sandra cantu found dead

Authorities found the body of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu in a suitcase in a dairy-farm pond near her California home on Monday.

The girl had been missing since March 27 from her home in Tracy, California. Police did not identify a suspect.

News of the girl's death devastated her family, Tracy police spokesman Tony Sheneman said.

"They have just experienced the unimaginable," Sheneman said.

The day Sandra was last seen, she came home from school, kissed her mother and left to play with a friend who lives a couple of homes away. A short time later, she left that home to go to another friend's home, according to a spokeswoman for her family.

The child was last seen by her family wearing a pink Hello Kitty T-shirt and black leggings.

Authorities identified her body by the clothes she was wearing, Sheneman said.

Earlier in the investigation, police released surveillance video that showed the child in the mobile home park where she lives -- skipping and happily swinging her arms on the day she disappeared. They had hoped to get tips with the eight-second video.

Sandra Cantu's Body Found

Investigators said they identified Cantu's body by the clothing she was last seen wearing.The girl's cause of death hadn't been determined Monday night, but the case is considered a homicide.

Cantu, a student at Jacobson Elementary School, disappeared March 27 from inside Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park just off West Clover Road. Home security video of her released Saturday was taken shortly before she disappeared and showed the girl skipping down the road.On Monday morning, farmworkers found a black, sealed case while they were draining a pond near Bacchetti Road, about two miles from Orchard Estates.

The area is full of agricultural fields, plowed land waiting to be planted and some irrigation ditches. It's adjacent to a dairy farm.Sheneman said investigators spent hours combing the area around the pond before the suitcase was removed. They documented everything carefully, he said, photographing the scene, looking for footmarks and tire tracks and mapping the entire area with a laser device.Officials in white suits removed the luggage from the pond shortly after 5 p.m. It was loaded into a van and transported to the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office in French Camp.

The luggage was taken into the county morgue where the body was identified. An autopsy will be conducted Tuesday morning.So far, no arrests have been made.Several search warrants have been executed in the case, and several people were questioned last week.A man who was questioned Friday came voluntarily to the police station, Tracy police Lt. Jeremy Watney said. He was driven to the station because he did not have transportation.On Friday evening, a witness saw a man who looked like the person who was taken in for police questioning returning to the park. He walked out of a car and went up to unit No. 43. Someone at the door gave him a hug and he walked inside. The man fit the description of a person wearing a plaid Pendleton shirt and scruffy hair who was being driven by police earlier in the day.The girl's father, Daniel Cantu, was interviewed Thursday by police in Tracy. He said he took a polygraph test. Cantu, who lives in Mexico, was also interviewed Wednesday by police.Sheneman asked that the community respect the family during this time.

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