing on Tuesday that Child Protective Services would seek permanent custody of the girl because efforts to reunite her with her parents have failed. The girl is the only one of the 439 children taken from the Yearning For Zion Ranch last year still under court oversight. She has been in temporary foster care since last August. Jeffs leads the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He was convicted in Utah as an accomplice to rape and awaits trial on charges in Arizona and Texas related to underage marriages. vol6_iss49.
Meanwhile, the state's top child welfare official says a West Texas polygamist group now knows underage marriage is sex abuse, but lawmakers voiced skepticism on Tuesday that the breakaway Mormon sect would eliminate underage marriage. Houston Chronicle story here Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Commissioner Anne Heiligenstein told members of the House Human Services Committee she was convinced that the sect's children and their parents now recognize the practice as sex abuse and know better than to practice it. The agency last year removed 439 children from the polygamist group. "The action we took, I believe, has changed the behavior of this organization," Heiligenstein said of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. But members of the committee, who listened to Heiligenstein earlier tell of how the same children were coached by parents to deceive staffers about child abuse when the investigation began on April 3, 2008, were dubious. Tuesday's hearing focused on how Texas Child Protective Services responded to an initial call about the underage marriages and whether the state needs to strengthen its family code or procedures to better handle abuse investigations. For more on this story see vol6_iss78. 
A five-eyed monster under the bed isn't what worries most kids. Experts say young people fear a lot of what's in the news - from kidnappings to murders to salmonella. CNN News story here A study on more than 1,000 children and adolescents in grades 2 through 12 found that some of the 20 most common fears include "terrorist attacks," "having to fight in a war," "drive-by shootings," Tornadoes/hurricanes" and "drowning/swimming in deep water," based on self-reports of how scary each of 98 events or concepts seems. The study was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Counseling and Development. Study author Joy Burnham, associate professor at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, collected data from November 2001 to April 2004 in 23 schools in two southeastern states. The most common fears closely aligned with those found in previous studies on youth, and the pattern of findings has persisted in studies on fear for the past 30 years, she said. Several psychologists agreed that abduction or kidnapping is a fear among many children today. One of Weisman's patients became terrified of kidnapping after learning about slain Florida toddler Caylee Anthony, she said. Children also fear diseases. In a separate analysis, when Burnham looked at data on fear by age, she found AIDS among the top five fears for ages 7 to 10, 11 to 14, and 15 to 18. Two of the top fears in Burnham's study - "being raped" was No. 1 overall and "my getting pregnant or getting my girlfriend pregnant" was No. 19 - were presented only for students in grades 7 through 12 because of fear content, the study said.
Two years ago, Seung-Hui Cho slaughtered 32 students at Virginia Tech, claiming to have been inspired by the two teenagers who carried out the Columbine shootings, calling them "martyrs" in delusional diatribe he videotaped for the world. ABC News story here "You had a hundred billion ways to have avoided today," he said on video aired on national television. "But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off." In 1999, when Eric Harris seduced his friend Dylan Klebold to open fire at Colorado's Columbine High School, killing 13 and injuring 24, no one had a definitive profile of the school shooter. Today - as the 10th anniversary of the Columbine tragedy on April 20 approaches - experts say they can't predict which teens will go on a suicide-driven rampage. "Not all psychotics or psychopaths are going to kill and most are not dangerous," said veteran FBI behavioral scientist Kenneth V. Lanning. In 2000, The National Institute of Justice joined forces with the Secret Service and the Department of Education to assess ways to prevent school shootings. Looking at 37 school shootings to find patterns in school-aged assassins, the study concluded that all are male and most are loners, with some kind of grievance. More than half had revenge as a motive. "But that's typical of almost every adolescent," Lanning told ABCNews.com.
A Chandler, Arizona high school teacher is under police investigation after an 18-year-old male student was stabbed to death by her boyfriend, also a former student, in what appears to be a torrid love triangle, police said. KPHO News story here Chandler police said teacher Tamara Hofmann, 48, called the mother of student Sam Valdivia late Thursday night and asked to speak with Valdivia. Valdivia's older brother, Julio, said his mother was suspicious of the late-night call. "It was 11:45 at night, but she told my mom that it had to do with school," Julio Valdivia said. Sam Valdivia took the call, and shortly thereafter he sneaked off to Hofmann's house. All the while, Hofmann's boyfriend and former student, Sixto Balbuena, 20, was driving to Hofmann's house on leave from the Navy in California. Balbuena told police he found his girlfriend naked and Valdivia in his boxer shorts in Hofmann's bedroom around 2:40 a.m. Friday, according to police reports and court documents. Balbuena said Valdivia apologized to him before Balbuena began kicking, punching and throwing things at the victim, according to a probable cause statement. Meanwhile, Arizona's 12 news learned that Tamara Hofmann still has her teaching certificate, even though her case has been under investigation for more than two years. AZ Central news story here
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