Man connected to Alicia Navarro arrested on child sex abuse charges

CHINOOK, Mont. - A man who was linked to Alicia Navarro, a previously missing Glendale teenager, has been arrested for sex abuse charges, authorities said.

The Montana Attorney General's Office says 36-year-old Edmund Davis has been charged with two felony counts of sexual abuse of children. "Child sex abuse material" was allegedly found on Davis' cell phone after authorities served a search warrant on his apartment in connection to Navarro, who disappeared days before her 15th birthday.

Navarro was last seen leaving her home in 2019. In July 2023, Glendale Police announced she had been found living in Montana.

Investigators say Navarro was living with Davis at his Havre apartment and when authorities went to the apartment to serve a search warrant, Davis was seen throwing a cell phone in the trash.

"Dozens of images of suspected child sex abuse material were located on the device, confirmed to belong to Davis," the Montana Attorney General's Office said. "The phone contained images of infants and toddlers and other computer-generated or animated content showing children being sexualized."

Davis is being held in the Hill County Detention Center on a $1 million bond.

The Glendale Police Department on Tuesday declined to answer questions on the investigation into Navarro’s disappearance, including what additional information authorities had gathered during the residence search in Havre and in follow-up interviews.

It's unknown if Davis is considered a suspect in the disappearance of Navarro. Authorities in Arizona said that the investigation remains ongoing.

The teen's mother, Jessica Nunez, said she believes her daughter, who is autistic, was lured away from her Glendale home when she was 14.

Despite an extensive effort to find Navarro, no one knew her whereabouts until she appeared at that Montana police station in July.

The Associated Press (AP) contributed to this report.