Local News

TRACY (CBS 5 / AP) ― Police and FBI agents once again searched the Clover Road Baptist Church in Tracy on Friday evening as details emerged explaining a possible connection between the church and a suitcase found in a local irrigation pond earlier this week that contained 8-year-old Sandra Cantu's body.

"They're serving another search warrant," Tracy police Sgt. Tony Sheneman  confirmed as forensic specialists pulled up to the church not long after he told reporters that more search warrants would be served on various locations and vehicles. He would not elaborate further.

The church pastor's granddaughter, 28-year-old Melissa Huckaby, has come forward to claim that she may be the owner of that suitcase.

Huckaby, who is a Sunday school teacher at the church, said in an interview with CBS 5 that her suitcase was stolen the same day Sandra went missing from the mobile home park where she lived.

CBS 5 learned late Friday night that Huckaby was questioned for several hours by detectives at the headquarters of the Tracy Police Department.


Huckaby lives in that same mobile home park and was a neighbor of the girl. She told CBS 5 on Friday that she is the granddaughter of Lane Lawless, the church's pastor who was questioned by police for three hours the night Sandra's body was found.

Authorities had also searched Lawless' church on Tuesday, although Lawless has denied any involvement in Sandra's disappearance and police said he's not at the center of their investigation. 

Huckaby said her suitcase had an Eddie Bauer logo and was waterproof and charcoal-trimmed. Those details matched a general description of the suitcase that Sandra's body was found inside.

While Huckaby said she has spoken to authorities, she did not know if her missing suitcase was indeed the one that held the girl's body.

Huckaby said she was packing up the car to go do some work at the nearby church on March 27 — but ended up leaving the suitcase next to her car because she forgot to pack it. About 30 minutes later, when she realized she forgot it, she said she left her grandfather's church and went back to the mobile home park to retrieve her suitcase, but by then it was gone.

Huckaby said Sandra often played with her own daughter, and that Sandra had come over that day, but Huckaby said she told the girl to go away because she was too busy. 

Was Huckaby's suitcase the same one Sandra Cantu's body was found inside? Police declined to comment, except to say that there was no police report filed on a missing suitcase.

"'We've spoken to everybody in the mobile home park," said Sheneman. "Some people once; some people twice. In some cases, several times. I do not know if she was one of those people."

The local newspaper, the Tracy Press, reported that Huckaby had been in intensive care at the hospital the last few days for internal bleeding; but it did not specify what exactly made her so sick.

In other developments Friday, a Stockton police cadet said he saw a man "acting real strange" at the irrigation pond three days before Sandra's body was found in the suitcase pulled from the water.

After the gruesome discovery, Stephen Memory said he spoke to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about what he saw.

The 19-year-old Memory reported that he thought it was odd to see a beige Chevrolet Silverado truck parked on the shoulder of the road facing in the wrong direction on the afternoon of April 3. Sandra's body was found April 6.

Memory said the driver a white man in his late 40s or early 50s wearing a white baseball cap and dark T-shirt appeared to be looking down at the ditch beside the road, which is not well-traveled.

"He was acting real strange," Memory said Friday of the driver. "I drove by real slow to get a good look at him. He looked at me real quick and then he turned away. I just kept going."

Memory, who lives with his parents and sister at a house near the pond, noted that only four or five cars travel the remote road — which is a dead end — on a typical day.

The FBI referred questions to Tracy police. Sheneman said Friday that he was not aware of Memory's report and declined to comment further.

No suspects have been named in the case, but police have said the department has fielded up to 1,800 tips, ranging from useful information to some absurd leads, in the search for Sandra's killer. Sheneman said "the investigation is heading in the right direction," but refused to give details.

One of the many false leads that had popped up occured Thursday, he said, when someone left an envelope outside the mobile home park where Sandra lived addressed "To My Killer, From Sandra". 

Police said it had nothing to do with her death, or the investigation. Following bogus leads wastes the time of more than 25 city officers assigned to the case, detectives said. But they added that any leads, false or not, were difficult to ignore and had to be checked out.

On Friday, Sheneman announced a $32,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the death. 

Sandra's family also announced a public memorial service for their daughter at 1 p.m. on April 16.

The service will take at Tracy's Merrill F. West High School and will be held in the school's gymnasium, which holds about 2,500 people. Overflow seating will be available in the school's cafeteria.

Meanwhile, a new memorial was started Friday for people wishing to offer condolences to the family.

The Fry Memorial Chapel in Tracy said its doors would be open through Monday to mourners who wish to sign a condolence book and leave mementos in honor of Sandra.

Manuela Caragoza brought her young children to pay respects. She said one of her own daughters reminds her of Sandra.

"They way they described her as lovable, hugging. It's, it's scary," said Caragoza.

The thought that Sandra's killer is still out there is frightening to many Tracy residents, especially children.

"Because what if he were to take one of us," Caragoza's daughter Stephanie choked out, before breaking into tears.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)