TRACY, Calif. — Authorities found the remains of a missing 8-year-old Northern California girl on Monday in a suitcase a few miles from where she was last seen.
The suitcase containing Sandra Cantu’s body was recovered from an irrigation pond Monday, Tracy Police Chief Janet Thiessen said.
Thiessen said the girl was wearing the same clothes she was wearing when last seen on March 27: a pink “Hello Kitty” T-shirt and black leggings.
Authorities planned an autopsy on the body to determine the cause of death.
Sandra’s disappearance from Tracy, about 60 miles east of San Francisco, sparked a massive search effort that included hundreds of volunteers and law enforcement officials, including the FBI, and more than 1,000 tips.
Police said the suitcase was discovered by farmworkers who were draining the irrigation pond to water fields.
Ohio: Stay revoked for alleged Nazi death camp guard
A U.S. immigration judge in Virginia on Monday revoked ‘s the stay of deportation for John Demjanjuk, who is accused in a German arrest warrant of being an accessory to murder as a Nazi death camp guard. Demjanjuk, an 89-year-old suburban Cleveland man, plans to appeal the decision, which would clear the way for him to be sent to Germany nearly three decades after officials first alleged he was a guard at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943. He has denied involvement in any deaths.
Nebraska: ‘Missing’ couple in custody
A couple who disappeared with their children March 20, leading to a search of the South Dakota wilderness when their car was found there, turned themselves in to authorities near their Nebraska home on Monday, a sheriff said. Matthew Schade was arrested on a warrant for a probation violation in neighboring Antelope County, and his wife, Rowena Schade, was being held by order of the Nebraska Department of Probation, a sheriff said. State health officials planned to speak to the children, ages 8 and 11, before determining where to place them, the release said. Matthew and Rowena Schade were convicted of burglary in Plainview, Neb., in 2004.
D.C.: Clinton presses U.N. over North Korea’s missile
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that she is lobbying key members of the U.N. Security Council, including Russian and Chinese foreign ministers, to respond to North Korea’s launch Sunday of a three-stage missile. The second and third stages of the rocket, which North Korea said carried a satellite, apparently splashed down in the ocean; the two stages may not have properly separated.
Michigan: Deadly snow storm
An early spring snowstorm dumped almost 8 inches on some parts of Michigan and was blamed Monday for at least four deaths and a power outage affecting about 124,000 people. The snowstorm — coming more than two weeks into spring — dumped 7.8 inches on Oakland County’s White Lake Township, 7 inches on Elba and 6.7 inches on Romulus, according to the National Weather Service.
Cuba: U.S. lawmakers visit
President Raul Castro met Monday with six visiting members of the Congressional Black Caucus, his first face-to-face discussions with U.S. leaders since he became Cuba’s president last year. The lawmakers came to talk about improving U.S.-Cuba relations amid speculation that Washington is ready to loosen some facets of its 47-year-old trade embargo against the island.
Australia: Schindler’s list copy
Australian researchers sifting papers belonging to the author of “Schindler’s List” discovered a yellowing roll of 801 men saved from the Holocaust by the German industrialist — the very copy that “Schindler’s Ark” writer Thomas Keneally used to bring the story to the world’s attention, a curator said Monday. The 13-page document is a copy of one of Oskar Schindler’s famed compilations of names that eventually included 1,100 men and women he saved by employing them in his factories in World War II Germany.
From Herald news services
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