Source: Carlee Russell / Facebook
Carlee Russell’s return home has led to relief but also a lot of questions.
Hoover Police Department is still uncovering details of the nature of her disappearance and where she went, but a press conference on Wednesday afternoon unearthed some truths.
Police Chief Nick Derzis revealed the timeline of events leading up to Russell’s disappearance on Thursday night in Birmingham, Alabama. Before she went missing, she called the police to say she found a toddler walking along the interstate.
“I think it’s a little boy,” Russell told the 911 operator. “It’s a white T-shirt. It doesn’t look like he has any pants on. It looks like a diaper.”
However, police revealed there were no other reports of missing children in the area.
Russell said that when she got out of her car, she was abducted by a male with orange hair and a woman whose face she never saw.
“She claimed he then forced her into a car, and the next thing she remembers is being in the trailer of an 18-wheeler,” Derzis said. “She stated the male was with a female. However, she never saw the female, only hearing her voice.”
Russell says she escaped the next day and walked home, but the police are having difficulty corroborating much of her account.
Russell works at a spa, and police found evidence that she took a bathrobe and towel from the business and bought granola bars and Cheez-Its from a local Target.
“What we can say is we’ve been unable to verify most of Carlee’s initial statements made to investigators. And we have no reason to believe that there is a threat to the public safety related to this particular case,” he said.
Police were also able to look up her recent Google searches with the help of the Secret Service, who uncovered some eye-opening inquiries.
On July 11, she searched search for “if you have to pay for an Amber Alert,” and on the day she went missing, she Googled bus tickets from Birmingham to Nashville, how to take money from a register without getting caught, and even looked up the movie Taken, a Liam Neeson-led film about an abduction.
After returning home, Russell had a minor injury on her lip and complained of a headache, but just because she’s safe doesn’t mean the investigation is done.
“This investigation is not over,” Derzis said. “However, due to the public interest and, in some cases, public fear that this story has generated, we owe it to our citizens [to share] the facts that we have uncovered.”
Charges have yet to be filed against Russell for falsely claiming to be kidnapped, and the cops would like to interview her again once she is in a better mental state.
