Disappearance of Alicia Navarro

Alicia Navarro, 14, disappeared from her mother's home in Glendale, Arizona, overnight on September 15, 2019, days before her 15th birthday. Her mother, Jessica Nuñez, found the home's back door open and chairs stacked against a backyard wall, which investigators believed Navarro used to climb over. Navarro left a handwritten note in her room that read, "I ran away. I will be back, I swear. I'm sorry," signed with her name. She took her cellphone and a laptop but left no digital trail afterward; her phone had been turned off and could not be pinged for location.

Navarro was described by her family as high-functioning autistic and an active user of social media and online gaming. Her mother told reporters she feared her daughter had been groomed or lured away by someone she had met online. The disappearance triggered a large-scale search involving the Glendale Police Department and the FBI, generating thousands of tips over the following years.

Nearly four years later, on July 23, 2023, Navarro — by then 18 — walked alone into the police department in Havre, Montana, a small town roughly 40 miles from the Canadian border, and identified herself, asking to be removed from the missing juvenile list. Glendale police confirmed her identity through a DNA test and publicly announced her recovery on July 26, 2023. In video released by police, Navarro said no one had hurt her during her time away and told officers she was sorry for what she had put her mother through. Police described the case as having started as a runaway situation but said the full circumstances of where Navarro had been and how she ended up in Montana remained under investigation, with a lead investigator stating that "all scenarios," including kidnapping, were being examined.

Investigators searched the Havre apartment where Navarro had been living with a man identified in reporting as her boyfriend, Edmund Davis, then 36. During the search, officers reported seeing Davis attempt to hide a cellphone, which was later found to contain child sexual abuse material depicting other children, including some under age five. Davis was not charged in connection with Navarro's disappearance itself. In September 2024, he pleaded guilty in Hill County District Court, Montana, to one count of sexual abuse of children; on February 10, 2025, a judge sentenced him to 100 years in the Montana State Prison, with 50 years suspended and no parole eligibility for 25 years.

More than a year after Navarro's recovery, the Glendale Police Department said its investigation into her disappearance remained "active and open," and authorities had not publicly explained why she left home, where she had been, or how she came to be living with Davis. Navarro, in her 20s as of late 2024, was reported to be living with family outside Arizona.