In the early morning hours of July 15, 1986, Abeyta's parents couldn't locate their son. They had put him to bed at midnight and found his crib empty in the morning. Their garage door opener turned up missing and a basement window was open. Abeyta has never been heard from again. At 6:30 a.m., his parents alerted the police. Arriving officers couldn't find any signs of forced entry, but the front door stayed unlocked the night of his disappearance.

Members of Abeyta's family initially seemed like potential suspects in his case. Reportedly, his mother failed a polygraph exam. She blamed it on a withdrawal from tranquilizers. Authorities haven't cleared either of his parents of involvement in the case or charged them in connection with it. Three weeks after he vanished, they drained Quail Lake, three blocks from the Abeyta home, to search for his body, recovering nothing.

Abeyta's family member refuse to consider him deceased. They believe he and his guardians don't know he's an abducted child. His loved ones operate a site featuring information about his case. Texas and New Mexico top the list of his possible locations. Some time after his disappearance, the Colorado Springs Police Department destroyed most of his case's evidence; Abeyta's family accused them of negligence and incompetence in their investigation. His disappearance remains unsolved.