Missing US teenager Alicia Navarro ‘hung her head and cried’ as FBI raided Montana home with guns drawn
1 August 2023, 13:20 | Updated: 1 August 2023, 15:23
FBI agents armed with assault rifles drawn carried out a raid on a Montana property where missing Arizona girl Alicia Navarro was found.
Alicia ‘hung her head and cried’ as agents stormed a Montana address where she had been living with a mystery man in his 20s, neighbours have said.
The raid came shortly after she walked into a police station in Havre, Montana to identify herself.
Alicia, 18, went missing from her Arizona home in September 2019, leaving behind a note for her sleeping parents, saying she was leaving - just days before her 15th birthday.
She disappeared for four years before turning up at a police station near the border with Canada in Montana to identify herself.
Neighbours have described how the 18-year-old “hung her head” and covered her eyes “like she was crying” last week as FBI agents carried out an armed raid on the Montana home.
Locals in Navarro’s neighbourhood said the FBI found her apartment quickly after she identified herself at the police station, before armed police set up a stakeout of the property.
The agents were armed with assault rifles and bulletproof vests.
“Three Havre police [cars] pulled up out of the building and they all got out with guns drawn and went into the apartment,” neighbour Rob Turner told The New York Post.
The man Navarro was living in the apartment with was allegedly escorted out “cuffed” before “they put him in a police car and they left fairly quickly”.
Mr Turner continued: “I would say five to 10 minutes later they bring this girl out… They brought this girl out and I told my wife ‘Oh man, that don’t look good. She looks really young’.”
“Little did I know she was legal age but she sure didn’t look it,” he added.
Not long afterwards, the officers re-entered the home with evidence-gathering kits.
Navarr exited the home after a while and “covered her eyes” like she was crying, Mr Turner added.
“They [officers] were talking to her and they were over there maybe three minutes and she hung her head and covered her face.”
Police detained and questioned a man on Friday but it is not known if he was the man Navarro shared the apartment with.
The now 18-year-old was described as safe and well and her mother declared "miracles do exist" after she returned.
When she handed herself into police she insisted she was okay and thanked officers for “offering to help me” but police have reportedly said she is being treated as a victim.
It comes after Navarro's mum, Jessica Nuñez, urged people to stop turning up at her home in what she has described as a 'dangerous' search for answers.
Navarro has not made "her intentions clear" over whether she will come back to Glendale."
Alicia is an adult, so it will be her decision as to whether or not she remains in Montana, returns to Arizona, or goes elsewhere, regardless of the investigation," a Glendale police spokesperson said.
