GLENDALE, AZ — The Montana Attorney General's Office announced on Tuesday, October 24, 2023, that it is charging Edmund Davis with two felony counts of sexual abuse of children, following an investigation into the case of missing Arizona teenager Alicia Navarro.
Navarro had shown up at the Havre Police Station on Sunday, July 23, 2023. She told police that she had been reported missing and wanted to "clear her status." Police said she appeared to be fine and in good health. When interacting with police, she was said to be in bright spirits, the same happy and healthy girl who mysteriously vanished from Glendale years ago. She was reportedly apologetic for what she put her mother through.
"Today is a huge relief," said Kathleen Winn, Director of Project 2, which raises awareness about human trafficking. She is friends with Alicia's mom, Jessica Nunez, and has advocated for the family.
"I know that this mom is anxious to help her daughter heal and help her family heal, said Winn. "I'm sure there's going to be issues and emotional issues, and things that she's going to have to deal with."
"They can always add more charges later, and I'm grateful that he's behind bars tonight," Winn said.
Watch ABC15 coverage of Navarro's reappearance in the player below.
A news release says that agents from the MT DOJ Division of Criminal Investigation and the Blaine County Sheriff’s Department arrested Davis on Monday in Chinook, Montana after inappropriate photos of children under the age of 13 were found on his phone.
Authorities tell ABC15 Navarro was not one of the children inappropriately photographed in the photos found on his cell phone.
The child sex abuse material was found on his cellphone, according to the Montana DOJ, which was seized when a search warrant was executed in Havre earlier this year.
Davis, 36 years old, is being held in the Hill County Detention Center on a $1 million bond as ordered by state District Court Judge Kaydee Snipes Ruiz.
In July, the Havre Police Department served a search warrant on Davis' apartment after learning that Navarro, who was reported missing in Glendale, Arizona as a 14-year-old, was living there. When she answered the door, officers saw Davis in the kitchen behind her throwing a cell phone into a trash can and placing items on top of the phone as if to hide it.
Dozens of images of suspected child sex abuse material were located on the device, confirmed to belong to Davis. Following their protocols, Glendale police selected ten images from those found and brought them to medical experts.
The review determined the individuals depicted to be under the age of 13, with two images of children under the age of 5.
The phone and other electronic devices found during the search were transferred into the custody of the DCI Computer Forensics Unit in Helena.
DCI agents then obtained a search warrant for the electronics and identified a known child sexual abuse material photo series and other evidentiary images. The phone contained images of infants and toddlers and other computer-generated or animated content showing children being sexualized.
The first count of sexual abuse of children for knowingly possessing electronic communication images of a child or children under 12 years of age or younger engaged in sexual conduct carries a 100-year prison sentence, 25 of which may not be suspended or deferred. The second count of child abuse can result in imprisonment for life with a minimum sentence of four years.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen tells ABC15 that the charges are unrelated to Navarro at this time, “ At this point, the charges we filed have nothing to do with Miss Navarro, yet but that investigation is definitely still ongoing.”
“We're still trying to get to the bottom of exactly how did Alicia Navarro end up in Montana, and didn't pop back up on the radar until five years after her disappearance,” said Knudsen.
Knudsen did not have any updates about Navarro except that she is communicating with Montana investigators, “she is in good health,” he said. “I don't know that she was aware of a lot of these things. There's still a lot of questions that we are trying to get answered here. So far there has not been a lot of information forthcoming from her.”
According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, child sexual abuse material is any visual that depicts “the sexual abuse and exploitation of children. Not only do these images and videos document victims’ exploitation and abuse, but when these files are shared across the internet, child victims suffer re-victimization each time the image of their sexual abuse is viewed.”
Assistant Attorney General Dan Guzynski is prosecuting the case, which was investigated by the Havre Police Department, Glendale Police Department, and the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation.