Sandra Cantu Still Missing; Police Still Refrain from Calling it an Abduction
Posted:30 November, 2009 by
Maria Chavez, mother of the missing 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, told Meredith Vieira of “The Today Show” Monday that she believed that he daughter was abducted. She said that her daughter would not leave the mobile home park where they live in Tracy, California, without her - or at least without calling her.
Maria Chavez could be right. The trailer park where Sandra Cantu was last seen is less than a half-mile from Interstate 580. A kidnapping could occur and the little girl could have been in an escaping vehicle miles from the trailer park within minutes. It is a scenario that Maria Chavez has undoubtedly considered many times since her daughter, Sandra Cantu, disappeared Friday afternoon.
Sandra Cantu was last seen after she told her mother she was going to a neighbor’s to play. The neighbor’s say she left to go home at roughly 4:00 p.m. A video surveillance camera shows her at that time as well. She has not been seen since.
Besides questioning all the neighbors, all registered sex offenders (approximately 80 within a five-mile radius) in the area have been interviewed. Four homes within the trailer park and two outside it have also been searched, according to Tracy Sgt. Tony Sheneman. According to CNN, all of those places searched were connected to the two “persons of interest” that became of interest to the police Monday evening. No arrests have been made. Over 200 volunteers joined the FBI and local authorities in the investigation over the weekend.
Sheneman told “The Today Show” that they were still treating the case as a missing person case because they still had found no evidence that Sandra Cantu had been abducted. While Chavez fought back tears, a friend, Lisa Encarnacion, said, “We don’t believe that she would go on her own accord with a stranger.”
Candlelight vigils were held for Sandra on Saturday and Sunday nights. Daniel Cantu, Sandra’s father, pleaded Sunday night “Please, bring her home. I love you, honey. Please come home soon.”
The mobile home park has only one road in and out, a road that the FBI cordoned off over the weekend, stopping every vehicle coming and going, searching the trunks.
And as the hours grow into days, the Sandra Cantu case grows older with no arrests. On the other side of the country, another missing child case, that of 5-year-old Haleigh Cummings, continues but in an atmosphere of frustration. After seven weeks, Putnam County Sheriff Jeff Hardy has become frustrated. After thousands of man-hours of investigative work, they are down to “no traces” of the missing and believed to be abducted Florida girl.
Meredith Vieira, who also interviewed Ronald Cummings on “The Today Show” about his missing daughter, Haleigh, asked Maria Chavez if the surveillance camera that had caught the last image of her daughter had been installed because of safety concerns in the neighborhood. Chavez said safety was not the issue, adding, “It’s been pretty safe over there.” She paused. “I thought.”
CNN reported Wednesday that police say they have received almost 500 leads thus far in the investigation.
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Sources:
MSNBC.msn.com
“The Today Show,” NBC Television
CNN.com
