Sandra Cantu -- Found Deceased 4/6/09 -- Melissa Huckaby Pleads Guilty To Murder

It's nice to see the community honoring Sandra on her birthday and embracing her family. This is one of the most heinous and vicious of crimes to be committed against a child. It's still so hard for me to grasp that a woman, a mother herself, could ever do something like this to a little girl.

I'm glad they went to celebrate her life - i hope she can stay in the public spot light - we need to never forget what happened to her at the hands of a female adult. It should serve as a reminder for us that our children are not safe even with a female - we often perceive female's as "safe" - but evil can be present regardless of gender. And Huckaby's gender shouldn't excuse her from the DP - neither should an officer's comments to her on the day she was arrested - I would argue that the officer could have been under duress after what he just saw that that devil just did to a little girl - maybe it was an officer that saw Sandra's body. I'm sure he had plenty to say to Melissa that day - I would have to!!

I often wonder about Sandra's playmate and Huckaby's daughter and how she's doing - she's a victim too - knowing at such a young age that her mother killed and raped one of her friends has to be very damaging. I hope that she can get the help that she needs. My heart goes out to that little girl and what she must be going thru.

Huckaby's lawyer wants hearing delay


March 26, 2010 12:00 AM

STOCKTON - Melissa Huckaby's attorney wants to delay an April suppression hearing, because he has yet to receive the results of a probe into alleged misconduct by a Tracy police detective, court papers say.

San Joaquin County Deputy Public Defender Sam Behar said in a motion filed Wednesday that for "strategic reasons" he also has not viewed physical evidence in the case, and he needs to obtain numerous items from the court's file.

Huckaby, 29, awaits a death penalty trial on charges she kidnapped, raped and murdered 8-year-old Sandra Cantu one year ago. She is also charged with drugging a 7-year-old girl and a 37-year-old man.

In court Monday, Behar and San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Thomas Testa are to say if they are ready for the April 12 hearing on a motion Behar filed to suppress evidence collected against his client for reaching the trial.

Through his request for more time, Behar said he will ask San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Linda Lofthus for a closed-door hearing to explain specifically why he needs the delay.

Among reasons for the delay, Behar said he has not received the results of an internal probe into Tracy police Detective Nate Cogburn.

Behar has said Cogburn and several other Tracy officers fell under investigation to determine if the detective violated Huckaby's constitutional rights the day she was arrested by making an undisclosed comment to her.

Behar said in court papers that he wants to delay the hearing to a date "deemed suitable by the court."

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100326/A_NEWS/3260318/-1/NEWSMAP

Besides not having the results of the officer's alleged misconduct, the defense has not viewed physical evidence yet? Due to strategic reasons and he still needs to get more files? This sounds like it's just plain stalling to me.

A year later -- the pain remains in loss of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu

By Sophia Kazmi
Contra Costa Times
Updated: 03/26/2010 04:54:03 PM PDT

TRACY — A year ago today a little girl from Tracy disappeared.

Much has happened since Sandra Cantu was last seen alive. A family still grieves. A police department learned valuable lessons. A community rediscovered its strength and generosity.

"It overwhelms the human mind that people can be so considerate, to take time out of their daily life to think about a little girl and her family," said Joe Chavez, Sandra's grandfather, recalling how hundreds braved the rain and the cold this month to attend a March 8 birthday celebration for Sandra, who would have been 9 that day.

Sandra was last seen alive March 27, 2009, a security camera tracking her as she skipped down the street at the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park, where she lived.

A search began the next day. Fliers were posted around town and hundreds of volunteers looked for the little girl. The search garnered attention from the national media, all asking, "Where's Sandra?" A picture of the smiling second-grader flashed across news broadcasts for days.

After 10 days of looking, her body was found in a suitcase in an irrigation pond about two miles from her home. Four days later, on April 10, her neighbor Melissa Huckaby was arrested on suspicion of killing her. Huckaby lived with her grandparents at the mobile home park and taught Sunday school at Clover Road Baptist Church, her grandfather's church.

The investigation took thousands of hours and the help of hundreds of people, said Tracy police Sgt. Tony Sheneman, a department spokesman.

"It was the single largest investigation in the 98-year history of the department," he said.

Huckaby, 29, has been indicted on charges of kidnapping, raping and killing Sandra. The indictment also alleges she drugged another Tracy girl, a 7-year-old who also lived at the mobile home park, and a Hayward man, in separate incidents unrelated to Sandra's death. The mother of the 7-year-old said Huckaby took her daughter without permission and that she appeared drugged when she was returned.

Huckaby has pleaded not guilty to all counts. Her trial is slated to begin Oct. 18 in Stockton. Prosecutors said they will seek the death penalty if she is convicted. She is due back in court Monday to confirm a date for an evidence suppression hearing.

Chavez said the past year has been hard on the family, who still live in the mobile home park. Christmas was miserable, he said, but they are trying to be strong for the other children in the family.

Time has helped a little, but family members still find themselves emotional over the loss.

"We're still angry," Chavez said. "We still think about it every day. Every minute of every day. It doesn't go away."

While the pain remains, Chavez said they have found support in the community.

"When something like this happens, you don't know who to turn to," he said. The family wondered who would be there for them. It turned out to be their neighbors and businesses in town.

"It's just, I can say, amazing, and you wonder how other communities cope with this," he said.

Playground equipment and a garden were donated in Sandra's name. A tree with pink flowers — her favorite color — now grows at Robert Kenner Park next to Jacobson Elementary, where Sandra attended school.

"They wanted to do something positive in her memory and trying to celebrate the positive things and not dwell on the negative," said Cindy Sasser, principal at Jacobson.

Sandra's death really brought together people, she said.

"It definitely brought the families closer," she said. "It did heighten our awareness."

This school year a parent workshop on child safety was offered, a first at the school.

Since Sandra's death, police received many calls from parents seeking ways to protect their children.

The department has always offered such training, "but it came into focus when Sandra was taken," Sheneman said, adding that police continue to work with schools and local groups.

The department has also learned much and improved the way it operates. The investigation yielded hundreds of interviews and thousands of pages of notes.

"We're better at tracking and recording the information that we develop," he said. They have taken what they learned and applied it to other investigations.

Sheneman said the department also saw the power of the media and how it could aid an investigation. The publicity drew massive attention to the case, brought masses of people to help with the searching, prompted tips and showed how much Tracy cared.

"It reaffirmed what we knew about our community — it's a tight-knit community," Sheneman said.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_14765620?source=rss&nclick_check=1

One year later, search for answers in Sandra Cantu's killing continues



By Scott Smith
Record Staff Writer
March 27, 2010 12:00 AM

STOCKTON - In some ways, the case remains a mystery.

What we know is that 8-year-old Sandra Cantu vanished from her Tracy mobile home park one year ago today. That's when a surveillance camera captured her last unforgettable image blissfully skipping down the street.

The woman accused of killing Sandra, 29-year-old Melissa Huckaby, sits in jail awaiting a death-penalty trial.

Yet key pieces of the story - how Sandra died, what object was used in her alleged rape and a likely motive - remain tightly held secrets among a circle of investigators and attorneys.

The judge's decision to keep details bottled up - despite her stated reasons - may prove to be wrong, say observers who are critical of how the judge has handled Huckaby's high-profile case so far.

"I think we're going down a slippery slope if we say we can't let anything come out unless we come to trial," said John Schick, a law professor at Stockton's Humphreys College Laurence Drivon School of Law.

Schick said San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Linda Lofthus' rulings to seal most pretrial motions are extremely rare. They also force the public's imagination to fill in the gaps, which could prove dangerous later.

It started when the bare-bones charges were read out against Huckaby in court. She's accused of kidnapping, rape with a foreign object and murder along with two counts of drugging two other people.

Lofthus stated in open court that she sealed records about the alleged rape of a little girl because it could inflame the public. Other times, Lofthus said she is protecting Huckaby's right to a fair trial and the privacy of Sandra's family.

She may also want to prevent the defense's inevitable motion to move Huckaby's trial to another courthouse where the jury pool has not been exposed to the intense media coverage of Huckaby's case.

San Joaquin County Deputy Public Defender Thomas Testa and San Joaquin County Deputy Public Defender Sam Behar - the two attorneys in Huckaby's case - have either urged Lofthus to seal documents or backed her decisions to do so on her own.

But Schick said it is better to let the ugly details out now. The public may be shocked, but by trial, that will have passed, he said, and the jury will be able to focus on both sides of the case.

By sealing the documents, Lofthus has heightened the intrigue, Schick said.

"When she says, 'I know what happened, and I think it's going to inflame the public,' the mind starts wandering into areas that it shouldn't go," Schick said. "It's almost worse if you let people guess as to what happened."

New Mexico attorney Joel Jacobsen, who is experienced in First Amendment and criminal law, said that in many ways, the more important part of a case is the wrangling that happens leading up to trial. The public should be brought along, he said.

"That's where the battle is being fought," he said, explaining that before a trial, attorneys argue over what evidence will be allowed or suppressed.

The public has a right to know, for example, if it turns out the police bungled the investigation, he said. In Huckaby's case, Tracy police Detective Nate Cogburn has fallen under investigation for alleged misconduct for a statement he made to Huckaby the day she was arrested.

Jacobsen said in Lofthus' defense that she likely wants to keep jurors from learning about that potential evidence, because she may suppress some of it. It would be a big problem if suppressed evidence were to influence a juror who later votes to convict Huckaby, he said.

"You would hate to find that out the day after a defendant is convicted to death," Jacobsen said. "That would be a judge's worst nightmare."

Stockton attorney David Wellenbrock isn't as forgiving. He believes sealing documents, such as transcripts of the grand jury hearing that led to Huckaby's indictment, is unusual and may be illegal.

"I think most of the sealings are unlawful," he said, explaining that Lofthus hasn't made attorneys rigorously prove in hearings why she should seal the documents.

It also runs contrary to the courthouse's past. Wellenbrock is semiretired but spent the bulk of his career as a San Joaquin County prosecutor. During his tenure, few defendants were sent to a grand jury, which meets behind closed doors.

He recalled no cases where the transcripts were then kept secret.

He said open government is a basic part of this country's foundation. The First Amendment allows citizens to keep check on the government's inner workings, he said.

"This is an example of the government hiding stuff from us," he said. "This is a republic. We're supposed to know what's going on."

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100327/A_NEWS/3270322

Deep wounds take longer to heal
Sandra Cantu's death remains etched on the minds of parents in Tracy

By Jennie Rodriguez
Record Staff Writer
March 28, 2010 12:00 AM

TRACY - The day Sandra Cantu was reported missing, parents held their children closer.

Ten days later, when her lifeless body was found inside a suitcase in an irrigation pond 2 miles from her home, an entire community changed.

What seems normal elsewhere - sleepovers, unsupervised games in the front yard, bike rides in the neighborhood - doesn't happen as often in Tracy, say some residents. The city remains haunted by the tragedy.

Tracy resident Michelle Seals will not allow her two daughters to go on play dates without her supervision.

Another resident, Lucinda Druel, recently panicked when she saw a van parked near her 7-year-old son, and a puppy jumped out of it.

"What goes through your mind is that you hear about people using things (such as puppies) to entice kids," said Druel, 49.

Druel's friend, Michelle Macon, insists on being present wherever her 7-year-old daughter plays, even in her own yard.

"I always felt I was a little more vigilant, but now even more so," she said.

City leaders, though citing Tracy's relatively low crime rate, are left to calm fears that emerged from a number of high-profile incidents last year.

Sandra's murder is "certainly" part of that, Mayor Brent Ives said Wednesday during his State of the City address.

"As a leader, it's important for me to get us beyond it," Ives later said. But he also admits that he is more cautious with his grandchildren.

Sandra was last seen alive March 27, 2009, on surveillance video. She was skipping inside the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park where she lived.

An intensive search followed. It ended April 6, when a dairy farm worker found a black suitcase as he drained an irrigation pond, and her body was discovered inside.

A lack of public information on the case plays into the imaginations of residents, say Druel, Macon and Seals.

And because the suspect charged with kidnapping, murder and rape, Melissa Huckaby, appeared to be an unlikely suspect - a neighbor, Sunday school teacher and mother of one of Sandra's playmates - many feel an overall mistrust for people they might have trusted a year ago.

"People you might have taken for granted, now you look at a little closer before you let your child be exposed to them," Macon said.

Seals, 35, said she notices a lot of children don't go to parties without their parents. "I know I don't let mine go in the back yard without me," she said.

She has enrolled her daughters, ages 4 and 8, in martial arts classes, she said, to better their chances of protecting themselves.

Shannon Albracht, owner of Traditional Martial Arts Academy, where Seals' daughters attend, said most self-defense academies in Tracy experienced an increase in enrollment after Sandra's disappearance, but now is beginning to taper off.

Seals bought her 8-year-old daughter a cell phone with a tracking device, too.

"It's made us more aware that there really isn't anywhere safe," she said. "You really can't trust anyone. Your kids are way too precious."

Druel and Macon discussed the incident as they watched their children play at Robert Kenner Park, the same park where a tree is planted in Sandra's memory.

"It's sad because you're teaching your child that they can't trust anyone," Macon said.

Seals, Druel and Macon also declined to give their children's names or allow them to be photographed.

It may teeter on overprotection, but Women's Center of San Joaquin County Director Joelle Gomez said the increased awareness is something the center advocates.

She said it's a normal reaction that tends to happen when communities, especially small ones, experience a crime against a child.

"You don't want to taint their childhood, but we do live in a society were we have to share this information that might seem like we're scaring our children when, in fact, we're educating our children," Gomez said.

But parents need to be careful not to scare children when they warn them about dangers, said Linda Webster, an associate professor and department chair of the educational and school psychology department at University of the Pacific.

"You reassure your child that you're the parent and that you are going to do everything in your power to keep them safe, and that's why there are important rules to follow," she said.

"You want to give them the tools; 'If someone approaches you this is what you do, and that's why I need to know what you're doing, where you are,' " she said. " 'If you're going to Suzy's, I want you to call me. I don't want you to go out at night.' "

Webster said eventually it's in the best interest of the community to try to return to a sense of normalcy. And she suggested professional help for anyone who needs it.

Even though the suspect is behind bars, the community still seems different than it was before the death of the girl christened "Tracy's Angel."

"There will always be an effect," Druel said.

"It just happened so close to home," Macon added.

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100328/A_NEWS/3280315

Sandra Cantu update: Accused killer Melissa Huckaby due in court Monday

March 28, 4:35 PMCrime ExaminerCindy Adams

Melissa Huckaby, the Sunday school teacher accused of killing Tracy, Calif. girl Sandra Cantu, is scheduled to appear in court on Monday.

Huckaby, who was a neighbor of the Cantu family, allegedly kidnapped Sandra on Mar. 27, raped her, and then murdered the little girl. She is accused of then stuffing the little girl’s lifeless body inside a suitcase and placing it near a drained irrigation ditch, which was discovered Apr. 6.

Huckaby, 29, is charged with the abduction, rape, and murder of 8-year-old Sandra.

According to KCBS, Huckaby’s attorney wanted to delay the scheduled evidence hearing, claiming results of an investigation into police misconduct regarding Huckaby have not yet been received.

If convicted of Sandra’s murder, Huckaby could face the death penalty. Her murder trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 18.

http://www.examiner.com/x-1168-Crime-Examiner~y2010m3d28-Sandra-Cantu-update-Accused-killer-Melissa-Huckaby-due-in-court-on-Monday

News 10 Report - Huckaby Due in Court

Delay in Huckaby hearing

By The Record
March 29, 2010 12:24 PM

STOCKTON — The attorney for Melissa Huckaby received a delay today for a hearing when he is expected to argue that pieces of evidence investigators collected against his client should be kept out of the death penalty trial.

Stepping into the Stockton courtroom, Huckaby’s physical appearance was noticeably different. The 29-year-old now has short, frizzy hair and has gained considerable weight since her arrest one year ago on charges she kidnapped, raped and murdered Tracy’s 8-year-old Sandra Cantu.

In her last hearing in the San Joaquin County Superior Court, Huckaby had long brown hair. Upon her April 2009 booking, the 5 foot 3 defendant weighed a slight 125 pounds, which she now far exceeds.

San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Linda Lofthus granted Behar’s request, setting Huckaby’s next hearing for May 10. That’s when attorneys and the judge will set a date for the suppression hearing.

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100329/A_NEWS/100329854

Melissa Huckaby pleads guilty in killing of Sandra Cantu

By Sophia Kazmi
Contra Costa Times
Updated: 05/10/2010 09:18:28 AM PDT

STOCKTON — Melissa Huckaby pleaded guilty today to killing 8-year-old Sandra Cantu.

Huckaby pleaded guilty to murder with a special circumstance of kidnapping. All other charges against her in the case were dropped.

The 29-year-old Tracy woman was accused of killing Sandra, who was last seen alive on March 27, 2009. After a 10-day search, the girl's body was found in a black suitcase in a pond not far from the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park, where the second-grader and Huckaby were neighbors.

Tracy police arrested Huckaby on April 10, 2009. A San Joaquin County grand jury indicted the mother and Sunday school teacher on murder with three enhancements — kidnapping, lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14 and rape by instrument — in connection with Sandra's death. A second count charged Huckaby with a sex crime with a child 10 years or younger.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/localnews/ci_15054623

Melissa Huckaby Pleads Guilty To Kidnapping, Murder Of Sandra Cantu

By Matthew Keys FOX40 News



A San Joaquin County judge accepted a guilty plea agreement Monday morning from Sandra Cantu murder suspect Melissa Huckaby.

Under the plea agreement, struck between Huckaby and the San Joaquin County District Attorney's Office, Huckaby will be sentenced to prison for life without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to the kidnap and murder of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu of Tracy last March.

Cantu went missing from a Tracy-area mobile home park March 28th after leaving her home to play with a friend. After a massive two-week search, Cantu's body was found inside a suitcase in a drained irrigation ditch several miles from her home.

After Huckaby -- a former Sunday school teacher at the Tracy Clover Road Baptist Church -- gave contradicting reports to local media outlets, including a report that she filed a police report for a missing suitcase that police later doubted, she was arrested under suspicion of kidnapping and murder.

Sentencing is scheduled for a later date.

http://www.fox40.com/news/headlines/ktxl-news-huckabypleadsguilty,0,7232594.story

 

I think she plead guilty because there was very little chance she would be found not guilty and there was a strong possibility that she would receive the death penalty. At least she will never hurt another child.

J4A you are right on the money there. This is an example of why having the Death Penalty on the table can expedite justice!

She plead guilty to save her life!

And thank God those kids aren't going to have to testify! Too bad Casey wasn't more afraid of the Death Penalty. (Like the one she gave to Caylee.)

The video of this beautiful, innocent child just skipping along enjoying a sunny day makes you smile. Then you realize this was the last happy little skip Sandra ever made in her life.

The person that brought those happy feet to a screeching halt has pleaded guilty, guilty to murder, in exchange for a plea to save her own life. How can that be? How can she make a plea to save her life when Sandra had no choice?
After Melissa Huckaby is shuffled off to prison for the rest of her life, is it all over? No, it's not.

It really bothers me when murderers don't want to die.

Melissa Huckaby was able to execute a child, Sandra Cantu, but Melissa herself is terrified of dying.

In Tracy, some residents find peace in surprising turn of events, while others remain searching for closure

By Daniel Thigpen
Record Staff Writer
May 11, 2010 12:00 AM



TRACY - Brian Lawless said he and his daughter, Melissa Huckaby, had long jailhouse discussions before she admitted committing a murder that will put her in prison the rest of her life.

A year ago, Lawless said he believed she was innocent. On Monday, standing outside his family's tiny Tracy church, which investigators once searched for clues to little Sandra Cantu's grisly death, Lawless said he is OK with his daughter's guilty plea.

"Very saddened, of course," he said. "I don't have words to even describe what I feel right now."

Lawless stood behind a blue pickup, furniture stacked in the bed. A trailer attached to the truck held an office chair.

He said he was picking up personal items for his parents, Connie and Lane Lawless, with whom Huckaby once lived doors down from Sandra in the nearby trailer park where the child disappeared.

His parents, Brian Lawless said, have since moved away.

The rest of Tracy, too, is trying to move on. News of Huckaby's courtroom admission spread quickly, ripping open old wounds from a horrific crime that sparked unwanted scrutiny and lingering fears.

For some, the guilty plea offers closure after a tumultuous year.

To others, that finality is elusive as enduring questions - foremost among them, why? - remain unanswered.

"It's going to put a little ease on all of our hearts," said Linda Ortega, 36, a mother of five who has lived in Tracy all her life.

Along with her deep ties to Tracy, Ortega has a personal connection to the case. She knows Sandra's parents. She worked with Sandra's mother at a retail store years ago and went to middle school with Sandra's father.

Ortega said she hopes a judge's gag order on the case will soon be lifted. Maybe that will offer a glimpse into Huckaby's motives, she said.

"I do feel we need to know why," Ortega said as she headed to the supermarket Monday. "I think (Sandra's) mom deserves an answer."

Inside Helm's Ale House downtown, owner David Helm pondered the news shortly after Huckaby's plea deal was announced. There would be no satisfying end to the saga, he concluded.

"A little girl lost her life," he said, pausing and shaking his head. "I don't think there's anything that the justice system, as flawed as it is, can do to make that right."

Helm, 50, was a police officer for 17 years in the Bay Area and spent more than a year on child abuse cases. He has lived in Tracy for almost a decade, watching its grow from a rural town to a suburban enclave.

Helm wondered if maybe Sandra's murder - compounded by other horrific crimes of late - had changed his town, too.

"Unfortunately, Tracy isn't the sleepy little town we moved into 10 years ago," he said.

On Monday, some residents bristled at being once again in the national spotlight, confronted by swarms of TV news crews and reporters many hoped would just go away.

Cindy Sasser was more patient with a throng of journalists. At Jacobson Elementary School, where she is the principal and Sandra was a second-grader, she said Huckaby's plea was welcome news.

"I hope it does bring peace to the family," she said. "It does bring some peace to me."

Outside, Sasser gave a short tour of a garden planted out back, donated in Sandra's memory. Azaleas and geraniums had blossomed pink and white, the girl's favorite colors. It had been a good spring, the principal said.

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100511/A_NEWS/5110323/-1/rss02

News firms seek Cantu records, lift of gag order

By The Record
May 13, 2010 12:00 AM

STOCKTON - Three news organizations have filed a motion in San Joaquin County Superior Court to open records and lift the gag order in the murder of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu.

Melissa Huckaby, 29, pleaded guilty Monday to kidnapping and murdering Sandra in Tracy last year.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Huckaby will spend the rest of her life in state prison with no possibility of parole.

After Huckaby's guilty plea, Superior Court Judge Linda Lofthus declined a prosecutor's request to lift the gag order. Lofthus also has declined to unseal court records, including search warrants, autopsy reports and grand jury transcripts.

The motion was filed by The Associated Press, Bay Area News Group and The Record.

In the motion, attorneys representing the news organizations wrote, "The justifications that may have once warranted a gag order in this case and the sealing of court records no longer exist."

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100513/A_NEWS/5130321/-1/NEWSMAP

Sandra Cantu’s family asking for gag order to remain

By The Record
May 18, 2010 4:47 PM

Attorneys for Sandra Cantu’s family are filing court papers arguing against a bid by news organizations to lift a judge’s gag order on details of the 8-year-old girl’s murder.

In their attempt to keep it permanently sealed, they cite the California Constitution and a recently enacted victim’s rights law. The Record, the Bay Area News Group and The Associated Press have asked a judge to unseal court records in the case of accused killer Melissa Huckaby.

“Those details are unnecessary for public understanding of the crime or the workings of government,” attorneys Stewart Tabak and G. Archer Bakerink said in their motion. “Disclosure of this material is not only morally reprehensible, but unconstitutional.”

The two attorneys represent Sandra’s mother, Maria Chavez, and sister, Simone Mokol Chavez. San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Linda Lofthus is expected to hear the case May 24. Huckaby pleaded guilty May 10.

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100518/A_NEWS/100519840