Anthonette Cayedito

Sometime in the early morning hours of April 6, 1986, someone knocked on the door of a small home just off Route 66 in Gallup, New Mexico. A nine-year-old girl named Anthonette Cayedito got out of bed. By the time the sun rose, she was gone. There have been many versions of what happened between the knock and when Anthonette’s family realized she was missing, but what we do know is that there was no forced entry, no struggle, and nothing was taken– except for Anthonette. A three-day search of Gallup and the land around it turned up nothing at all.

The next four decades would bring sightings, changing stories, and even what many believe is a confession. But to this day, Anthonette Cayedito remains missing.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Anthonette Cayedito, please contact the Gallup Police Department at (505) 863-9365, or the FBI's Albuquerque Division at (505) 889-1300. You can also submit a tip online at tips.fbi.gov.

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[SPEAKER_00]: dark cast network, indie pods with a dark side.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sometime in the early morning hours of April 6, 1986, someone knocked on the door of a small home, just offered 66 in Gallup, New Mexico.

[SPEAKER_01]: A nine-year-old girl named Anthony Kaya Dito got out of bed.

[SPEAKER_01]: By the time the sun rose, she was gone.

[SPEAKER_01]: There have been many versions of what happened between the knock and when Anthonette's family realized she was missing, but what we do know is that there was no forced entry, no struggle, and nothing was taken, except for Anthonette.

[SPEAKER_01]: A three-day search of Gallup and the land around it turned up nothing at all.

[SPEAKER_01]: The next four decades would bring sightings, changing stories, and even what many believe is a confession.

[SPEAKER_01]: But to this day, Anthonette Kia-Dito remains missing.

[SPEAKER_01]: When a person goes missing, there's a special kind of pain in the not knowing.

[SPEAKER_01]: I want to tell the stories of those who never came home.

[SPEAKER_01]: Today, I want to tell you the story of Anthonette Kia-Dito.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Kona Gallagher.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm Ethan Flick.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is, and then they were gone.

[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back everyone.

[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome back.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for joining us once again.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Kona.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm Ethan.

[SPEAKER_01]: And where the husband and wife team behind this podcast.

[SPEAKER_01]: Each week I tell you this story of an unsolved missing person's case.

[SPEAKER_01]: Ethan doesn't know anything about the case going into the episode and is here to provide his reactions and questions in real time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully asking some of the same ones you have at home.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, this one is absolutely devastating for a lot of reasons, but what kills me is the fact that the 40th anniversary was just a few months before we're recording this, and there was nothing but crickets online.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I couldn't find anything from the Gallup Police Department or the FBI.

[SPEAKER_01]: And while there isn't much in the way of physical evidence in this case, which I mean is true of most of the cases we cover, there is a lot in the way of people who probably have information.

[SPEAKER_01]: It really seems as though a headway could be made on this case, if whatever cold case detective is assigned to it right now, actually gets aggressive.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because, you know, listen in any story that's 40 years old, a lot of the key players are no longer with us.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: But some of them are.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think there are a lot of people who know something.

[SPEAKER_01]: Before we get into it, we've had a few folks join us over on Patreon, so we'd like to take a moment and give them a shout out.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you too, Mark and Shelley W. We really appreciate your support.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you both so much.

[SPEAKER_01]: As a reminder, if you'd like to get our episodes ad free and sometimes early, you can join us over on Patreon at any level, starting at just $2 a month.

[SPEAKER_01]: You'll also get a free copy of the e-books that I wrote.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, let's get into the story of Anthonyette, Gaia Dito.

[SPEAKER_01]: Enthanette Christine Cayedito's born on Christmas Day, December 25, 1976, to Theresa Penny Cayedito and Larry Estrada.

[SPEAKER_01]: Penny was DNA of the Navajo Nation, her parents separated when Enthanette was just a baby and Enthanette lived with Penny.

[SPEAKER_01]: Larry remarried and Penny either remarried or was in a relationship with the man named Anthony Montoya.

[SPEAKER_01]: Penny and Anthony had two daughters, Sanita, who goes by Sadie and Wendy.

[SPEAKER_01]: All three girls were about two years apart.

[SPEAKER_01]: After Penny and Anthony split, the sisters all lived with Penny in Gallup, New Mexico.

[SPEAKER_01]: In April 1986, Anthony was nine, Sadie was seven, and Wendy was five.

[SPEAKER_01]: Ethanette was a fourth grader at Lincoln Elementary School and according to her father, Larry, quote, she was nine going on 15 and quote.

[SPEAKER_01]: Ethanette helped her mother to care of her younger sisters and her family described her as having a caregiver's heart.

[SPEAKER_01]: Ethanette would cook for her sisters and even iron their clothes.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sounds similar to our eight-year-old, except he's cooking for his older brothers.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but he's definitely not ironing clothes.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, we'd have to own an iron for that to actually work.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that is true.

[SPEAKER_01]: Anthony out was incredibly responsible, but she was still just a nine-year-old girl.

[SPEAKER_01]: Her family called her squirrel and her favorite color was purple.

[SPEAKER_01]: She liked Michael Jackson and somewhat randomly, country music singer Ronnie Milsep.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't even know who that is.

[SPEAKER_01]: I've heard of him, but I don't know either.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why I was like, okay, maybe Michael Jackson in 1986, yeah, obviously.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe he was big in the Mexico with the thought.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, maybe.

[SPEAKER_01]: Penny and Trider best, but she was racing three little girls largely on her own.

[SPEAKER_01]: And according to her daughters, the household was chaotic.

[SPEAKER_01]: People came and went at all hours, there was drinking and more.

[SPEAKER_01]: Wendy told the Gallup Sun in 2016 that her mother was always going out and they had a lot of people coming over to the house.

[SPEAKER_01]: A neighbor later told police the same thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't unusual for Penny to have visitors at all hours of the night.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Saturday, April 5, 1986 wasn't a night where Penny was partying at the house and having people over.

[SPEAKER_01]: That night she went out and the girl stayed home with a babysitter.

[SPEAKER_01]: Penny came back her own midnight and sent the babysitter home, but she didn't send the kids straight to bed, at least not all of them.

[SPEAKER_01]: According to Penny, she and Ethanette stayed up playing cards until around 3am.

[SPEAKER_01]: Which yes, that sounds a little odd.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so in a recent interview, CD was asked if that was something that Anthony and Penny normally did.

[SPEAKER_01]: And CD said that no, it wasn't.

[SPEAKER_03]: All right, suspicion already.

[SPEAKER_01]: Penny would later tell police that the last time she saw her daughter was around 3am.

[SPEAKER_01]: Basically, they finished their card game and went to bed.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, the house that they lived in was a one-level four-bedroom two-bathroom house.

[SPEAKER_01]: But, the girls usually slept in their mom's room.

[SPEAKER_01]: At about 70am, just four hours later, Penny got up to take the girls to Bible school.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's when she realized that, infinite, wasn't there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Penny says that she in the girl's search the house.

[SPEAKER_01]: When they couldn't find Anthony at, they began to go door to door around the neighborhood, but no luck.

[SPEAKER_01]: At around 11am, Penny called the police.

[SPEAKER_03]: Four hours later.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so they searched the house in the neighborhood for about four hours, but it was 1986, so even though Anthony at was a child who ostensibly went missing from her bed, Penny was told that she'd have to wait an additional four hours, so a total of eight, before a missing person's report could be taken.

[SPEAKER_01]: are the whole of that number come for right it's so right this is the first time you know you know over 200 episodes that i've heard eight out of yeah for a child for a child like if it's an adult give him a couple days don't come back if it's a child yeah you know they're they're working there nine to five they'll come back like what the hell I don't know when police did begin their investigation they did the things that the family had already been doing they went door to door and spoke with neighbors as well as those who are close to

[SPEAKER_01]: By that time, Penny had looked through Anthony's room and discovered that nothing was missing, not even her shoes.

[SPEAKER_01]: It seemed to sew Anthony disappeared wearing only her pink night gown.

[SPEAKER_01]: They also learned a new piece of information from Sadie.

[SPEAKER_01]: Someone had come to the door.

[SPEAKER_01]: According to Sadie, who is the seven-year-old?

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some time after 3 a.m. they heard a man at their front door.

[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't answer the door though, and they went back to sleep.

[SPEAKER_01]: Both Penny and Larry were adamant that Anthemette wouldn't have opened the door to a stranger, but they believed that there was a second knock.

[SPEAKER_01]: In an April 11 article in the Albuquerque Journal, Larry told their

[SPEAKER_01]: She told her father that Anthony got up to see who was at the door, but she stayed in bed and went back to sleep.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now the reason her parents believed that Anthony had opened the door was because the doors and windows had all been locked before the family went to bed, and there was no sign of forced entry or any struggle.

[SPEAKER_01]: In addition to the locked front door, there was a screen door that was also latched.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Anthony would have had to open two separate doors in order to let someone in.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that immediately told everybody that Anthony had opened the door to somebody she knew.

[SPEAKER_03]: But the either of the parents heard this, these knocks.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, so Larry didn't live there.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he wasn't there.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of Penny's elderly neighbors said that she saw a brown pickup truck outside of Penny's home around 6.30 or 7am on the morning of Anthony's disappearance.

[SPEAKER_01]: What's more, she says she saw a man get out of the truck and approach Penny's house.

[SPEAKER_01]: But she wasn't able to give a description of the man to police or get the license plate number.

[SPEAKER_03]: or the type of truck make model.

[SPEAKER_03]: No, I don't think that was brown makeup.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, just a brown pickup.

[SPEAKER_01]: Both Larry and Penny said that they didn't know anyone who drove a brown truck.

[SPEAKER_01]: Ethanette went missing on a Sunday morning, but police didn't call in the state search and rescue team until Monday.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because they're off on Sundays?

[SPEAKER_01]: I guess.

[UNKNOWN]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: None of the searches performed by family, friends, or the police in those first few days

[SPEAKER_01]: As the first week of the investigation began to wind down, police said they were going to start back tracking and reinterviewing people in Anthony's life.

[SPEAKER_01]: Interestingly, and this is another thing that I find to be completely confounding, it took investigators over days to do an actual search of Anthony's house.

[SPEAKER_03]: I thought she said that they started searching right away or that that was just the neighborhood.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: So nobody went into the house initially.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think they like maybe went in into the looky-loo like makes make sure she wasn't hiding in a closet or something, but they didn't do like an official in-depth search for four days.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, that's a lot of time to get rid of evidence.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And even if you're looking at it from a completely innocent point of view, they don't a little girl was missing.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Anthony, it's family is from that area.

[SPEAKER_01]: They had a ton of family and friends.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, of course, what do you do?

[SPEAKER_01]: You go to the house.

[SPEAKER_01]: You see how the family's doing.

[SPEAKER_01]: People were coming in and out every single day at all hours.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I mean, yes, nefariously, evidence could be getting rid of, but evidence could also just be compromised or, you know, destroy it taken out of the house.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, accidentally, yes, right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Fingerprints, I mean, you know, that doesn't mean anything at that point.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Only a weekend, Larry was beginning to lose faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: He told reporters that he was considering borrowing money to hire private investigator, saying, quote, I've got street people that aren't very friendly with the law.

[SPEAKER_01]: I figure I can get more information from the street right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe they can bring something to me, the words out, and quote.

[SPEAKER_01]: if and it went missing 40 years ago.

[SPEAKER_01]: And even though I've searched newspaper archives to find the original articles, there's always a chance that there were articles that were written that, you know, just aren't there, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: So I can't definitively say that what I've been able to find is everything that was published back then.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what I can say is that after the April 11th article I was talking about, the next one I've been able to find is from June 22nd.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: So like really quick blurb in the news and then gone for a while.

[SPEAKER_01]: They go on.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then that headline, the June 22nd, one reads, beat of missing girl nine remains mystery.

[SPEAKER_01]: That article is basically about how police were baffled.

[SPEAKER_01]: They responded to criticism that they didn't start the investigation early enough by saying that it wouldn't matter because they were simply no clues to be found.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, no clues to be found after four days, sure.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I mean, just on the news articles alone, what you're telling me, like, so you have a neighbor that saw the truck, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And a man approaching the house somewhere around 6.30 to 7, which is about the time, like,

[SPEAKER_03]: So just on that alone, given that she saw the truck, she saw the man, she didn't hear or at least she didn't report hearing, like a scream or anything, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: There's no sign of forest entry.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's nobody else coming forward that they heard a child screaming in the wee hours of the morning.

[SPEAKER_03]: To me, it says right away, this is somebody that she knew.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right, yeah, because they say like she's not going to open the door to a stranger and she had to not only open the door, but she opened the door, saw through the screen door, who it was and then unlocked the screen door to yeah, so this is somebody that she knows absolutely, but who?

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I suppose if you were a police officer or an investigator back then, maybe you start poking around friends and family, right.

[SPEAKER_03]: They can a little deeper into Penny's life and who she knows and who she hangs out with.

[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: They can't sit there and say they're stumped.

[SPEAKER_03]: They have no clues.

[SPEAKER_03]: They have an eyewitness saying they're just a man approach the house with a brown truck at that time of day.

[SPEAKER_01]: And every piece of evidence points to and then at opening the door

[SPEAKER_01]: So police were looking into people who penny hung around with it and things like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, in this article, they also said that they gave the family members polygraphs and that nobody was seeming to be deceptive.

[SPEAKER_01]: They even consulted kidnapping experts and hypnotized penny, but couldn't uncover anything else.

[SPEAKER_01]: But one thing they did find out was the identity of the first man who was knocking on the doors in Windows.

[SPEAKER_01]: OK. His name was Ron Perry.

[SPEAKER_01]: Perry was a friend of pennies.

[SPEAKER_01]: According to CD, they were best friends.

[SPEAKER_01]: He told detectives that around 3.30 a.m. he knocked on the Kaya Ditto's front door and on the bedroom window because he'd argued with Penny at the bar earlier and wanted to check on her.

[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody answered though, and he says he left to inspect the rest of the night at a friend's house down the street and the friend backed him up.

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh-huh.

[SPEAKER_03]: Does this person also own a brown pickup truck?

[SPEAKER_01]: No, but we'll get more into the truck in a bit.

[SPEAKER_01]: Penny told reporters that she strongly believed that internet was still alive, but that she thought her long-brown hair had been cut.

[SPEAKER_01]: She said it was her mother's intuition.

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's random.

[SPEAKER_01]: She also said that at that point, she was barely leaving the house because there had been a number of awful rumors that have been going around town, including one that she'd beaten, internet with a bat, and buried her behind the shop and saved.

[SPEAKER_03]: She's this Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: This was apparently based on a rumor that police had found a child's body buried behind the grocery store, but nobody had been found so that was just completely made up.

[SPEAKER_01]: She said that the stress caused her to suffer from a nervous breakdown and put her in the hospital for four days.

[SPEAKER_01]: It wouldn't be until a year later, that a huge clue would arrive and show that Penny's intuition about Anthonette may have been right.

[SPEAKER_01]: On the afternoon of April 12, 1987, a little over a year after Anthonette vanished, the phone rang at the Gallup Police Department.

[SPEAKER_01]: On the other end, was a young girl who said that she was Anthonette, Kaya Dito.

[SPEAKER_01]: The call was 42nd's long, but police were unable to trace it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to play it for you now.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, we're back to now the 30th.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was in the 30th.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hello.

[SPEAKER_02]: Antonin, where are you?

[SPEAKER_02]: Eccona.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, we know that police often receive prank calls in these cases, but that one felt very real.

[SPEAKER_03]: No, that was terrifying.

[SPEAKER_03]: Isn't it?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it sounded like somebody had come up and grabbed her off of the phone.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it did.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then you just hear screaming and then it cuts out like that's horrible.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Even Penny was convinced that it was her daughter saying, quote, it was her voice.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would know my baby's voice anywhere and quote.

[SPEAKER_01]: She also said later on unsolved mysteries that like the way she said her last name was like exactly the same way and then it would say it too.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, she definitely thought it was her daughter.

[SPEAKER_01]: Even before this call came in though, because remember, this is almost exactly a year later.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Siting's of Anthanette, we're rolling in.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just two days after she vanished, a man in San Antonio, Texas, thought that he'd seen a girl in a long-pink dress standing on the side of the road with a blonde woman.

[SPEAKER_01]: Later that April, a woman near a thriftweight gas station said that a brown truck went past her and she was sure she heard a small voice screaming for help.

[SPEAKER_01]: That June, a man at a bus depot in El Paso, Texas reported seeing a girl in a pink dress with two men.

[SPEAKER_01]: He also said that she had a mark on her cheek, and Ethan at did have a mole on her right cheek.

[SPEAKER_01]: In November 1989, a man in Missouri told police he'd seen her at a truck stop off of ice 70.

[SPEAKER_01]: He said that she was alone in torn jeans and a dirty white t-shirt.

[SPEAKER_01]: He said that she seemed frightened of people.

[SPEAKER_01]: He said that she looked like she had been punished for something.

[SPEAKER_01]: None of these sightings were confirmed of course, but they all followed basically the same pattern.

[SPEAKER_01]: A girl on the road, a girl with strangers, a girl who's trying to get someone's attention.

[SPEAKER_01]: Which brings us to Carson City.

[SPEAKER_01]: In 1991, a waitress at a restaurant in Carson City, Nevada served a table with an unkempt looking couple and a girl in her early teens.

[SPEAKER_01]: The girl kept knocking her utensils onto the floor.

[SPEAKER_01]: Every time the waitress went down, picked them up and handed them back, the girl grabbed her hand and squeezed it, over and over.

[SPEAKER_01]: The three of them left and the waitress went to clear the table, and under the girl's plate she found a napkin.

[SPEAKER_01]: The napkin said, help me.

[SPEAKER_01]: Call police.

[SPEAKER_03]: Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: By 1991, Anthonette would have been 14.

[SPEAKER_01]: We obviously have no idea if that was her or not, but if it was, that was five years after her disappearance.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that means she wasn't kidnapped by a killer.

[SPEAKER_01]: She was kidnapped, or other reasons.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Penny had said from the beginning that she thought Anthony was alive, and there were multiple alleged sightings of her for years.

[SPEAKER_01]: Police would run down tips as they came in, but nothing really led anywhere.

[SPEAKER_01]: As the years went on, they would periodically take a fresh look at the case, and that 911 call prompted one of those looks.

[SPEAKER_01]: In an interview right around that time, Gallop Police Detective Asap Hinsha told the Albuquerque journal that his quote, ''Good Feeling'' is that some family members may not be telling us all they know."

[SPEAKER_01]: He said that throughout the investigation, they would find out information that the family would then confirm, but that it was information the family could have provided them in the first place.

[SPEAKER_01]: One such piece of information was about a grown man who had taken a special interest in Anthonyette, a man named Emiliano Gardella.

[SPEAKER_01]: He had also given flowers to Anthony at three times in the days leading up to her disappearance.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, this is something that Penny was fully aware of that he gave Anthony flowers, but only told police about after another family member mentioned it during one of the searches.

[SPEAKER_03]: Why?

[SPEAKER_03]: Why didn't she tell the police?

[SPEAKER_01]: That's a good question.

[SPEAKER_03]: Did she think this guy was innocent and giving her nine year old daughter flowers?

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe, I don't know.

[SPEAKER_03]: look, I get it like at the time, previous to Anthony going missing.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, oh, you know, you're being sweet to my daughter.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, maybe, maybe.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, right.

[SPEAKER_01]: He also apparently gave her necklace.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's a little much.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, CD said that years later that he had also given Anthony like a silver necklace and it was a bear and the tummy of the bear was like a turquoise

[SPEAKER_01]: Anthony, it wasn't wearing that and Penny later put up a shrine to Anthony and put that necklace like on the shrine.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, again, maybe in the moment for the sake of argument.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Take Penny side thinking like,

[SPEAKER_03]: This guy's just trying to ingratiate himself to me through my daughter, you know, and like she doesn't really think that much about it, but then when she goes missing, why not mention why not mention that to the police then the red flags and hindsight really should have gone up right because and I don't know what family members and one who ended up mentioning it, but they thought it was important.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know.

[SPEAKER_01]: The next piece of bombshell information came about five years after Anthony's disappearance, right after that possible curse in city sighting.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that was like another thing that triggered detectives to kind of go back and start talking to people again.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they decided to re-interview Wendy, Anthony's youngest sister who was only five at the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: During this interview, which took place at Wendy's school, she told a different story than the one that had been told five years prior.

[SPEAKER_01]: In this version, she talks about the second knock, and she says that when the second knock happened, and the net went up to answer the door and Wendy followed her.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: She says that Anthony asked to it was and the person at the door said it was Uncle Joe.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was at that point that the little girl who had been taught never to open the door to anyone unless you knew them, opened the door.

[SPEAKER_01]: According to Wendy, two men were there.

[SPEAKER_01]: They grabbed Anthony and one of them put his hand over her mouth as they picked her up and carried her to a brown van.

[SPEAKER_01]: detectives asked a Wendy if she could describe the men, but she said that she didn't see their faces.

[SPEAKER_01]: They also asked why she had never said anything before, and she told them that her mom was just crying all the time, and she was afraid she would get in trouble.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, she was five.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Detective Corporal Marty Esquivel told the story and unsolved mysteries.

[SPEAKER_01]: He said that his belief is that Wendy was afraid that people would think she was making the story up, but that he believes she was telling the truth when they re-interviewed her.

[SPEAKER_03]: And how was she when they re-interviewed her?

[SPEAKER_03]: Like 10?

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: So the discrepancy of a van versus a truck.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you know, it could have easily been a brown pickup truck with a cap.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, for five year old would see it and think it was a van.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now the girls did have an uncle Joe.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was married to Penny's sister.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it makes sense that Anthony would open the door to somebody who's outside saying it's uncle Joe.

[SPEAKER_01]: So of course, after when details in this place went straight to him, but Uncle Joe provided both an alibi and a corroborating witness to that alibi, so police ultimately did clear him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now they didn't get into, I think it has to have been a pretty good alibi.

[SPEAKER_03]: I hope it's not just his wife.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, I think there's more to it than that, and as we get into it, like, I, because that was my thing when when I was watching Unsold Mysteries, I was like, yeah, okay, so yeah, right, like so my, my initial thing is okay, well, is, you know, Wendy's sister blonde, what is Wendy's sister blonde their recidings of.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, oh, oh, oh.

[SPEAKER_03]: Of her with a blonde woman.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they were both natives, so I would just say not, but yeah, yeah, you never know.

[SPEAKER_01]: You never know.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I do think that's interesting, but what police came to believe is that whoever knocked on the door and said he was Uncle Joe wasn't Uncle Joe, but he knew the family well enough to know that there was a Uncle Joe.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right, so how close was Emo to this family?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and that's a good question.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the answer is really not very close.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll talk more about emo, because yes, he definitely does come back in the story.

[SPEAKER_01]: But no, emo was kind of a new person in their lives.

[SPEAKER_01]: He hadn't been around very long at all, but, you know, again, that doesn't mean he couldn't have met Uncle Joe, that doesn't mean he couldn't have heard of Uncle Joe, like he was bringing Anthony at flowers, I mean clearly he was hardly already exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, okay, getting back to like, you know, what police thought, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: That the person who came to the door knew about Uncle Joe and that was their plan.

[SPEAKER_01]: They set a trap to get internet to answer the door.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, like that makes sense, you know, they set a trap and it worked.

[SPEAKER_01]: But how did they know that she would be the one to open the door?

[SPEAKER_01]: What would make them think that a nine-year-old would get up at 330 in the morning and answer the door for anyone regardless of whether or not she knew them?

[SPEAKER_01]: What in the more likely scenario be that Penny would get up in answer the door?

[SPEAKER_01]: So what was the plan then?

[SPEAKER_01]: Would they just kidnap Penny?

[SPEAKER_01]: Were they just going to kidnap whoever answered the door?

[SPEAKER_01]: Were they going to tie Penny up and get in the net?

[SPEAKER_01]: Were they going to try to kidnap everybody like what was the plan?

[SPEAKER_01]: The answer to those questions may have come in the form of a confession to the FBI in 1994.

[SPEAKER_01]: On March 1st, 1994, CD and her mother Penny went to the FBI office.

[SPEAKER_01]: CD waited outside while Penny went in.

[SPEAKER_01]: Crystal Gutierrez is a former reporter who has a show on YouTube called Beyond the Case.

[SPEAKER_01]: She has been extensively investigating Anthony's case for the past several years, and she was somehow able to get her hands on a copy of that 1994 interview.

[SPEAKER_03]: or somebody from the FBI is in trouble.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because I can't understand a world in which you could have gotten that from a FOIA request.

[SPEAKER_03]: No, they would never really something like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like I have no idea how she got her hands on that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But very happy that she did because that interview is shocking.

[SPEAKER_01]: CD had never seen it, of course.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so Crystal gave her a copy to read of the transcript.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: She also published portions of it in the YouTube episode that she did on this, but, you know, Katta a lot like most of it back, you know, because even though she did have it, she still didn't really want to screw up the investigation.

[SPEAKER_01]: So early in the 1994 FBI interview, Penny asked a question that changed everything.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, what if me and emo did this?

[SPEAKER_01]: Would we both go to prison and quote, emo?

[SPEAKER_01]: The man who had brought flowers to a nine-year-old girl, a man who was friends with her really good friend, Ron Perry, the man who admitted being the first person who knocked

[SPEAKER_01]: So that is how Emo even came into this.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was friends with Ron.

[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, Ron said that at the time he had his own junkyard and he had hired Emo to basically just help him out, like loads stuff up onto his truck and things like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: They became friends, they would party, and Ron and Penny were really close, so that's why emo started coming around too.

[SPEAKER_01]: Ron also said later that emo would drive him around a lot because Ron was a big drinker, and I guess maybe emo wasn't.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, emo would just kind of show for him around.

[SPEAKER_03]: and he also admitted to having an argument with Penny earlier that night.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.

[SPEAKER_01]: Here's a section directly from the FBI report, quote, Kaya-Dito advised that Emo Gardella and Ron Perry had come over, then there's a redacted part.

[SPEAKER_01]: It continues, quote, she remarked to Emo that her oldest daughter was getting to be a problem

[SPEAKER_03]: Wait, Penny is actually saying this in the interview?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_03]: Holy shit.

[SPEAKER_01]: It goes on to say quote, Kaya Detail advised that Emo Gerdela then told her that he would be the person that would take Antoinette.

[SPEAKER_01]: Kaya Detail stated she wanted to know where, redacted, told her it was better that she did not know, and quote.

[SPEAKER_01]: Penny then said that Emo came over the night before the abduction and gave Antoinette two roses.

[SPEAKER_01]: She then told them a new story about what happened in the early morning hours of April 6, 1986.

[SPEAKER_01]: Penny said that she heard the second knock, quote, I told her to go ahead and answer it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I laid there for a period of time, maybe 30 minutes, and Anthony never came back.

[SPEAKER_01]: I got up to see where she was, but I couldn't find her.

[SPEAKER_01]: End quote.

[SPEAKER_01]: She put the knock somewhere between 330 and 430 a.m. She said it was just getting late when she got up.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sunrise in Albuquerque, he was at 5.55 a.m. that day though, so either the knock happens later, or she laid a bed for more than 30 minutes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Penny said that after the dawn broke, she began to have second thoughts about what she had done.

[SPEAKER_01]: She finished the interview with the FBI and said that she still had no idea what happened to Anthony at after that night, and that she hoped she's alive.

[SPEAKER_03]: Why did they let her go?

[SPEAKER_03]: She just admitted to conspiracy to commit a crime.

[SPEAKER_01]: I have no idea.

[SPEAKER_03]: What the actual fuck?

[SPEAKER_03]: Like she admitted to playing a part in her child's kidnapping.

[SPEAKER_03]: And they just said, alright, thanks for the info.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Bye.

[SPEAKER_03]: Enjoy your time with your other kids.

[SPEAKER_03]: Hope you don't do that again.

[SPEAKER_03]: What the flying fuck?

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, I mean, I don't, I don't understand any of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: So not only was she allowed to leave, and CD later said that, you know, Penny just said that they were asking for, like more information, you know, just it was a general normal interview.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, not only was nobody arrested, but neither Penny, Emo, Nor Ron, have ever been publicly named a suspects or even persons of interest in Anthony's disappearance.

[SPEAKER_01]: The FBI, allegedly, didn't even share this confession with the Gallup Police Department.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my god, this is making my head hurt.

[SPEAKER_01]: Crystal Gutierrez interviewed one of the detectives who worked on Anthony's case in the 2000s and he said he had no idea that confession existed.

[SPEAKER_03]: Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: He read it and he was like, if I had been given this information, I would have

[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't know.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the fuck was the FBI doing?

[SPEAKER_01]: No idea.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just don't understand.

[SPEAKER_01]: When Sadie learned all of this from Crystal Gutierrez a couple of years ago, she said that Ron was the reason emo was around, like I said.

[SPEAKER_01]: She also said that after Anthony's disappearance, Ron stopped coming around the house.

[SPEAKER_01]: She says she doesn't think she ever saw him again.

[SPEAKER_01]: Even as a kid, she had thought that was weird because he and her mom had been so close.

[SPEAKER_01]: In 2025, Crystal Gutierrez tracked Ron down.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was an inmate at a new Mexico State prison, and he agreed to an interview.

[SPEAKER_01]: In it, he said that he never had a conversation with Penny about abducting her daughter.

[SPEAKER_01]: He also said that he had been with Emo when he bought those flowers, but that Emo had told them they were for Penny, not in the net.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sadie recorded a video with questions that she had for run.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of them is, why did he stop coming around?

[SPEAKER_01]: He never answered that directly, but he did say why he stopped hanging out with Emo, and it was because Emo moved out of the area several months after Antoinette's disappearance, and they just kind of lost touch.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's probably with Antoinette.

[SPEAKER_01]: He also said that he had no idea whether or not Emo was involved in this case and that he had only brought him around Penny's house once or twice.

[SPEAKER_01]: Ron also said that he had no knowledge of any drug use on Penny's part, saying that they only drink together.

[SPEAKER_01]: He also had never seen any drug sales or any other related activity happening at Penny's house.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is just based on questions that Sadie had asked.

[SPEAKER_01]: But according to CD, there had been a drug grade at their home just a few months prior to Anthony's disappearance.

[SPEAKER_01]: She also said that a retired Gallup Police detective once told her that he believed that drug grade is related to her sister's disappearance.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sadie has also said that she has heard that email was the one who was supplying the drugs, so her big question for years has been did her mother trade or sell anthemet for drugs or to pay a drug debt.

[SPEAKER_03]: Probably I mean that would be the only motivation I could take of right because I mean whatever bullshit she said like she was becoming a problem and wanted her to have a better life like what the fuck does that mean right He's seller off to like some fucking sleazebag That's not gonna give her better life.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that was a hundred percent because she either owed money or wanted more drugs

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I couldn't fit this into the episode, but in one of the episodes that Crystal Gutier is did about this, she spoke with another mother who knew Emo around that time and said that he had been creepy with her child as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she had like a little girl, I'm not sure how old, but the second time that Emo met her daughter,

[SPEAKER_01]: And the mom was like, yeah, I told him to get the fuck away for my kid and like never come around us again.

[SPEAKER_01]: So emo allegedly had a history of basically trying to groom little girls.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now what I will say is I did find him online and I didn't see any criminal charges related to anything like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: What was Ron and Jill for during the interview?

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure, but nothing related to this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now after her interview with Ron, which took place in September 2025, so pretty recently, Crystal Gutierrez showed the entire thing to Sadie, so apparently they spoke for like 45 minutes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sadie's takeaway after watching it is that she doesn't believe Ron told her everything he knows.

[SPEAKER_01]: During the interview, he said that he wasn't just good friends with Penny as CD had thought for her entire life.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were actually romantically involved.

[SPEAKER_01]: But CD didn't believe for a second that Ron found out that Anthony was missing from the FBI as he says in the interview.

[SPEAKER_01]: Their family was out searching for Anthony on day 1.

[SPEAKER_01]: She says that everyone in their town knew that she was missing and Ron was always around.

[SPEAKER_01]: He had to have known.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, she doesn't know if he was there for like all of the conversations about the plan, or if he physically had anything to do with her sister's kidnapping, but she doesn't think that he's come completely clean either.

[SPEAKER_03]: For sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there is a really interesting part of the interview where Crystal asks him, like, do you think that emo had anything to do

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: But then she asked him, do you know of anyone else who had anything to do with the Anthony's disappearance?

[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, no, I don't.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then she said, did you have anything to do with it?

[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, no, I didn't.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he said, very clear nose.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when it came to emo, he said not to my knowledge.

[SPEAKER_01]: After interviewing Ron, Gutierrez tracked down a woman named Phonica.

[SPEAKER_01]: Phonica was Ron's common-wall wife back in 1986.

[SPEAKER_03]: Was she born?

[SPEAKER_01]: No, she's a black woman.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: At the time of her disappearance, she was also pregnant.

[SPEAKER_01]: Her child was born three days after Antoinette went missing.

[SPEAKER_01]: She talked about what she remembered from that time.

[SPEAKER_01]: According to Ivanka Police came to her house the day after Antoinette's disappearance and asked her where Ron had been the night before.

[SPEAKER_01]: She said that he had left with a guy named Emo.

[SPEAKER_01]: According to her recollections, Emo brought Ron home around 4am on the morning of

[SPEAKER_01]: which is interesting because according to the news article from a week after Infinite's disappearance, Ron told police that he had stayed with a friend.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know if that meant Monica because it sounded like they lived together and that was his house.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_01]: She said that Ron was drunk.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like,

[SPEAKER_01]: should face drunk basically.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she was sleeping, but he couldn't like get his key to work in the door.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that woke her up because he was like fumbling around trying to get in.

[SPEAKER_01]: So she got up let him in and basically Emo came in dumped Ron on the couch and Ron immediately passed out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: Emo had driven her blue truck there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because she and Ron shared that car, and like I said earlier, Ron said that emo kind of chauffeur Tim around a lot.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, Emo had driven Ron home in his truck and their truck and left the truck there.

[SPEAKER_01]: She says, she has no idea where Emo went after that or how he got there, you know, if he had somebody pick him up with like what it was.

[SPEAKER_01]: But she said that at the time, their house was only a few streets over from pennies.

[SPEAKER_01]: Monica said that the police continued to come back, and at one point, they took Ron down to the station for questioning, which, you know, we kind of know.

[SPEAKER_01]: She says that she remembers him being gone for hours.

[SPEAKER_01]: After that, the police came back and asked her if they could search the truck.

[SPEAKER_01]: and they shared it, but it sounds like it was in her name.

[SPEAKER_01]: So she consented to the search because she was like, I didn't have anything to hide.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, like I said, it was a blue truck not a brown truck, but she said that police told her that somebody had seen that truck at Penny's house.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, she didn't know a lot of details or anything.

[SPEAKER_01]: She said that they had like looked for fingerprints and things like that, but it doesn't seem that police found anything in the truck and to our knowledge, no physical trace of

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what she remembered.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think she might have at one point.

[SPEAKER_01]: She said, like, four at one point.

[SPEAKER_01]: She said, you know, four or five.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I think her recollection isn't sure, you know, but that would fit around that would fit the timeline if emo did, in fact, dump Ron on the couch and then go back out and yeah, Anthony.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, it absolutely would.

[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, it would fit with Ron's original story,

[SPEAKER_01]: that, you know, maybe he was drunk after the bar or he, you know, he and Penny had gotten into some sort of argument and he's like, well, let me go.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let me go talk to her.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, sort of knocking on the door, knocking on the window.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then they didn't answer.

[SPEAKER_01]: So emo took him, dumped him back home.

[SPEAKER_03]: But then the emo came back with somebody else.

[SPEAKER_01]: Apparently because so it was only Wendy's statement that said that there were two people.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: The neighbors said she only saw one person.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: We don't have any other witnesses.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, but the neighbor's recollection of one versus two, I mean, she could have only just seen one person get out of the driver's side and not notice the other person.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, for sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if Monica is to be believed, it doesn't sound like Ron would have been involved in the physical aspect of the kidnapping.

[SPEAKER_03]: No, but maybe he knew it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe that's what the fucking argument was about at the at the bar.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, maybe.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe she was at the bar with Ron and Emo talking about it, and Emo took her up on it.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's, yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Ron doesn't know more than he's got to let none.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what it sounds like.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Dino Bonica says that she will use that if he knew more, he would say something.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they're divorced now, like they're not together or anything like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But they did have kids together at one point during the interview, Ron said he had like 19 grandchildren and six kids and had a huge family.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it sounds like they stayed close to a degree.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he was also, according to him, sleeping with Penny.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Ivana goes nine months pregnant.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm still blown away by the whole FBI thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't understand it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Whatever happened with that.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that detective got that information.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now I want to know what he did with it like did he go contact the FBI and what the fuck I don't know well I mean at the time he was retired You basically also agreed to be interviewed for by Crystal Gutierrez.

[SPEAKER_01]: He showed him this because he had worked on Anthony's case But yeah, he was already retired at that time and I hope he made some fucking phone calls.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know put that into the cold case detective that had the case.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and what's crazy is like, I haven't seen any mainstream news pick this up except for like the new station.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Crystal Gutierrez, I think was an anchor and now she's like independent, but I think she still does have a relationship with a new station in New Mexico.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they've talked about this and they like aired portions of her beyond the case series.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was able to see that on their website, but

[SPEAKER_01]: Other than that, like I haven't seen mainstream media like pick this up at all.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's that's nuts.

[SPEAKER_01]: The confession and Penny's new story has made it on to Ethanette's Wikipedia page with KOB for that new station that Crystal Gutierrez works with as the source of that, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: So like she's really the only one who's been actually reporting on this.

[SPEAKER_03]: Who, what, what the hell?

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, did, that's insane.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, in 2010, Marty Skibel, the detective who was on the episode of Unsolved Mysteries, spoke to the Gallup son, I believe it was, and mentioned that Penny had failed a polygraph given by the FBI, which I believe,

[SPEAKER_01]: was from that same day the 1994 interview but like didn't say anything about oh yeah she also just said she was involved.

[SPEAKER_03]: No I mean it definitely seems like the FBI just didn't tell them that didn't release the the interview to them.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah but why?

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean why are they protecting

[SPEAKER_03]: because that's the only thing I can think of is that emo is some sort of informant or something and they kept that hush hush to keep him out of out of jail.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe because yeah, it doesn't seem as though he's really been in jail.

[SPEAKER_01]: I saw some kind of minor things on his record, but most of it was like, you know, he didn't have the right

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's absolutely insane to me that you had this big investigation where the FBI got involved.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then eight years later, the mom comes in and was like, hey, yeah, actually I did it, and then just nothing happened.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then they're just like, oh, well, crazy.

[SPEAKER_03]: We can't believe her.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why I just think it's so bizarre that even after Crystal Goodierra says uncovered this because she's been doing this for years.

[SPEAKER_01]: So like the most recent episode where she interviewed Ron just came out a few months ago, but a lot of this came out a few years ago.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: And nothing.

[SPEAKER_03]: Nothing is against.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was the 40th anniversary and crickets.

[SPEAKER_03]: What the hell?

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like if you look, yeah, there's been some stuff on like read it or whatever, but nothing official.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't, I don't understand.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know either.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like I, I'm dumbfounded, according to both Stady and Wendy Penny basically fell apart after infinite disappearance out of guilt because she was involved.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's what it seems like, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a combination of gilting grief.

[SPEAKER_01]: In articles from the first few years, she speaks about how she had trouble sleeping and would just clean her house in the middle of the night.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sadie says that she eventually went to live with her father because, Penny just couldn't cope, but Wendy stayed with Penny.

[SPEAKER_01]: The two younger girls then seemed to go down very different paths.

[SPEAKER_01]: In an interview with the Albuquerque Journal in 2016, Wendy spoke about dark times she had with Penny.

[SPEAKER_01]: She says that she and her mother couldn't talk about Anthony out without crying, and they would drink and get high to deal with the pain.

[SPEAKER_01]: Quote, 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, and quote.

[SPEAKER_01]: The pair went on like that, and Wendy eventually fell deep into drugs and alcohol, and even got involved with gangs.

[SPEAKER_01]: She had children and lost custody of them.

[SPEAKER_01]: She was in and out of jail and she became estranged from Sadie.

[SPEAKER_01]: But by 2016, the 30th anniversary of her sister's disappearance, she says that she had gone to rehab and gotten clean.

[SPEAKER_01]: Quote, 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 away from here, and I did it, and quote, she now lives in California, but the scene couldn't be said for Penny.

[SPEAKER_01]: On April 18, 1999, 13 years after her oldest daughter disappeared, Penny Kia-Dito died

[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever Penny knew, she took with her.

[SPEAKER_01]: Anthony's father, Larry Astrada, was a big part of the search for her, and later article pennies that he would stop by her house and check in on her.

[SPEAKER_01]: In later years, he disappeared from the news coverage, and there are a lot of sources that list Wendy and Sadie's father's Anthony's father, either recently or referring to him as her stepfather.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, Larry did show up in a few news stories in 1989, but not necessarily because of Anthonette.

[SPEAKER_01]: That year, his 25-year-old mentally disabled sister, Louisa Estrada, disappeared after going on an evening walk.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is mentioned in some write-ups of Anthonette's case.

[SPEAKER_01]: And police did look into whether or not there could be a connection because you know, oh, yeah, two people and because this was also in Gallup like so Larry grew up in Gallup.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, New Mexico as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like his whole family's there.

[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, this happened three years after Anthony's disappearance to another member of Larry's shortest family, but it doesn't appear that they ever found a connection.

[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of sources say that like Infinite, Louisa was never found, but that's not true.

[SPEAKER_01]: Louisa was found in Wara's Mexico about a month after her disappearance.

[SPEAKER_01]: The story is kind of wild, so she was abducted on an evening walk.

[SPEAKER_01]: The person who grabbed her, bound her hands in her feet and told her, quote, not to tell her daddy, and quote,

[SPEAKER_01]: She was then driven over the border to Mexico.

[SPEAKER_01]: She was found after her father, Modesto Estrada, went to Mexico himself and told authorities there to look for her.

[SPEAKER_01]: She was found in an hour and a half later, wandering the streets.

[SPEAKER_01]: She was dirty, disheveled, and had an infected cut on her leg.

[SPEAKER_01]: Modesto had been tipped off by family friend who had seen Luis and Juarez but didn't realize

[SPEAKER_03]: What the hell, that is so wild.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Modesto told the Albuquerque Journal quote, they did an hour and a half with the Galapolis couldn't do in a month.

[SPEAKER_01]: Enquote.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yikes.

[SPEAKER_01]: They also did with the Galapolis for the FBI couldn't manage to do in 40 years.

[SPEAKER_01]: Larry Estrada died in 2012.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now he was already remarried at the time of Anthony's disappearance, and went on to have several other children.

[SPEAKER_01]: There is no mention of Anthony in his obituary.

[SPEAKER_01]: Today, as far as I can tell, Emo is currently living in Phoenix, Arizona.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's 73 years old.

[SPEAKER_01]: As of September 2025, Ron Perry was imprisoned on unrelated charges.

[SPEAKER_01]: As of this recording in July 2026, no one has been arrested or even named a suspect in

[SPEAKER_01]: The case is allegedly still open, hits worked jointly by the FBI, the Gallup Police Department, and the Navajo Nation Division of Public Safety.

[SPEAKER_01]: On the 34th and 35th Anniversary, the Bureau issued renewed public appeals, and they released the poster and an audio recording in Navajo, as well as in English.

[SPEAKER_01]: Dayline reported in 2017 that Anthony its file lives in a box at the Gallet Police Department, and that TIP said slow to almost nothing.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that every new detective who joins gets a fresh look at it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And as I said earlier, I couldn't find anything from any of these agencies that marked the 40th Anniversary of Anthonyette's disappearance.

[SPEAKER_01]: On the 30th Anniversary, Wendy spoke with the Gallup Sun and told them, quote, I'm not going to accept that she's dead.

[SPEAKER_01]: I need proof, and quote, and I don't blame her.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, there's a fucking confession, like a clear path of where the investigation needs to go, needs, as in current.

[SPEAKER_03]: emo was still alive, Ron is still alive.

[SPEAKER_03]: Why are they not being investigated?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't know.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, thank God for Crystal Gutierrez and and we'll link to her channel in the show notes.

[SPEAKER_01]: So please like, go to our YouTube channel.

[SPEAKER_01]: She has, I think, gosh, I think it's four episodes of Beyond the Case over a period of years dedicated to internet and each episode's like 45 minutes long.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a lot in this.

[SPEAKER_01]: I gave you the highlights, but like I highly recommend that you go watch that yourself.

[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, as far as I can tell, she's the only one who's been doing a damn thing in recent years.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we wouldn't know half of what we know if it wasn't for her.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we don't know if all or any of the alleged sightings of Anthony were real, but this is one of those cases where I truly believe that she could still be out there somewhere.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe she knows who she is and is decided to let her past stay buried, or maybe she's forgotten that part of her.

[SPEAKER_01]: Either way, there are people out there who know what happened in the early morning hours of April 6, 1986.

[SPEAKER_01]: Whether it was emo or Ron or neither of them somehow, the information we have says to me that there were many people involved.

[SPEAKER_01]: If not that night, later.

[SPEAKER_01]: And yes, it's been four decades, but it's never too late to do the right thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: In the neck Kai-A-Dito has been missing from Gallab New Mexico since April 6, 1986.

[SPEAKER_01]: She is a biracial female of Navajo and Italian descent, with brown hair and brown eyes.

[SPEAKER_01]: She has dark colored moles on her right cheek, her nose, her back, both hands, and her right ankle, and scars on her knee and down her lip.

[SPEAKER_01]: Her ears are pierced and at the time of her disappearance, she wore eyeglasses.

[SPEAKER_01]: At the time of her disappearance, she was approximately four feet seven inches and 55 pounds.

[SPEAKER_01]: She was last seen wearing a kneeling, pink night gown, and possibly a silver chain with a small turquoise cross-pendant.

[SPEAKER_01]: Anthenette was nine years old when she went missing.

[SPEAKER_01]: She would be 49 today.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you have any information about the disappearance of Anthenette Kia Detoe, please contact the Gallipoli Department at 505-863-93-65.

[SPEAKER_01]: or the FBI's Albuquerque Division at 505-889-1300.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can also submit a tip online at tips.fpi.gov.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can see all the sources for this episode along with photos and videos at our website, and then they were gone.com.

[SPEAKER_03]: and be sure to follow us on social, and then they were gone pod on Facebook and at ATTWG pod on Instagram and TikTok.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you like what we're doing, please subscribe and consider leaving a five star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

[SPEAKER_03]: It will help new listeners find us.

[SPEAKER_03]: And the more people that listen, the more chances we have of bringing someone home.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll see you here next week for a brand new episode.

[SPEAKER_03]: See you next week.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then they were gone as hosted by Kona Gallagher and Ethan Flick, all research writing and editing is done by me, Kona Gallagher.

[SPEAKER_01]: The music is the stork by Katza, additional music is provided by Kai Engel, and then they were gone is a little monster production.

[SPEAKER_03]: Hey, you could do it!