The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts. All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages. Listener discretion is advised. I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski. And I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski. And this is Cold and Missing, where we cover cold cases and missing person cases. Hello everyone and welcome back to Cold and Missing.
I'm your host, Ali, and it'll just be me coming to you this week. My wonderfully handsome co-host, Eli, is not here right now. I'm actually recording this kind of late, so he's already in bed. So I was a little behind this week as far as getting my script done on time. But I still wanted to bring you a new episode, and today we are on a missing person case. And just as a bit of a content warning, this case does involve a young person.
Today we are talking about the missing person case of Anthonette Cayedito. And this takes place in April of 1986 in Gallup, New Mexico. But first, a little bit about Anthonette. Anthonette is nine years old in 1986. She was born on Christmas Day 1976, and she would be 47 years old today. Anthonette had two younger sisters, Sadie or Sedina and Wendy. And Anthonette doted after these two. They were all raised by their mother, Penny Cayedito.
And according to her sisters, Anthonette would take care of them in a lot of ways. She was always dependable. She would feed them, iron their clothes for the week, and just kind of be a really incredible older sister and a wonderful daughter to her mother. Anthonette at this time is four foot seven, 55 pounds, and has brown eyes with brown hair. She's a part of the Navajo Nation. Her family called her Squirrel and often commented that she was nine years old going on 15.
And now the timeline of events. So on Saturday, April 5th, 1986, Penny is going out for the night with friends. A babysitter comes over to watch the girls while Penny has her night out on the town. It's reported that she's just going to a local bar. Even though Anthonette takes care of her sisters, her mother always left them with an adult if she was going to be out for an extended period of time. Penny returns home around midnight on Sunday, April 6th, so this would be the next day.
She sends the babysitter home and settles in for the night. Anthonette, Sadie, and Wendy all have their own rooms, but they all choose to sleep in their mom's room with her. So when Penny arrives home, Anthonette is woken up and her and her mother stay up chatting until around 3 a.m. when they all finally fall asleep. Sadie recalls that someone knocked on the front door. Her and Anthonette get up, but they don't recognize or respond to the man outside, and they go back to bed.
It's unclear how long after, but Sadie and Anthonette hear another knock on the front door. This time only Anthonette gets up, in her pink nightgown, and Sadie stays in bed and falls back asleep. A neighbor recalled that between 6.30 and 7 a.m., she saw an older model brown truck with New Mexico license plates pull up outside of the Cayedito home. The neighbor saw a man approach the front door, but she didn't pay too much attention to him at that time.
Around 7 a.m., Penny gets up and starts to wake up her daughters so they can get ready for Bible school. Penny notices that Anthonette is not in the bed. She gets up and looks around the house for her. Nothing is missing of Anthonette's except her pink nightgown that she wore to bed. Her mother Penny says, quote, All her coats are there and her shoes are both there. I can just tell she didn't dress. End quote.
Near the front door, there are no signs of a struggle, but both the front door and the screen door are unlocked, and Penny is sure that they were both locked when she went to bed. Penny takes Sadie and Wendy out in their PJs and begins to walk around the neighborhood and knock on all of the neighbor's doors to see if they have seen Anthonette or have heard anything.
Penny finally calls the police around 11 a.m. to report Antonette missing, but police tell her she has to wait eight hours before she can make a report. Penny calls her ex, Larry Estrada, to come help search, and family and friends all turn up to search the neighborhood and nearby vacant land, but they don't turn up any clues. Police officially seem to get involved either late Sunday night or early Monday morning, but for sure by Monday, April 6th, police are searching the neighborhood.
But it'll take around four days to search the home, and by this time, a lot of family and friends have come through the home and kind of contaminated the scene. On Wednesday, April 9th, Antonette has been missing for three days. Gallup police call off their official search. Police say that they are awaiting further leads in her disappearance, but a $500 reward is announced for any information leading to her.
The next day, police have come up with a plan, and they are going to backtrack and re-question family, friends, and neighbors. Police do say that they are getting leads, but they are having trouble tracking down everyone in Anthonette's life. Detective Danny Ross says, quote, We have to look at it as an abduction now. If she had gone with someone willingly, contact would have been made by someone by now. We're starting at ground zero. End quote.
Anthonette's parents believe that she went with someone she knew. Her parents are sure that she would not open the door for anyone that she didn't know. Anthonette's dad says, quote, It's like she just vanished. It's unbelievable to me. You hear of kids being taken from some public place, but not from their own home. End quote. Anthonette's family has gone door to door, joined police searches, and distributed flyers in hopes to get some leads and clues on what. Happened to Anthonette.
The next big update that I could find comes from June 22nd of 1986. So Anthonette has been missing for about two and a half months at this point. Police are baffled by her disappearance. Police Chief Frank Gonzalez says, quote, There wasn't a trace. If there had been anything, we would have found something the next day. End quote. Police say they have polygraphed the family, and it is reported that they all passed.
Now later, they will say that Penny failed her polygraph, but it is initially reported that all family passed the polygraph test. During this two and a half months, Penny gets a telephone installed in her home. She hadn't had one prior to this, but she doesn't want to miss any updates or news about her daughter. Penny says, quote, I know she's alive out there. I just know that. My mother's intuition. I'm depending on Anthonette to get away, to somehow get a message to us. End quote.
And with that, on April 12th, 1987, so it's been a full year now since Anthonette disappeared, Gallup police get a phone call to their station, not 911, but their non-emergency line. The phone call is automatically recorded, and according to reports, there was a 40-second phone call from Anthonette. She identified herself as Anthonette Cayedito, and that she was an Albuquerque. As she's talking, a man curses and demands who gave her permission to use the phone.
Another voice is heard, possibly an older person asking who is on the line. More cursing from the man and a child sobbing can all be heard. Now, if you research this case, you will find audio of what is supposed to be this phone call, it's very easy to find, you just have to type in Anthonette Cayedito 911 call or police phone call, like it'll pop right up, it's very easy to find. But I'm not entirely sure that that recording is the official recording that police released.
For one, every example that I could find of it, at the end, it all has this like music, like kind of just like generic YouTube video, just like generic YouTube music underneath it. And then it kind of sounds like a sound effect of like a line going dead, or like the dialing tone. But it doesn't really follow this script that is initially reported, like it does to a certain extent, but you don't hear another voice, you don't really hear more cursing, there's not a lot happening that you can hear.
So I couldn't verify it, I couldn't find any, you know, newspapers or local news who played this, this clip, this audio, and reported it as Anthonette's phone call. And I couldn't find any investigation agency also putting it out there. But we do know that in 1989, police do play the call on the radio to try to generate leads. So I say all that to say that it could be the phone call. But since I couldn't necessarily verify it, I'm not going to play it here on the podcast.
But back to the timeline. So when police play the recording for Penny, she immediately believes that it is Antonette's. She says, quote, it was her voice. I would know my baby's voice anywhere, end quote. Penny believes that Anthonette's is alive. And for the people who are holding her captive, she says, quote, I don't think they mean to harm her. I think they just don't know how to give her back without getting in trouble. End quote.
In December of 1987, which should have been Anthonette's 11th birthday, and she's been missing for around 20 months now, police say that there have been sightings of Anthonette's from all over the United States. Police and the FBI look into these sightings and most are quickly dismissed. Police have been unable to rule anyone out as a suspect, and police do believe that some family members have not been forthcoming with all the information that they may know.
Police say they are restarting the case from square one. Detective Amos Hinshaw says, quote, this is the third or fourth time we have started over at square one looking for something new, end quote. Sadie is now telling police that on the day that Anthonette disappeared, that morning hour between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m., Sadie is now saying that there was a man and a woman at the door, and they ID'd themselves as an aunt and uncle.
She says, quote, they said, hurry up, we're cold out here, open the door, end quote. As I just mentioned, police do release Anthonette's phone call in January of 1989 on the local radio, and this does generate some leads. Investigators feel that they have no other options at this point, but to release the audio since they are out of leads, they have nowhere to turn, and Anthonette has been missing for almost three years now.
Police didn't want to release it any sooner because they worried that the child would have gotten in trouble if that man that can be heard on the audio figured out that she did call police. Police did believe there was a chance that the person didn't know it was a police line that she had called. In 1990, a waitress in Carson City, Nevada is waiting on a couple that has a teenage girl with them, and she describes them as uncapped.
Anthonette at this time would be around 13 or 14 years old, so the description of like a teenager being there does match and does fit up. The teenage girl kept dropping her fork, and when the waitress would get it for her, the girl would squeeze her hand. After they left, the server found a napkin under the girl's plate that said, help me, call police. It's not clear how Anthonette gets associated with this encounter, but it does seem like she
recognized the girl as Anthonette later. Anthonette's case appears to fall out of the media until around 2016. Anthonette's youngest sister, Wendy, looks back 30 years and says, quote, 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. Really, I'm not sure what happened to her, end quote. Penny had passed away in the late 90s, but police do suggest in recent reports that she knew more than what she told them and that she did in fact fail the polygraph test, as I had mentioned previously.
Now, if you are to research this case on your own after this podcast or maybe during this podcast, if you're multitasking, I have read about some other rumors in the case that I just couldn't verify and I didn't see any like news outlets reporting on, so I'm not sure what happened. I'll just kind of mention them briefly here, but years later, Wendy will say that she did witness the abduction and that she saw two men grab Antonette and like kind of pull her outside from
her standing at the door, kind of answering the door. So that's one story that's kind of popped up over the internet, but I couldn't find the origin of it. I wasn't sure where that came from. And another rumor is that Penny was involved with the planning and kidnapping of her daughter. Now, police do seem a little suspicious that Penny isn't telling them everything that she may know, but they never publicly accuse her of setting up her daughter's disappearance or name her
officially as a suspect. They just can't rule her out, but they've never been able to rule anybody out in this case, so that's kind of where that stands for those two items. But if you know anything about the disappearance of Anthonette Cayedito in April of 1986 or her whereabouts today, please call the Gallup Police Department at 505-863-9365. And the sources for the timeline today come from the Albuquerque Journal, which really covered a lot of the story and where I got a lot
of my articles, the Santa Fe New Mexican, and QRQE News. So that is the case and timeline of Anthonette Cayedito. And this case is pretty well covered. I noticed it had been covered by a lot of podcasts, a lot of blogs. There's a lot of reports out there, which is why I'm a little cautious about reporting those rumors or slipping those into the timeline. I try to just keep the
timeline to the facts that I've been able to kind of verify and look up in research. But this case, I think, is so popular because of this phone call aspect that Anthonette called almost a year to the date, the non-emergency police number at the police station to kind of say, to identify herself and say that she's an Albuquerque and then there's some sort of commotion with the man. Another person is maybe heard in the background. And as I mentioned in the timeline, there is a recording
floating out there on the internet. But again, I just couldn't find the origin of this phone call. So I didn't know if it was, you know, maybe actors recreating it. If it is the actual audio, we know the police did release the audio at some point. I tried to email the Gallup Police Department to see if I could get a copy of this, but as of today, I haven't gotten a response. So that's fine. I will update, of course, if I get one. But I would be very interested to hear
that phone call and to really know what's being said there. And it's just like the validity of it. Police say that they were unable to trace that phone call. And unfortunately, it's something that we see a lot in these cold cases, things that drag on year over year is that some people will just kind of be especially cruel and like call the parents and say that they have them, they've seen them, you know, just like those cruel jokes. And unfortunately, it's something that
we hear about quite a bit. So is it that like someone just being like really cruel? I'm not sure. But I would be interested in really hearing that phone call if it's not the one that you can find online. But another kind of question that I have is all these sightings of Antonette's across the United States. There's, I think, like five different states where there are reports of her coming in, and, you know, FBI are able to rule a lot of those out. But then we have this waitress' store
of this teenage girl with this couple that leaves the note that says, Please help call police. Like, what happened there, you know, regardless of if it's if it's Anthonette or not, I would just be curious what exactly is happening there, because it seemed like the girl needed help one way or the other. And I hope she got it, you know, wherever she is today. Yeah, this case, you know, kind of kept bringing up hope for the family that they were going to be able to bring Antonette home,
you know, with the phone call and all these sightings. I just feel really bad for her family, her mother, her sisters. They were such a close unit, but it really seems like her disappearance, you know, caused a very deep wound in everybody that took a long time to heal, which I think is really understandable. And I can't imagine the roller coaster that the family would go through of feeling her absence very loudly, but then also getting these glimmers of hope that she is alive.
She's trying to get a message out. Like she's trying to call for help. Like, we're going to bring her home any day now. Like, those like roller coasters of emotions of like highs and lows, like, I really want peace for this family and justice for them and answers for them. They deserve to know
what happened to their sister. It's really unfortunate that it felt like police really waited and kind of dropped the ball in those first, you know, very critical 48 hours, like, just telling Penny that she had to wait eight hours before she could report her daughter missing. You know, she had already waited. It was seven to 11, you know, like that was already a chunk of time to figure out she's not in the neighborhood. She's not in the house. She's not, you know,
she's not anywhere. We need to get searching and, you know, the family and friends come together and do search. But, you know, you can't help but wonder, like, did they miss something? Did they miss something? Did they maybe contaminate a scene or evidence? Like, all of these people searching and probably in a very heightened state of emotion kind of frantically searching, like,
was something missed? Was something ignored, stepped on? Like, you know, was there, you know, shuffles in the grass or like, you know, an indentation indicating a struggle that people just didn't notice because they're looking, they're not looking for those little, little details. They're looking for the big obvious, where is Anthonette? You know, but yeah, I really hope that this family gets answers because it's been a very long time. And, you know, in the beginning,
the police didn't really take it all that seriously. But more recently, you know, I mentioned 2016 is kind of when it re-emerges in the media. And that is directly because of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Movement, which we've talked about on this podcast before. You know, that advocacy work and talking about these cases that don't get a lot of coverage
does help them get attention at police departments. So really, thank you for being here and thank you for listening to stories like Anthonette's because it really does help and it helps put pressure on police to solve it and to put resources towards this case. So you're, you know, this is kind of the work too. So I appreciate you being here. And again, if you know anything about the disappearance of Anthonette Cayedito in April of 1986 or her whereabouts today, please call the Gallup Police
Department at 505-863-9365. And one really easy thing that you can do if you like this podcast, what we stand for, what we're doing. And if you want, you know, more of these stories, known and unknown cases with like just good old fashioned research. One way you can support this podcast is just by rating and reviewing it in your favorite podcast platform. If you're on Spotify, if you could give us five stars, I see that we do have lots of five stars reviews. So thank you so much
if you've already done that. If you're an Apple podcast, leaving us a written review really helps other people find us and take a chance on us if they see that a lot of people have said love this podcast, really like it. All the reviews have been really, really kind. So that really helps people try out a podcast for the first time. So if you could do that, thank you. If you've already done that, thank you so much. You're incredible. We will be posting pictures of Antonette's on our
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us, you can do it there. So that's all over at our website, coldandmissing.com. But again, thank you, thank you, thank you so much for listening to cold and missing. I'm your host, Allie McLaughlin, Zulkowski. Have a great week and stay safe, y'all.