Melissa Huckaby

Police collected footage recorded by a surveillance camera near the family home. The footage, which showed Cantu crossing the street in front of her home before moving out of frame, was played on national news stations. A search of the mobile home complex was conducted without results and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was called in to assist on the case. Over the course of the weekend of March 28–29, police dogs, equestrian teams, all-terrain vehicles and a helicopter from the California Highway Patrol were brought in to search for Cantu. A $22,000 reward was offered for information in the case.

On Friday, March 27, 2009, eight-year-old Sandra Renee Cantu, who lived at Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park in Tracy, California, with her mother, grandparents and three older siblings, played at a friend's house after school until approximately 4:00 p.m., when she returned home. She later left home saying that she was going to play at another friend's house. When she did not return for dinner, she was reported missing to the local police at 7:53 p.m.

On April 10, 2009, Huckaby was arrested and charged with the murder of Cantu. She received further charges regarding the druggings of a 7-year-old girl and a 37-year-old man; these charges were dropped as part of a plea bargain in which Huckaby pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder and kidnapping of Cantu in order to avoid the death penalty. Huckaby was sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole. At her sentencing, Huckaby said, "I still cannot understand why I did what I did. This is a question I will struggle with for the rest of my life." The prosecutor in the case speculated that she killed Cantu for attention.

Sandra Renee Cantu (March 8, 2001 – March 27, 2009) was an American girl who attracted national attention at the age of eight after she disappeared from Tracy, California, on March 27, 2009. Her body was discovered ten days later inside a suitcase in a local irrigation pond. On April 10, police arrested a local woman, 28-year-old Melissa Huckaby (born February 23, 1981), and charged her with the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Cantu. Huckaby pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and murder of Cantu and was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in 2010.