Giannina Maria Colonna Aponte

Status:

Open

Missing From:

Luquillo, Puerto Rico

Summary:

Giannina Maria Colonna Aponte was an 11-year-old girl who disappeared from Luquillo, Puerto Rico on May 5, 1974, while heading to meet a family friend at the beach. Authorities believe the two children (along with her brother John) were kidnapped for a $72,000 ransom. The case remains open.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Disappearance:

On the evening of May 5, 1974, siblings John Colonna Aponte and Giannina Maria Colonna Aponte left their family home in the Costa Azul neighborhood of Luquillo, Puerto Rico, intending to join a family friend and his three children for an outing at the local beach. The children departed around 7:30 p.m. The last confirmed sighting of John and Giannina occurred shortly after their departure from home, with no further traces of them en route to the meeting point. They never arrived at the beach to rendezvous with the friend and his children. Later that evening, the siblings' mother, Noemí Aponte, went to meet the family friend as planned but was informed by him that John and Giannina had not joined the group and were unaccounted for. As the siblings did not return home that night, Aponte contacted local authorities in Luquillo, Puerto Rico, to report them missing, marking the start of official involvement in the case. The initial report, provided on May 5, 1974, detailed the children's departure from their home in the Costa Azul neighborhood around 7:30 p.m.

Additional Details:

Authorities had received a $72,000 ransom demand shortly after the disappearance, suggesting a kidnapping plot that remained unresolved, with a family friend, Thomas Rodriguez, dying by suicide in Florida eight months later and leaving a note implicating himself in a kidnapping plot targeting the children; however, no arrests or further resolutions followed from this revelation. Police believed that the siblings were abducted based on a suicide note left by a man named Tomás Rodriguez, who had moved to Miami shortly after the disappearance. In the note, he said that he knew details about the disappearance, including a plan to collect a ransom of $72,000 by the unidentified kidnappers. Rodriguez was a businessman, as well as a neighbor of the Colonna family when the disappearance took place. Authorities initially explored theories of accidental disappearance, including the possibility that John and Giannina Colonna had drowned while heading to the beach or become lost in the wooded areas near their home in Luquillo. These scenarios were ruled out due to the absence of any bodies or personal items discovered during comprehensive searches of the coastal regions and surrounding terrain, as well as the lack of witness statements confirming the children's arrival at the beach. In 2002, federal agents investigated a lead in Mayagüez regarding a young woman who might have been Giannina, requesting DNA samples including the children's baby teeth and the mother's blood, as well as exhumation of their father John Colonna Sr.'s body (who died in 1982). Genetic testing in 2005 by Interpol revealed that John Colonna Sr. was not the biological father, shifting suspicion toward the mother, Noemí. Noemí petitioned to have the children declared legally dead in 2012 for estate purposes but faced challenges, as it could lead to closing the investigation. Noemí Aponte died on April 2, 2023, at age 84 from cancer, still maintaining hope for her children's return until the end.

Case Last Updated:

Nov 13, 2026