"Miracles do exist": Astonishing return of missing teen after four years
<p>An American teenager has been found after she went missing four years ago, when she walked into a police station and asked to be taken off the missing children list. </p>
<p>Alicia Navarro, who is now 18, walked into a police station in a small town in Montana, close to the Canadian border, and identified herself as the teenager who was reported missing in September 2019. </p>
<p>“Alicia Navarro has been located,” Glendale public safety communications manager Jose Santiago said during a press conference.</p>
<p>“She is by all accounts, safe, she is by all accounts healthy and she is by all accounts happy.”</p>
<p>The teenager reportedly left her home willingly four years ago when she was 14-years-old, leaving her parents a note when she disappeared from her house overnight on September 15th 2019. </p>
<p>Alicia, who has been described as a high-functioning autistic person, left a handwritten note for her parents that read, “I ran away. I will be back. I swear. I’m sorry,” before she slipped out of the house while they slept. </p>
<p>Her parents then didn't hear from her for four years, until they were contacted by the Glendale Police Department to let them know their child had been found. </p>
<p>Alicia had an emotional reunion with her mum, who never stopped looking for her, as she was very apologetic over the pain her mother went through not knowing where she was for the past four years or even if she was still alive. </p>
<p>Her mom, Jessica Nuñez, called the discovery of her daughter four years after her disappearance a miracle in a video she posted to Facebook.</p>
<p>“For everyone who has missing loved ones, I want you to use this case as an example,” she said. “Miracles do exist. Never lose hope and always fight.”</p>
<p>Nuñez said she doesn’t have details on her daughter’s disappearance but said “the important thing is that she is alive.”</p>
<p>Glendale police are now investigating how the teenager got to Montana, and how she has survived over the last four years by herself. </p>
<p>Alicia told police that no one has harmed her and appeared to be healthy, while the girl currently remains in Montana and is able to come and go as she pleases and has asked for privacy so she can move on with her life. </p>
<p>“We can only imagine what she’s going through, mentally, emotionally, as well as her family, and as much as we’d like to say this is the end, this is probably only the beginning of where this investigation will go,” Glendale PD Lt. Scott Waite said.</p>
<p><em>Image credits: Fox 10</em></p>
