Search continues for Sharon Cachini swept away in floodwaters near Gallup

RED ROCK, N.M.

Family, volunteers and law enforcement are searching for Sharon Cachini, who was swept away by floodwaters Sunday night while returning home, near Highway 602, about five miles south of Gallup.

Her mother, Sadie Hoskie, said Cachini left home around 8:30 p.m. to pick up her husband from work.

“She left around 8:30 last night saying that she was going to go pick up her husband. He works on the north side, at KFC,” Hoskie said.

Hoskie said her daughter had been worried about the weather.

“She told me she asked him to get off early because it looked like there was a lot of rain coming from Bread Springs,” she said.

According to Hoskie, Cachini’s husband told her around 9:20 p.m., the two reached a ditch where he tried to stop her from driving in.

“‘I tried to tell her, ‘Sharon, just go back up that way. It’s too dangerous,’ he said,” Hoskie recalled her son in-law’s account.

By 10:30 p.m., Hoskie said, her son-in-law returned home on foot and called 911. Residents later reported hearing a woman calling for help near a bridge.

“This lady she said she heard somebody by the bridge, a woman yelling around 11:30,” Hoskie said.

Dozens of people searched through the night but had to stop when it became too muddy and cold.

“There’s a whole bunch of people that were looking for her all night. They just stopped because it was too muddy and it was too cold,” Hoskie said.

By Monday, Navajo Nation Police, New Mexico State Police, Gallup Police Department and the McKinley County Sheriff’s Office joined volunteers at Red Rock Chapter to continue the search.

Crews found her vehicle, sweater and cellphones, but not Cachini.

Later that evening, Bernadine Beyale, the founder of 4 Corners K-9 Search and Rescue, and her dog, Gunny, joined the effort.

The nonprofit group searches for missing people on tribal lands.

Beyale and Gunny moved carefully down the arroyo, navigating mud, rocks and flood debris. Gunny sniffed along piles while Beyale used a walking stick to probe the ground. They focused on areas that may have been missed earlier in the day.

The arroyo showed clear signs of the storm’s strength, with eroded banks, driftwood, tires and deep pools of water scattered along the wash. Volunteers in reflective vests fanned out across the channel, checking every crevice.

Conditions were difficult. Mud clung to boots and debris forced rescuers to climb over obstacles, but the search continued into the night.

By 8 p.m., Beyale returned to the chapter house to brief Hoskie on what she had found. Hoskie, still holding on to hope, said she just wants answers.

“That’s what happened,” she said of her daughter’s last moments with her husband.

Authorities said the search would resume Tuesday at 7 a.m. and told the family that volunteers would not be needed.

For now, Hoskie and her family wait as the search for Cachini continues.

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