Skepticism Grows in Carlee Russell Incident
On Wednesday, a press conference was held to share updates on the case of Carlee Russell. The 25-year-old nursing student from Alabama was missing for 48 hours before returning home and claiming that she had been abducted and held captive. The Hoover Police Department shared that Russell had searched for information about Amber alerts and the movie “Taken,” which is about an abduction, prior to her disappearance.
“You have to pay for an amber alert or search,” was one such search, according to authorities. Russell also searched, “how to take money from a register without being caught,” “Birmingham bus station,” “one way bus ticket from Birmingham to Nashville,” and “Taken.”
Prior to her disappearance, Russell took some items from her workplace, including a “dark bathrobe” and a roll of toilet paper. She also stopped at Target to buy some snacks after picking up takeout food. When the police arrived at the scene after Russell’s 911 call, they noticed that the items from work and Target were missing, but her takeout food was still in the car.
The department clarified that Russell reportedly drove for a distance of 600 yards on the interstate while supposedly pursuing the toddler she claimed to have seen on the road’s shoulder. However, no evidence has been found to support the existence of any child on the road. Moreover, the department expressed skepticism of a toddler’s ability to move so swiftly alongside the busy interstate without any harm.
“To think that a toddler, barefoot, [who] can be 3 or 4 years old, is gonna travel six football fields is –without getting in the roadway, without crying – it’s just very hard for me to understand,” authorities said at the presser.
According to Russell, she was abducted by a man who has orange hair and a bald spot. This happened after she exited her vehicle to check on her toddler. Russell states that she was coerced into a car and taken to a house where she was with a man and a woman. Russell never saw the woman’s face. The man and woman allegedly made Russell undress and took pictures of her, according to her. She believed that the incident involved the man and woman taking photographs of her.
Her story is that she was eventually placed in a different vehicle, but managed to escape. She ran through a wooded area and arrived safely at her parents’ house where she currently lives. Upon meeting the detectives, they found $107 cash in her right sock, a torn shirt, and a cut lip.
“She’s having to deal with the trauma of people just making completely false allegations about her,” Russell’s parents told NBC on Tuesday. “She found her way back to us. However, we can’t discuss the details of that.”