Alicia Navarro, the Arizona teen who unexpectedly showed up in Montana almost four years after she disappeared, may have Stockholm syndrome, according to a former FBI agent.
After Navarro, 18, walked into a small-town Montana police department and asked to be removed from the missing children list, she assured authorities that no one had hurt her — and even thanked them for “offering to help me.”
But an ex-FBI expert who spent years working with victims of human trafficking told AZ Family that Navarro — who was previously described as autistic but high-functioning — may not be aware she is a victim.
“Regardless of whether or not she’s been diagnosed with autism, what strikes me is what I saw in many of the victims that I helped recover when I was working those cases,” Jim Egleston told the outlet.
“And that is they often don’t recognize that they are a victim. It used to be referred to as Stockholm syndrome. Now it’s referred to as trauma bonding,” he added.
The former fed believes the investigation will reveal that a crime was committed and that someone may have put Navarro through a harrowing experience.
“I don’t see how this is likely without some other person being involved, and if another person was involved, you have to question their motives, of course,” Egleston told AZ Family.
“One of the keys to unraveling what happened to her and holding whoever may have been with her responsible, the investigators are going to have to spend time and develop trust and rapport with her over a series of contacts and interviews,” he added.
Alicia Navarro’s mysterious reappearance: What we know so far
Who is Alicia Navarro?
Alicia Navarro is a previously missing 18-year-old from Arizona who unexpectedly turned up in a Montana police station nearly four years after her disappearance.
When did she disappear?
In 2019, the girl left her family’s Glendale, Arizona, home in the middle of the night just a few days before her 15th birthday. Her parents found a handwritten note from Navarro saying: “I ran away. I will be back. I swear. I’m sorry.”
Where was she found?
Navarro walked into a police station in a tiny Montana town about 40 miles from the Canadian border — and some 1,000 miles from home — and identified herself as the missing girl from Arizona.
Is she facing any charges?
Authorities in Navarro’s hometown of Glendale, Arizona, said the teen is not facing any criminal charges and is not in any kind of legal trouble.
Why did she leave?
Alicia’s mother, Jessica Nuñez, previously raised concerns that Navarro, who was diagnosed as high-functioning on the autism spectrum, may have been lured away by someone she met online.
When Navarro vanished just days before her 15th birthday in September 2019, the teen left her family a note that read: “I ran away. I will be back. I swear. I’m sorry.”
She then wasn’t seen or heard from until this week, when she strolled into a police station in the tiny Montana town of Havre near the Canadian border.
“She is by all accounts safe, she is by all accounts healthy and she is by all accounts happy,” a spokesperson for the Glendale Police Department in Arizona told reporters.
Since her reappearance, the teen has “spoken briefly” with her mom, Jessica Nuñez, but has not returned to Arizona, the family’s private investigator Trent Steel exclusively told the New York Post on Thursday.
The family, who have asked for privacy, thanked Glendale police in a statement released to Fox 10, writing: “We want to start by saying how happy we are that Alicia has been found alive and safe. It is a blessing that after being missing for so long Alicia can come back home.”
The Glendale Police Department, which is leading the probe alongside the FBI and US Marshals, has sent investigators to Havre.
It was unclear if Nuñez has flown to Montana to meet with her daughter, who is now legally an adult, to bring her home.
Police have not revealed if Navarro had been living with anyone during the last four years or why she ran away.
Steel told The Post that she had “not made her intentions clear” on whether she would return to Glendale.
