Runaway teen Alicia Navarro’s ‘boyfriend’ charged with child sex abuse | US News

The alleged boyfriend of a runaway teen girl who walked into a police station 1,000 miles away after going missing for four years has been hit with child sexual abuse charges.

Edmund Davis, the 36-year-old linked to Alicia Navarro who disappeared when she was 14, had child sex abuse material on his cell phone and was arrested on Monday afternoon, said Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen.

Dozens of images of suspected child sex abuse material were found on Davis’ phone, which was seized in a search warrant executed in the small town of Havre earlier this year, the Montana Attorney General’s Office announced on Tuesday.

Havre police served the warrant on Davis’ apartment in July after finding that Navarro, who vanished from Glendale, Arizona, was living there.

When Navarro, now 18, opened the door, ‘officers observed Davis in the kitchen behind her throwing a cellphone into a trash can and placing items on top of the phone as if to hide it,’ stated the attorney general’s office.

Navarro turned up at a police station in Havre after leaving a note for her parents on September 14, 2019, that read: ‘I ran away. I will be back. I swear. I’m sorry.’

At the time of Navarro’s reappearance, Havre cops were reportedly seen handcuffing and taking away a man residing at an apartment a few blocks from the police station. But authorities did not immediately comment.

Davis has been charged with two felony counts of sexual abuse of children resulting from the material seen on his cell. He is being held in the Hill County Detention Center with his bond set at $1million.

Glendale police shared ten images from Davis’ phone with medical experts, who determined that the subjects were under 13 years of age and that two of the pictures were of kids younger than 5, according to the attorney general’s office.

Davis’ phone and other electronic devices seized in the search were sent to DCI Computer Forensic Unit agents, who found ‘the phone contained images of infants and toddlers and other computer-generated or animated content showing children being sexualized’, stated the office.

The first count against Davis is for knowingly possessing electronic communication images of a child or children aged 12 or younger engaged in sexual conduct and carries a 100-year prison sentence, 25 which cannot be deferred or suspended. The second count of child abuse can lead to four years to life in prison.

Navarro’s case garnered national attention when she was found and deemed ‘by all accounts safe’ by Glendale police spokesman Jose Santiago. Navarro also appeared in a video call with Glendale cops saying, ‘No, nobody hurt me,’ and thanking them for offering to help her.

As questions loomed on Navarro’s mysterious case, her mother, Jessica Nunez, said her family was ‘harassed’ and ‘attacked on the Internet’ and begged the public to ‘move on’.  

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