Could Alicia Navarro's Abductor(s) Have Used an Event Like Comic-Con to Lure Her From Home?

Listen to Gone From Glendale, our investigative podcast covering Alicia Navarro’s disappearance.

Alicia Navarro was 14-years-old when she disappeared from her Glendale, Arizona home in the middle of the night, just five days before her 15th birthday. Nearly one year has now crept by since Alicia seemingly vanished into thin air in the early morning hours of September 15, 2019, and the Glendale police have failed to produce a single credible lead in her disappearance.

Despite the overwhelming number of missing kids in Arizona, and the U.S. in general, the Anti-Predator Project took on Alicia’s case, and is now offering a $9,000 reward for credible information leading to her recovery.

I’ve written about Alicia’s story several times, including a deep dive into her life leading up to her disappearance, wherein, with the help of her mother Jessica, I picked apart every aspect of Alicia’s life down to the most mundane-seeming details. I’ve also obtained, through public disclosure requests, hundreds of pages of Glendale Police Department incident reports related to Alicia’s case.

Armed with all this information and my own research on internet predators, human trafficking and increasingly sophisticated forms of “sextortion,” I’ve played out in my head every imaginable scenario that could have caused a shy teenager — whose small stature makes her appear young for her age and whose high-functioning autism causes her severe social anxiety in public settings — to leave the safety and comfort of her family home.

The Circumstances of Alicia’s Disappearance

Alicia is not most people’s idea of a “troubled kid.” She’s never used drugs or been in trouble with the law, she’s always preferred playing video games online alone in her room to going out with friends, and she’s certainly never run away from home before. In fact, Jessica says Alicia probably wouldn’t be able to take public transit by herself.

Still, just like every teenager, there were things about Alicia’s life she kept secret from her family, including two alleged romances with male friends from school, both of which apparently ended badly shortly before Alicia went missing. In fact, it may have been lingering anxiety in part over these “breakups” that caused Alicia to stay home from school the Friday before she vanished.

One of Alicia’s male friends also claimed he saw her with a burner phone in the weeks leading up to her disappearance. Alicia is tech-savvy and well-versed in internet culture — she even knows how to code — but what use could a 14-year-old who spends most of her time alone in her room have for a burner phone?

And why did a hole about the size of a golf ball — a hole clearly cut from the inside — appear in Alicia’s screen window before she went missing? Further, why did she lie to her mother about how it got there, blaming it on birds?

Alicia left behind a “runaway note,” which I believe was carefully coordinated by her abductor(s) to intentionally obstruct what should have been a prompt criminal investigation into her disappearance from the very beginning. Alicia was extracted from her own home by a professional predator, in the middle of the night, while her parents were asleep mere feet away.

The question is: how did they do it to Alicia?

The Extraction of Alicia Navarro

Jessica, who had warned her daughter before about the dangers lurking on the internet, noticed certain changes in her daughter in the months leading up to Alicia’s disappearance. Five months before she went missing, Alicia begged her mother to buy her a $200 “Demon in a Bottle” Ironman comic book, which Jessica never saw Alicia read. Strangely, that comic book was one of the few things Alicia took with her when she left, along with her cell phone, computer, makeup and a new body spray, which also struck Jessica as odd, because of Alicia’s intolerance to strong fragrances.

If Alicia was indeed carefully groomed by someone she met online who posed as a friend or romantic interest, could the comic book have been an intended gift for this person? Was it meant to be re-sold for money? Or, perhaps after several months of communication, Alicia’s would-be abductor proposed a special birthday trip, maybe to Comic-Con, which Jessica said Alicia had previously mentioned wanting to attend. Maybe Alicia was just planning to get her book signed.

Before her disappearance, Alicia allegedly told some friends she had plans to run away, possibly to California. There were Comic-Con events in California and other neighboring states around and shortly after Alicia’s disappearance. Major tourist events, like Comic-Con, are a big draw for human traffickers, according to the California Hotel & Lodging Association.

Could it have been under the guise of something as innocent as a convention for comic lovers that Alicia was snatched from her life?

So many lingering questions remain about how and under what circumstances Alicia could have been taken nearly one year ago. Her disappearance remains a mess of knotted threads that needs to be carefully untangled. Most of the threads may lead nowhere, but it might only take pulling on the right one to finally expose the truth.

Below is the comic book Alicia brought with her when she disappeared — it would have been worth ~$200, in good condition, and could have been re-sold anywhere. It may be easier to locate than her.