Here is an article from the local newspaper about Anthonette's disappearance in 2010:
Where is Anthonette?; Kidnapped from home 24 years ago, no sign
May 17, 2010 at 9:06am
By Joseph J. Kolb
The Gallup Herald
GALLUP — Most nine-year-olds enjoy a life of play, the love of parents, and safety in their own home. In 1986 Anthonette Cayedito had none of these and now her life has been relegated to a large cardboard box numbered 00006-86 filled with photos, interview documents, and dead-end clues on a remote shelf at Gallup Police Headquarters.
Sometime between the hours of 3 a.m.-7 a.m. on April 7, 1986, Anthonette was kidnapped from her home at 204 Arnold Street, Apartment #9, by two men who dragged her to a brown van parked in front of the house.
“We haven’t had anything on this case for almost 10 years since the mother died,” said Deputy Chief of Police John Allen. “We’ve had several detectives look at this case over the years but haven’t been able to come up with anything new.”
On the darker side of Anthonette’s life, she and her two sisters were frequently left alone with a babysitter by their mother Penny, who often frequented the bars along Highway 66. She had been out at the Talk of the Town Bar until after midnight the night her daughter was abducted.
There was also speculation that both Penny and Anthonette’s biological father, Larry Estrada, were involved with drugs.
“A neighbor said it wasn’t unusual for Penny to have people visit all hours of the night,” said Allen as he reviewed the yellowing reports.
During the early stages of the investigation, according to Allen, there was a group of suspects that included two known sex offenders, but none panned out as credible suspects.
Around midnight of the kidnapping, Penny returned home after leaving her three young daughters with a babysitter. She told investigators that she allowed the children to stay up and play until 3 a.m. Penny said Anthonette slept in her bed with her but wasn’t there when she went to wake the girls at 7 a.m. for Bible School. She never reported hearing the knock on the door that her daughter answered. It wasn’t until she woke up at 7 a.m., did Penny notice Anthonette missing.
She initially thought Anthonette had gone looking for a neighbor’s dog that had been missing.
After calling her repeatedly panic set in. She and the neighbors began scouring the nearby hills and around the housing complex to no avail.
The case went cold, despite a three day search, from the beginning.
A week after her daughter went missing Penny turned to a Navajo Medicine Woman who performed the Crystal Ceremony where she contacted the spirit of a missing person. She told Penny that Anthonette may be alive and have a child but is being threatened if she leaves. There was the startling revelation that Anthonette was taken by someone she knew.
The circumstances of the kidnapping didn’t actually surface until four years later when Cayedito’s younger sister, Wendy, who was five-years-old at the time, told Gallup Police Department Detective Marty Esquibel and FBI agent Kevin Miles that her sister answered a knock at the door by a man identifying herself as “Uncle Joe.” Wendy told Esquibel and Miles that she didn’t say anything because of how upset her mother, Penny, was. The “Uncle Joe” lead proved to be a dead-end.
Years after he left the police department Esquibel said he had his suspicions about what had happened.
“I’m pretty confident Penny had knowledge of who took Anthonette based on her failing a polygraph test administered by the FBI,” said Esquibel recently which coincides with the medicine woman’s spiritual hypothesis.
Despite the failed polygraph the District Attorney’s office never pursued any charges against Penny.
A significant break came seven months later when the Gallup Police dispatch received a call from a girl identifying herself as Anthonette as being in Albuquerque. After a brief exchange with the dispatcher a voice could be heard in the background then the girl screamed. Esquibel and Miles brought the tape to Penny who confirmed it was his daughter.
“I listened to that tape over and over and just got chills,” said Penny during a 1992 episode of the television show Unsolved Mysteries which profiled the case.
Just as abruptly as hope emerged, it disappeared for four years.
At a diner in Carson City, Nev., a young girl, around the age Anthonette would have been at the time, was eating with an unkempt man and woman. She repeatedly attempted to get the waitress’s attention. When the trio left and the waitress was cleaning the table she found a note pleading her for help and to call the police. By the time she found the note the trio was long gone.
Over the years there have been sporadic reports of someone fitting the description of Anthonette being seen from Canada to New York, to Texas.
There was little to no tangible evidence left at the scene. There were no DNA samples taken because the technology did not exist at the time. Samples were later taken from family members when technology caught up with the case but it was of no help.
While the case became a dark memory for Gallup and her classmates from Lincoln Elementary
School moved or started families of their own, the FBI went to question Penny on her deathbed in Tucson, Ariz., but arrived too late. She had died.
According to Special Agent Steve Marshall, spokesman, FBI’s Albuquerque Field Office, the case was closed in June 2006, after endless leads led to more endless leads.
“This case was very weird,” said Marshall who would not speculate on suspects or what happened to Anthonette.
The Gallup Police still consider the case open but as the years pass the white cardboard box is beginning to take on a beige appearance of age.
“I don’t know but at this point the statistics of such cases would lead us to believe she is dead,” said Allen. “But we just don’t know.”
Esquibel said Anthonette’s chances may have been better had their been the Amber Alert System in place.
“Back then we had to wait 24 hours before considering a child missing,” he said.
Anyone with information regarding the disappearance of Anthonette Cayedito, who would now be 34-years-old, should call the Gallup Police Department at 505-863-9365.
