Prosecutors add poisoning charges against Huckaby
by TP staff
May 22, 2009 | 3659 views | 36 36 comments | 17 17 recommendations | email to a friend | print
Prosecutors Thursday added poisoning and child endangerment charges against Melissa Huckaby, the 28-year-old former Sunday school teacher accused of killing Sandra Cantu, 8.

Prosecutors allege Huckaby on Jan. 17 mixed a “harmful substance” into the food or drink of a 7-year-old girl.

They also accuse her doing the same thing on March 2 to a man named Daniel Plowman, who has no criminal history in this county and could not be found for comment.

A 7-year-old girl’s mother, Lora Polk, accused Huckaby in January of drugging her daughter after Huckaby took the girl without Polk’s permission to a park for four hours from the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park, where they all lived.

When Huckaby, her own 5-year-old daughter Madison and Polk’s daughter returned, Polk said her daughter slurred her words, and couldn’t walk or sit up straight, so Polk rushed her to the hospital, where doctors found a muscle relaxant in her system.

Police investigated then but said they had too little evidence to make charges against Huckaby stick.

But now prosecutors added a felony child endangerment charge against Huckaby, and two felony counts of “furnishing a harmful substance.” A gag order prevents prosecutors, investigators, or potential witnesses from discussing the case.

Huckaby is scheduled to appear at 1 p.m. today in a Stockton courtroom for an arraignment.

Cantu disappeared from the mobile home park on March 27, and 10 days later, her body was found in a suitcase in an dairy lagoon about two miles north of the mobile home park.

Huckaby on April 10 told the Tracy Press she reported a suitcase stolen the day Cantu disappeared, and police arrested her after five hours of questioning later that day.

Huckaby is in San Joaquin County Jail in French Camp, where she's charged with murder, rape with a foreign object, committing lewd and lascivious acts upon a child, kidnapping, child endangerment and poisoning.

She could face the death penalty if convicted.

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comments (36)
« 2tearsinabucket wrote on Wednesday, May 27 at 10:49 PM »
did the pastor steal the suitcase? and why would MH swallow razor blades?

The pastor maybe brainwashed that whole family? Maybe the whole family is involved? Maybe they are some sort of a cult? MH is taking the fall?
« shelly13 wrote on Wednesday, May 27 at 08:21 AM »
What? Mess - the east coast? Where do you get your info?
« Mess wrote on Wednesday, May 27 at 08:10 AM »
Okay !! Listen up all. The real killer is the pastor and not the grand daughter. Pastor Lane is a molester from back in the 80's when he was in a church, on the east coast. It is time for this pastor to face the judgement of Christ.
« MomOfFive wrote on Monday, May 25 at 09:02 PM »
coppersmom, the legal tenet of innocent until proven guilty is a court standard. In all but one state in this nation (LA), citizens are considered innocent before the law, until they have been proven guilty in a court of law, after being afforded all of the rights entitled to a citizen.

That being said, there is nothing that says that a person is ACTUALLY innocent until they are proven guilty. The LAW is to treat accused criminals as IF they are innocent. The law is not some command to citizens to be mindless. A person is guilty when they commit a crime. They're treated guilty by the law when they're convicted.

As for your opinion that the officers acted appropriately in the investigation of the Polk child in January, the detective admitted not fully investigating. Did he mean to harm anyone? No. Did he pass judgment on the parent, and ignore the rights/safety of the child? I believe so. And that's MY opinion.
« 2tearsinabucket wrote on Saturday, May 23 at 10:11 PM »
Copsmom...again you are defending MH..are you related or have feelings for her? MH told lies when the PD/investigators questioned her, as far as tellin them she was a sunday school teacher to look like she had a sociable aliby. Poster Flawless did tell the media she was an assistant at the sunday school for a teacher...that is that.

This story will one day be on Lifetime channel. They will portray MH like a lonely child surrounded with church family members who didn't give her much attention. Being unstable from not having a functional family, she became ill minded and probably a copy cat from other stories of this sort to hurt people, twist the story and look like she could never do anything wrong, making herself innocent and a victim of neglect.

« KAmom wrote on Saturday, May 23 at 07:08 PM »
Seriously, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Thanks for the update on where the info came from.
« shelly13 wrote on Saturday, May 23 at 06:06 PM »
I saw an interview on TV and I think a TPD rep or someone like that was talking and they did say that they found child porn on some of the computers of persons living in the mobile hme park.

I was wondering the same thing? Are they being looked at? I'm sure they are now...
« KAmom wrote on Friday, May 22 at 09:06 PM »
How does your friend know they had child porn on their computers?

I thought child porn was illegal, shouldn't they have been arrested?
« Nitegama wrote on Friday, May 22 at 08:41 PM »
also just asking..my friend that lives at the mobile home park was told that during the warrants issued at the mobile home park during the Cantu investigation several mobil home owners had child pornography on their computers? Should the folks in the mobile home park not be apprised of this? or is having child porn on your puter legal?
« Nitegama wrote on Friday, May 22 at 08:39 PM »
Coppersmom..unfortunately you have been misinformed about the "search" when the Polk child was poisoned. Unless you call an interview a search? I was visiting friend at that mobile home park nite sandra became missing..the search of the park that nite was a knock on the door around 9:00 by a tracy policeman asking if she had seen a hispanic 3 year old that was missing. However the night of the Polk child incident the polk household was not searched..and my concern about your "drug & alcohol issues" statement..if a child has a parent with drug and alcohol issues..forget about them being abused?
« texashangem wrote on Friday, May 22 at 06:13 PM »
What possible evidence do they have she poisoned this guy ? She is most likely guilty of the crime against the two girls, but I think the DA is stretching it by saying she poisoned a grown man. How does this relate to the two little girls.

I bet they charge her with every unsolved poison case in California now.
« ConcernedNeighbor wrote on Friday, May 22 at 05:42 PM »
You know, I do wonder about stolen ID's.
« ConcernedNeighbor wrote on Friday, May 22 at 05:40 PM »
Glad you folks agree with me on the "Sunday School Teacher," false self entitlement!

There is actual Melissa Huckaby in Manteca and seeing the name and the titlement would only cause more of an issue for her in Manteca?

Drop the Sunday School Teacher next to her name, in the first place, she never acted in the capacity of being one!

Second place, it just creates more problem for the actual Melissa Huckaby in Manteca?
« KAmom wrote on Friday, May 22 at 02:56 PM »
Maybe she was testing it out on people. Or maybe that is what gets her going drugging people. Sick, either way.
« texashangem wrote on Friday, May 22 at 02:49 PM »
So was her intention to rape the man as well ? Is that why she poisoned him ? Makes no sense.
« KAmom wrote on Friday, May 22 at 02:37 PM »
I agree FSW- Not a Sunday School Teacher! She only used that as part of her story with the suitcase. To try to cover up what she had done. So tired of hearing her lie come up over and over again. It makes it hard for the actual "sunday school teachers"
« Sahar wrote on Friday, May 22 at 01:04 PM »
Ms Future:

It was Melissa herself who made claims she's a Sunday School teacher to the plethora of press when Sandra was still missing. The moniker has annoyingly stuck and is infuriating.

She's probably been "using" that church mouse schtick as her way to get doors opened and at the same time, to hide her own and her family's proclivities who one and all, are party to the typical fundamentalist habit of leaving victims of all kinds in their wake.

« coppersmom wrote on Friday, May 22 at 01:02 PM »
nITEGAMA..THE POLICE did investigate...searched huckaby's home and the home of this woman..polk. polk has alcohol and drug issues...so it wasn't clear whether the soma and xanax came from her...or MH. THEY found nothing..also polk and huckaby both dated the same man......who is chris sinclair??\and futuresheriff...she was a sunday school teacher..whether you like it or not.

and great american that you are..I'm wondering why you don't believe in the American system..ie' innocent until proven.......not.
« FutureSheriffsWife wrote on Friday, May 22 at 12:54 PM »
I agree CP, why the hell do they keep calling her a Sunday School Teacher??? She was NOT A SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER!!!!!!!! She only volunteered a FEW times for her grandfather... that was it!!! She's far from a Sunday school teacher, stop calling her that!!!

The paragraph should read "Prosecutors Thursday added poisoning and child endangerment charges against Melissa Huckaby, the 28-year-old 'sick twisted phsyco' accused of killing Sandra Cantu, 8."

Thank god she is behind bars now, because who knows what other child/person (possibly one of the Sunday school children) she had in her sites to be her next victim!

And where did this man Daniel Plowman come from? This came out of left field... She's sick and deranged! Throw away the key, just throw it away!

« Nitegama wrote on Friday, May 22 at 12:45 PM »
Interesting a 7 year old shows up at a hospital full of a muscle relaxant and the police feel there is not enough "evidence" to further investigate? Had they investigated further perhaps the Cantu child would still be alive.


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