Alicia Navarro, now 18, walked into a police department in a tiny Montana town 40 miles from the Canadian border and identified herself as the teen who was reported missing in September 2019, Glendale police said Wednesday.
The teenager — who was described as autistic but high-functioning in her missing person’s report — left her Glendale home overnight on Sept. 15, 2019, at just 14 years old.
Glendale police said they are investigating how the teen got to Montana and whom she has been staying with over the past four years as many questions remain unanswered.
They said Navarro ran away from home under her own free will and has been cooperating with their investigation.
She also told police that no one has harmed her and she appeared to be healthy.
She is asking for privacy so she can move on with her life, Santiago said.
Really werid, wonder how she managed to survive for four years but I hope the investigation finds out the she was simply extremely resourceful and not something more sinister.
I hope it’s resourcefulness, but it’s hard to imagine a 14 year old making it on her own for such a long time. But who knows, maybe she was doing bug bounties or freelance work and having the payment go through a corporation to get around the age thing. For like $500/year you can incorporate in some places it might even be less.
There are so many traveling kids out there. The types who sell wrapped stones and hemp bags at street festivals, drifting in and out of communal living situations, camps, etc.
I flirted with all that when I was younger, still think about just taking off in my car sometimes. Ok, a lot of the time. It’s pretty tempting for a lot of us to just say fuck it, and drop out of society and into a counter culture, or a nice intentional community.
Yeah! I lived without a home for around two years, and it’s kind of amazing what exists at the fringes of society. There is tragic homelessness, obviously, people with mental health issues, drug problems, money issues etc. but I met some amazingly resilient and saavy people while traveling as well, some young some old.
It really is a culture unto itself that’s invisible to most. And the strangest part is the way that you meet a lot of the same traveling people again thousands of miles from where you might’ve met them 3 months ago.
I don’t want to come off as romanticizing it since even a lot of the people who do it by “choice” come from some tragedy and there’s a very dark side to livingbon the road, but having lived that life for a realtively short time, it doesn’t really surprise me at all that she survived. You meet people on the road, a lot of them good and generous, who will teach you the basics of keeping yourself alive.
Very well said, some of the best people I’ve met were living on the road. Some very dangerous people, too.
I can relate to this, poor kid must have been going through a lot at only 14.
Hell, I had fairly supportive parents, and I barely held on. But in some sense, I really just prolonged things. Dwelling on the same thing for decades, through changing perspectives.
You don’t even need to go that far. You can make good money with a push mower just mowing a couple lawns each day and (up there) I think you can then snow blow in the winter.
It is entirely possible to fly under the radar and make enough money to live ok.
If you’re the least bit handy there’s all sorts of cash only work that a 14-18 year old doing wouldn’t raise any eyebrows, especially if she’s been staying near small towns a cash only rent deal for some trailer or shack is also not going to be hard to find.