The mother of an autistic girl who reappeared at a Montana police station four years after she vanished from her Arizona home is begging the public to stop their speculation.
In an emotional Facebook video Sunday night, Jessica Nuñez pleaded for people to ‘move on,’ even as questions remain about her daughter, Alicia Navarro’s, disappearance.
The distraught mother warned in the video the ‘search for answers has taken a turn for the dangerous,’ claiming she and her family have been harassed since Navarro, now 18, was found alive and unharmed last week.
She had reportedly been living with a man in his 20s, with whom she got into an argument before she walked into the Havre Police Department asking to be taken off the missing person’s list.
Navarro expressed her desire to obtain a driver’s license and live a ‘normal life.’
In an emotional Facebook video Sunday night, Jessica Nuñez pleaded for people to ‘move on’ as questions remain about her daughter, Alicia Navarro’s, disappearance
Navarro, now 18, turned herself into police in Montana last week asking to be taken off the missing person’s list. She is pictured speaking to police in Arizona about her identity
Addressing the public, Nuñez expressed her appreciation for everyone who has supported her since her daughter went missing in 2019.
‘I could never have kept going without all of your love, help and well wishes,’ she said between tears. ‘I can’t even put into words the amount of gratitude I have for you all.
‘But now that we know Alicia is alive, I have to ask one more favor of you,’ she continued. ‘I know you want answers, and I do too, but the public’s search for answers has taken a turn for the dangerous.
‘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,’ Nuñez claimed.
‘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.
‘I love her more than anything in the world, and I think I have shown you that.’
‘There’s an ongoing investigation, and I’m begging you to move on,’ she added.
Nuñez captioned the video: ‘Let’s focus [on the fact] that my daughter is alive. This is a miracle.’
Navarro, who has been described as having high-functioning autism, was just 14 when she slipped out of her Glendale home in September 2019
Navarro, who has been described as having high-functioning autism, was just 14 when she slipped out of her Glendale, Arizona, home in September 2019.
She left her mother a handwritten note in her bedroom that read: ‘I ran away. I will be back, I swear. I’m sorry.’
Her disappearance sparked a massive search that included the FBI. Police spokesman Jose Santiago said over the years, police had received thousands of tips.
After hearing the news that an 18-year-old identified herself as the missing teenager, Glendale police said they immediately responded to the unspecified small town in Montana.
Officers said they verified Navarro’s identity, and that she has been extremely cooperative with authorities.
‘I can’t even begin to express to you all the pride that I personally have in the men and women here at our police department,’ spokesman Jose Santiago said.
‘Since her disappearance, our men and women here have been working tirelessly around the clock to not only bring closure to this family, but to make sure Alicia gets everything she possibly needs.’
He added the girl ‘by all accounts appears to be in good spirits’ and ‘really just wants to move on with her life.
‘She is very apologetic to what she has put her mother through. And she understands that she has caused a lot of pain to her mother, and it was not intentional on her behalf, and she is hopeful that they can have a relationship.’
Police said Navarro seemed to be ‘in good spirits’ and ‘really just wants to move on with her life’
Over the years, Nuñez partnered with various private investigative services, put up billboards, appeared on television programs and used social media in her efforts to find her daughter
Over the years, Nuñez partnered with various private investigative services, put up billboards, appeared on television programs and used social media in her efforts to find her daughter.
She had suspected Alicia may have been abducted by someone she met online gaming.
‘I’m more than 90 percent sure that my daughter met this person online,’ she claimed at the time.
The mother said her daughter was a pretty cautious person, so it would have been unusual for her to be easily lured.
‘Knowing the way my daughter’s personality is, I don’t think that she would have fallen for that,’ Nunez said. ‘This person probably took a while to be able to gain [her] trust.’
But Glendale police have never found any evidence of an abduction, and said at a news conference last week that Navarro was able to come and go as she please.
She does not face any criminal charges, they added. ‘She is not in any kind of trouble,’ Santiago said.
Navarro had long suspected that her daughter was abducted by someone she met online gaming, though police were never able to find any proof of that
The police department is now continuing to investigate Navarro’s disappearance, as it remains unclear how the teenager traveled more than 1,000 miles alone to a small town on the border of Canada to identify herself to police..
On Monday, police told DailyMail.com they had nothing new to add about the state of the investigation.
Footage shared by Fox10 showed Navarro chatting with cops from Glendale who scheduled an emergency meeting with her after she reappeared earlier this week.
An officer asked her: ‘Did anybody hurt you in any way?’
‘No, nobody hurt me,’ Navarro replied.
But Garrett Smith, 22, described how he would see Navarro over the past year ‘holding hands’ with an unknown man in his 20s, with whom she shared an apartment in Smith’s complex,
The day before Navarro showed up at a police station close to the Canadian border, Smith said he had heard her yelling at the man.
‘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, told the New York Post.
Garrett Smith, 22, said he lived in the same apartment complex as Navarro and an unidentified man in his 20s, with whom she had an argument the day before she turned herself in
He said he had only spoken to the girl just once, a few days before she turned herself into the cops, claiming she was ‘looking for her uncle’ near a post office.
‘She was asking for directions. She looked scared,’ Smith said, noting that despite being barely younger than him, Navarro referred to him as ‘Mister.’
‘She said she was walking with her uncle and got lost and she’s looking for 6th Street,’ Smith added. ‘I later found out that she was referring to him as her uncle.’
Smith said that Navarro’s voice was ‘scratchy’ and that she often appeared in bad shape.
‘Her braces looked pretty bad. She had braces on when she went missing in Arizona in 2019. It looked like she still had the same braces on,’ Smith said.
Police in Havre, though, said in a statement that Navarro ‘appeared to be fine and in good health’ when she went to them.
Navarro has since had a brief video call with her mother, Trent Steele, president of the Anti-Predator Project and spokesperson for Navarro, said, but have otherwise not spoken since she re-emerged.
‘They have their own healing journey to go on. They’ve got stuff they have to do first,’ Steele said.
‘She is safe. I hope people wait for the facts of the case before making their assumptions.’