Shoe leather means good reportingHerhold: The story behind the story in the Sandra Cantu case
By Scott Herhold
Mercury News columnist
Posted: 04/13/2009 07:00:00 PM PDT
Updated: 04/14/2009 11:11:15 AM PDT
Any journalist will tell you that the story behind the story frequently offers the most intriguing nuggets about the people we cover. And so it is with the killing of Sandra Cantu, the 8-year-old Tracy girl whose body was found in a suitcase.
The story behind this story involves a 22-year-old reporter for the Tracy Press, Jennifer Wadsworth, who interviewed the suspect, Melissa Huckaby, on Friday. The moral of my tale has much to do with the application of shoe leather.
The police have credited Wadsworth's story about that interview with helping to crack the case. But she says she was only doing her job. "It wasn't anything extraordinary," she told me. "I was just interested in who owned this suitcase."
Wadsworth, who has worked full time for the Tracy Press since September, had heard rumors that a woman had been hospitalized in connection with Sandra's death and that the suitcase containing the corpse belonged to the Huckaby family.
The young reporter had already begun by looking up court records, a fountain of information that many journalists ignore. From them, she had Melissa Huckaby's address, age, cell phone number and details of her criminal record.
The cell phone didn't answer. But the address matched the home of Huckaby's grandfather, Pastor Lane Lawless. When Wadsworth called there, Huckaby answered.
Hometown paper
Wadsworth explained that she was a reporter, and Huckaby initially declined to talk. "But it's the hometown newspaper," Wadsworth rejoined. That changed the equation. For the next 40 minutes, Huckaby talked with Wadsworth, burying herself beneath layers of lies.
In the most important piece of news, she claimed ownership of the rolling Eddie Bauer suitcase, saying it had been stolen from her driveway at the time Sandra disappeared.
Huckaby, 28, then denied having a criminal record, even though records showed that she was due for sentencing on a burglary charge. She also denied having graduated from West High School in 1998, though school records showed she did.
When Wadsworth asked her why the address and cell phone in court documents matched her own, Huckaby said it simply wasn't her.
By mid-afternoon Friday, Wadsworth posted her story online. Other news outlets called Huckaby, who elaborated on her unlikely story about the stolen suitcase, saying she had found a note after Sandra disappeared, apparently from the killer.
Police take note
The police, who had already interviewed Huckaby at length, took notice of the Tracy Press story. And they called Huckaby back in for more questioning. By 11:55 that night, they had arrested her on suspicion of Sandra's murder.
The next day, the police specifically mentioned Wadsworth's story as a development in the case. Until Huckaby's admission to the Tracy Press, they said, they had been uncertain that the Eddie Bauer suitcase belonged to Huckaby.
The cops might well have arrested Huckaby in any event. And there is much that we don't know about this case, like motive — if she indeed killed the girl.
My real point, however, is to say something about journalism, which has been under economic assault for most of the past decade. Journalists sometimes think they need to reinvent themselves by standing on their heads.
Wadsworth's story shows the value of asking questions and assembling facts. "Journalism is just telling people what's going on," Wadsworth told me. "And in that sense, it will never die."
Contact Scott Herhold at sherhold@mercurynews.com or 408-275-0917
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