Disappearance of Anthonette Cayedito

Anthonette Cayedito was born on December 25, 1976, to Penny Cayedito (1952–1999),[2] of the Navajo Nation, and Anthony Montoya (1951–2012), a father of Italian and Hispanic descent.[3] After her parents' separation, Anthonette and her younger sisters, Wendy and Senida were raised by their mother in Gallup, New Mexico.

Cayedito was described as being level-headed, wise beyond her years, scholastically dedicated, friendly, caring, and dependable.[4] By the time she was six years old, she was cooking for her sisters, ironed their clothes for the week and played a vital role in caring for them.[5] Cayedito was known by her peers for her displayed concern for the well-being of others, particularly if they were downcast or otherwise in need. Her youngest sister later described Cayedito as having a "caregiver's heart".[4] Her favorite color was purple, and she enjoyed listening to the music of Michael Jackson and Ronnie Milsap, and she was nicknamed "Squirrel".

Cayedito was a fourth-grade student at Lincoln Elementary School, where she was an attentive, above-average student who displayed a flair for sports and physical activities, winning the Presidential Fitness award in her fourth year. Outside of school, she also displayed a strong interest in her weekly Bible studies and was devoted to her religious faith. At the time of her disappearance, she was living with her mom and sisters at 204 Arnold Circle #9 in Gallup.[5]

Cayedito disappeared from her home in the early morning hours of April 6, 1986.[6] That evening her mother, Penny, had been out with friends at a local bar, and Cayedito, along with her younger sisters Wendy and Sadie, were with a babysitter.[6] Penny arrived home around midnight and sent the babysitter home.[6]

The following morning, when Penny awoke to prepare the girls for Bible school, she realized Cayedito was not in her bedroom. After inquiring with neighbors, she phoned the police.[3]

Police did not conduct an official search of the Cayedito home until four days after the child's disappearance. Penny told detectives that a man by the name of Emmanuel (nicknamed "Emo") had given flowers to Cayedito three times in the days leading up to her disappearance, only mentioning it after a family member brought it up during the police search.

A man named Roger told detectives that around 3:30 a.m., he knocked on the door and a bedroom window of the Cayedito home. He claimed he was checking on Penny after they got into an argument at the bar. Roger said he left and spent the night at the home of a friend who lived down the street. The homeowner corroborated Roger's account.

One year after Cayedito's disappearance, the Gallup Police Department received a frantic phone call. The caller was a young girl who claimed to be Cayedito, saying that she was in Albuquerque. Before the call could be traced, an angry adult voice was heard shouting, "Who said you could use the phone?!" followed by the girl screaming and the sounds of a scuffle, after which the phone call was cut off.[6] Cayedito's mother, Penny, believed the voice to be her daughter's but did not recognize the adult's voice.[3]

Five years after the disappearance, Wendy—now aged 10—gave her account of the disappearance for the first time.[7] She told detectives that there was a second knock on the door, which Cayedito, still awake, answered. When she asked who it was, the knocker identified himself as "Uncle Joe". When she opened the door, she was grabbed by two men. Kicking and screaming, "Let me go! Let me go!" the men forced her into a brown van. Wendy didn't recognize the men as she did not get a look at their faces.[3] She stated that she had not said anything at the time owing to a fear of upsetting her mother, and of not being believed. Her sister Sadie has stated that she isn't sure a second knock happened.[7]

Penny never mentioned a second knock at the door until 1994, when she was interviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). "I told her (Anthonette) to go ahead and answer it," she told federal agents. "I layed there for a period of time, maybe thirty minutes, and Anthonette never came back. I got up to see where she was but I couldn’t find her." Penny claimed that the knock happened between 3:30 a.m.-4:30 a.m., and that it was "just getting light" when she got up thirty minutes later. This account differed significantly from her initial statement of waking up at 7:00 a.m. and finding that her daughter was missing.

Later in 1994, Penny confessed that she had been involved in Cayedito's abduction, asking, "What if me and Emo did this, would we both go to prison?" Penny stated she and "Emo" got together on a plan prior to the disappearance. Penny stated she wanted to know where the abduction would occur, but was told it was better that she did not know. She admitted to knowing who was coming to take Cayedito, as well as having told Cayedito to open the door. Despite this confession, and the FBI's strong belief she was involved in Cayedito's abduction, she was never charged with her disappearance.

Penny died on April 18, 1999, from a combination of liver cirrhosis and cardiac issues, aged 46.[8] Anthonette's father, Anthony Montoya, died on August 17, 2012.[9]

In a 2016 interview with the Albuquerque Journal, Wendy Montoya, Cayedito's youngest sister, spoke of the struggles that she and her family went through: "It just broke my whole family up. It was a very dark and dysfunctional time."[4] Montoya revealed that she and her mother could barely talk about Cayedito without crying or getting intoxicated with drugs and alcohol. "That was how we coped with the pain, to numb it, not to forget about it but to put it on the shelf, you know?"[4]

The trauma of losing her sister led Montoya into a life of drug addiction, alcoholism, gang affiliation, and acquiring a criminal record throughout her adolescence into her young adulthood. Her lifestyle inevitably caused her to lose custody of her children. Around 2007, however, Montoya successfully turned her life around. "I went into rehab. I struggled to get my kids back, struggled to get away from the old person I was, to break the cycle I was raised up in, and to get far away from here. And I did it."[4] She further added that if she could not find her sister, she could at least find herself.

As of 2016, Wendy is reported to reside in Bakersfield, California.[4] She admits that although her memories of her sister are vague, the loss still haunts her and she misses her to this day. For Wendy, Cayedito is indelibly frozen in time "at age 9, a little girl with a jumble of teeth, soft brown eyes and a caregiver's heart."[4] Montoya still maintains hope that her sister is somewhere out there, and there is still time to discover the truth of what became of her: "I'm not going to accept that she's dead. I need proof."[10]

In June 2022, Cayedito's other sister, Sadie Acevedo, was interviewed by KOAT-TV. She stated, “It's hard not knowing the point of no closure. What happened? Where did she go?”.[11] In the interview, Acevedo also publicly conveyed a message to her missing sister, “She's safe. She has a family that loves her. She has sisters. We haven't given up. We all wonder and often think about Anthonette and what's she doing. Does she have kids? What kind of life is she living?”. Sadie has stated that she believes her mother was involved in Anthonette's disappearance.[11]

Police interviewed an uncle who was married to Penny's sister, but declined to name him a suspect.[3] Investigators believe Cayedito may be deceased and that Penny Cayedito allowed her to be taken by Emmanuel, although her whereabouts remain unknown as of 2023.[1] Theories range from her being either a victim of homicide or possibly human trafficking. The police stated that in 2016 they believed Penny may have had more information than she had given police concerning her daughter's disappearance, citing a failed lie detector test and confession.[6]

Three years after Cayedito's disappearance, her 25-year-old disabled step-aunt, Louisa Estrada (sister to Larry Estrada), disappeared on September 5, 1989, from Gallup.[12] Unlike Anthonette, Louisa was found alive in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, a month later and returned home.[13] Over the years there have been questions over potential connections between the two cases.

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Age progression of Cayedito to age 42

On April 8, 1986, a witness reported he believed he had seen Anthonette in San Antonio. He recalled seeing a Spanish-looking girl in a long pink dress with a blonde-haired woman on the side of the road. It is unknown whether the girl was Anthonette.

On April 19, 1986, a woman claimed to have seen a brown truck at a Thriftway Gas Station. As the truck passed, the woman believed she could hear a little voice screaming “Help me, help me”. The witness believed it could have been Anthonette.

On June 30, 1986, a witness claimed he had seen Anthonette at a bus depot in El Paso, Texas. He claimed the girl was wearing a pink dress (very similar to an earlier eyewitness account), white shoes, and had a noticeable mark on her cheek, similar to one Anthonette had.

Four years later, in 1991, a waitress at a restaurant in Carson City, Nevada, encountered a teenage girl matching Cayedito's description in the company of an unkempt couple. The girl continuously knocked her utensils to the floor, seemingly attempting to get the waitress's attention. According to the waitress, the girl grabbed her hand and squeezed it firmly each time the waitress handed back the utensils. After they left, the waitress cleaned their table and found a napkin under the plate the girl had been eating from. It contained two brief messages: "Help me" and "Call the police", written on it.[6]

Cayedito's disappearance was featured on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. The episode aired on December 16, 1992, nine days before what would've been Anthonette's sixteenth birthday.[3]

According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, the following decedents were ruled out as being the remains of Cayedito.

• List of people who disappeared
• Missing and murdered Indigenous women

35.521958°N 108.758924°W / 35.521958; -108.758924

• Anthonette Cayedito at The Doe Network
• Anthonette Cayedito at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children