Anthonette Christine Cayedito: A Child Stolen in the Night

I was 12 years old in 1986 when nine-year-old Anthonette Christine Cayedito disappeared from her home in Gallup, New Mexico. Even then, as a child myself, I remember the horror of hearing about another little girl, not much younger than me, taken from her bed in the dead of night.

What chills me to this day is that her story didn’t stay in the spotlight. The outrage faded. But the case—the contradictions, the disturbing accounts, the overlooked confessions—never went away. And it should still make every one of us furious.

Anthonette’s mother, Penny, had plans to go out the evening before her daughter’s disappearance. As she was getting ready, a man named Emeliano—“Emo” came to the house. He brought Anthonette flowers, gifts, and even had her sit on his lap while Penny was out of the room.

Four days after Anthonette vanished, Penny finally told investigators that Emo had brought flowers to her daughter three times in the days leading up to the disappearance. But she didn’t offer this information voluntarily—it came out only after another family member mentioned it in front of police.

Witnesses later confirmed Emo had been seen with flowers the night before Anthonette went missing.

Penny told one of Anthonette’s sisters, Sadie, to go to bed around midnight. Sadie remembers Penny and Anthonette staying up late “playing cards”—something she described as unusual.

Not long after, someone began knocking at the door. It wasn’t “Uncle Joe,” as the legend would later claim, but another man who wanted Penny to let him in. Penny told the children to ignore it.

Meanwhile, a man named Roger told investigators he went to Penny’s house at around 3:30 a.m. to check on her after they’d argued at a bar. He knocked on the door and windows, but when no one answered, he left. His friend confirmed that he spent the night at his house afterward.

Five years later, Wendy, another of Anthonette’s sisters, said she heard a second round of knocks. She claimed it was “Uncle Joe” at the door, and that Anthonette opened it, only to be abducted. But Sadie insisted no second knock ever happened.

Penny, too, gave shifting stories. At first, she told local police she woke up at 3 a.m., saw Anthonette sleeping, and then discovered her gone at 7 a.m. But when the FBI interviewed her in 1994, she admitted she’d heard knocking and had told Anthonette to answer it. She claimed she waited 30 minutes before realizing her daughter never came back.

She also claimed the knock happened just before dawn—between 3:30 and 4:30 a.m.—but that she could see daylight. That timeline doesn’t hold. At that time, in that place, it would have still been dark.

According to Sadie, Emo only came to the house when he was with Penny’s best friend, Ronald. Yet the night before Anthonette vanished, Emo showed up alone—with flowers and a bear necklace. After Anthonette’s disappearance, that same necklace appeared on a shrine Penny made in her memory.

Strangely, after the abduction, neither Emo nor Ronald ever returned to the home. Both men reportedly failed polygraph tests, though no results appear in the official case files. Emo was never named a suspect.

The most shocking revelation comes from Penny herself. In 1994, when the FBI confronted her with their suspicion that she was involved in her daughter’s disappearance, she allegedly asked:

“What if I told you Emo and I did this, would we both go to prison?”

According to the FBI report, she admitted she and Emo discussed a plan. She told him that Anthonette was “getting to be a problem” and that she wanted a better life. Emo supposedly told her he would take Anthonette, but that it was better she didn’t know where.

A former Gallup detective later revealed he confronted Penny with allegations she had told people she “sold Anthonette for drugs.” She denied it. But when the FBI report containing her near-confession was turned over to Gallup police, that crucial interview wasn’t included. Without it, prosecutors said they couldn’t build a case.

Adding another twist: at 6:30 a.m. the morning Anthonette disappeared, a search party just a block away was out looking for a lost dog. Penny’s live-in boyfriend later claimed that members of the party told him Anthonette had been with them. She never returned.

Nearly 40 years later, Anthonette would be 48 years old today. Instead of celebrating birthdays, she is frozen in time: nine years old, wearing a pink nightgown, her silver chain with a turquoise cross pendant, gone into the darkness.

What happened that night? Did Penny conspire with Emo? Was Anthonette truly abducted by a stranger? Did law enforcement miss their chance when Penny’s words weren’t preserved in the official file?

What I know is this: a little girl was taken violently, and instead of outrage echoing through the years, her story fell into silence. That silence is its own kind of injustice.

Anthonette deserves more than that.

If you have information about the disappearance of Anthonette Christine Cayedito, please contact the Gallup Police Department at 505-863-9365 or the FBI Gallup Resident Agency at 505-726-6000. NamUs Case #4401.