Disappearance of Anthonette Cayedito

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 Sadie were raised by their mother in Gallup, New Mexico.

Anthonette was described as being level headed, wise beyond her years, and dependable.[4] By the time she was six years old, she was cooking for her sisters, ironing their clothes for the week, and played a vital role in caring for them.[5] According to reports, she was known for being extremely tender hearted, which her youngest sister later described as a “caregiver’s heart”.[4] Her favorite color was purple, she enjoyed listening to Ronnie Milsap, and was nicknamed “Squirrel”. At the time of her disappearance she was a fourth grade student at Lincoln Elementary School, where she maintained exceptionally well grades. She was living with her mom and sisters in apartment number 9 at 204 Arnold St, Gallup, NM.[5]

Cayedito disappeared from her home on U.S. Route 66 in Gallup, New Mexico, in the early morning hours of April 6, 1986.[6] That evening, Cayedito's mother, Penny, had been out with friends at a local bar, and Anthonette along with her younger sisters, Wendy and Sadie were with a babysitter.[6] Penny arrived home around midnight and sent the babysitter home.[6]

According to Wendy, there had been a knock at the door around 3 a.m.; both of the girls were still awake, and Anthonette answered the door. When she asked who was there, the knocker identified himself as "Uncle Joe". When she opened the door, she was grabbed by two men. She kicked and screamed "Let me go! Let me go!", as the men forced her into a brown van. Wendy didn't recognize the men; she didn't get a look at their faces.[3] The following morning, when Penny awoke to prepare the girls for Bible school, she realized Anthonette was not in her bedroom. After inquiring with neighbors, she phoned police.[3]

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Age progression of Cayedito to age 42

One year after Cayedito's disappearance, the Gallup Police Department received a frantic phone call in which a young girl claimed to be Anthonette Cayedito; in the call, she said she was in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Before the girl could reveal her whereabouts, an angry adult male voice was heard shouting, "Who said you could use the phone?!" followed by the girl screaming and the sounds of a scuffle, and the phone call was then cut off.[6] Cayedito's mother, Penny, believed the voice to be her daughter's. She did not recognize the man's voice.[3]

Four years later, in 1991, a waitress at a restaurant in Carson City, Nevada, encountered a teenage girl matching Cayedito's description who continually 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. The girl was in the company of an unkempt couple. 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]

Police interviewed an uncle who was married to Penny's sister, but declined to name him a suspect.[3] Investigators believe Cayedito to be deceased, although her whereabouts remain unknown as of 2021.[1] Her mother, Penny, died on April 18, 1999; in 2016 police stated they believed Penny may have had more information than she had given police concerning her daughter's disappearance, citing a failed lie detector test.[6] Anthonette's father, Anthony, died on August 17, 2012.[7]

In a 2016 interview with the Albuquerque Journal, Wendy Montoya, Anthonette’s youngest sister (who was five at the time of the her sisters abduction), 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 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?”[4]

The trauma of loosing her sister lead 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 to the state. Around 2007, 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] where she leads a private and productive life with her own family and career. Montoya 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.”[4] Montoya still maintains a bit of hope that her sister is somewhere out there, and that there is still time to discover the truth of what became of her.

The life and whereabouts of Wendy’s middle sister, Sadie Montoya, are unknown. Although it has been reported that Anthonette’s disappearance and the events that followed lead to the two sisters becoming estranged.

Cayedito's disappearance was featured on Unsolved Mysteries in December 1992.[3]

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

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