Sandra Cantu Murder: Huckaby Drugged Child in January

Tracy, CA– Adding yet again to the horror of the senseless rape and murder of 8 year old Sandra Cantu, as reported originally in Tracy Press, Melissa Huckaby was accused of drugging and removing a 7 year old little girl from the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park in January.

Could the death of doe-eyed beauty Sandra Cantu been prevented?

According to Police logs, the child was with Melissa Huckaby, as identified initially as the owner of a Purple Kia Suv, from 1:30 to approximately 5:30PM on Saturday January 17, 2009.

The Police report does not specify Melissa Huckaby by name, which in itself is an oddity as by Huckaby’s own admission to blinkoncrime.com and others, she was in fact visited and questioned by police regarding the incident.

Does Tracy PD Have their own Richard Cain?

In Melissa Huckaby’s phone interview, she gives a different story than what is proclaimed by the family and referenced in the Police logs.

Huckaby claims to have had permission to take the child to the Park, where she had taken her 3 times that week, from the child’s grandparents. She appears to slip up when she says that when the child’s Mother came home, she did not know she was “missing, I mean with me, and she lost my phone number..” I received a call from my grandparents stating they got a call looking for her and I took her home..”

According to the victim’s 18 year old sister, the little girl was slurring her words, and was unable to hold herself up. Her Mother immediately took her to the hospital and called Police again when a drug screen showed she had benzodiazepines, or muscle relaxers in her system. Police logs show that they did not show up to the Hospital until after 10:30PM.  A source who has spoken directly with this family has confirmed that the responding officer both talked the mother out of filing a missing person’s report while she was missing and a complaint against Huckaby because he smelled alcohol on the breath of the mother and she had a prescription for a similar drug.

According to Tracy PD Sgt. Tony Sheneman, the extent he will comment on behalf of the Tracy PD is that there was “almost a MP report filed on January 17th.”

There is no recording or notes of the interview a Tracy Police Detective had with Huckaby the evening of the incident.  

Family is Friends to the Cantu’s

Sources inside the investigation have confirmed to my satisfaction that the child was definately NOT Sandra Cantu. Blinkoncrime.com is witholding her name and that of her family for privacy reasons in the invent charges are filed against Huckaby. The child was a playmate of Sandra Cantus’, and both girls played with Huckaby’s daughter Madison frequently. Her family states emphatically that she was examined thorougly and aside from the drugs in her system, there was no evidence of abuse.

Following the incident however, the family was advised by the Tracy Police not to discuss the incident with Huckaby and the little girl was forbidden to go to the Lawless home, where Huckaby lived with her daughter.

Both the Cantu family and the family of the 7 year old victim have been advised by the FBI not to speak to reporters. It is not known if Sandra’s family was aware of the incident prior to Sandra’s abduction, but if they were, it would explain why they were adamant they could not confirm her last whereabouts and whether or not she made it there, as it is probable Sandra may have been instructed to stay away from the home.

Did Huckaby spot her skipping down the road and intercept her?

 

YouTube courtesy of Klaasend

 

 

 

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37 Comments

  1. My opinion says:

    If Sandras Mother had told her she was not to go near MH that would explain her obvious change in demeanor when she was skipping across the street. IF as many of us believe it was MH just outside the cameras picture….

  2. Kleat says:

    Small city police forces need to have a shake up and retraining. Clear the problem from the top, if necessary. A child abduction and murder with the little body shoved in a suitcase and left in a wooded park, has reared its ugly head again, with the accused murderer freed years ago as the police apparently had an informant in jail and that ended up in this informant beating a confession out of the accused. Not only did this allow the killer (no other suspects) to go free and never to stand trial again, but he is now talking about charging the police. The family of this child, whose disappearance captured the concern of everyone for months, has to go through this again.

    And there is the spin-off of the Caylee Anthony ‘Kidnapping’ that was on a 911 operator’s mind when he was talking to an abducted and soon to be killed mother of a young boy– the 911 operator thought he was being duped because she couldn’t tell him where she was and told her she was wasting his time because they’d have to look for her like they looked for ‘the missing child’ (Caylee) who was not really missing of course.

    There is lack of communication, in this Canadian case, the investigating police were told to search area x by other officer specialists, but this was ignored. The body was then not found for months afterwards, just like with Caylee. But only the police know about this and they won’t say. But one officer was overheard publicly in a coffee shop talking to other police before he was to testify at trial about the area that should have been searched and was not.

  3. Tams says:

    A link with a brief bio of Richard Cain:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Cain
    (Being the uninformed dork that I am, I did not recogize the name & had to look it up . . . sharing the link for anyone else who may not know/remember . . .)

    I am sickened by the reality that my original suspicions about the FBI zeroing in on the trail of something far larger in an ongoing investigation may in fact be true. Encompassing many years and many levels of this city’s citizens -and now apparently officials and law enforcement as well- seems to be emerging as perhaps a reality. If I am feeling so duped, disgusted, sickened, & angry, I cannot imagine what the Cantu/Chavez families must be feeling. Here I was singing the praises of the Tracy PD & how well they seemed to have handled finding Sandra.

    Tams- sorry, my bad. Thank you for providing that
    B

  4. chitown lady says:

    this whole thing is sad……if they would have checked this out there is a great possibly that Sandra could be alive today. This child was so drugged she had top go to the hospital. No one spoke to Huckaby? VERY ODD……Police hgave some explaining to do….All this due to the missinf girls mom having booze on her breathe? Not an acceptable explaination in my book……

  5. Katie says:

    I love this website! Thank you for providing all the up to date information you can! I can not go a day (or lunch hour) without checking this site.

    I have read as much as I can on the Anthony case and the Cantu case and can not help but notice that there may have been different results if there had been better or more thorough police follow up. I am not a police or investigating expert by any means, but why are the Police not doing thorough searches (as in the Anthony case) and advising people not to fill out a complaint or an incident report (in reference to the above situation)? What am I missing here?

    You have a child that was given a very strong muscle relaxer and there is no further investigation as to how the child ingested it? Who cares if the mother had alcohol on her breath and a similar medication…if that was so important why didnt the police haul the mother in??? Why did they just stop investigating right there? The important issue is the child had something in her system that could have potentially killed her. But the police are alright with that? Please someone correct me if I am off base here…

    Is it possible that since Huckaby is tied to the church, and the church is tied to the community that LE dont want to bring unwanted attention to the church? Does the church have close ties with LE…like maybe fundraising efforts or donations. Maybe LE does not want to take a swipe at the hand that helps feed them?

    This only proves that this little girls death could have been prevented.

  6. sweetpea says:

    I have already put my two cents in regarding the other 7 year old
    on one of the other pages so I will try not to repeat myself.

    In regard to the police officer talking the mother out of pressing charges due to alcohol on her breath and other SIMILAR medications in their home. What the heck does that mean, “muscle relaxers” Ibruprophen is a muscle relaxer. Millions of people including myself, keep that in my home at all times.

    If I were the Cantu family I would be talking to a good lawyer and I mean a GOOD lawyer. With this high profile of a case I am sure they would not have a problem in retaining one. And I would sue the Tracy
    PD for negligence that resulted in the death and molestation of a child. A suit like this may be just the thing to ensure that laws are changed and people with mental illnesses and sex offenders are held accountable and given supervised treatment (not outpatient) to ensure that this type of horrific thing is not repeated.

  7. Brenda in Virginia says:

    Hard to imagine Sandra’s mom would allow her @ MH’s had she known of this incident. I’m losing track of the early details, so help me out here, but was MH’s the 1st place Sandra was headed off to play @ 4pm after homework? (remember, she’d played with another friend or 2 before 3pm when she had to go do homework.)

    When Sandra finished her work and left @ 4pm, is MH’s child the one she was going to see first? The one that wasn’t able to play? If so, then I bet Sandra was never really turned away as there is only MH’s word on that because I cannot remember anyone who states they watched Sandra going elsewhere….and we know she didn’t leave the park in a manner that could be captured on the video.

    Am I correct, Sandra basically went to play with MH’s daughter after completing her homework and was never seen again?

  8. John Tate says:

    Blinkoncrime was certainly ahead of all the other media on this info. Just guessing, but I’d suspect the parents of the mystery girl did warn Sandra’s family. They either didn’t believe it or told her to steer clear of Huckaby. As I recall, it does appear Sandra had a sudden change of direction as if someone caught her attention.

  9. deena says:

    LE let both girls down. The 7-year-old girl, who had benzodiazepines levels in her system (like Valium), was let down completely. The police told the mother she was basically risking her own innocence in making a report because she could be considered suspect due to also having benzodiazepines in her home. I can’t believe it. Was he basically saying “look lady you could’ve been the cause of this too so to keep it hidden we better stop now.”

    Whomever may have given those drugs to that child, it is not up to LE to decide to keep something quiet. His responsibility was to that child. If it were her mother, sister, grandmother, or MH…regardless of how they got there, his only duty was to protect the girl and he FAILED!

    (I am in no way saying that I think the girls own family gave them to her because if they had, I doubt they’d take her to the ER).

  10. Introspect says:

    Imagine what could have taken place had the January 17th Felony committed by suspect Huckaby actually been pursued by Tracy Police at that time. Surely facts like the presence of such a drug in the 7 year olds blood stream when MH has “possession and control” of the victim would have given police probable cause to arrest MH for that (and to the extent she had no premission to take the child other serious Felony charges could have followed). MH could have been incarcerated on March 27th for her January crimes.

    Also, despite the fact that TPD dropped the ball when MH drugged the 7 year old, why didn’t Tracy Police rush to MH’s door the minute Cantu’s Parents report her missing, given her invovlvment in the highly suspect January incident?

  11. Introspect says:

    One thing is for sure: the more we learn about Ms. Huckaby the easier it is to believe she is guilty and could have acted alone.

  12. MackiezMom says:

    If the January child (a resident of the same mobile home park) was a friend of Sandra, and the parents of that child believed their daughter had been drugged by MH, one would hope that the January child’s parents would share that information with other parents in the immediate neighborhood. If the other child and Sandra were good friends, and both went to play at MH’s grandparent’s house with Madison, and then suddenly the January child (that’s how I’m going to refer to her) is not allowed to go there, why was any child anywhere near the Lawless mobile home? Wow. “Folks, that woman drugged my daughter!” Uhm. I am … just … blown away.

    Were the neighbors aware that the January child had been drugged, and who the parents suspected?

    As for LE protecting children, it seems that they judged these parents (moms they looked down on) as less than worthy of protection, and they extended that to their children. EVERYONE’s CHILD is important.

    You can bet that if this crime had occurred in the affluent neighboring community of Danville, or Alamo, or Pleasanton, the police would have handled things differently. I know… I lived in Danville for many years (half hour or so from Tracy)… upper-middle class area. If one of our kids had been drugged, somenoe would have been arrested (not just investigated…if that person had been the last one with the child, I trust that CC Sheriff or Danville PD would arrest them).

    This case makes me absolutely sick. Sandra was failed here, on many levels. If one little thing had been different…

  13. Introspect says:

    Can we say there is a certain stigma attached to trailer parks and the people who live in them (fair or unfair) Police officers are human and they carry the same bias’ as anyone else. This bias may have colored Tracy Pd’s handeling of the January 17th incident. Was the same bias at work intially in the Cantu case? The police would not issue an Amber Alert or get scent dogs on the scene ASAP all because they did not believe Sandra was abducted. Why did they believe she was not kidnapped? Why did they keep saying they were “confident” Sandra would return safely? What facts are we not aware of in this regard?

  14. Glad2BinKY says:

    I’ve tried to register on SCARED MONKEYS and it wont let me..it keeps saying I am putting in wrong letters to register :-( How do I become part of the conversations and posts????
    “Kinda dumb/new to Blog technology”, lol,
    Glad2BinKY
    your in, check
    B

  15. CommonSense says:

    I think this is cut and dry.

    MH drugged the first child and got away with it.

    MH drugged the second child, who overdosed, and MH “raped” the child in a lame attempt to cover up the terrible, unexpected (to MH) outcome.

    But that’s just this Armchair Prosecutor’s opinion.

  16. MackiezMom says:

    CommonSense, I think you’re definitely on the right track. I do wonder why she was drugging the children. If it was so that she could (either herself, or help someone else) sexually assault them. Why does a person drug a child? To keep them quiet, to knock them out? Why knock the neighbor kid out? Who wants to knock kids out? Maybe a parent, sibling, babysitter? And why? Usually to get them to sleep, so that the person distributing the drugs is free to do what they want to do. For example, someone drugging their child so they could go out with friends.

    If this were the 70s, in the east bay, and the the children were teens, I’d buy that theory. I witnessed adults giving kids drugs many times. I was one of the kids that was given valium or benzadrine or weed, later other things. From script to illicit. But little, 45 pound kids, in a different era? Sounds more to me like she was luring them. Doesn’t sound like someone “getting high” with kids. It’s more … sinister than that. She wasn’t partying with 45 pound kids. This isn’t a rave or dope party, with an accidental OD. It’s the neighbor chick, knocking the kids out. But why? To do what with them?

  17. MackiezMom says:

    Introspect, YES! YES! YES! It is my opinion that the officers judged the mothers of these two kids, and disregarded the kids as a result.

    People do have natural biases and what are called heuristics. It’s important to be aware of them, especially when you’re in the position of safeguarding the welfare of citizens. Managers are trained to learn these things… when one earns their business degree, they learn all about these issues, and how to manage employees in the face of such natural biases and heuristics. It’s all about the leadership.

    Often people WILL judge, based on income, race, addiction, gender, marital status (single moms are often treated differently than married moms), sex, affiliations, and a number of other criteria. But it is a police officer’s JOB to serve and protect. That doesn’t say “everyone except poor people” or “trashy people” or “welfare people” or “flakey people” or “immigrants” or “black people”, “brown people”, “white people” or “druggies” or “kids of druggies”, or any other kind of people.

    While I agree with your suggestion, policemen (doctors, teachers, firemen, and many other fields) are held to a higher standard.

    I have seen comments on why they discounted Sandra’s disappearance at first. I refuse to repeat the comments, as I do not know what was in the hearts of minds of those officers. I am sure that they will live every day of the rest of their lives with the “what if”s.

    It is sad that they didn’t consider that children in situations with “flakey” parents, or limited/inaccessible parents, or “with alcohol on her breath” need as much or MORE protection than children with what might be perceived by these same folks as “perfect parents”.

  18. julie says:

    I have to agree with CommonSense.

    I also believe that the “rape” was her attempt to cover up that a woman commited the murder. I say murder because if it was indeed an overdose that MH gave Sandra and it led to her death,the drugs administered for reasons unknown yet, then she alone caused Sandra’s death…. and then panicked…

  19. deena says:

    re: comment #16

    Hence the admission of it being “accidental”…I totally agree with you “commonsense”

  20. Brenda in Virginia says:

    commonsense/Julie/Deena…the autospy will show if the body was in good enough condition if the sexual abuse was before or after Sandra was murdered. Not sure how they tell, but the can. If they determined the damage to Sandra was done post mortum, the charge would have been abuse of a corpse.

  21. Brenda in Virginia says:

    One cannot fault the Tracy PD for not arresting MH in Jan. This is because there was not enough evidence. As one who used to dispatch, took the calls, heard the evidence both sides, and then after the fact discussed what was going to occur with the officers (which may or may not have resulted in an arrest), one must understand this about the Jan incident:

    1. The mystery child’s mother had the same type of drugs on her person/in her purse that she was accussing MH of administering to her daughter.

    2. She had been drinking (we don’t know her possible alcohol issues known to police) That leaves the possibility…and it’s true…the child could have gotten the pills on her own without the mom knowing…kids to the strangest things.

    3. MH indicated she had permission which the mom and grandma said she did not. Even though you have 2 witnesses, this type of thing has to be settled in court. We had death threats once (my husband and I) and although we both heard it…we had to go to court and take out warrants because it WAS his word against ours. Just how LE is stuck working within the crappy laws on the books in some cases.

    4. LE did consider the past incident or would not have gone to the park first. My guess is they considered the fact MH may have truly drugged the 1st girl in Jan…but as I said…we have these crappy “rights” and had the arrested MH for this crime back then and lost by lack of evidence…SHE could have sued the pants of Tracy PD. Trust me…I’ve seen this myself, but not in such a terrible case.

    That said, do not think Tracy PD isn’t looking back at itself too. They cannot afford not to with the level of attention on this case.

  22. coolio says:

    Brenda, I respectfully disagree with you about the Jan incident. I don’t think its so much as she should have been arrested. Rather, the incident should have been thoroughly investigated for the sake of that child.

    What we know is by all appearances the police’s response was: oh look, she’s back now, you guys are trailer trash who can’t keep track of your own kids, I smell alcohol on your breath, big deal if a 7 year old 45 lb child had drugs in her system, please stop bugging us and go back to your trailer trash lives. We care so little about this that we aren’t even going to draft a formal report.

    As many have said, had this happened in an affluent neighborhood to a child of someone the cops considered “higher class”, you better believe more would have been done. A lot more.

    I’ve heard conflicting reports. One was mom immediately took child to hospital after she was returned and cops didn’t get to the hospital until after 10 and another was Mom didn’t present her to hospital until 10.

    Regardless, somehow this child ingested the drugs. It was either given to her by someone else or the child ingested it herself.

    Taken without permission by another adult, concerned parent calls cops wanting to report missing child and then presents her to the hospital after the child cannot even stand up or talk and drugs are found in her system. Sorry, sum total of what happened here should have warranted more of an investigation than was apparently done.

    If she was displaying symptoms shortly after she was returned, this would indicate drugs had been recently ingested. They could have done blood tests and determined if level was going up or down. This would help determine time ingested.

    Nothing about this reasonably leads to conclusion parent gave her the drugs. Yes, kids do the darnest things, but 7-year olds don’t typically steal pills and take them with them when they are going on an unplanned field trip with playmate’s Mom.

    But, at the same time playmate’s Moms don’t typically give 7 year-old incapacitating drugs either. B/c the cops didn’t allow themselves to believe this was likely, they just threw up their hands and said: um, throw this into the unsolved mystery files – we are baffled.

    By ignoring it, MH had false belief of hey, I won’t be investigated or punished if I do this so she essentially had free pass to do it again.

    Had this been properly handled, it is possible at least a restraining order might have been issued telling her to stay away from the child. Restraining orders usually have distance limitations. She would have essentially been forced out of the trailer park.

    So I agree, a thorough investigation might not have resulted in arrest but it would have done something… the January child (I love that moniker) deserved more and was completely let down.

    Level of what was (more like wasn’t done) is just unacceptable.

  23. neversaynever says:

    Why is no one talking about the possible arson link? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/30343831#30343831

    Simebody did not read my article, tisk tisk… It was in there days ago.
    B

  24. What??! says:

    This is very disturbing. She kidnapped another girl in January, said the family gave her permission, which they deny, and when it was noted that the girl seemed drugged, the police weren’t able to PROVE that?? Tests should have been run, and this girl should have been put away then, instead of being allowed to roam free, and eventually allowed to kidnap, rape, and kill another little girl.
    Police need to do their jobs!!!!!!

    Test were run, its in the article, tested positive for Benzos
    B

  25. new says:

    I am just as concerned about the Hospitals reacton to this child being brought in with drug ingeston. What action did they take? What was the diagnosis on the chart accidental ingestion? If so why wasn’t DCFs notified? If your child ingests to much tylenol they have a social worker come in and talk to you and report you to DCFS. That is common because children like the taste of flavored tylenol and if they can get into the bottle they take them. Seen this many times.

  26. Brenda in Virginia says:

    Hey coolie..nice you can disagree without being nasty…many are unable to do that :>)

    I will say to you that yes…probably should have investigated it further, but with what they had in front of them at the time they did not. Sadly, this is normally the case because hindsight is always 20/20!

    We had a case in my county where a man was making death threats to a family not far away. The family did NOT file a report and go to magistrate as LE told them and the man wound up shooting and killing the husband of the family, set their home on fire, shot a deputy at the scene stepping out of his cruiser (who survived), and hid in the woods 3 days until captured. Hindsight says the other family should have done something and LE got accussed of doing nothing due to all the past calls, but that wasn’t the case. the family did nothing proactive so that LE could intervene before this murder occurred. They knew this guy was a loose cannon, but as I said with the laws on the books, what can they do? I was told point-blank in person by the sheriff himself they KNEW the man threatening us was guilty, but their hands were tied. We had a simlar case, but did make the report and go to court. The man in our case lied and so did his wife saying they were “shocked” we made this claim and didn’t ever threaten us. That was untrue. Not only that, but the day before the trial we had nails thrown all over our driveway…and damage done to our campsite that is 9/10 of a mile UPhill off hardtop. We know it was the same guy..but in court he came in with a CANE pretending he could barely walk although we saw him previous day in town walking with a 12 pck of beer. Just how it is.

    All that said, maybe an investigation would have stopped this senseless murder. Trust me that Tracy PD is doing an internal investigation on this because they will have to answer and probably already are to sources above them. I know they have regrets, but we may not hear of it until the trial.

    Being former LE myself, I understand how terribly short-handed a small department is. Just this past Sat, I had a cow in my yard and the officer who came to help me corral it told me he was already an hour behind in calls. What were those calls? one for a barking dog, one for grass clippings that got blown into a driveway (not joking) and after that he had to go and park somewhere to look for speeders. God bless them because we aren’t going to have many good men joining the forces any longer if all they have to look forward to is working noise complaints and being shot at! I know at least you can understand that. many have lost that attitude of feeling they can make a difference. so yes, I do lean on the side of LE, but realize they are human and make mistakes that can be really terrible…both to them and the public.

    I do hope at least this case is opening the eyes of the public to understand this world is not safe at all….you have to see it that way or you’re a target. No grandma, grandpa, preacher, mom/dad,..no one is what they seem anymore and I am saddened by it.

  27. Brenda in Virginia says:

    New…good point, why didn’t hte hospital call social services? It happens all the time when kids come in with suspicious injuries. Very, good point! More than one entity ignorned this it seems.

  28. Brenda in Virginia says:

    If this “Jan Child’s” family had taken out a protective order against MH, an investigation would have been manditory by the way…regardless of whatever LE thought of this child mother. (fyi) There’s gonna be plenty of blame to go around. LE it appears will be one of them, the hospital staff who didn’t report, and the parents who did not take out a protective order on MH if they did suspect this. Would have been public knowledge had they done so….still…most folks are not willing to go through the process. Believe me, I know.

  29. tracydad says:

    Seems as though CPS did step in

    http://cbs13.com/local/Huckaby.Now.Tied.2.990830.html

    seems like there is much more to this than what we are getting.

    I was working on this when you rang the blinkbell. Thanks for posting.
    B

  30. introspect says:

    Re the poster who o’pined that MH could have tried to drug Cantu and “accidentally” overdosed her, and “…raped her to make it look like a sexual predator kidnapped her.”

    First, why postulate the rape was a diversion? Why do you think MH drugged the January child? Why did MH drug Cantu (if such evidence is discovered)? Obviously in furtherance of a sexual abuse motive.

    If guilty, MH is a PEDOPHILE, simply put. Tragically she is also a murderer.

    Second, The law makes no distiction between someone who does something as reckless/dangerous as doping a child for the purpose of rape and someone who intended to kill the child with the drug. In either case, MH killed Cantu while in the commission of other felonies, whether she intended to or not, its a special circumstances situation.

  31. introspect says:

    Also, to Brenda: whether or not TPD had PC to arrest Huckaby in January, if they had atleast investigated it and put MH through the wringer a little, so MH knew she was defenetely on TPD’s radar, would she have had the gall to commit such a horrific act on ANOTHER child from the same mobile home park as the January child lived? The same place MH lived?

    Make no mistake about it, MH’s crime of March 27 was as brazen as it was henious. Would MH have been so bold if she had not gotten away with the January 17 Kidnapping, drugging, and God only knows what else she intended to do to the 7 year old?

    She learned from the January Incident that she could get away with this type of behavior.

  32. sweetpea says:

    It was my understanding that the mother was not at home when the child went with MH. When she returned home and began searching for her daughter, someone contacted MH’s grandparents who inturn contacted MH.
    MH stated to the authorities that she had permission from the little girls grandmother (grandmother denies) and that the mother of the little girl had lost her (MH) cell phone number.

    If the mother was not at home when the child went missing and as soon as she was returned (4 hours latter)the entire family noticed odd behavior (witnesses not suspects) and took her to the hospital.

    Drugs found in the blood of the little girl, Now the mother wants the police to investigate MH and they talk her out of it, because of the
    smell of alcohol on Mother’s breath and past history. As stated previously, if I had my 7 year old went missing I would have lots of alcohol on my breath!

    At the very least MH should have been taken in for questioning. And these police officers should also be investigated for their actions and negligence.

  33. coolio says:

    Re: question of hospital’s conduct. It was always reported the authorities were notified. That is extent of hospital’s duties. Report it and conduct proper medical examination and tests and then LE and CPS are supposed to do the follow-up investigation.

    Brenda, thank you for your response. Yes trust me, I always try to be civil here. I agree hindsight is always 20/20 and that is why you will note with my post I relied on facts as they were known at that time. Not going to repeat them here, but now we at least know Mom was investigated and custody temporarily taken away that night so a little more was done for the sake of the child.

    But, other facts did not point towards Mom. She had reported her child missing, child was with another adult, child ended up with drugs in her system and Mom brought her in. Parents who abuse their kids do not take them in unless seriously injured or on verge of death. They know they will be investigated. Especially here, Mom previously had child removed so she knew how the system worked.

    Major distinction I see with case you mentioned is the person “threatened” to do harmful acts, while harmful acts were actually done to this child.

    Threats of harm happen all the time in domestic cases, neighbor disputes, etc. but correct, outside of restraining order what more can LE do in response to merely a “threat?”

    That’s not what happened here. This child deserved more.

    Problem I often see in these kinds of cases is LE will often focus on one party and not the other. If that practice was employed here, then focus should have been on MH and not the Mom b/c of how this all went down.

  34. Brenda in Virginia says:

    coolie, you do make good points.

    Yeah, if MH was investigated it may have prevented this. But I’m sure she put on a wonderful act. Do not forget all of the people who speak of how kind she had always been and were so shocked. I have no doubt she feigned stupidity at the condition of the girl and did a sweatie-pie act. This is the pastor’s granddaughter, so bias was already in her favor. She’s put on quite an act for a long time and the curtain hadn’t fallen yet at that early in Jan!

    Sad thing also is MH may not be the brightest bulb, but I do feel she targeted the Jan child because of the mom’s reputation…knew she’d be viewed as more believable. LE has to have believed MH that night when she claimed she thought she had permission to take the girl out to the park.

    to the poster who mentioned my issue was a death threat and the other girl who was drugged was assaulted…true, we were not physically harmed thank God, for something to read…here’s what happened:

    Guys we told to stop hunting our land decided it wasn’t our right to do so. He called three times to tell us we’d be shot in the back, would never see it coming, and leave the property in a body bag. Still, we are alive and this guy was charged. LE told us go take a warrant or we cannot do crap..so we went down within the hour. Magistrate told us to document EVERY little thing past and going forward, which we did.

    This guy hid 3 days after warrant was first served, which made me pretty nervous. He finally turned himself in and made bail same evening. Even so, the idiot managed to sneak up to camp ground on land below us first day hunting season 2 wks later and spread nails, rip up the neighbor’s ATV, and knock down a number of treestands…this is AFTER being served the no tresspass and protective order. He even left beer cans on the camper porch as his “calling card”. Sociopaths do not care.

    We are 9/10 of a mile off the hardtop, so we have to take care of ourselves….so we are way out there and the death threat on us was pretty serious if you ask me since this guy’s father spent 10 yrs in state pen for involuntary manslaughter (killed a guy in a knife fight…both badly injured and other guy died).

    Not to belittle the fact MH is a worse monster though…she is! Also, tells me there’s something VERY dark about one of her parents if not both that she turned out like this, you know?

  35. augie says:

    The lazy officer more impressed with Huckaby’s “good church girl schtick” than a freaked out mom looking for her missing 7-year old

    …all he had to do at the moment he spoke with Huckaby was pull her name up on his car’s very expensive computer and he’d have rethought his flippant attitude towards a very hysterical mom.

    She had a screaming red flag attached to her name in the system all over the state but you can bet some big bucks on the fact she used the same lie about being a Sunday school teacher to the officer as she did endlessly to the press while Cantu was missing.

  36. [...] count of furnishing a harmful substance in the case of Daniel Plowman, of Hayward, and one count of furnishing a harmful substance and child abuse/endangerment in the case of another unnamed 7-year-old girl. Those counts are unrelated to [...]

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