Man connected to Alicia Navarro case charged with child sexual abuse
The Montana Attorney General's Office announced that a man connected to the missing persons case of Alicia Navarro, who was found safe earlier this year, was charged with sexual abuse of children.
In a Tuesday press release, Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said that 36-year-old Edmund Davis was charged with two felony counts of sexual abuse of children resulting from child sexual abuse material found on his cell phone. Officials said Davis was Navarro's boyfriend.
The release stated that the charges were filed under seal last week to help ensure the safe arrest of Davis.
Davis was arrested Monday afternoon in Chinook, Montana, by agents from the Montana Department of Justice's Division of Criminal Investigation and the Blaine County Sheriff's Department. The material found on his cell phone was seized when a search warrant was executed in Havre, Montana, earlier this year, according to a news release.
The statement said that in July, Havre police served a search warrant for Davis' apartment after learning that Navarro, who went missing from Glendale as a 14-year-old in 2019, was living there.
Charging documents released by the Montana Attorney General's Office state that Davis had been seen in the presence of Navarro before she went to Havre Police Department, where she asked to be taken off the missing persons list. The documents state that Davis was later identified to be Navarro's boyfriend.
Navarro answered the door and said no one else was in the apartment. But officers said they saw Davis in the kitchen behind her throwing a cell phone into a trash can and placing items on top of the phone to hide it, according to the release and charging documents.
Police seized three cell phones, including the one from the trash can; a laptop computer; and an Xbox. They were sent to Glendale police.
Officials said in charging documents that over 80 images of suspected child sex abuse material were located on the device thrown in the trash can, which was confirmed to belong to Davis. Following protocol, Glendale police selected ten of those images and took them to medical experts for review. The experts determined that most of the individuals depicted were under 13 and two were under 5 years old.
Previously: What we know about 'miracle' reappearance of Glendale teen Alicia Navarro
The phone and other electronic devices found during the search were then handed to the Division of Criminal Investigation's computer forensics unit in Helena, Montana after Glendale's review. Under a separate search warrant, agents found images of infants and toddlers and other content that showed children being sexualized.
Officials stated that Davis' first count of sexual abuse of children was for knowingly possessing electronic images of a child or children that were 12 years old or younger engaged in sexual conduct. That charge carries a 100-year prison sentence, 25 of which may not be suspended or deferred. His second count of child abuse has an imprisonment range of four years to life.
Davis was being held on a $1 million bond in the Hill County Detention Center.
Glendale police announced on July 26 that Navarro, now 18 years old, was found alive in a small Montana town. At the time, they did not release the name of the town, but it was later identified as Havre.
"She is, by all accounts, safe. She is, by all accounts, healthy," Glendale spokesperson Jose Santiago, said. "She is, by all accounts, happy."
Santiago said Navarro's whereabouts were made known because she went to police in town with the hopes of being taken off a list of missing children. He said Navarro went to them of her own free will and identified herself to officers.
At the announcement, police said all they knew was that this all started as a runaway situation because of statements she had made to them, including a handwritten note left on the night she was last seen. It read, "I ran away. I will be back, I swear. - Alicia."
Later that day, Navarro's mother Jessica Nuñez said in a video posted to Facebook that she did not know the details of her daughter's recovery but expressed joy that Navarro was safe.
"I, first of all, want to give glory to God for answering your prayers and for this miracle," Nuñez said.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Man connected to Alicia Navarro case charged with child sexual abuse
