Local police didn’t say Russell’s alleged kidnapping was a hoax, but called her behavior and internet search activity in the days leading up to her disappearance “strange,” adding that police haven’t been granted a follow-up interview with her about the incident.
“She’s not ready to talk, is what we’ve been told,” Hoover police chief Nick Derzis told reporters at a press conference.
Derzis said investigators found that prior to her disappearance, Russell had searched for whether or not you “have to pay for an Amber Alert” and what the maximum age for an Amber Alert is.
Derzis also said Russell searched for a one-way bus ticket from Birmingham, Ala. to Nashville, Tenn., scheduled for the night she vanished. She also searched for the movieTaken, and looked up the phrase “how to take money from a register without being caught.”
HOOVER (AL) POLICE DEPARTMENT
Before leaving work and getting on the highway where she first called 911, police say Russell left work with a bath robe and toilet paper. She then stopped at Target to buy Cheez-Its and granola bars, which were not found at the scene of her disappearance with her other belongings.
Russell’s family has continued to claim the 25-year-old was abducted and that her kidnapper is still at large, while Derzis said there’s “no reason to believe there’s a threat to public safety” at this time.
When asked if the alleged abductor Russell described is currently on the loose, the police chief responded: “Don’t believe so.”
Derzis said the investigation into Russell’s disappearance is ongoing and investigators still have many questions.
“Only Carlee can provide those answers,” Derzis said.
Carlee Russell.HOOVER (AL) POLICE DEPARTMENT
Russell returned home on foot late Saturday night and was taken to a local hospital, where she was treated overnight and released early Sunday.
In a statement late Tuesday night, the Hoover Police Department said investigators were only able to briefly speak with Russell about her disappearance once at the family’s home before medics took her to the hospital.
During her only interview with police, Russell said she was abducted. According to Derzis, Russell told police she was checking in on the alleged toddler when she said a white man with orange hair “came out of the trees” and grabbed her. Russell claimed the man picked her up, made her climb over the fence alongside the highway, and made her get into an 18-wheeler.
Russell claimed there was also a woman with the man, but she didn’t her because Russell says she was blindfolded. She once escaped the 18-wheeler but was wrangled back into the truck, she told police. She said she was not bound because her kidnappers said they “did not want to leave impressions on her wrist."
“At some point, she was put back in a vehicle, she claims [she] was able to escape while it was in the west Hoover area,” Derzis said, explaining Russell’s recollection. “She told detectives she ran through lots of woods until she came out near her residence.”
Detectives noted Russell had a “small injury” to her lip and had a tear in her shirt, as well as $107 cash in her right sock.
In the days following her reappearance, Russell’s family has made several statements on social media and gave a number of interviews backing up the nursing student’s claim she had been kidnapped. When pressed for details, however, the family has said they can’t explain specifics, citing the ongoing investigation into her disappearance.
Russell first vanished late Thursday after making a 911 call saying she spotted a toddler wearing a diaper walking alone alongside I-495.Traffic camera footage shows what police believe to be Russell’s car slowing down with its blinkers on and then stopping alongside the interstate. Russell got out of the car and, according to hermother Talitha Robinson-Russell, called her brother’s girlfriend and stayed on the line with her until she vanished.
“My son’s girlfriend heard her asking the child, ‘Are you OK? She never heard the child say anything but then she heard our daughter scream,’’ Talitha had toldAL.comlate last week. “All you hear on her phone is background noise from the interstate.”
However, police said in a news release late Tuesday night that investigators never found evidence of a missing child walking alone next to the highway.
A statewide search ensued for the next 49 hours. Investigators briefly thought they’d found Russell when they responded to a call at a local Red Roof Inn motel, where several family members arrived saying they had received a phone call from Russell saying she was there. However, she was not when police arrived.
Russell later reappeared on foot at the family’s home, roughly two miles from the motel.
Police say surveillance footage from Russell’s neighborhood “shows her walking down the sidewalk alone prior to her arrival at her residence.” She knocked at the front door to be let in, and her family soon called 911 for an “unresponsive but breathing” person.
Medics arrived on the scene and investigators were able to once briefly speak with Russell, who was taken to the local UAB hospital and kept overnight.
Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up forPEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletterfor breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.Ahead of Wednesday’s press conference, police said “numerous evidentiary items are still being evaluated, and those items are key in the process of determining exactly what took place in the approximately 49 hours Carlee was missing, but also what took place prior to her disappearance.
Earlier Tuesday, Russell’s mothertoldNBC’sTODAYher daughter was “traumatized” from the incident and that she “absolutely, absolutely” believed her daughter’s “abductor” was still at large.“She definitely fought for her life,” the mother said. “There were moments when she physically had to fight for her life, and there were moments when she had to mentally fight for her life.”
WhenTODAYpressed Russell’s mother for more details about her daughter’s mysterious disappearance and reappearance on Saturday night, the mother said she could not get specific, saying “anything [related] to the case itself, we can’t discuss that.”
source: people.com
