Sandra Cantu #4 4/27/09 -

[no rose colored glasses]

Hello everyone,
As you may gather from my screen name, I live in the town of Tracy where this beautiful little girl lived and is buried. Next week I am planning on taking a stuffed monkey and a poster board to place for her at the mozilium. If you wish to include a message please leave it here and I will write it out for you.

Thank you!

That is very kind of you    ( My thoughts and prayers are with Sandra's family and friends. I hope that they can take some comfort knowing that Sandra is looking down on them and they can feel her love. Mary )  If you could include this I would appreciate it. Thanks

[Fanny Mae]

Hello everyone,
As you may gather from my screen name, I live in the town of Tracy where this beautiful little girl lived and is buried. Next week I am planning on taking a stuffed monkey and a poster board to place for her at the mozilium. If you wish to include a message please leave it here and I will write it out for you.

Thank you!

Thank you Tracygirl for doing this.   

I hope God will give the family of Sandra some peace and to be able to remember the beautiful and precious life that she had, and not to dwell too much on the manner of her death. She was truely an energy-filled little spirit and I know she is missed deeply on earth. She is now with the angels, and she will be missed by many people. 

[cece]

Hello everyone,
As you may gather from my screen name, I live in the town of Tracy where this beautiful little girl lived and is buried. Next week I am planning on taking a stuffed monkey and a poster board to place for her at the mozilium. If you wish to include a message please leave it here and I will write it out for you.

Thank you!

Hi Tracygirl.  What a wonderful idea & so thoughtful for you to do this.  Please include the following:

To Sandra's Family,
May God's blessings and the memories of Sandra support you in your time of grief.
Please know that her short time here with us has touched so many hearts.
cece

[Kat_Gram]

Tracygirl: Please include my sympathy for Sandra's family.
..
The pictures and videos and tributes of Sandra touched many people. I was deeply saddend by this. All of my prayers are with you and the rest of your family. Nothing I can say will make the hurt go away. I hope that you can find a moments peace and solace in your good memories of Sandra. She was a delightful girl. 

[mamacrazy30]

Hello everyone,
As you may gather from my screen name, I live in the town of Tracy where this beautiful little girl lived and is buried. Next week I am planning on taking a stuffed monkey and a poster board to place for her at the mozilium. If you wish to include a message please leave it here and I will write it out for you.

Thank you!

Tracygirl, thank you for this.

Mr. and Mrs. Cantu,
My family and I pray for you everyday.  I am sure your grief is beyond words.  Know that the loss of your daughter has touched many hearts and we will remember Sandra.  She will not be forgotten.

Bless You,
the Hennings-Leonard family.

[Northern Rose]

Tracygirl thank you so much for do this.  Please pass along

My prayers and thoughts are with you and your family.  Sandra is now one of Gods special angels.  I hope you can find some comfort in the happy memories you had together.  May God give you strength.

[Tracygirl]

Thank you to those who posted messages for the poster. I plan on taking it next week and will take a pic of the poster and monkey placed for Sandra.

  I need to ask in case it is an error but would you like me to replace Mr and Mrs Cantu with the Chavez and Cantu families? Sandra's mom had the name Chavez. If not, then I will write it out exactly as you wrote it.

You know what image I can't get out of my head? In the few days after Sandra went missing her mom went on the today show, she was so broken up she couldn't put 2 words together.  Heart breaking....I pray they can somehow find peace.

[Fanny Mae]

Thank you to those who posted messages for the poster. I plan on taking it next week and will take a pic of the poster and monkey placed for Sandra.

  I need to ask in case it is an error but would you like me to replace Mr and Mrs Cantu with the Chavez and Cantu families? Sandra's mom had the name Chavez. If not, then I will write it out exactly as you wrote it.

You know what image I can't get out of my head? In the few days after Sandra went missing her mom went on the today show, she was so broken up she couldn't put 2 words together.  Heart breaking....I pray they can somehow find peace.

Tracygirl, I can't really speak for Mamacrazy but for myself I think that would be the reasonable thing to do. I can remember what you were talking about when Sandra's mother was on the Today Show...Somehow I feel she is just as hearbroken today.

I feel that your gesture to Sandra's memory is touching. 


   

[no rose colored glasses]

Thank you to those who posted messages for the poster. I plan on taking it next week and will take a pic of the poster and monkey placed for Sandra.

  I need to ask in case it is an error but would you like me to replace Mr and Mrs Cantu with the Chavez and Cantu families? Sandra's mom had the name Chavez. If not, then I will write it out exactly as you wrote it.

You know what image I can't get out of my head? In the few days after Sandra went missing her mom went on the today show, she was so broken up she couldn't put 2 words together.  Heart breaking....I pray they can somehow find peace.

I pray they can find peace, but I just don't know how one could  So very horrible, do you know if the family moved away from the mobile home park? If they can afford to do that, maybe it would help some, not much, but some.

[Catbert]

BLOCKED WEBSITE

[fatcatlurker]

hello monkeys!  I found more in regards to huckaby's other druggings;

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-23/new-charges-melissa-huckaby-drugged-people/

it's very detailed so i didn't copy all.

What we now know is that prosecutors believe Huckaby on March 2 drugged a 36-year-old man named Daniel Plowman, who lives in Hayward, a town about 40 miles west of Tracy. It was late that night when she allegedly mixed “a harmful substance with food or drink with the intent that the same be taken by a human being,” according to the amended criminal complaint file this week. Hours later, at about 1:30 a.m. the next day, Plowman was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. He had pulled his car into the drive-through of a McDonald’s about five minutes away from Huckaby’s mobile home. He ordered some food and paid for it just before passing out on the wheel, according to an employee who called police about the incident. When he came to, still disoriented, he drove into a wall. Police showed up and towed his gold-colored Ford Tempo. They took him into custody, but later released him and never pressed charges. I couldn’t track Plowman down for comment, but I heard from neighbors that he dated Huckaby for a while.

Two months earlier, Huckaby allegedly took her 5-year-old daughter Madison’s playmate out “to the park.” They were gone for four hours, the girl’s mother, Lora Polk, 41, told me. So Polk called the police, who searched everywhere, but the search ended when Huckaby appeared back at Polk’s home and dropped the girl off.

Relieved, Polk hugged her daughter, then took her to get some dinner at a local fast-food joint. But on the way there, the girl started slumping over. She slurred her words.

“Something wasn’t right,” Polk said. “So I rushed her to the hospital.”

Polk nervously waited in the lobby at the nearby hospital for doctors to come back with the results. About five hours after Polk admitted her daughter, she says doctors told her they found benzodiazepine coursing through the little girl’s body. They called the police, who questioned Polk, who accused her of supplying the pills to her daughter but evidently ended the night without an arrest.

Huckaby had said that the cops questioned her in connection to that case. And Polk offered for detectives to search her own home. But police said they just couldn’t form a strong enough case to file charges against anyone. Polk said they called her up after Sandra Cantu’s disappearance to express their regrets that they couldn’t have resolved the mysterious drugging incident back then. Cops didn’t even test the 7-year-old girl for signs of sexual assault until after Huckaby’s arrest—months after the suspect allegedly took the child, who said Huckaby gave her water that “tasted funny,” “like medicine,” said her mother.

This week, it became clear that whatever evidence prosecutors found against Huckaby in regards to the drugging incident was enough to file an amended complaint

In court on Friday, Huckaby appeared calm. She smiled once and said “yes” when the judge asked if she understood why the arraignment was delayed until June 12. Huckaby’s public defender Sam Behar asked for more time to review fresh evidence, including some collected from a personal computer, some from a silver Cadillac, and about 1,000 pages of transcripts pertaining to the case.

Some of Sandra Cantu’s family looked on, clad in black T-shirts emblazoned with a picture of the smiling fifth-grader and white letters that spelled “Justice for Sandra.” A bailiff made them turn their shirts inside out, to avoid breaking a state law that bans signs and messages in the courtroom supporting one side or the other in a court case.

Huckaby, clad in her red jailhouse jumpsuit, shuffled out just a few minutes after she entered, stealing a glance from her family, who sat toward the front of the tiny courtroom. Huckaby’s demeanor in court Friday—her third appearance since her April 10 arrest—came once again as a stark contrast to her initial arraignment last month, when she broke down crying, wrinkling her face to unsuccessfully fight back tears when the judge read the words “murder” and “rape.”

The emotionally troubled single mother was then on suicide watch at the San Joaquin County Jail because she tried to kill herself days before her arrest. The day word got out that police got their hands on her black Eddie Bauer suitcase April 6, Huckaby swallowed three razor blades, her ex-husband later told an Orange County judge. She was rushed to the hospital, where she later told me that doctors treated her for internal bleeding. I pressed for more information the day after she was released—incidentally, just hours before her arrest—but she refused to elaborate. Today, she’s still locked up in solitary confinement.

And as new evidence and new charges further delay the case, questions about motive and method remain unanswered. The presiding judge has a history of sealing documents related to the case, in part, she said, to avoid angering the public. But at least one person is already angry. Polk, a weathered single mom who admittedly struggles with drug and alcohol problems, said police should have done more when they first heard about how her daughter got drugged. She said she wants to know what stopped them. Other people may be wondering the same thing.

[fatcatlurker]

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090523/A_NEWS/905230313

Lofthus granted Testa's request for property seized under a search warrant in the investigation to be returned to a woman named Colette Plummer. Testa said the elderly woman needed her silver Cadillac to get to work. Her computer also will be returned.

Behar said he did not want property seized from other, unidentified people returned.

[klaasend]

http://www.tracypress.com

Prosecutor asks judge to move Huckaby case along
by Jennifer WadsworthJun 09, 2009

Prosecutors of a Tracy murder case will on Friday ask a judge to move it forward because two victims are children.

San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Thomas Testa filed the motion on Tuesday asking the presiding judge to enter a plea of not guilty and to set a preliminary hearing date for 28-year-old Melissa Huckaby if her lawyer still hasn’t by Friday.

Huckaby was arrested on April 10 for allegedly raping and killing 8-year-old Sandra Cantu. Prosecutors later added charges that the single mother “furnished a harmful substance” to a 36-year-old man named Daniel Plowman and a 7-year-old girl.

The two-page motion notes that Friday’s hearing will be the fourth in the case. San Joaquin County Deputy Public Defender Sam Behar has yet to enter a plea for Huckaby.

“All criminal actions in which … a minor … is the victim … shall be given precedence over all other criminal actions in the order of trial,” Testa says, quoting a statute that typically applies to cases involving elderly or very young witnesses.

Bay Area attorney Steven Clark — who has followed the Huckaby case since its first day in court and has appeared as a pundit on cable news shows about the case — said the motion shows some urgency on the part of the prosecution.

“I think there’s an element of frustration building because there hasn’t been a plea yet,” said Clark, who expects Huckaby to plead not guilty on Friday and for the judge to set a preliminary hearing date for two or three months out.

“This is an effort to get the case moving,” Clark said of Testa’s request. “It’s not atypical, especially in a murder or sexual assault case when children are involved as a material witness or as a victim.”

Tuesday’s motion gives the court power to move the case along.

Huckaby, who if convicted faces the death penalty or life behind bars, is due in court at 1:20 p.m. Friday.

To view a copy of Testa’s motion, go to www.stocktoncourt.org.

[JessStar]

Looks to me as if the good Mr. Testa is through playing games with Melissa Huckaby and her counsel.  It's time to hold her feet to the fire.  This is a pretty aggressive maneuver.  To me, it shows that Testa has nothing but the utmost of confidence in his case.  In essence, it says "Judge, if she doesn't enter a plea, the Court is empowered by statute to enter a "not guilty" plea on her behalf.  I want to you to do that, because I want my preliminary hearing, and I want my trial.  Let's get this show on the road."  Kudos to him.

[Kat_Gram]

Why would her lawyer(s) delay in entering a plea ? I don't have your legal expertise, but don't they have to plea not guilty in capital cases ?
Is there some legal stategy in this ?
Or are they just trying to delay all of the other hearings that follow a plea ?

[mamacrazy30]

Thank you to those who posted messages for the poster. I plan on taking it next week and will take a pic of the poster and monkey placed for Sandra.

  I need to ask in case it is an error but would you like me to replace Mr and Mrs Cantu with the Chavez and Cantu families? Sandra's mom had the name Chavez. If not, then I will write it out exactly as you wrote it.

You know what image I can't get out of my head? In the few days after Sandra went missing her mom went on the today show, she was so broken up she couldn't put 2 words together.  Heart breaking....I pray they can somehow find peace.

Tracygirl, yes, please fix mine..TY

[klaasend]

DON'T MISS DANA PRETZER TONIGHT - COMING UP IN A COUPLE MINUTES!!!
http://scaredmonkeysradio.com/radio.m3u

[JessStar]

Why would her lawyer(s) delay in entering a plea ? I don't have your legal expertise, but don't they have to plea not guilty in capital cases ?
Is there some legal stategy in this ?
Or are they just trying to delay all of the other hearings that follow a plea ?

KG, I don't see this as a response by the DA to a delay caused by the defendant's lawyers in entering a plea.  There really hasn't been an unreasonable delay.  In fact, the last "delay" resulted from the DA's amended complaint adding additional charges.  I see this motion as a proactive move by the DA.  He's saying, "Ok, Judge.  There hasn't been any additional charges.  We've turned over everything we're required to turn over.  They've had sufficient time to consider it. It's time to enter a plea and move the case forward."  From what I understand, MH's counsel hasn't opposed it.  So I expect we'll be getting a plea on Friday.  I also expect they will plead not guilty to everything.

There's a number of charges she needs to plead to, not just the capital ones.  So pleas will need to be entered on each of them.  I'm not 100% sure in California whether capital cases require an automatic "not guilty" plea.  I'd have to look that up.

[Blink34]

Looks to me as if the good Mr. Testa is through playing games with Melissa Huckaby and her counsel.  It's time to hold her feet to the fire.  This is a pretty aggressive maneuver.  To me, it shows that Testa has nothing but the utmost of confidence in his case.  In essence, it says "Judge, if she doesn't enter a plea, the Court is empowered by statute to enter a "not guilty" plea on her behalf.  I want to you to do that, because I want my preliminary hearing, and I want my trial.  Let's get this show on the road."  Kudos to him.

I agree Jess, if she does enter a plea by Friday which I think she will, I guess her line in the sand has been drawn. Who this woman thinks is going to come to her aid is beyond me.
B 

[lonemonkey]

Looks to me as if the good Mr. Testa is through playing games with Melissa Huckaby and her counsel.  It's time to hold her feet to the fire.  This is a pretty aggressive maneuver.  To me, it shows that Testa has nothing but the utmost of confidence in his case.  In essence, it says "Judge, if she doesn't enter a plea, the Court is empowered by statute to enter a "not guilty" plea on her behalf.  I want to you to do that, because I want my preliminary hearing, and I want my trial.  Let's get this show on the road."  Kudos to him.

I agree Jess, if she does enter a plea by Friday which I think she will, I guess her line in the sand has been drawn. Who this woman thinks is going to come to her aid is beyond me.
B 

I just really want to hear what MH's defense is/will be....???