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April 08, 2009

Sandra Cantu: FBI Digging Under Church In Calif. Girl's Murder

Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation began digging under a California church Tuesday evening in the investigation into the killing of Sandra Cantu, the eight-year-old girl found stuffed in a suitcase submerged in an irrigation pond, CBS station KOVR-TV reported.

The Clover Road Baptist Church was cordoned off Tuesday afternoon as FBI agents combed over the property and hauled off items, KOVR-TV reported. Agents would not comment on what they were searching for.

The church's pastor, Lane Lawless, became a focus of the investigation a day after Cantu's body was found. Authorities searched his home Monday night and again on Tuesday morning. Lawless and his wife were questioned for hours.

Police point out that, contrary to some media reports, that Lawless has not been arrested, only questioned, "like hundreds of people," said Sgt. Sheneman. Officials stressed that they are not focusing on any one person in the investigation, but say the case is shaping up to head in a particular direction.

That direction, Sheneman said, is confidential. "To comment on that would compromise the investigation and I cannot do that," he said.

"They took the usual stuff, phone, computer, things of that nature," said Connie Lawless, the pastor's wife. "We were very open to them taking anything they wanted to take. We were not at all disturbed by that. We feel that the more people they can eliminate the quicker they will be able to get to the truth of the matter."

Connie said she suspected that police were interested in her husband's church because Sandra often played at their house with the Lawless' granddaughter.

"It breaks our heart that someone would take such a sweet child," she said.

Officials say they suspect the culprit is a local resident, given that the area that Sandra's remains were found in. She was stuffed into a suitcase and dumped into an irrigation pond, in a rural area about two miles from where she lived.

"I've lived here for almost 12 years, I've worked here for nine years," Sheneman said. "The location where Sandra's body was found I'm completely unfamiliar with. Someone would have to be familiar with the area to know to go there to place that suitcase."

A local defense attorney and DNA expert that has worked on several famous cases -- including the Unabomber, O.J. Simpson and the Phil Spector murder trial -- says that critical details of the case will point police to Sandra's murderer.

"The fact that she was still clothed in the clothes she had [the day she disappeared] suggests to me that whatever happened probably happened very quickly," said Bob Blaiser.

Surveillance video showed Sandra Cantu skipping away from her mobile home park the day she disappeared, and Blaiser says that was opportunity the killer was waiting for.

"It may have been what attracted the person who kidnapped her, the fact that she was also alone," Blaiser said.

The fact that Sandra was found so close to her home suggests that the murder was a crime of passion, he added.

Blaiser criticized the Tracy Police Department's handling of the case, saying that they took too long to bring in scent dogs to track down the missing eight-year-old girl, a move he said could have "absolutely" saved her life.

"It's very sloppy police work," Blaiser said. "They can't think of everything, but that's sort of the very obvious thing that you expect them to think about."

Tracy is a city of 78,000 about 60 miles east of San Francisco.

http://cbs2chicago.com/national/sandra.cantu.missing.2.979073.html

Posted by Nealus at April 8, 2009 04:28 AM

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