Kaya Marie Centeno

• Missing Since 06/01/2010
• Missing From Rohnert Park, California
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race White
• Date of Birth 05/23/2002 (22)
• Age 8 years old
• Height and Weight 3'6, 50 pounds
• Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, brown eyes. Kaya may use her birth name, Kaya Whitney Kazzee.

Details of Disappearance

Kaya was last seen in Rohnert Park, California sometime between mid-2010 and mid-2012. The exact circumstances of her disappearance are unclear, as the authorities did not learn she was missing until 2020.

In July 2020, the Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety was contacted by Child Protective Services (CPS) about possible child abuse that had happened in their city. CPS had been in contact with the authorities in Mexico about two victims, a 17-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy, who had been taken into protective custody due to alleged abuse by their adoptive parents, Gina Michelle Centeno and Jose Anthony Centeno.

The two children had been brought to Mexico from Rohnert Park about a year and a half earlier to live with extended family. Both of them stated they had been physically, sexually and emotionally abused over an eight- to ten-year time period. They made references to their older sister Kaya, who used to live with them in Rohnert Park but had disappeared about eight or ten years earlier.

Kaya and her two younger siblings had been adopted by Gina and Jose in 2008. Kaya had been enrolled in John Reed Elementary School in Rohnert Park, but in her second-grade year, 2010-2011, she was withdrawn in order to be homeschooled. At some point not long afterwards, she disappeared.

Police obtained search warrants for the Rohnert Park residence where Kaya's siblings alleged the abuse took place. They found evidence to corroborate the children's statements and subsequently arrested Gina and Jose on charges of aggravated kidnapping in Kaya's case, and three counts each of kidnapping for ransom and torture in the case of her two siblings. Jose was also charged with eight additional offenses relating to the rape and sexual abuse of the children.

Investigators believe the Cedenos decided to adopt children for financial gain; they received an unspecified amount in monthly benefits from California's adoption assistance program. The children were then subjected to years of torture in their adoptive home: chained to their beds, beaten for mundane behavior such as not eating fast enough or sleeping in a strange position, forced to run barefoot in the backyard until their feet were bleeding, and barely fed.

At one point they were forced to stay in a pet cage for weeks. At first they were only allowed to use the bathroom once a day, then eventually they were only allowed to eliminate in a bucket in their bedroom. When the bucket overflowed and spilled, Jose forced the children to lick the mess. Twice the children tried to escape the house but both times they were caught and punished severely. According to Kaya's sister, Jose sexually abused her starting when she was eleven years old.

The Centeno children were enrolled in public school for a year, during which time one of them told a teacher and a social worker about the abuse, but the only result was that the children were withdrawn from school in favor of Christian-based home schooling. After about a year of that, their educations ended. When they were rescued they were unfamiliar with concepts as basic as counting money.

They were kept out of sight; neighbors of the family rarely saw them, and Jose and Gina told their friends and family that they'd been sent to another home. The children were only rescued after Jose brought them to Mexico and they met an American citizen who alerted authorities to their plight.

Photos of Gina and Jose are posted with this case summary. Gina was never tried; she died of leukemia in jail in January 2024, a few months before her trial date, at the age of 53. Jose was convicted of three counts of kidnapping for ransom, three counts of rape, three counts of torture and numerous other offenses. He was sentenced to six consecutive terms of life in prison; the judge said he had been "indescribably cruel".

The Cedeno siblings have filed a federal lawsuit against Sonoma County and a dozen staff members with the county’s Family, Youth and Children’s Services Department, alleging civil rights violations, intentional infliction of emotional distress, breach of mandatory duty, assault, sex slavery and false imprisonment.

According to Kaya's siblings, Jose told them Kaya had been "sent away" and that when they dropped her off at the airport she was crying and didn't want to go. Kaya's whereabouts remain unknown and her case is unsolved.