SeriouslySearching
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Woman in mobile home park reported missing suitcase
A Sunday school teacher said someone took her black rolling suitcase from the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park on the day 8-year-old murder victim Sandra Cantu disappeared.
Its a huge suitcase, 28-year-old Melissa Huckaby said in a phone interview today, waterproof, charcoal-trimmed and has an Eddie Bauer logo on the front.
Police have yet to confirm whether its the same one found Monday morning that contained Sandras dead body.
~snip~
Farmworkers discovered a suitcase that generally matches that description submerged in a dairy lagoon two miles north of mobile home park where Sandra lived. Huckaby has lived there, too, for a year with her grandparents Clifford Lane and Connie Lawless, after having moved up from Southern California, she said.
Huckaby teaches Sunday school at Clover Road Baptist Church, her grandfathers church just down the street from the mobile home park. She spruces up the church classroom every few months, she said, and had packed up in the suitcase with everything she needed to re-do the room that day.
Sandra had come over earlier and asked to play with her 5-year-old daughter, Huckaby said. But Huckaby didnt want her daughter to play because she had to pick up her toys. So Sandra left for another friends house. Eighteen seconds of surveillance footage that shows Sandra playfully skipping by her familys home show her on her way back to Huckabys home after leaving that other friends house, Huckaby said.
After Sandra left, her oldest sister Miranda went to Huckabys house, too. Huckaby asked Miranda if she could watch her daughter for her while she went down the street to the church. Connie Lawless was home, too.
Huckaby then set the packed suitcase on the driveway by her dark purple Kia SUV the same one FBI agents and Tracy police detectives towed and searched Tuesday night. But she forgot her cell phone and keys inside the house, so she went back in for about 15 minutes to find them. She couldnt, so she picked up the spare key and left.
She forgot about the suitcase and left it on the driveway.
When she got to the church, Huckabys grandmother called and said she found her keys and cell phone. Huckaby said thats when she realized she had left the $200 suitcase outside. When her family went out to get it, they said it was gone.
So I talked to the assistant manager at the mobile home park and asked him to keep an eye out for this suitcase, someone took it, Huckaby said. I also told some older kids to look out for it. I didnt think much then because, you know, kids were getting out of school and I thought that maybe someone, maybe someone walking by just took it.
She called Tracy police intending to file a report, but decided to do it online. She never got around to it.
~snip~
Huckaby has spent several days since last week in the intensive care unit at Sutter Tracy Community Hospital for internal bleeding, though she refused to say exactly what condition she was admitted for. She was released Thursday morning, she said.
Police had interviewed her at the hospital.
Its where I was, and I told them thats where I was, so they came just because they had a few questions to ask me about what I know, she said.
Dispatchers said over the police scanner on Tuesday that officers were changing detail at the hospital, where they had evidently been stationed for several hours.
Court records show a 28-year-old Melissa Huckaby pleaded no contest on Jan. 9 to a felony charge of second degree commercial burglary and a misdemeanor charge of petty theft with prior theft/burglary/robbery. The criminal complaint says she was locked up in Los Angeles County for conviction of petty theft in November 2006 and that she tried to steal something from Target in November last year.
The complaint says shes on probation in San Joaquin County and is due back in court on April 17, when she might be sentenced.
The documents list the womans address as 812 W. Clover Road, Space No. 57, which city property records show is owned by Clifford Lane Lawless and Connie Lawless.
The Melissa Huckaby interviewed today said thats not her.
Asked why the address and cell phone number in the court documents match her own, she said she has no idea.
I dont know what to say, she said. Thats not me.
http://www.tracypress.com/pages/ful...idget=push&instance=home_news_lead_story&open
A Sunday school teacher said someone took her black rolling suitcase from the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park on the day 8-year-old murder victim Sandra Cantu disappeared.
Its a huge suitcase, 28-year-old Melissa Huckaby said in a phone interview today, waterproof, charcoal-trimmed and has an Eddie Bauer logo on the front.
Police have yet to confirm whether its the same one found Monday morning that contained Sandras dead body.
~snip~
Farmworkers discovered a suitcase that generally matches that description submerged in a dairy lagoon two miles north of mobile home park where Sandra lived. Huckaby has lived there, too, for a year with her grandparents Clifford Lane and Connie Lawless, after having moved up from Southern California, she said.
Huckaby teaches Sunday school at Clover Road Baptist Church, her grandfathers church just down the street from the mobile home park. She spruces up the church classroom every few months, she said, and had packed up in the suitcase with everything she needed to re-do the room that day.
Sandra had come over earlier and asked to play with her 5-year-old daughter, Huckaby said. But Huckaby didnt want her daughter to play because she had to pick up her toys. So Sandra left for another friends house. Eighteen seconds of surveillance footage that shows Sandra playfully skipping by her familys home show her on her way back to Huckabys home after leaving that other friends house, Huckaby said.
After Sandra left, her oldest sister Miranda went to Huckabys house, too. Huckaby asked Miranda if she could watch her daughter for her while she went down the street to the church. Connie Lawless was home, too.
Huckaby then set the packed suitcase on the driveway by her dark purple Kia SUV the same one FBI agents and Tracy police detectives towed and searched Tuesday night. But she forgot her cell phone and keys inside the house, so she went back in for about 15 minutes to find them. She couldnt, so she picked up the spare key and left.
She forgot about the suitcase and left it on the driveway.
When she got to the church, Huckabys grandmother called and said she found her keys and cell phone. Huckaby said thats when she realized she had left the $200 suitcase outside. When her family went out to get it, they said it was gone.
So I talked to the assistant manager at the mobile home park and asked him to keep an eye out for this suitcase, someone took it, Huckaby said. I also told some older kids to look out for it. I didnt think much then because, you know, kids were getting out of school and I thought that maybe someone, maybe someone walking by just took it.
She called Tracy police intending to file a report, but decided to do it online. She never got around to it.
~snip~
Huckaby has spent several days since last week in the intensive care unit at Sutter Tracy Community Hospital for internal bleeding, though she refused to say exactly what condition she was admitted for. She was released Thursday morning, she said.
Police had interviewed her at the hospital.
Its where I was, and I told them thats where I was, so they came just because they had a few questions to ask me about what I know, she said.
Dispatchers said over the police scanner on Tuesday that officers were changing detail at the hospital, where they had evidently been stationed for several hours.
Court records show a 28-year-old Melissa Huckaby pleaded no contest on Jan. 9 to a felony charge of second degree commercial burglary and a misdemeanor charge of petty theft with prior theft/burglary/robbery. The criminal complaint says she was locked up in Los Angeles County for conviction of petty theft in November 2006 and that she tried to steal something from Target in November last year.
The complaint says shes on probation in San Joaquin County and is due back in court on April 17, when she might be sentenced.
The documents list the womans address as 812 W. Clover Road, Space No. 57, which city property records show is owned by Clifford Lane Lawless and Connie Lawless.
The Melissa Huckaby interviewed today said thats not her.
Asked why the address and cell phone number in the court documents match her own, she said she has no idea.
I dont know what to say, she said. Thats not me.
http://www.tracypress.com/pages/ful...idget=push&instance=home_news_lead_story&open