I am sad to write about yet another indigenous woman who vanished without a trace. Fortunately, Pepita is one of the few victims in my blog who seems to have a solid backstory to her personality and her life before she seemingly vanished into thin air. The likely culprit is pretty obvious, too, though of course I may be wrong.
Pepita was 27. She worked at Hot Topic and had an edgy haircut and beautiful makeup that reflected her interest in art, skateboarding, and meeting new people. She was attending UNM, with ambitions of becoming a teacher or engineer one day. She was a proud Navajo and she was really close with her mom, Anita King. Though she usually stayed with her boyfriend Nicholas in Albuquerque, she stayed with Anita a lot too.
Pepita and Anita met up for lunch at McDonald’s in Crownpoint, a small town on the Navajo Nation in Northwestern New Mexico, on March 24, 2020. After that, Anita drove Pepita into Albuquerque and dropped her off at Nicholas Kaye’s house. Anita never saw or spoke to Pepita again. She became worried when she didn’t hear from her daughter and reported her missing on March 28; but cops didn’t take it seriously because Pepita was a Native woman and cops notoriously don’t care about indigenous women or women in general in New Mexico, and also, it was the height of Covid, when everyone liked to slack on their jobs using the pandemic as an excuse.
When a man answered Anita’s texts from Pepita’s phone and said that he had bought Pepita’s phone and had no idea who Anita was, Anita knew in her gut that her daughter was gone. That exchange happened on March 30 – a mere six days after Anita last saw or heard from her daughter. Pepita has never been seen or heard from again.
Nicholas Kaye, meanwhile, waited until April 19, 2020 to report Pepita missing, even though they had lived together for three years. His story was that he and Pepita were at a party with another man the night of March 26. Alcohol was involved. They got into a fight about something undisclosed; their relationship was stormy and they had a history of domestic violence, according to Anita King. Pepita stormed out of the party, and Nicholas watched her walk away down the street. That was the last he saw of her, apparently.
The next day, March 27, Pepita evidently texted Nicholas that she was with another man. He claims this man was the same one at the party. This man’s name has never been revealed to the public. These texts should not be difficult for the police to confirm. This seems like something that Nicholas could easily have proved if he had had nothing to hide. The police would also have been able to easily obtain a warrant for phone records. I have no idea if they have confirmed that these texts actually occurred, though. But the article on uncovered.com states that none of Nicholas’s statements have ever been confirmed by law enforcement. Why not? Oh, right, Covid.
Someone did claim to spot Pepita begging on the side of the freeway in Albuquerque in May 2020. Now a different picture emerges, if this is true. Did Pepita fall in with a bad dude who gave her some hard drugs? Did she sell her phone to help finance her new addiction and started begging to fund a rough lifestyle? Was she sold into human trafficking? Does she not want to be found? Albuquerque is a pretty small city – population 564,559. About ten thousand Burquenos are Native American. It is not that easy to completely disappear in a city that small that is actively looking for you – unless of course the city is not looking that hard, which is a distinct possibility in a place not that interested in helping indigenous women, particularly during a pandemic when people are pretty absorbed in their own stress.
On top of that, if Pepita did leave of her own will, maybe she is no longer in Albuquerque. She was possibly there for a little bit, but she has since moved on. She may be alive and well somewhere. If that is the case, I hope that she eventually reaches out and lets her mom know that she is OK. It is understandable that maybe she got tired of her life in Albuquerque and her toxic relationship and she needed to break away, but it sounds like she was close with her mom, so hopefully she gives Anita some much-needed closure.
However, the whole story sounds…fishy. There’s a history of domestic violence between her and Nicholas Kaye. Alcohol was involved the night she was last seen by Kaye. The last person to see her alive (again, Kaye) has a convenient story about her leaving him for another dude, yet apparently that story is not confirmed by anyone else. No one else can confirm that she left that party on foot or was with another guy the next day. She never let her mom know what happened, and she apparently touched base with her mom daily before that. I get not wanting to tell your mom everything about your sex life, especially if it’s just a one night stand, so maybe that is why she didn’t let her mom know where she was and who she was with. But still, it does seem weird that all communication with her mom just ceased after March 24, when she and her mom talked often before that.
I’m curious if anyone else besides Nicholas Kaye heard from Pepita in person or over a phone call (not just through text) after March 24, and especially after March 26. Did any friends see her at that party? Was that party confirmed to have taken place, and was she confirmed by others to have been there? Did people see her leave alone or at least without Nicholas Kaye? Did she ever show up for work or class after her mom dropped her off at Nicholas’s house on the 24? And who the heck is this random dude she and Nicholas were with at the party, with whom she apparently spent the next day?
If Kaye is telling the truth, then we have a mysterious, unnamed dude out there that we need to be looking for. That seems pretty convenient. It reminds me of the Colorado case where Travis Forbes murdered Kenia Monge in the back of his van, then told police that she had wandered off with a mysterious dude at a gas station to smoke cigarettes. Surveillance footage from his job is what convicted him; otherwise, his story may have left Kenia’s death a cold case. Whenever a mysterious dude comes into the picture, I have to wonder if he even exists at all.
Seriously, ladies, if you’re in an abusive relationship, don’t stick around. I know that there is more to it than just packing up and leaving. Your house is home. You may not have the financial security to move. Kids and pets may be involved. You may have nowhere to go, no money, and who wants to pack everything up? You may fear he will track you down and kill you if you leave. But I promise you, your life is worth so much more than the abuse you are enduring. You will be able to weather the fear and discomfort of leaving if you reach out to your local DV shelter. If you get away and protect yourself and your children, he won’t be able to get to you anymore. I have provided a list of resources.
I don’t know what really happened to Pepita. But I worry she is another victim of domestic violence, silenced by a man forever. She may also be a victim of human trafficking and is being held somewhere against her will. I sincerely hope that she is found and that she is OK.
From Healthline:
The National Domestic Violence Hotline
- 800-799-7233 (SAFE)
- www.ndvh.org
National Sexual Assault Hotline
- 800-656-4673 (HOPE)
- www.rainn.org
National Dating Abuse Helpline
- 866-331-9474
- www.loveisrespect.org
Pathways to Safety International
- 833-723-3833 (833-SAFE-833) (international and
toll-free) - www.pathwaystosafety.org
National Center for Victims of Crime
- 855-484-2846 (4-VICTIM)
- www.victimsofcrime.org
Casa de Esperanza
- linea de crisis 24-horas (24-hour crisis line)
- 800-799-7233 (national)
- 651-772-1611 (Minnesota)
- www.casadeesperanza.org
https://www.healthline.com/health/domestic-violence-resource-guide#Crisis-hotlines
https://uncovered.com/cases/pepita-redhair