HAVRE — Edmund Davis, linked to a previously-missing Arizona teenager, pleaded guilty in Hill County District Court in September 2024 to one count of sexual abuse of children, and was sentenced on Monday, February 10, 2025.
Davis, 37 years old, admitted to possessing child sex abuse material on his electronic devices.
A review of the content determined the individuals depicted to be under the age of 13, with two images of children under the age of 5, including images of infants and toddlers and other computer-generated or animated content showing children being sexualized.
The devices were discovered in July 2023 when the Havre Police Department served a search warrant on Davis’s apartment after learning that a young woman who had been reported missing from Glendale, Arizona, as a 14-year-old in 2019, was living there.
When she answered the door, officers saw Davis in the kitchen behind her throwing a cellphone into a trash can 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.
The court went along with the recommendation by prosecutors, and Davis was sentenced by Judge Kaydee Snipes Ruiz to 100 years in the Montana State Prison. Fifty of those years were suspended. Davis will not be eligible for parole for 25 years.
The state brought forth Brian Cassidy as a witness, who is the Montana Task Force Commander for the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC).
Cassidy said, “I[t]s a specialized task force, funded by OJJDP or the federal government, giving specialized training and funding to combat the spread of child sexual abuse material online.”
Cassidy explained that they investigated Davis’s cell phones and found thousands of child sexual abuse material.
John Nesbitt, who works in the Prosecution Services Bureau with the Attorney General Office, said, “[Cassidy] has a fundamental role as an investigator for ICAC he does absolutely crucial work to protect victims of child abuse and to detect this type of behavior. Offenders that are consuming this type of material.”
The sentencing, which was supposed to occur months ago, was delayed in order to include the psychosexual evaluation notes.
Nesbitt said, “Those are pretty, involved documents and they take a lot of time. And so we were just waiting for those to be completed.”
The notes claimed that Davis is comfortable with dishonesty, over-relies on denial, and was diagnosed with pedophilic disorder.
Nesbitt said, “I think the harshness of the penalty is reflective of that.”Nesbitt says situations like this are incredibly serious, as victimization of the children involved is repeated every time the material is spread.
FROM OCTOBER 2023:
