By DPA,
San Francisco : The identity of a brutal killer who murdered an eight-year-old-girl in the quiet California farming town of Tracy has shocked local residents almost as much as the murder itself.
Instead of a paedophile, police Friday arrested Melissa Huckaby, 28, a church school teacher and mother of the best friend of victim Sandra Cantu.
Sandra’s body was found last week stuffed into a suitcase in an irrigation pond, just two fields over from the mobile home park where she lived close to her friend and her alleged murderer.
Police have not said how Sandra was killed or released a motive for Huckaby’s crime. But local reports Monday said she had been fighting depression and had murdered the girl in the church where her grandfather is pastor.
“We couldn’t believe that, you know, a mother of a little girl that she used to play with was the one that killed her, allegedly,” Sandra’s uncle, Joe Chavez, told television programme Good Morning America Monday. “I guess women commit horrific crimes, too.”
“I’m in total shock,” Tracy resident Debra Moore, told local reporters. “It’s scary. Who can you trust?”