Disappeared: Anthonette Cayedito
Anyone who ever met Anthonette Cayedito could tell she was a very special girl. Affectionately nicknamed “Squirrel” by friends and family, she was described as a kind and gentle spirit; a lover of music (especially Michael Jackson), the color purple, and her Bible studies; dedicated in school and wise beyond her years; and exceedingly maternal. At only six years old, she was helping her single mother, Penny, raise her two little sisters, Wendy and Sadie. She cooked their meals, did their laundry, and occasionally babysat them. Everyone believed she had a bright future ahead of her. Unfortunately for the young girl, she would never get to see it.
Anthonette was a Christmas baby, born December 25, 1976. She was born to mother Penny Cayedito, a member of the Navajo Nation, and father Anthony Montoya, who was Italian and Hispanic.
When her parents split, her mom Penny, took the three children and moved into a duplex in Gallup, New Mexico.
On the evening of April 6, 1986, Penny Cayedito left her three daughters at their Gallup, New Mexico home in the care of a babysitter and went out with some friends. She returned home a few hours later, around midnight, and dismissed the babysitter, briefly checking on the girls before heading off to bed herself. She woke at seven the next morning to take her daughters to Bible school. She was met with a horrifying shock when she went to rouse them. Wendy and Sadie were in their beds, but Anthonette was gone. She was only nine years old.
Penny immediately reported her daughter’s disappearance to the police and an investigation was launched. Police learned from Wendy that, at approximately 3 in the morning, she and her sister heard a knock at the door. Anthonette went to answer the door but never came back to bed.
Wendy said that Anthonette went to answer the door, and hollered from the inside, ‘Who’s there?’ Wendy heard the man answer back saying he was ‘Uncle Joe’. The next set of events are uncertain. Some reports say that Wendy fell back asleep and didn’t hear anything else. Other reports say that Wendy heard Anthonette scream, ‘Let me go! Let me go!’ and was dragged out of the house.
No one else in the home heard anything.
As it turned out the girls did have an uncle Jo who police questioned to see if he had any involvement in Anthonette’s disappearance, but he was quickly ruled out. Whoever had taken the girl from her home wasn’t a kindly relative, and likely didn’t have good intentions.
Now I want to take a moment and address an issue that seems to plague missing person’s cases. When Penny Cayedito called the police for help, the police allegedly told her to call back in 8 hours, supposedly their required time to report a child missing.
I know this was back in 1986, but it’s so frustrating to always hear the different things people are told when reporting someone missing. There is no consistency. And I want to make it known- you do NOT need to wait at all to report a child missing. Reports should be made immediately, and police and law enforcement should react immediately. Time is a factor in missing person’s cases, especially when children are involved. So don’t let authorities tell you otherwise.
For the Cayedito family the searches would continue, both by family members and law enforcement; but no leads manifested. Days, weeks, and months would go by where no movement was made in Anthonette’s case until they received their first real clue.
A little over a year following Anthonette’s disappearance the Gallup Police Department received a phone call from a frantic young girl. The girl claimed to be Anthonette and needed help. During the brief call- which lasted only 40 seconds, the girl said she was in Albuquerque. A male’s voice can then be heard saying, ‘Who said you could use the phone?’. A girl can be heard screaming, you could hear a scuffle, and then the line went dead. Since the call was only 40 seconds, police were unable to trace it.
Police played the recorded call to Penny, Anthonette’s mother, who identified the voice as her daughter. She said she did not recognize the voice of the man.
“I listened to that tape over and over and over. And just by the way she says her last name, and the way she screamed, sent chills all over my body. A mother knows and I know that was her.”
I was able to track down the 911 recording which I have provided a link below. While the recording is only 20s you can clearly hear a young girl’s voice and then a man’s voice. I really would like for you to focus on the man’s voice to see if you recognize it. Put it on repeat if you need to. Also this call may be stressful for some listeners so proceed with caution.
The case would go cold again, until 1991. A witness in Carson City, Nevada reported seeing a young teenage girl, who appeared nervous, with a couple that appeared very unkempt. The three were eating at a restaurant, and every time the waitress walked by, the girl would drop her fork. When she and the waitress would go to reach for it at the same time, she would squeeze the waitress’s hand. After they left, a note, written on a napkin, was found under the plate where the girl had been sitting that read, “Help me. Call the Police.” Unfortunately, just like the phone call, this lead went nowhere, and whether or not the nervous girl was Anthonette remains to be seen.
Shortly after the Carson City sighting, Penny turned to her Native American heritage in the search for Anthonette. She and her other daughters visited a respected Navajo medicine woman skilled in performing traditional tribal ceremonies. The medicine woman performed the Crystal Ritual, which is said to make contact with the spirit of a missing person. According to the medicine woman, Anthonette was still alive and may have a child. She was being held against her will by threats of violence, somewhere in the Southwest. Penny was amazed that the information provided by the medicine woman was consistent with elements of the detective’s investigation.
“Going to the medicine lady gives me a lot of strength and it helps me to just know that she is alive. No matter who she’s with, they’ve got to have some compassion not to hurt another human being as small as she is.”
Skeptics say that the medicine woman could have incorporated elements from news paper articles or leaked documents and just made general connections. They worry that people are going to come out of the wood work to take advantage of the already grieving family and do more harm than good for the case. If you remember this happened in the Adam Walsh case when psychics reached out and gave false information to the parents who had police look into it diverting resources and time from locating Adam.
I don’t think that is what’s happening here. I think Anthonette’s mother was just looking to her culture for support and answers. There wasn’t any reports saying that authorities went to the location mentioned or that they found more evidence because of the medicine woman. Honestly, if I was in Penny’s situation I think I would do the same.
Later on into the investigation, Sadie and Wendy were re-interviewed by investigators. Sadie recalled a male voice and a female voice during the first round of knocking and said they claimed to be their aunt and uncle. They had said, “Hurry, we’re cold out here. Open the door.”
Wendy revealed she had actually followed Anthonette to the door during the second round of knocking, where she saw a man who claimed to be their Uncle Joe. Anthonette had opened the door and was grabbed by two men, who took her to a waiting brown van. She struggled against them. Unfortunately, Wendy was unable to describe the two.
When asked why she hadn’t come forward with this information sooner, Wendy explained she had been afraid of getting in trouble. Despite her waiting so long to come forward with what really happened, police believe this version of the story to be credible.
Based on Wendy’s information, police interviewed Anthonette’s real Uncle Joe, but he had an alibi and was cleared. While he has been ruled out, investigators still feel someone known to the family took the young girl, given the amount of people who came and went from the house.
The local FBI office eventually got involved in the case and looked into potential sightings of Anthonette from across the United States. However, they closed their investigation in 2006. Despite the alleged sightings and 911 phone calls it seems Anthonette just disappeared without a trace.
Just like with many unsolved missing person’s cases there are theories as to what might have happened to the victim. In Anthonette’s case there seems to be 4 distinct theories.
The main one is police and online sleuths believe Anthonette was abducted by someone who knew the family. They believe this due to the children’s interactions with the abductors while they were at the front door. Given the abductors knew they were talking to children, it’s believed they had some sense of how the family worked. This theory seems to have more clout since police believe Penny to have known more than she let on. However, they haven’t elaborated as to why they think this. She was given two polygraphs, one by local police and another by the FBI. While she passed the first test, she failed the one administered by the FBI.
Those who are loyal listeners to the show know I feel about polygraphs and those who aren’t…well let’s say it’s not good.
There are some who have speculated that someone in the Cayedito family was involved in the drug trade and thus Anthonette’s abduction was somehow related. However, there is no evidence to corroborate this.
The 3rd theory is that Anthonette was abducted by a stranger. Given that “Joe” is a common name, the two men who abducted her could have simply gotten lucky with their name choice. However, as previously stated, the pair knew they were talking to children and there was a clear motive, so it’s more than likely they knew the family in some capacity.
Finally, this theory comes from a Reddit user who believes a Jane Doe, who was discovered in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1996 could be Anthonette. The Jane Doe, who is believed to be between 14 and 18 years old, was found near 98th Street and Tower Road, approximately two to ten weeks after her death. She is believed to be of white, Hispanic and Native American ancestry.
There have been many on the thread who believe Jane Doe’s reconstruction shows similarities to Anthonette. As well, there was the phone call in 1987, where the girl claiming to be Anthonette said she was in Albuquerque. The Reddit user has passed along their belief of the possible connection between the two cases to police and has said the information was passed along to the appropriate investigators.
However, according to National Missing and Unidentified Persons System the Albuquerque Jane Doe is not Anthonette. Another Jane Doe, whose body was discovered near a desert-like area near highway US 60 on Apache Junction was also thought to be Anthonette. But this too was ruled out as being the missing girl.
Anthonette’s case remains open, the files kept in a box at the Gallup Police Department. A spokesperson for the department told Dateline there have not been very many tips in recent years. But every time a new detective joins the team, the case gets a fresh set of eyes to look at it.
Something worth noting is three years after Anthonette’s disappearance, her 25-year-old step aunt Louisa Estrada, who’s mentally handicapped, disappeared on September 5, 1989 from Gallup, NM. Like Anthonette, Louisa has never been found, and there have been questions as to potential connections between the two cases. To date there hasn’t been any evidence connecting the two but it is interesting that another family member had disappeared without a trace.
Unfortunately, when tragedy strikes a family (and in this case 2 tragedies) it takes a toll both mentally and physically.
Anthonette’s sister, Wendy, has said that her sister’s disappearance tore apart her family and that her mom would never talk about her without crying. Eventually, both mother and daughter turned too alcohol and drugs to cope with the pain.
Wendy herself went down a bad road for quite some time, getting involved in drugs and gangs. Her lifestyle inevitably caused her to lose custody of her children to the state. Around 2007 Wendy cleaned herself up and moved to California where she resides with her family. She has been quoted as saying, “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.”
Wendy leads a private and productive life with her own family and career. She admits that although her memories of Anthonette are vague (due to the fact that her sister was taken when she was five), the loss still haunts her and she misses her to this day. For Wendy, Anthonette is indelibly frozen in time “at age 9, a little girl with a jumble of teeth, soft brown eyes and a caregiver’s heart.” She still maintains hope that her sister is somewhere out there, and there is still time to discover the truth of what became of her. Furthermore stating “I’m not going to accept that she’s dead. I need proof.”
Little is currently known about Sadie, Anthonette’s other sister, and it’s believed that she and Wendy have become estranged from each other as a result of Anthonette’s disappearance and Wendy’s less-than-healthy coping mechanisms.
As for Penny, Anthonette’s mother, she passed away in 1999 not knowing what truly happened to her daughter. Anthonette’s father, Anthony, passed away in 2012.
On the 35th anniversary of Anthonette’s disappearance the FBI reopened the case, since being closed in 2006, and have begun asking for the public’s help.
“The FBI and our partners have checked out numerous tips as we continue to investigate this disappearance,” said acting Special Agent in Charge Eric S. Brown Sr. of the Albuquerque FBI Division in a statement. “We are asking anyone who might have information about this case to come forward now and help us find Anthonette.”
They have not said wether or not they believe Anthonette is still alive or if reopening the case is just to recover a body. But the good news is that authorities are still trying to find answers after all these years.
Anthonette Cayedito was last seen on April 6, 1986. She was wearing a pink nightgown.
At the time of her disappearance, she was 9-years old, 4’7” tall, and weighed 55 pounds. She had brown hair, brown eyes, freckles, and also wore glasses. Her ears were pierced and she had a scar on her lip and one on her knee. She was known to wear a silver chain with a small turquoise cross pendant.
Anthonette would now be 44 years old. The FBI has published age-progression photo’s as to what Anthonette might look like today which I will post on the show’s social media.
If you have any information as to the whereabouts of Anthonette Cayedito, please call the Gallup Police Department at 505–863–9365, Crime Stoppers at 505–722–6161 or the FBI at 505–889–1300. You can report your information anomalously. Hopefully someone out there has answers.
For more stories like these be sure to subscribe to Leave The Lights On Podcast. You can find links to the show at lightsonpod.com
