There's nothing much to be said about the horrific kidnap, rape and murder of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu that hasn't already been said and whatever hasn't been verbalized has most certainly crossed most of our minds. We are all saddened and many of us can't really talk, at length, about this crime because we are so troubled.

We keep shaking our heads in disbelief and quietly ask ourselves how could 28 year-old Melissa Huckaby, the accused killer and mother of Sandra's  playmate, commit such a heinous act.

Sandra disappeared March 27 and her body was found weeks later stuffed into a trunk floating on a pond which was only a few blocks away from her own home and also near the accused killer's home where the young victim often went to play.

Huckaby has said the death was an accident.

While people we talk to are troubled, most have mustered up enough energy to say answer this piece of nonsense by saying,  "Not hardly."

Friends and family of the accused continually report being in shock because this criminal act is so out of character for the kind and loving person they know whose behavior they say has always been quite ordinary.

Huckaby's behavior was probably not classified by those who've been close to her as out of the ordinary simply because ordinary is what they wanted to see.

As friends, and in particular, as family we have an unspoken obligation to closely observe the behaviors of those we are close to.

We should not pretend all is well when we see signs that point to trouble as trouble has a very long history and very dependable habit of not going away.

Huckaby's  life,  growing up in a Christian environment and now being a volunteer Sunday school teacher in her grandfather's church,  doesn't give her family the right to excuse the misdeeds she has committed along life's  way nor does it give them the right to turn a blind eye to signs of problems.

Not too many people are willing to entertain the thought that  prior to the kidnap, rape and murder of Sandra, Melissa Huckaby was living the ordinary life her friends and family attest to.

Just because Huckaby was attractive, as her teenage pictures portray and because she performed as a cheerleader for her high school doesn't mean there weren't instances of questionable antics. But too many families allow cute children, especially girls, to get away with more than the law allows. 

And society, in strange ways, supports the ignoring of many anti-social behaviors and mental health symptoms by fostering a climate where our lives are judged by what's expected of us and that's determined, all too often, by how we look and by our place in the community.  A cute Christian girl isn't thought to be one gone wrong.  Melissa Huckaby isn't known, now, just by her name but instead she's known as  Melissa Huckaby the Sunday school teacher.

Why didn't Huckaby follow through with the mental health intervention ordered by the court as a result of her recent brush with the law relating to shoplifting at a Target store? I would venture to guess this was not the first time some kind of mental health intervention caught the family's attention but was ignored.  Afterall, she was cute and she was a Christian.

 But things have changed for the family and when things go wrong with any child we have raised, we all ask ourselves the same troubling question: "Where did we go wrong?

And the answers for this family are not to be found in Melissa Huckaby's claim that her alleged crimes of kidnap, rape and murder were an accident.  Instead, the family needs to take a close look at their bible and note it doesn't  proclaim those who are attractive and Christian can do no evil, as it also doesn't teach Catholic priests will not molest little boys.

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