NM ANTHONETTE CAYEDITO: Missing from Gallup, NM - 6 April 1986 - Age 9

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Anthonette was last seen inside her family's Gallup, NM residence on April 6, 1986. Her sister told authorities that Anthonette went to answer a knock at the door at 3:00 am, and was subsequently abducted and forced into a vehicle.


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Anthonette, circa 1986; Age-progression to age 42 (circa 2018)
Missing Since: 04/06/1986
Missing From: Gallup, New Mexico
Classification: Non-Family Abduction
Sex: Female
Race: Biracial, Native American, White
Date of Birth: 12/25/1976 (46)
Age: 9 years old
Height and Weight: 4'7, 55 pounds
Clothing/Jewelry Description: A knee-length pink nightgown and possibly a silver chain with a small cross-shaped turquoise pendant.
Associated Vehicle(s): Older model brown truck with New Mexico license plates
Distinguishing Characteristics: Biracial (Caucasian/Native American) female. Black hair, brown eyes. Anthonette has dark-colored moles on her right cheek, nose, back, both hands and on her right knee. She has scars on one of her knees and on her lip. Her ears are pierced. Some agencies give her name as "Antoinette." Anthonette is of Navajo and Italian descent. She wears eyeglasses.

Details of Disappearance​

Anthonette was last seen inside her family's residence in the 200 block of Arnold Street off Route 66 in Gallup, New Mexico on April 6, 1986. Her sister told authorities that Anthonette opened the front door after an unidentified male knocked sometime after 3:00 a.m. Her sister reported that the man claimed to be their Uncle Joe. Anthonette went to answer the door and her sister went back to sleep.

A neighbor reported seeing an older model brown truck with New Mexico license plates outside Anthonette's home between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m. that morning. The neighbor saw a man get out of the truck and walk towards Anthonette's house. The witness couldn't describe the man or the truck in detail, however.

Anthonette has never been heard from again. Her mother, who was asleep in the residence, didn't hear the knock on the door and didn't realize Anthonette was missing until approximately 7:00 a.m., when she went to wake up her children. She searched the neighborhood until 11:00 a.m. before notifying the police, but the police told her she would have to wait eight hours before making an official missing persons report.

Authorities questioned Anthonette's uncle regarding her disappearance, but he is not considered a suspect and was never thought to be involved in her abduction.

About a year after Anthonette disappeared, the Gallup Police Department got a phone call from someone who said she was Anthonette and she was in Albuquerque. Before they could trace the call, the police heard an angry-sounding male voice say, "Who said you could use the phone?" They heard the sound of a scuffle and a scream, then the line went dead. The call lasted only forty seconds. Anthonette's mother listened to a recording of the call and believes the female voice was her daughter's.

Four years later, a waitress in Carson City, Nevada thought she saw Anthonette. She described as a girl in her early teens who was sitting with an "unkempt" couple. The girl kept dropping her fork and, each time the waitress picked it up for her, she squeezed the waitress's hand. After they all left, someone found a note under the girl's plate that read "Help me! Call police." It has not been confirmed that the girl in the restaurant was Anthonette.

Anthonette's case remains unsolved. She was a fourth-grader at Lincoln Elementary School at the time of her disappearance, and is described as mature and responsible for her age. Investigators believe foul play may have been involved in her disappearance and that she is deceased.
 

Background​

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.

Anthonette 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] She 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 Anthonette as having a "caregiver's heart".[4] Her favorite color was purple, she enjoyed listening to the music of Michael Jackson and Ronnie Milsap, and she was nicknamed "Squirrel".

She 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, Cayedito also displayed 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, Gallup, New Mexico.[5]
 


This is the audio of a call that came in a year after Anthonette's abduction. Somebody called the Gallup Police Department from a girl claiming to be Anthonette. She told the operator that she was in Albuquerque, before an angry voice interjects shouting "Who said you could use the phone?!" Anthonette screams and the call is terminated.
 

The phone call renewed hope for Anthonette’s safe return. However, four tortuous years passed without any further clues. The FBI released two computer-enhanced photographs showing what Anthonette might look like at the age of 14. Four months later, according to Agent Kevin Miles of the FBI, a possible sighting of Anthonette was reported in Carson City, Nevada.

“A waitress in at a restaurant in Carson City told the Carson City police about a strange incident that she had witnessed that particular day. She waited on a table at which sat a male and a female, rather unkempt, and a small girl about the age of 14 or 15. The little girl would deliberately drop a utensil on the floor. The waitress put the utensil back on the table and the little girl grabbed her hand. And the waitress thought nothing of it and went about her business. The threesome left the restaurant and the waitress went back to the table and began to bus the table. She lifted up the plate belonging to the girl, beneath was a napkin that said please help me, call the police. By the time she realized what had happened, the couple and the girl were gone.”
 
Age progressions of Anthonette, over the years.

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Facial composite

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Age-progressed to a few years older.

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Age-progresed to at Age 28

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Age-progressed to Age 30, circa 2007.

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Age-progressed to Age 36, circa 2013.

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Age-Progressed to Age 42 circa 2018.
 

Holding out hope for girl who vanished 30 years ago​

By Joline Gutierrez Krueger / Journal Staff Writer
Published: Wednesday, April 6th, 2016

She was 9, but already she had assumed much of the responsibilities of caring for her two younger sisters.

“The story I always heard was that Anthonette was like our mommy,” recalls Wendy Montoya, the youngest sister. “She made sure all our clothes were ironed for the week, made sure we were fed and the house was clean. When our mom went out, we usually had adult supervision, but a majority of times it was my sister helping the baby sitter take care of us.”

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So perhaps it was not surprising that when the knock on the door came in the middle of the night to the family’s apartment just off Route 66 in Gallup it was Anthonette Christine Cayedito who answered it. That was the last time Montoya and her family saw her. That was 30 years ago today.

“I remember the police asking me what happened, and I had thought then that it was one of our uncles at the door. That turned out not to be true,” she says. “Really, I’m not sure what happened to her.”

That’s understandable. Montoya was 5 when her sister disappeared.

As the story goes, mother Penny Cayedito had gone out and arrived home to the family’s apartment at 204 Arnold St. around midnight April 6, 1986. She sent the baby sitter home and went to bed before 3 a.m. Sometime in those early hours came the knock on the door, but she slept through it. She didn’t notice Anthonette was missing until around 7 a.m. when she woke up the girls for Bible school.

Despite an intensive search, relatives, neighbors and Gallup police could find no trace of Anthonette.

A year after she disappeared, Gallup police reported receiving a phone call from someone with a young voice claiming to be Anthonette and saying she was in Albuquerque. Before the call could be traced, the voice of an angry man was heard shouting, “Who said you could use the phone?” Then came the sound of a scuffle, a scream, nothing.

Four years later, a waitress in Carson City, Nev., about 870 miles northwest of Gallup, reported seeing a girl in her early teens seated with a couple she described as “unkempt.” The girl, the waitress told investigators, repeatedly dropped her fork. Each time the waitress retrieved the fork, the girl squeezed her hand. Later, after the threesome left, the waitress found a note scrawled on a napkin hidden under the girl’s plate. “Help me! Call police,” it said.

Nothing came of the waitress’ story.

Over the years, other efforts have been made to find Anthonette. In 1992, the TV show “Unsolved Mysteries” re-enacted her disappearance. Penny Cayedito looked to her Navajo culture and consulted medicine men and women about her missing daughter.
The case remains open, a box of files kept in the office of Gallup police Lt. Rosanne Morrisette.

“We have several cold cases, but this is a child,” she says. “Every time a new detective comes on, they go through the case to see what we might have missed. Unfortunately, there have been no leads, no tips that have led anywhere.”

No answers and no Anthonette devastated Montoya’s family – and Montoya. “It just broke my whole family up,” she tells me in a phone call from Bakersfield, Calif., where she lives with her own family. “It was a very dark and dysfunctional time.”

Montoya says she and her mother could barely speak of Anthonette without crying, and then without drinking and getting high. “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?” she says.

News accounts say that investigators believe Penny Cayedito knew more about her daughter’s disappearance than she had revealed and that she had failed a lie-detector test. She died April 18, 1999, two weeks and 13 years after Anthonette’s disappearance, whatever secrets she might have held dying with her.

Montoya became estranged from her middle sister. She fell deeper into drugs, alcohol and gangs and was in and out of the criminal justice system. She lost custody of her children. She thinks the loss of her sister contributed to her tumble into that hopeless abyss.

About nine years ago, Montoya says she decided she needed to crawl back from the bottom. If she could not find her sister, she says, she could at least find herself.

“I went into rehab,” she says. “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.”

Still, the loss of her sister haunts her. She sees her face in every crowd – except she is not even sure what that face looks like now. For her, Anthonette is forever frozen at age 9, a little girl with a jumble of teeth, soft brown eyes and a caregiver’s heart. She is the one they called Squirrel, the one who loved the color purple and Ronnie Milsap, the one who took care of her like a mother when their mother could not. At least, this is what Montoya believes is true.

“I really don’t want to lie and say I remember everything about her. I don’t,” Montoya says. “I just go off the picture and off the stories I was told as the years go by. I really don’t know her. It hurts me. Thirty years is a long time not to know who your sister was.”

She hopes that Anthonette is still out there and that there is still time to find out.
 

December 17, 2020

FBI Seeks Public's Assistance in Homicide and Missing Person Investigations in Navajo Nation​


The FBI has published more than a dozen posters in the Navajo language to request the public’s help with homicide and missing-person investigations on or near the Navajo Nation.

The 13 posters include photographs, incident details, physical descriptions, and in many cases, rewards.

"The goal of our partnership with the Navajo Nation is to help them make their communities safer," said James Langenberg, special agent in charge of the Albuquerque FBI Division. "The FBI has made it a priority to translate as many posters as possible into the Navajo language so we can solve these cases and provide justice for the victims and their families."

"The FBI works to ensure safety and security in Indian Country and remain committed to that role and responsibility. Our success relies on collaboration and partnerships with our tribal law enforcement agencies, and the community providing invaluable tips," said Sean Kaul, special agent in charge of the Phoenix FBI Division. "These poster translations help us not only connect with the community, but they provide us with one more avenue to solicit information that can help solve these crimes and bring the perpetrators to justice. We will continue to work with all our federal, state, local, and tribal partners to protect all of our communities."

Anthonette's FBI poster translated into Navajo.
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Crystal Gutierrez, an investigative reporter recently did a two-part investigative series into Anthonette’s disappearance. She was able to obtain the FBI files pertaining to Anthonette’s case, and interviewed Anthonette's younger sister, Sadie. Some pretty shocking and disturbing details are revealed for the first time.

Part 1:


Part 2:


Basically, the disturbing details center around Anthonette’s mother, Penny Cayedito, her best friend, Ronald, and a man named Emeliano, known to the family as ''Emo,'' who had apparently developed an unhealthy interest in Anthonette.

According to Anthonette’s sister Sadie who was seven at the time, Emeliano had visited the house the night of the disappearance and brought Anthonette flowers and a necklace. During the visit, he picked Anthonette up and sat her on his lap. Anthonette was visibly scared of this man, and Sadie grabbed her and took her away. However, the real shocker comes in episode two when they reveal the confession Penny made to FBI agents in 1994.

The FBI report reads the following:
Four days after Anthonette disappeared, Penny told investigators that Emo had given Anthonette flowers three times in the days leading up to her disappearance. Penny did not mention this to investigators until another family member brought it up in the presence of police.
When advised that the FBI had information that she was directly implicated, Cayedito stated the words, "what if I told you Emo and I did this, would we both go to prison?" Cayedito stated that she and Emo got together on a plan prior to her daughter's disappearance. Cayedito advised that Emo [last name redacted] and Ron [last name redacted] had come over, she remarked to Emo that her oldest daughter was getting to be a problem and she wanted a better life for her. Cayedito advised that Emo then told her that he would be the person that would take Anthonette. Cayedito stated she wanted to know where. [Name Redacted] told her it was better she did not know.

In addition to this bombshell, Peggy revealed that when the knock occurred, she told Anthonette to go and answer it. Anthonette never returned. She goes on to say that as soon as daylight started to break, she started having ‘’second thoughts’’ about the plan she had made, but it was too late.

Sadie recalls in 2004, she was contacted by a detective who took her DNA and informed her about her mother’s confession. The detective told her that Penny had stated that she had sold Anthonette for drugs, but she didn’t remember to whom.
 
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