Associated Press

Prosecutors said Monday they will likely include rape and molestation allegations in their murder charge against the woman suspected of killing an 8-year-old Northern California girl and putting her body in a suitcase.

Melissa Huckaby, a 28-year-old Sunday school teacher, was arrested Friday on suspicion of kidnapping and murdering Sandra Cantu.

Formal charges have not been filed, but San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Robert Himmelblau said Monday a murder charge against Huckaby would “likely” include the special circumstances of rape with a foreign object, lewd and lascivious conduct with a child and murder in the course of a kidnapping.

A conviction on any of the special circumstances would make Huckaby eligible for the death penalty or life in prison without parole, Himmelblau said. The district attorney's office hasn't determined whether to seek the death penalty, he said.

Sandra disappeared on March 27. A massive search ensued and pictures of her were posted all over Tracy, a city of 78,000 people about 60 miles east of San Francisco. On April 6, Sandra's body was found in a suitcase by farmworkers draining an irrigation pond located only a few miles from Sandra's home in the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park.

Huckaby lived with her grandparents five doors down from Sandra in Tracy. The little girl was a playmate of Huckaby's 5-year-old daughter, Madison.

Police have not said how, where or why Sandra was killed, and Himmelblau wouldn't provide details on any evidence leading prosecutors to consider the sexual assault allegations.

"I was hoping that wasn't the case," Sandra's aunt, Angie Chavez, said through tears. "I'm in shock. The whole thing is unimaginable."

In the days after Sandra's body was found, investigators searched Clover Road Baptist Church, where Huckaby volunteered as a Sunday school teacher and her grandfather, Clifford Lawless, is the pastor.

Investigators also interviewed the pastor and seized items from his home. Her family has said they do not know what police were looking for. A call to Huckaby's family Monday was not immediately returned.

On Sunday, outside the church after Easter services, Huckaby's relatives described her as a loving mother with a strong religious upbringing.

Brian Lawless said his daughter, who grew up in Orange County and was on the high school dance team and was an excellent singer, never raised her voice at her own daughter, "Never yelled. Never struck her."

After high school, Huckaby bounced back and forth between Southern California and Tracy.

In 2002, she worked as a cashier at a grocery store near the mobile home park. The following year, in May 2003, she filed for bankruptcy, listing just over $5,000 in assets and more than $26,000 in debts. She was 22 and expecting her first child.

According to court documents, Melissa Lawless owed more than $17,000 in medical expenses, including two debts to ambulance services and $10,000 to a Tracy hospital. She earned a total of $10,525 in 2002 while working at the grocery store.

She left the market in 2004. Around this time that she married and had Madison. She soon divorced.

In 2006, Huckaby was convicted of petty theft in Los Angeles County. Her sentence wasn't immediately known.

Separately, in January, she pleaded no contest to a petty theft charge in San Joaquin County Superior Court. She was sentenced to 3 years probation on condition she participate in a county mental health program.

She had been scheduled to go to court April 17 to report on her participation in that program.

Huckaby was hospitalized for several days during the week leading to her arrest with an unknown ailment that her family said was possibly stomach bleeding.

She's scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in Stockton. A decision on which, if any, special circumstances to include in the charges hasn't been made, Himmelblau said.

Huckaby is in custody without bail at the San Joaquin County Jail, where jail staff have been monitoring her mental health and are not allowing visitors. Himmelblau was not aware if Huckaby had an attorney.

Tracy police did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

"The allegations are so far outside what I know about my niece," Huckaby's uncle, Brett Lawless, 48, of Lakewood, said Sunday. "Of course there are doubts in my mind. But we understand the police doing their jobs might have some probable cause.

— The Tracy Press contributed to this report