Boyfriend of missing US teenager Alicia Navarro fired from supermarket job after becoming 'increasingly aggressive'
7 August 2023, 09:33
The boyfriend of a teenage girl who went missing for four years was fired from his job as a supermarket shelf-stacker after getting "increasingly aggressive".
Alicia, 18, went missing from her home in the US state of Arizona in September 2019, leaving behind a note for her sleeping parents, saying she was leaving - just days before her 15th birthday.
She disappeared for four years, turning up at a police station near the border with Canada in Montana to identify herself in July this year. She then left again with her boyfriend, with whom she had been living for at least a year.
Eddie Davis, 36, worked nights stacking shelves at a local Wal-Mart, but was fired after he 'hurled angry comments' at colleagues, and became increasingly aggressive, according to a former co-worker.
The colleague said: "Within a year or two, his attitude changed at work. He would call younger guys names and stuff. I'm not sure of the names. He was being very aggressive."
The ex-colleague added that Mr Davis had hidden his relationship with Alicia, passing her off as his niece. But he had been living with her for more than a year.
They said that co-workers invited Mr Davis to a bar and asked him if he wanted to bring his girlfriend - but he denied they were in a relationship.
"Eddie replied, saying it was his niece not his girlfriend, and that she was too young," the colleague said. "They were using the cover... about it being his niece."
Alicia, who is now 18 and free to live where she likes, handed herself in at a police station in July before going to a Native American reservation with Mr Davis last week.
But after she handed herself in, FBI agents armed with assault rifles drawn carried out a raid on a Montana property where she had been living.
Neighbours described how Alicia “hung her head” and covered her eyes “like she was crying” during the raid.
Locals in Navarro’s neighbourhood said the FBI found her apartment quickly after she identified herself at the police station, before armed police set up a stakeout of the property.
The agents were armed with assault rifles and bulletproof vests.
“Three Havre police [cars] pulled up out of the building and they all got out with guns drawn and went into the apartment,” neighbour Rob Turner told The New York Post.
Mr Turner continued: “I would say five to 10 minutes later they bring this girl out… They brought this girl out and I told my wife ‘Oh man, that don’t look good. She looks really young’.”
“Little did I know she was legal age but she sure didn’t look it,” he added.
Not long afterwards, the officers re-entered the home with evidence-gathering kits.
“They [officers] were talking to her and they were over there maybe three minutes and she hung her head and covered her face.”
She was described as safe and well and her mother declared "miracles do exist" after she emerged.
When she handed herself into police she insisted she was okay and thanked officers for “offering to help me” but police have reportedly said she is being treated as a victim.
It comes after Navarro's mum, Jessica Nuñez, urged people to stop turning up at her home in what she has described as a 'dangerous' search for answers.
