Melissa Huckaby Indicted on Charges of Kidnapping, Raping and Murdering 8 Year Old Sandra Cantu

28 year old Melissa Huckaby was indicted  San Joaquin County Superior Court Monday on five counts on charges of kidnapping, raping and murdering 8 year old Sandra Cantu and drugging two others. The murder charge included the special circumstances of kidnapping, lewd and lascivious acts with a child and rape with a foreign object. The special circumstances makes her eligible for the death penalty, if convicted.

In April, Huckaby, 28, pleaded not guilty to the murder of a second-grader whose body was found stuffed in a suitcase in an irrigation pond 10 days after she disappeared from the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park in Tracy, Calif.

She did enter a plea to the charges announced today.

The drugging indictments stem from charges prosecutors filed in May, accusing Huckaby of trying to poison a 7-year-old girl and a 37-year-old man. The girl recovered but authorities do not know what happened to the man.

Superior Court Judge Linda Lofthus read the indictment against her and stated that the grand jury transcript would remain sealed. No trial date has been set.

Huckaby began crying when the indictment was read.

Grand jury indicts Melissa Huckaby in killing of Sandra Cantu

Huckaby, 28, was indicted on charges of murder with three special circumstances: kidnapping, lewd and lascivious acts on a child and rape with an instrument. The grand jury also added a charge of having sex with a child under 10 years old.

They also indicted the 28-year-old Tracy woman on one count of furnishing a harmful substance in the case of Daniel Plowman, of Hayward, and one count of furnishing a harmful substance and child abuse/endangerment in the case of another unnamed 7-year-old girl. Those counts are unrelated to Sandra’s death.