Tragic End to Tracy Girl’s Disappearance

update, via KCRA3:

Police have not named any suspects in the case and Sgt. Tony Sheneman insisted Tuesday that Lawless “is not at the center of the investigation and never was.” He added that he was dismayed to hear media reports that the pastor was a main suspect.

“He has been interviewed as have hundreds of people,” Sheneman said. “Everyone that we speak to could be considered a person of interest. We have no specific person that we are looking at at this time.”

Eight-year-old Sandra Cantu’s body was found by farm workers draining an irrigation pond Monday morning near the mobile home park in Tracy, CA, where Sandra lived. The little girl had disappeared from the mobile home park ten days before. The police have searched the home of Lane Lawless, pastor of Clover Road Baptist Church in Tracy. Lawless, who lives in the mobile home park, has been questioned twice by police. The church has also been cordoned off and will be searched later today, according to an article in the Chronicle. No arrests have been made, and no persons of interest have been publicly named. The church’s beliefs are outlined here. The church’s web site provides this bio of Lawless:

Pastor Lane Lawless was saved in April of 1960. He was baptized July 9, 1960, and ordained August 20, 1971. Pastor Lawless received his theological education at the Alisal Baptist Institute of Salinas and the Baptist Theological Seminary of Hayward. He also studied under the tutelage of Eld. A.A. Harris. He has been pastor at the Clover Road Baptist Church since 1981.