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.
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.