Teenager who vanished for four years then turned up 2,000 miles from home flees apartment with 36-year-old man
2 August 2023, 21:22 | Updated: 5 August 2023, 09:28
A missing teenager who vanished for four years then walked into a police station 2,000 miles from home has run off with a 36-year-old man.
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Alicia Navarro disappeared days before her 15th birthday in 2019, leaving a note to her sleeping parents promising she would come back.
Instead, she vanished completely from their home in Glendale, Arizona before turning up last month at a police station in Havre, Montana.
She asked to be taken off the missing persons list. Officers are investigating what happened to her - but stressed she was now an adult and it was up to her if she went back to her mother.
Navarro has now left the apartment she shared with a 36-year-old man, Eddie Davis. It has not been suggested he was involved in her disappearance four years ago.
The Walmart night shift worker was helped by relatives as he packed up belongings in a car and left, according to neighbours.
Previously, witnesses reported they heard an argument in the flat before she walked into the police station. She apparently told a man "I will go back" during the row.
A resident said he spoke to Navarro once when she said she was "looking for her uncle" near the post office days before. She did not seem to know the area.
Eyewitnesses in Havre said heavily-armed officers searched a flat a few streets away from the police station, and a woman resembling Navarro was spotted at the scene as she spoke to officers.
"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.
She and her mother, Jessica Nunez, have not been reunited in person, but were said to have spoken "briefly" on the phone.
Footage from her police interview, carried out over a video call, was posted online.
"Did anybody hurt you in any way?" one detective asks.
"No, nobody hurt me," Alicia replies.
"OK. Because our goal - we just want to make sure that you're safe."
"I understand that," she says.
"Thank you very much for talking with us."
"Of course. Thank you for offering help to me."
Nunez fears her daughter met someone online who won her trust.
