Kidnapping is among the possible scenarios, Glendale police Lieutenant Scott Waite said earlier this week.
Asked why Nuñez hasn’t travelled to Montana to see her daughter, private investigator Trent Steele, who assisted Nuñez in the search for Navarro through the Miami-based nonprofit Anti-Predator Project, said Nuñez was attending to her other children at home in metropolitan Phoenix as the investigation unfolds in Montana. He also alluded to another dynamic.
“They need to keep Alicia close – the law enforcement officers who are currently working the investigation. And until they are done with what they need, they need to keep her close,” Steele said. “It has nothing to do with family dynamics.”
Police in Havre and Steele said when Navarro, 18, walked into the city’s police department, she also talked about wanting to move forward in life as an adult, including getting a driver’s licence. She appeared to be fine and in good health, according to police.
One of the biggest questions remains: How did she end up nearly 1400 miles (2253 kilometres) away from her childhood home in Glendale, Arizona, in far northern Montana?
Police have said Navarro told them she hadn’t been harmed, wasn’t being held, and could come and go as she pleased. She does not face any criminal charges, they added.
In Havre – a town of about 9200 people surrounded by farmland – Navarro’s story had residents buzzing even though most had never seen or heard of her. It also piqued interest when a team of heavily armed law enforcement officers entered an apartment and took a man into custody just a few blocks from the Havre police station on Wednesday night, witnesses told the Associated Press.
As many as 10 uniformed and undercover officers showed up around 8pm and took him away in handcuffs. The man had been living in the apartment, said Rick Lieberg, who lives across the street.
A young woman, who resembled Navarro, later emerged from the apartment – one of six units in an ageing building in a residential neighbourhood – who Lieberg said he had not previously seen.
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A person who works at the Dollar Tree in Havre, Jeff Hummert, said he saw a young woman resembling a photograph of Navarro last year in a city park just up the street from the apartment police searched on Wednesday. She was walking alone and carrying a plastic Walmart bag, Hummert said.
Theories about how Navarro came to be in Montana topped the conversation on Friday among the regulars at a coffee shop inside Gary & Leo’s IGA, a grocery store in downtown Havre. With scant details from authorities, most of the talk – about Navarro’s possible destination and whether she was being coerced – was conjecture, said former county Coroner Steve Sapp, who joined the discussion.
“When you’re in law enforcement, all these different stories about what happened make it hard to tell which story is really true,” Sapp said. “I would really like to know more.”
When Navarro disappeared in 2019, days shy of her 15th birthday, she left a note for her family promising she would return.
“I will be back, I swear,” the note read. “I’m sorry.”
The years Navarro has been gone have been agonising for Nuñez, who never stopped searching for her daughter. She paid for a billboard ad in Mexico that featured a photo of her daughter for a year and bought 10 more ads in Las Vegas. She spoke at events and gave media interviews to raise awareness. She left flyers around Glendale – at salons, truck stops, parks.
Over the years, Nuñez had raised concerns that Navarro, who was diagnosed with autism, may have been lured away by someone she met online. Police have emphasised their efforts to afford privacy to Navarro even as investigations move forward.
“She is an adult, so it’s up to her whether or not she wants to go home,” Winn said.
In brief video clips that Glendale police released shortly after she arrived at the Havre police station, Navarro thanked authorities for offering to help her and said: “No one hurt me.”
Nunez declined an interview request. But for years, she had documented her efforts to find her daughter on a Facebook page titled “Finding Alicia” and an audio podcast. In an emotional video posted on Wednesday, Nunez said: “For everyone who has missing loved ones, I want you to use this case as an example. Miracles do exist. Never lose hope and always fight.”
Nunez had amassed a loyal following on social media throughout the years while sharing inspirational quotes, photos of Navarro as a young child and posts addressed directly to her daughter.
“Alicia I know you will fulfil what you promised,” Nunez wrote in one post. “You will be back.”
AP
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