Sunday school teacher Melissa Huckaby gets life without parole in murder of 8-year-old girl

A Sunday school teacher from Northern California accused of murdering an 8-year-old girl whose body was found stuffed into a suitcase was sentenced Monday to life without parole.

Melissa Huckaby, 29, pleaded guilty to kidnapping and murdering the child, Sandra Cantu of Tracy, in a plea deal that allowed the woman to avoid the death penalty.

The child, who was a playmate of the defendant’s daughter, was found after the March 2009 killing stuffed into a suitcase that was pulled from an irrigation pond.

Huckaby pleaded guilty last month to murder and kidnapping.

The woman offered an emotional apology to the girl’s family before she was sentenced, according to the Associated Press.

"She did not suffer, and I did not sexually molest her," Huckaby said, mainly addressing the girl’s mother.

-- Robert Faturechi

Comments

[Momof3]

in reading all the write ups on prison overcrowding and early release, it is a subject I do agree with. Huckaby's life in prison is justice for Sandra Cantu's family. How in the world can someone do harm to an innocent child who could not defend herself. She herself has cannot explained what she did. There are definetly exceptions to the rule and I'm glad Huckaby got life.

[Tenant Screening Background Check]

She really deserves the death penalty. Did anyone ever bother to check out her background history? Too often we see animals like this in our society able to go through life undetected. Sick and wrong what a sick bunch of people are filling and wasting space in prisons when they should be executed.

[Dana]

That poor girl, and her poor mother never to see her daughter again. I hope she gets what's coming to her in prison. People in prison may do bad things, but those people have kids and don't put up with these people. May we all sleep better knowing one more child abducting monster is behind bars.

[BillN]

but she's (was) an upstanding citizen she couldn't possibly have done such a thing.

[OpenUri's]

Another story has the below list of drugs prescribed to Huckaby:
"Connie Lawless described Huckaby, now 29, as a loner who suffered depression and had a history of cutting herself on her ankles. Diagnosed bipolar and schizophrenic, she kept a bottle of prescribed benzodiazepine, the highly potent anti-anxiety drug known by the brand name Xanax. She kept other drugs, too: Adderall for pep; Paroxetine to combat depression; Furosemide, a diuretic used for heart problems and hypertension." From another web article.

Wow, that's quite an impressive list of drugs. Intelligent people will start learning from this and never go to the doctor again.

Unfortuately, only now after the damage is done, a little girl is dead forever and Huckaby's life is over, the mental health community starts actually spending some time taking a look at probably what is her actualy mental problems, not dispensing drugs with out thinking twice. Too bad we can't lock up the mental health professionals (that's what they like to be calledand doctors that gave her these drugs so they won't make another Melissa.

Here's another manufactured lunatic....
"I wanted to know what it tasted like, and just the thought of eating someone was appealing to me," Underwood said in the confession.
Underwood also said such fantasies began about the time he started taking the antidepressant Lexapro. (Kevin Underwood)