Sunday School Teacher Faces Death Penalty

Will be charged today; may face death penalty

(NEWSER) - The California Sunday school teacher set to be accused of killing 8-year-old Sandra Cantu may also face rape and child molestation charges, qualifying her for the death penalty, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Melissa Huckaby will be arraigned this afternoon; prosecutors will charge her with murder but are debating whether to add the “special-circumstances” charges. More»

(NEWSER) - The accused killer of an 8-year-old California girl has been linked to an earlier abduction of a child in the same community, reports the Tracy Press. A 7-year-old girl was led from her neighborhood in January by a woman driving the same kind of car belonging to Sunday school teacher Melissa Huckaby. The teacher was charged last week with murdering Sandra Cantu, a friend of Huckaby's young daughter. Huckaby, Cantu and the abducted girl all lived in the same trailer park. More»

(NEWSER) - Family and friends of Melissa Huckaby can’t believe the Sunday school teacher might have killed and raped 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. "She was actually really mellow and a good friend, and she loved her daughter so much,” a college friend says. And with police still working the case, some observers suspect that another arrest is on the way—and that Huckaby is just covering up for a man. More»

Huckaby swallowed three knife blades before arrest

(NEWSER) - Days before she was arrested for the rape and murder of Sandra Cantu, California Sunday-school teacher Melissa Huckaby attempted suicide by swallowing three razor blades, CBS reports. She was hospitalized and remained under suicide watch until yesterday’s hearing, where a sobbing Huckaby learned she could face the death penalty for murder, kidnapping, and rape with a foreign object of her daughter’s 8-year-old playmate. More»

Melissa Huckaby stuck to claim of innocence as evidence mounted

(AP) - Sunday school teacher Melissa Huckaby placed the lifeless body of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu into a suitcase with a care that investigators say indicated a "calm, calculating mind at work." This and other macabre pieces of information were revealed in more than 1,800 pages released yesterday, shedding new light on Huckaby, a depressed woman with a penchant for cutting herself, in the murder of her daughter's playmate last year. More»