Sam Amico
A female teenager has been found safe after she walked into a Montana police station four years after she went missing in Arizona, authorities said.
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Alicia Navarro, 18, showed up alone at the police station in a small town near the Canadian border to identify herself, police said. She originally went missing from Glendale, Arizona, a Phoenix suburb. She was just 14-years old at the time.
Glendale police announced in a tweet that they were “proud to announce” Navarro has been found. They also held a press conference on Facebook Live.
“Through our interviews, along with family members, we are confident that the now 18-year-old young lady is indeed Alicia Navarro,” Glendale police said in a statement.
During the press conference, Glendale police spokesperson Jose Santiago said investigators had received thousands of tips on Navarro. Their massive search included the FBI.
Montana is more than 1,000 miles from Arizona, and while it’s still to be determined how or why Navarro was so far from home, police said she was not harmed.
“She is by all accounts safe, she is by all accounts healthy, and she is by all accounts happy,” Santiago said.
Navarro originally disappeared on Sept. 15, 2019. She reportedly left a note that read: “I ran away. I will be back, I swear. I’m sorry.”
Lt. Scott Waite indicated she had an “emotionally overwhelming” reunion with her mother upon being found and was “very apologetic (as) to what she has put her mother through.” But police added that Navarro is not in any sort of trouble as they continue their investigation.
“This case is far from being closed,” police said in the statement. “We are continuing to investigate her whereabouts for the last four years and will do so alongside our federal partners.”
