The mother of the 18-year-old girl who reappeared last week after disappearing in 2019 has released a video message defending herself while “begging” the public to “move on” as she describes how the emergence of her daughter has taken a dark turn thanks to glaring media attention.
Jessica Nuñez posted the video to the Facebook page which once served as an information hub for the latest news on her missing daughter, Alicia Navarro. The teen left her Arizona home in 2019 at the age of 14 after leaving a cryptic note, only to show up four years later in a small Montana railroad town near the Canadian border.
Navarro walked into a police station in Havre, Montana, on July 23, identified herself as a missing person and asked for a driver’s license, Tim Steele, the president of the Anti-Predator Project and the Navarro family spokesperson, told The Daily Beast last week. “She wanted a Montana driver’s license,” Steele said.
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Since her reemergence, Navarro’s story has captured global attention and questions have been raised surrounding the teen’s whereabouts over the last four years, whether there were others involved, why Navarro chose to identify herself now and the status of a reunion with her family.
Steele later told Newsmax the picture of how Navarro survived for the last few years “right now is not” clear, but that law enforcement is “trying to piece together what’s happened, how she’s been able to stay off the grid, how she’s been able to feed herself, how she’s been able to bathe herself, it’s hard to believe she was able to do all this alone.”
“If you’re using your outside judgement most people are going to believe there’s no way she could have done this alone. She had to be with somebody.” He added it will likely take several weeks to piece the puzzle together.
On Sunday night, in a video captioned, “Let’s focus that my daughter is alive This is a miracle,” Nuñez said that while she was grateful to her supporters over the last four years, she had one more “favor.”
“I’m making this video to let everybody know how much I appreciate the support you have given Alicia and me over the last four years, I could never have kept going without all of your love, help and well wishes,” she begins, adding that “I can’t even put into the 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.”
Nuñez then describes how her family has been the subject of harassment and that the public reaction to Navarro’s discovery has taken a turn for the worse.
“I know you want answers and I do too, but the public 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 continues: “So I beg you, please, no more TikToks, no more reaching out to Alicia or to me with your speculations 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.”
“My job has always been to protect her and just as I never gave up on her before, I won’t stand for the treatment of her now, for this is my statement. There is an ongoing investigation and I'm begging you to move on.”
Just a day earlier, Nuñez addressed media, naming the Associated Press, writing that “you need to respect my daughters wishes she is a courages [sic] young lady who walked in you need to Leave my daughter alone ! She is requesting privacy please we need to heal.”
According to a July 28 report from the Associated Press, up to 10 “heavily-armed uniformed and undercover officers” escorted a man in handcuffs at an apartment near the Havre police station.
The news comes as neighbors of Navarro in Montana told the New York Post they heard her “shouting with an unidentified man inside their apartment building,” claiming she threatened to “go back,” just a day before she reappeared.
In a short video sent by the Glendale Police Department to The Daily Beast last week, Navarro can be seen being questioned by investigators via video call.
An investigator asks: “Did anybody hurt you in any way?”
“No, no one hurt me,” she answers.
Navarro appears to be in good spirits, police claimed, adding that she “really wants to move on with her life,” and is “very apologetic to her mother and understands she caused a lot of pain.”
