In 1986, This 9-Year-Old Girl Was Snatched From Her Home In The Middle Of The Night After Opening The Front Door To Who She Thought Was Her Uncle
In 1986, Anthonette Christine Cayedito was nine years old and lived with her mother, Penny, and younger sister, Wendy, in Gallup, New Mexico– a territory of the Navajo Indian nation.
The trio had an apartment near Route 66, where Anthonette– who was nicknamed Squirrel– often took on a lot of responsibility. Her mother and father’s relationship had dissolved, so Anthonette often pitched in a lot in her home.
However, on April 6, 1986, the quaint Gallup community of just eighteen thousand people was gut-wrenched by Anthonette’s mysterious disappearance.
It all began that evening when Penny went out to a bar with friends and left her two daughters home with a babysitter. Then, at about midnight, Penny returned home, relieved the babysitter, and went to bed.
But, at about 3:00 a.m., Wendy alleges that she and her sister heard a knock on their front door. Anthonette took the lead and asked who was on the other side, and a male voice claimed he was their Uncle Joe.
The girls did have an Uncle Joe, so Anthonette opened the door. Tragically, though, she was reportedly snatched up by two men and thrown into the back of a brown van Wendy had never seen before.
Still, Wendy was just five years old at the time and went back to bed. So, it was not until the next morning, when Penny awoke at 7:00 a.m. to get the kids ready for church, that she realized Anthonette was missing.
Penny immediately spoke with her neighbors while trying to stay calm. But, when no one had a clue where her eldest daughter was, she contacted the police.
Facebook; pictured above is a photo of Anthonette from 1986
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“We went looking for her around the house, nothing. I didn’t start panicking until we checked with all the neighbors, went to every house, and nobody had seen her,” Penny said.
Authorities immediately launched a search in the surrounding foothills. But, the effort came up dry, and investigators revealed their suspicions that Anthonette had been kidnapped.
Penny continued searching for her daughter, but time continued to pass without any clues. Then, one year later, the Gallup Police Department received an eerie phone call from a little girl.
The girl claimed they were Anthonette Cayedito, and stunned, the dispatcher quickly asked where she was. Sadly though, before the girl could respond, a male voice appeared in the background and ended the call.
“Who said you could use the phone?” the man reportedly yelled before hanging up.
Investigators later played a recording of the phone call for Penny, who claims the girl was undoubtedly her daughter. However, she had no idea who the man was.
“I listened to that tape over and over and over. And just by the way she said her last name and the way she screamed sent chills all over my body. A mother knows, and I know that was her,” Penny recalled.
Nonetheless, the phone call did instill new hope in both Penny and investigators that Anthonette would eventually be found. Still, despite search efforts, four more years passed with little case advancement.
The FBI eventually released two age-progression photographs that would resemble Anthonette at fourteen years old. And, four months later, a strange potential sighting of Anthonette in Carson City, Nevada, was reported to FBI Agent Kevin Miles.
According to Miles, the tipster was a waitress from a Carson City restaurant who claimed to have witnessed a bizarre incident earlier that day.
“She waited on a table at which sat a male and female, rather unkempt, and a small girl about the age of fourteen or fifteen,” Miles explained.
Then, the waitress noticed the little girl deliberately dropping a utensil on the ground repeatedly. After she picked the utensil up and put it back on the table, though, the girl grabbed her hand.
Nonetheless, the waitress thought nothing of the interaction and continued about her shift. But eventually, after the trio left the restaurant and the waitress headed back over to bus their table, she made a horrifying discovery.
“She lifted up the plate belonging to the girl, and 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,” Miles finished.
Unfortunately, this tip never led to investigators locating Anthonette, though. Instead, her mother passed away in 1999, and her father died in 2012.
Additionally, investigators now believe that Anthonette is deceased. Still, they have some questions regarding the report’s timeline.
More specifically, officials thought that Penny had further information about the case since she failed a polygraph test. However, since Penny has passed, officials may never know if their hunch was correct.
On May 2, 1996, an unidentified young woman’s remains between the ages of fourteen and eighteen were also discovered in Albuquerque. Jane Doe was between five foot two and five foot four and believed to be of either native, Hispanic, or white heritage.
However, officials have not confirmed the identity of Jane Doe as Anthonette.
Instead, her family and the Gallup community have held onto hope that answers about what really happened that night will one day be revealed. Anthonette’s cousin even created a Facebook group to help raise awareness of the case.
National Center For Missing & Exploited Children; pictured above is an age-progressed photo of Anthonette
In the meantime, though, Anthonette had brown hair and brown eyes. She also had moles on her nose, right cheek, ankle, and back. Finally, Anthonette had scars on her lip and knee.
If you believe you have any information about Anthonette’s disappearance or whereabouts, you are urged to contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1(800)-843-5678.
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