SANDRA CANTU - 8 yo (3/2009) - Tracy CA

Thanks Aunty AB! It's alot of work but the kids deserve it...

Melissa
Huckaby's parents did not see any signs that their 29-year-old daughter
could kidnap and kill a child, they said in a live interview Friday on
NBC's "Today.""We are so baffled," Huckaby's mother, Judy
Lawless, told "Today" host Matt Lauer. "There was no warning signs.
She's never, ever, you know, displayed any kind of anger issues."Huckaby,
a former Tracy Sunday school teacher, was sentenced last month to life
in prison without the possibility of parole for kidnapping and killing
her 8-year-old neighbor, Sandra Cantu.Lawless said she has since
gone through many emotions, including anger at her daughter, "for the
destruction" she caused.Huckaby has struggled with emotional
issues since reportedly being raped by a police officer when she was 19.
The details surrounding the claim remain unknown.As a result,
said Brian Lawless, Huckaby's father, she never got the mental health
treatment she needed. Whenever she was admitted into a facility, she
would tell the doctor it was "just a bad moment." The doctor would write
it off and release her."She was very good at covering things
up," he said.Huckaby has since been diagnosed bipolar
schizophrenic.Sandra disappeared March 27, 2009. A massive search
for the second-grader ensued, capturing the attention of national news
media. Ten days later, the girl's body was found stuffed in a black
suitcase in an irrigation pond about two miles from the mobile home
park where she and Huckaby
lived. An autopsy showed she had been drugged and sexually assaulted.Investigators
first noticed Huckaby the day after Sandra's disappearance, when she
told them she found a misspelled note on the ground saying Sandra was
locked in a stolen suitcase thrown in the water, and that her suitcase
had disappeared the same day as Sandra. Other circumstantial
evidence — including items found at the church where Huckaby taught
Sunday school and where her grandfather was the pastor — eventually made
her Tracy police's prime suspect. On the night of April 10, 2009, a
crying Huckaby broke down and told police Sandra death's was an
accident. She was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and killing the
child. Her aunt, Joni Hughes, told Lauer that she spoke with her
niece after the sentencing, and that Huckaby cried "a lot.""She
feels so terrible for what she's done," Hughes said.

Poster's Opinion: It seems to me that it would serve a purpose to release the documentation. Perhaps if the public could visualize how heinous these crimes can be, there would be less of them.

A state Senate bill that would seal the autopsy reports of murdered
children is making its way through the Legislature with the help of
testimony from the family of slain Tracy 8-year-old Sandra Cantu.

A Senate committee unanimously approved the bill Thursday, July 15, which
was introduced by Senate Minority Leader Dennis Hollingsworth,
R-Murrieta. The bill would allow family members to request autopsy
reports and other evidence remain sealed if their child was murdered.

Angela Chavez, Sandra’s aunt, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee
and said “No one wants to remember their loved ones in an autopsy
photo,” according to The Associated Press.

Sandra’s family has fought to keep Sandra’s autopsy report and photos sealed, although the
prosecutor and lead detective on the case said the information in the
grand jury transcript has more disturbing details than the autopsy report itself.

A judge released the grand jury transcript last
month, but decided to keep the autopsy photos sealed forever in fear
that bloggers and those on the “fringe of the media” would get their
hands on the photos and plaster them on the Internet.

The ultimate decision to release the autopsy report is up to the San Joaquin
County Sheriff, and the judge in San Joaquin Superior Court temporarily
sealed the report last month and scheduled a hearing on the issue.

The ongoing battle over Sandra’s autopsy report continues in court in
Stockton on July 23.

I completely agree Tom. We all need to be forced to confront the horrible things that are happening to children even though it is very upsetting. If we are protected from it then it's easier to put it out of our minds and carry on as though nothing has happened instead of having it haunt us until we demand action to help prevent these tragedies. I completely understand the families point of view though. I wish I could talk to them and try to explain the greater good that Sandra's short life can contribute.

The death of a child, especially one taken by
criminal violence, is about as cruel an act as can be visited on the
surviving family and friends.
It is understandable that we would want to shelter them from the pain, but in
the end there is no real shelter save the support of each other and the passage of time.
But now a California lawmaker is proposing one of those do-something, do-anything acts that
government officials so often take when faced with circumstances where
in truth government has few real solutions.
He wants to allow family members to request
that the autopsy reports of murdered children and other evidence in such
cases be permanently sealed. The records also would not be subject to
disclosure under the California Public Records Act.
The proposal by Republican state Sen. Dennis
Hollingsworth of Murrieta was approved unanimously by a Senate committee Thursday.
The request comes as the family of
Sandra Cantu fights to block release of autopsy reports. The 8-year-old
Tracy girl was murdered by Melissa Huckaby, who is serving a life
sentence without the possibility of parole. Another hearing on the
family's request is scheduled for Friday in San Joaquin County Superior Court.
Investigative reports that the family
also wanted kept private along with grand jury transcripts already have
been released. They give the often heart-wrenching explicit details of the case.
Difficult as reading those reports
can be, their release is important so the public can understand the
case, but most importantly so the public can judge the actions of law
enforcement and courts. Without such public scrutiny, we can quickly
lose confidence in how justice is meted out. Public scrutiny also is a
way to assure that law enforcement and the courts operate within the
confines of our constitutional rights, especially rights that guarantee a fair trial.
There is another point here, though. Hollingsworth's legislation would make a child's murder a
special class of crime. What his proposal says is that the pain of the
family of a murdered child is so much greater than that of others whose
family members have been killed that they deserve special treatment.
We can't help but question the validity of what
that implies. Is the family of a father murdered during a convenience
store robbery in any less pain than a murdered child's family? Is the
family of a college student killed by a repeat drunken driver in any
less pain? What about the family of the victim of a serial killer?
Hollingsworth's proposal fails at the most basic
level because it cannot protect surviving families from pain. No law
can. What it does do is remove part of the transparency vital to
maintaining public confidence in our system of government.


Poster's Note: Bravo to "The Record" and Recordnet.com for this fine editorial on what the downsides of this law would be. BBM

STOCKTON - Autopsy reports of Sandra Cantu, the
8-year-old Tracy girl murdered in 2009, will remain sealed at her
family's request, attorneys said Monday.
A law signed last year by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger leaves it up to the
family of slain children to release autopsy reports, or not, when a
child is killed during a crime.
The bill was written partly in response to Sandra's case.
Stockton attorney Stewart Tabak said the law
allows Sandra's mother, Maria Chavez, and sister, Simone Chavez, to seal
the records despite requests by media organizations to have them made public.
"Contrary to certain claims, there are
some things the public does not have either a need or a right to know,
such as gory, gruesome details of an autopsy of a murdered child," Tabak said.
Melissa Huckaby, 30, pleaded guilty to
murdering Sandra after kidnapping her from the mobile home park where
they were neighbors. Sandra's remains were recovered from inside a black
suitcase, dumped in a dairy pond.
The case made national news.
After Huckaby received her life prison sentence, The Record, Bay Area News
Group and The Associated Press challenged a court gag order, keeping
secret search warrants, grand jury transcripts and the autopsy reports.
San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Linda Lofthus made all but the autopsy reports public.
A media attorney argued that releasing the details of this crime was
important because Huckaby pleaded guilty and did not undergo a public
trial. The public has a right to know if Huckaby was correctly charged and other details.
Yet, attorneys for Sandra's family said the mourning relatives did not want autopsy photos to go
viral on the Internet. Sandra and her family were entitled to dignity,
the family's attorney argued.
A fight over the records went to a civil court, where a judge last year delayed hearing
the case until Monday. By then, the new law had gone into effect,
leaving the release of autopsy reports up to the murdered child's
family. No court hearing was held.
San Joaquin County Deputy County Counsel Matthew Dacey said Monday that Sandra's
autopsy reports will remain sealed under the new law according to her family's wishes.
"It was a nonissue at that point," Dacey said.


Poster's Note: While I would find it distasteful to read I disagree with this ruling/ new law on two points:
1) The autopsy is performed by a taxpayer paid clinician. I don't care what it is, as taxpayers we have a right to see the results.
2) The more people that see the horrors that were performed on this child the more people will become incensed and keep vigilant for predators like Ol' Razor Blade.

Poster's Note: I have posted this Editorial as I have some issues with this secrecy and I will address those in the next post.

By Tammerlin Drummond
Staff columnist
© Copyright 2011, Bay Area News Group
Posted: 08/20/2011 04:00:00 PM PDT



The public's right to know is a fundamental tenet of democracy.
The California Public Records Act requires all state and local
government agencies to disclose -- upon request from any citizen --
documents and other information in their possession that pertain to
public business. That is unless the public officials can demonstrate
that releasing the record would cause undue harm.
As journalists,
it is our job to hold public officials' feet to the fire. We take legal
action against agencies that try to withhold information. We do so
because public access to government records is so important in our
efforts to hold public employees accountable and root out corruption.
Yet
there are times when the public's right to know conflicts with an
individual's right to privacy, times when the harm to an individual
would be so great that it far outweighs the public benefit in releasing
the information. I fervently believe that to be the case when it comes
to the release of autopsy reports of children who have been murdered.
Last
year, the Legislature passed the Deceased Child Victims' Protection and
Privacy Act. It was introduced by Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth,
R-Murrieta, on behalf of two families in San Diego County whose teen
daughters had been raped and murdered by a convicted child molester.
The
law allows the parent of a child who died as the result of a crime to
petition to have the autopsy report sealed. This is only after the

perpetrator has been
sentenced for the crime. Hollingsworth drafted the bill to block
numerous media requests for 17-year-old Chelsea King's autopsy report."These
families have endured such horrific tragedies, they shouldn't be
victimized a second time by the public airing of these reports,"
Hollingworth said.
Let's consider this for a moment.
These
parents have endured a nightmare that most of us can't even imagine.
They have seen autopsy photographs of their daughters' battered bodies
-- knowing the agony that they must have suffered in their final
moments. Then, they had to sit politely in a courtroom day after day
facing the man accused of these monstrous crimes.
How would you
feel as a parent if, after all of that, people were clamoring to get
ahold of the autopsy report in all its grisly details and publicize it?
Wouldn't you feel violated all over again?
Last week, a judge applied the law to seal the autopsy report of Sandra Cantu at her parents' request.
Sandra
was abducted in 2009 from her home in Tracy in a case that garnered
national attention. Her body was found stuffed in a suitcase that had
been dumped in an irrigation pond. Melissa Huckaby, an acquaintance, was
sentenced to life in prison for raping and killing the little girl. The
judge had sealed the autopsy report during the trial on the grounds
that 1) it would have inflamed the jury and hurt the defendant's chances
for a fair trial and 2) it would invade Sandra's family's privacy.
Several
news organizations -- including the Bay Area News Group -- had
petitioned for release of the autopsy report as well as all other public
records pertaining to the court case.
Cantu's uncle Joe Chavez
called attempts to "unseal the morbid, grotesque and disgusting details
of what Melissa has done to the body of my niece nothing less than
trying to look up the skirt of a dead 8-year-old girl."
Cantu
family members feared that in the age of the Internet sickos would be
free to post and repost the gruesome photos ad nauseam.
The
California Newspaper Publishers Association argued that the media needs
access to public records so that it can hold the justice system and
criminals accountable. That in cases when child-killers are family
members, they could seek to keep investigative records secret to protect
relatives.
This is a valid concern. Yet that was not at issue in
these cases. There are plenty of investigative and court records in the
public domain to establish how Sandra died.
Furthermore the
Legislature left intact certain key exceptions. The autopsies of
children who are wards of the state cannot be sealed. So if a child dies
while under the care of Child Protective Services, the public will have
access to the autopsy. The records will also be available to law
enforcement and for evidence in civil suits.
I believe the law strikes a fair balance between the public interest and an individual's right to privacy.
There are just some things the public doesn't need to know.
http://www.mercurynews.com/columns/ci_18717668

That is unless the public officials can demonstrate
that releasing the record would cause undue harm.

---Who is making this decision for us? earlier you said...

The public's right to know is a fundamental tenet of democracy.

So? What makes this any different? Undue harm to whom? The family? They already know the gruesome details. We want to know so that we can expose the horror that can occur just steps from your own front door!

Yet there are times when the public's right to know conflicts with an individual's right to privacy, times when the harm to an individual
would be so great that it far outweighs the public benefit in releasing
the information. I fervently believe that to be the case when it comes
to the release of autopsy reports of children who have been murdered.

I fervently believe that you are an asshat! We are not harming anyone. We are educating the taxpayers on what did and could happen.

Cantu's uncle Joe Chavez called attempts to "unseal the morbid, grotesque and disgusting details of what Melissa has done to the body of my niece nothing less than trying to look up the skirt of a dead 8-year-old girl."

Well Joe, I truly feel deep sorrow for your loss and was one of those who pushed to have J4C cover other cases when your niece went missing. Since then we have posted hundreds upon hundreds of cases, even first-hand investigated some, all with the explicit intent of informing the public of the horrors that exist right next door. Further, another goal is strike fear into the hearts of the evil-doers and let them know that there are people out there who will track them until their dying day.

Cantu family members feared that in the age of the Internet sickos would be free to post and repost the gruesome photos ad nauseam.

To my knowledge nobody was requesting pictures, but rather we were looking for the actual tax-payer funded autopsy results. We are not so gruesome as to want pictures of how her body was devastated.

I believe the law strikes a fair balance between the public interest and an individual's right to privacy. There are just some things the public doesn't need to know.

There is NOTHING that the tax-paying public doesn't need to know. I am certain that this concept was, however, very popular in Nazi Germany.
Rant concluded.
Hang Tough my friends

An event recognizing children in the community is returning to Tracy.

Celebrating Tracy’s Children is scheduled for Thursday, March 8, and will feature free activities from several businesses in Tracy, according to event organizer Janet Anderson.

The second-year event, for Tracy residents age 12 and younger, falls on what would be the 11th birthday of Sandra Cantu, said Anderson, who is also Cantu’s cousin.

In March 2009, Sandra, then 8 years old, went missing from her home in Tracy. Melissa Huckaby, a Sunday school teacher and Cantu’s neighbor, subsequently pleaded guilty to murdering the child and was sentenced to life in prison without parole in June 2010.

Anderson stated in an email that the event both recognizes all children in Tracy and honors Sandra’s memory.

“She loved playing with others, and I believe she would have truly enjoyed watching the children enjoy a day like this,” she said. “Children are a special gift and our future, and Celebrating Tracy’s Children is a way for us to celebrate the gift of our community’s children.”

Anderson said participants can attend individual events or all of them, but she said several of the classes have size limits and participation is on a first-come, first-served basis.

For details about each event: www.tracycelebrateschildren.com.



Read more: Tracy Press - Children to be celebrated on Sandra Cantu’s birthday