Fifteen-Year-Old Alicia Navarro Has Been Missing for Nine Months

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Glendale, AZ — Alicia Navarro, 15, went missing from her Glendale, Arizona home on September 15, 2019, and has not been seen since. Navarro has high functioning autism and is quite bright, according to her mother, Jessica Nuñez, but also struggles with severe shyness and social anxiety. The teenager is a prolific gamer who spends a significant amount of time online, and as a result she has some friends she’s never actually met in person. 

Investigators initially believed Navarro was a runaway, but the girl’s family said it’s more likely she was lured away from home by a predator posing as a friend on the internet. The FBI is now involved in the search, according to Nuñez.

When Nuñez awoke the morning of September 15, she discovered her daughter had gone missing in the night, taking her cell phone and laptop with her. The teenager left behind a note promising she’d return, but she has not been seen nor heard from since. It’s believed Navarro left home sometime between 3:30 a.m. and 7 a.m.

The note Alicia left for her mother before disappearing.

To escape the family’s yard without drawing attention, Navarro stacked two chairs to climb over a backyard fence, and then climbed a stack of bricks to scale the outer wall. 

If a predator lured Navarro from her home, it’s possible they could have traveled from out of state. However, the perpetrator could also live nearby. There are approximately 255 registered sex offenders in Glendale, according to the Arizona Department of Public Safety, though it’s impossible for the list to be exhaustive.  

According to Arizona Predator Prevention, there are about 42 different social media apps used by perpetrators to lure children. Some of the most popular apps among predators are Scout, Whisper, Snapchat, Instagram and Kik, though they also use devices like Playstation and Xbox, and games like Fortnite and Minecraft.

On February 3, 2020, authorities arrested 27 suspected pedophiles in the Phoenix, Arizona area as part of an undercover operation called “Operation Silent Predator,” in which the predators believed they were meeting children 14 and under.  

After Navarro’s disappearance, a Reddit user alleging to be a former private investigator suggested the family access the chat logs on her gaming accounts to find out who the girl had been talking to. Another Reddit user, who claims to have spoken to Nuñez, reported Navarro had been interacting with at least three separate gamer tags right before her disappearance — “gnprincess” and “Todamoodle” on Xbox and “wowzaurcute” on Discord. 

If you have any information about the disappearance of Alicia Navarro, you are urged to call the Glendale Police Department at 623-930-3000. You may also contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST.