We may never know why a 28-year-old Sunday School teacher, a woman described as a "mother hen," allegedly killed her own daughter's young playmate, but the Friday arrest of Melissa Huckaby in the murder of eight-year-old Sandra Cantu has rocked the small town in which both lived. Part of the surprise came from the two families' acquaintance -- they both had mobile homes in the same small Northern California town, and the two girls played together often -- and part from the rarity of a woman being accused of this kind of crime. The local police chief was quoted expressing surprise, citing FBI statistics on child murders.
Huckaby is a pastor's granddaughter and the mother of a five-year-old girl. It was to her house that Sandra was seen skipping in the last known video footage of the girl, whose body was found in a suitcase owned by Huckaby in an irrigation pond. Although some of her friends and relatives are quoted describing Huckaby as a kind mother and maternal figure to her eight younger siblings, others refer to mental and emotional troubles.
When women kill children, it's almost always their own babies and kids, almost always due to postpartum psychosis (a much more rare and severe syndrome than postpartum depression). The kidnapping and murder of another family's child seems particularly chilling when carried out by a woman with kids of her own -- yet it's unsettling to realize how unsurprising we find it when men kidnap and murder little girls.
Huckaby was arrested after a six-hour interrogation; police have no other suspect in the case. One can only hope that if she's found guilty she will at least no longer pose a threat to any other children, including her own.
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