Man connected to Arizona teen who had been missing pleads to unrelated charge

A man who was living with a young woman in Havre when she notified authorities she was the one who went missing as a child four years earlier in Arizona pleaded guilty in Hill County District Court Monday to an unrelated felony count of sexual abuse of children.

Edmund Davis Harris, 37, entered his plea before state District Judge Kaydee Snipes Ruiz. A second count of sexual abuse of children will be dismissed under a plea agreement.

Snipes Ruiz sent the sentencing date for Dec. 16.

The state will be asking the court to sentence Davis to the Montana State Prison for 100 years with 50 years suspended and a 25-year parole restriction.

Davis was was arrested on two counts of felony sexual abuse of children in Chinook Oct. 23, 2923, by Blaine County Sheriff's Office personnel and agents from the Montana Department of Justice's Division of Criminal Investigation.

The charges had been filed under seal the previous week to help ensure a safe arrest, a release from the Montana Attorney General's Office said.

Images of child sex abuse and other evidence leading to the filing of the charges were found on Davis' cellphone and other electronic devices seized when a search warrant was executed in his residence in Havre in July 2023.

The Havre Police Department served the warrant on Davis' apartment after learning that an 18-year-old, who went missing from Glendale, Arizona, as a 14-year-old in 2019, was living there.

Charging documents in the case against Davis said that previous to the warrant being issued, the young woman showed up at the Havre Police Department to identify herself and say she wanted to be taken off the missing persons list.

The woman was reported missing from Glendale, Arizona, in 2019, days before her 15th birthday.

The Havre Police Department contacted the Glendale Police Department and the FBI and Havre police would confirm her identity shortly after.

Court documents say that Davis had been seen in the presence of Navarro before she had gone to the Havre Police Department and was later identified as her boyfriend.

Three days after she contacted Havre police, a search warrant on Davis' apartment was executed.

When the woman answered the door when officers served the warrant, officers observed Davis in the kitchen behind her throwing a cellphone in the trash and placing items on top of the phone as if to hide it.

The phone and other electronic devices found during the search were transferred into the custody of the Division of Criminal Investigation Computer Forensics Unit in Helena. DCI agents then obtained a separate search warrant for the electronics and identified a known child sexual abuse material photo series and other evidentiary images

Dozens of images of suspected child sex abuse material were found on the phone, and a review of the images by medical professionals determined the individuals depicted to be younger than 13, with two images of children younger than 5.

The phone contained images of infants and toddlers and other computer-generated or animated content showing children being sexualized.