Mother of formerly missing teen begs public, ‘No more TikToks’
The mother of a teenager who identified herself at a police station four years after disappearing is begging people to leave her family alone as they figure out what happened.
“I know you want answers, and I do, too,” Jessica Nuñez, the mother of Alicia Navarro, said in a video posted to Facebook on Sunday. “But the public search for answers has taken a turn for the dangerous.”
Nuñez said she has been harassed and her family attacked on social media since Navarro, now 18, approached police in Montana on July 23 and asked to be cleared from a missing-persons list. Some people have shown up at the family’s house in Glendale, Arizona, jeopardizing Navarro’s safety, her mother said.
“I beg you, please, no more TikToks, no more reaching out to Alicia or to me with your speculations or questions or assumptions,” Nuñez said. “This is not a movie. This is our life.”
Asked whether Glendale police have been in touch with Nuñez about the alleged harassment, police spokeswoman Gina Winn told the Washington Post in an email that detectives “have been in regular contact with Alicia’s mother surrounding all questions and concerns.”
Law enforcement served a search warrant on a home in Havre, Montana, last week and interviewed about four people in connection with the case, Winn said. No one has been criminally charged.
The day before she went missing on Sept. 15, 2019, Navarro and her mother visited a chocolate factory, the Arizona Republic previously reported. Late that night, Navarro asked Nuñez what time she was going to bed.
By the next morning, the 14-year-old was gone. She had left a handwritten note in her bedroom: “I ran away. I will be back, I swear. I’m sorry.”
Nuñez worried that Navarro, who has autism, had been abducted by someone she met online, but police said during the search that that scenario seemed unlikely. As officials fielded thousands of tips, Nuñez posted billboards with her daughter’s photo and launched a Facebook page called “Finding Alicia.”
Nothing seemed to work – until last week, when Navarro walked into a police station in a small town about 40 miles from the Canadian border. Speaking with Glendale, Ariz., police over FaceTime that day, Navarro reported that “No one hurt me” while she was gone.
Most of what happened in the intervening four years remains unclear, police told reporters last week. Navarro appears to have left home voluntarily, they said, but officials don’t know why she did that, whether she was with anyone and how she traveled roughly 1,000 miles to Montana.
“From the statements that she made, this started as a runaway situation,” Glendale police Lt. Scott Waite said at the news conference. “But there are, of course, more dynamics at play as you start to put together the puzzle.”
Navarro, who is still in Montana, and Nuñez have reunited digitally in a scene that officials called “emotionally overwhelming.” Winn said because Navarro is an adult, she can decide whether to stay in Montana, return to Arizona or go elsewhere.
Navarro’s family is cooperating with the investigation, police said. Nuñez has requested privacy and referred interview requests to the Anti-Predator Project, a nonprofit entity that works to combat human trafficking. The organization did not immediately return a phone call Tuesday.