Alicia Navarro after being missing for 4 years hand herself over to police
Alicia Navarro may have been kidnapped four years ago when she vanished aged 14 after telling her mother ‘I’ll be back’, and is now in the throes of Stockholm syndrome, according to a former FBI agent.
The autistic teenager, now 18, walked into a police station in Montana this week ready to leave wherever it was she had been living.
The police station in Havre was 1,400 miles from her home in Glendale, Arizona.
Much of what happened to her remains unknown, including whether she went willingly with anyone when she vanished from her Arizona home in 2019, and whether she now intends to go home.
After she presented herself to police in Havre, Montana, on Wednesday, a man was arrested in an apartment just blocks away, The Associated Press reports.
His arrest is believed to be in connection with Alicia’s disappearance but it’s unclear exactly who he is, or what he is being held for.
Glendale Police in Arizona are leading the investigation. They did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s inquiries on Friday morning.
When they spoke with Alicia over FaceTime, she told them that she hadn’t been harmed.
An officer asks her: ‘Did anybody hurt you in any way?’
‘No, nobody hurt me,’ Navarro replied.
Former FBI agent Jim Egleston told AZ.com that she may be in the throes of Stockholm syndrome – a psychological condition where victims of kidnapping begin to empathize and even love their captors.
‘One of the keys to unraveling what happened to her and holding whoever may have been with her responsible, the investigators are going to have to spend time and develop trust and rapport with her over a series of contacts and interviews.
‘Regardless of whether or not she’s been diagnosed with autism, what strikes me is what I saw in many of the victims that I helped recover when I was working those cases.
‘And that is they often don’t recognize that they are a victim. It used to be referred to as Stockholm Syndrome. Now it’s referred to as trauma bonding,’ he explained.
When she vanished from her family home in 2019, Alicia left a note for her mother that read: ‘I ran away. I will be back. I swear. I’m sorry.’
Since then, there had been no sign of her.
Her mother Jessica Nunez had pleaded for information about her whereabouts for years, paying for billboards in multiple states in the hopes that someone may lead her to her daughter.
Since she was found, Jessica has updated her public Facebook page – where she had been appealing for information – to speak of her relief.
‘I want to give glory to god for answering my prayers. Miracles do exist – never lose hope. My daughter was missing since September 2019. She has been found safe. I do not know the details. She is my daughter, she is alive and she is safe.
‘I don’t have details but the important thing is she is alive.
‘I want to thank God and the community.’