An Arizona teenager who showed up at a Montana police station nearly four years after she disappeared told detectives in Glendale that no one had hurt her, according to footage released by authorities.
“Did anybody hurt you in any way?” a Glendale detective asked Alicia Navarro. The now 18-year-old was still in Montana and briefly spoke with detectives in Arizona via video, according to police.
“No, no one hurt me,” she responded in the 27-second clip.
“Okay, because our goal is, we just want to make sure that you’re safe,” the detective said.
“I don’t, I don’t, ummm,” the teen said before pausing. “I understand that.”
The rest of the video was muted by the department.
In a second clip, a detective thanked Navarro for speaking with them.
“Of course,” the teen replied. “Thank you for offering help to me.”
Authorities in Glendale said Wednesday that Navarro went to a police station in a small Montana town near the Canadian border and identified herself as a missing person. She vanished from her mother’s home on September 15, 2019, at the age of 14.
Her mother, Jessica Nuñez, told NBC’s “Dateline” in 2020 that she had found a note in her daughter’s bedroom saying she ran away, but Nuñez said that was out of character for the teen. She added that her daughter was on the autism spectrum and could be shy or anxious in some social situations.
Jose Santiago, a spokesman for Glendale police, told reporters at a news conference that Navarro “is by all accounts safe, she is by all accounts healthy, and she is by all accounts happy.”
“She is not in any kind of trouble. She is not facing any kind of charges,” he said.
Police Lt. Scott Waite said that the case remains under investigation. They did not immediately have details on how she arrived in Montana.
“Every indication she’s given to us so far is that she willfully left her home,” Waite said. “Now the dynamics surrounding that decision are obviously something we’re looking into.”
Waite said that the teen arrived at the police station by herself. Santiago said she “basically asked for help to clear her off of a missing juvenile list.”
Authorities said they are not naming the town to protect her privacy and because of the ongoing investigation.
Navarro has since been reunited with her mother. It’s not clear if she’s back in Arizona.
On Wednesday, Nuñez released a video calling it a “miracle” that her daughter was found safe.
