GLENDALE, ARIZONA: Alicia Navarro, an 18-year-old teenager with high-functioning autism, went missing from her mother's home in Glendale, Arizona, four years ago. She recently resurfaced in Montana and approached the police department in Havre, seeking to be removed from the missing persons list.
While it is believed that Navarro left Arizona willingly, investigators are still probing the case from all angles. Authorities have confirmed that they had detained a person in connection to Navarro's disappearance but did not confirm if the person was whom she had been living with for the past four years. A neighbor recalled Navarro reacting strangely when FBI agents raided the home in Montana she was allegedly living in.
Where was Alicia Navarro for four years after she went missing?
During a police raid at the apartment where Navarro had allegedly been living in, a neighbor, Ron Turner, witnessed the scene unfold. Authorities took an unidentified man into custody after arriving with guns drawn on Wednesday, July 26. "Three Havre police (cars) pulled up out of the building and they all got out with guns drawn and went into the apartment," Turner, 69, told the New York Post, adding, "They put him in a police car and they left fairly quickly. The guy got taken away by the time she came out. Officers were talking to her. They were talking to her and they were over there maybe three minutes and she hung her head and covered her face."
Turner further stated, "Little did I know she was legal age but she sure didn’t look it. She seemed fine when she first came out... Then she covered her eyes. She covered her whole eyes like this with her head down, like she was crying"
Police have not disclosed whether it was the man she was living with at the apartment. Another neighbor, Garrett Smith, claimed that he heard Navarro arguing with a man a day before her reappearance. "I was here the other day and I heard them yelling. She did say, ‘I will go back.’ But that’s all I heard,” Smith, 22, said, adding, "It was the day before she turned herself in."
'This is not a movie, this is our life, this is my daughter'
Smith had his first conversation with Navarro earlier this month when she approached him for directions. "She looked scared," he said, adding, "She said she was walking with her uncle and got lost and she’s looking for 6th Street." However, this was not the first time he had seen Navarro with the older man. "I would see both of them walking out. Quite often. I think I saw them holding hands once when they were leaving," he further claimed.
Navarro's mother, Jessica Nunez, has tirelessly searched for her daughter since she went missing. In an emotional Facebook video, Nunez urged people to stop speculating and harassing them. "I have been harassed, my family has been attacked all over the Internet. The public has gone from trying to help Alicia to doing things like trying to show up to her house and putting her safety in jeopardy. So I beg you, please no more TikToks, no more reaching out to Alicia or me with your speculation or questions or assumptions. This is not a movie, this is our life, this is my daughter," she said in the video.
