‘Boyfriend’ of former missing teen Alicia Navarro pleads not guilty to child sex abuse charges
The middle-aged “boyfriend” of former missing teen Alicia Navarro pleaded not guilty in Montana court Monday to charges he kept sick sex photos of kids — including some younger than 5 — on his phone.
Edmund Davis, 36, entered the not guilty plea to two felony child sex abuse raps before being returned to custody, where he is being held on $1 million bail.
Balding and bearded, Davis appeared before the court in an orange prison jumpsuit with his hands cuffed in front of him.
His public defender told the court he would be motioning for a bail reduction for his client.
Davis was arrested in October after police searched his apartment following the resurfacing of Navarro. The girl, now 18, had vanished from her Arizona home four years ago but appeared at a police station in Havre, Mont., this past July and asked to be taken off missing persons lists.
Shortly after it became clear she had been living with Davis, allegedly as his girlfriend, police searched his apartment and seized his cellphones, where prosecutors from the Montana Attorney General’s Office said they discovered evidence of child sex abuse.
As police initially arrived at the home to execute their search warrant, it was Navarro who answered the door — and was allegedly observed trying to hide a cell phone in a trash can.
“Dozens of images of suspected child sex abuse material were located on the device, confirmed to belong to Davis,” the attorney general’s office later said in a release.
“Following their protocols, Glendale Police selected ten images from those found and brought them to medical experts. … The review determined the individuals depicted to be under the age of 13, with two images of children under the age of 5,” the release and charging documents alleged.
Searches of Davis’ other devices found they “contained images of infants and toddlers and other computer-generated or animated content showing children being sexualized,” authorities said.
Navarro had been living with Davis for at least a year, locals told The Post before his child-sex-abuse arrest, with one former colleague from his gig at Walmart explaining he told people she was his niece.
“They were using the cover … about it being his niece,” the colleague said.
Navarro has since been reunited with her mother, Jessica Nunez, who released a video telling parents of other missing children that “miracles do happen.”
Navarro had left behind a note for her mother when she vanished shortly before her 15th birthday in 2019, leading police to believe she “willfully left her home.” Davis has not been charged in her disappearance.
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