Carlee Russell, the Alabama woman who mysteriously vanished after calling 911 last week, sent three tweets within the hour before she disappeared.
Russell, 25, went missing for 49 hours after she called 911 to report seeing a toddler walking barefoot along I-495 last Thursday night. The nursing student later told police that after she got out of the car to check on the child, a man “came out of the trees” and abducted her.
Local police say they’ve been “unable to verify” herclaim about being abducted.
The first tweet, sent at 8:55 p.m., less than an hour before she called 911 at 9:34 p.m., read, “today was a GREAT day God be looking out im telling you!!”
A minute later, Russell tweeted, “someone to tell you ‘i love you’ and don’t got a reason.”
And at 9:19 p.m., she tweeted: “yeah i want a family now,” alongside a crying face emoji.
About 15 minutes later,Russellmysteriously vanished after calling 911 and getting out of her vehicle along the interstate. A statewide search lasted 49 hours until Russell reappeared back at her parent’s house around 10:45 p.m. Saturday night on foot.
Carlee Russell.HOOVER (AL) POLICE DEPARTMENT
HOOVER (AL) POLICE DEPARTMENT
Russell described the man as a white man with orange hair and a bald spot, while she alleged she was blindfolded after being grabbed and could not see the woman.
She told police she was never bound or tied, however, because her abductors said they “did not want to leave impressions on her wrist.” She said the couple transported her in the back of an 18-wheeler to a house where she remained overnight.
In the midst of the alleged kidnapping, Russell claimed she escaped once before her captors wrangled her back into the 18-wheeler and later the home, where she says the couple ordered her to disrobe and then took photographs of her.
Hoover Police Dept/Twitter
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Russell told police that the next night, she was being transported in a car in Hoover where she was able to escape and return home on foot, where medics soon arrived to take her to the hospital after briefly speaking with police.
During that single interview with police, authorities said Russell gave her account of the alleged abduction and complained of a headache. Detectives also took note of a small wound to her lip and a torn t-shirt, as well as $107 in cash stuffed in her right sock.“There are many questions left to be answered,” Hoover police chief Nick Derzis said at a press conference Wednesday. “Only Carlee can provide those answers.”
Thomar Latrell Simmons and Carlee Russell.Thomar Latrell Simmons/Instagram
Thomar Latrell Simmons/Instagram
Subsequently, investigators began retracing Russell’s steps through security footage and cellphone data. Investigators also began looking into Russell’s internet activity, discovering a handful of searches Derzis says are “very relevant” to her disappearance.On the day of, and in the days leading up to her disappearance, Russell researched Amber Alerts, looked up how to steal money from a cash register, looked into purchasing a one-way bus ticket scheduled to depart the day she went missing, and also looked up the movieTaken, which is about a kidnapping, police allege.
“I do think it’s highly unusual that the day someone gets kidnapped, seven or eight hours before that they were searching the movie Taken about an abduction,” Derzis said. “I find that very strange.”
Cellphone data also showed Russell traveled about 600 yards while on the phone with 911, telling a dispatcher that she was following the toddler she claimed she saw as he walked along the highway.
“I’m not saying it couldn’t happen,” Derzis said. “To think that a toddler, barefoot, that could be 3 or 4 years old could travel six football fields without getting in the roadway, without crying, without anything, just moving down — it’s very hard for me to understand.”
Russell’s family members have said they believe Russell was kidnapped.
“She was literally fighting for her life for 48 hours, so until she’s physically & mentally stable again she is not able to give any updates or whereabouts on her kidnapper at this very moment,” her boyfriend Thomar Lattrel Simmons wrote in a now-deleted Instagram post.
Russell’s mother Talitha Robinson-Russell alsotoldTODAYthis week that her daughter was kidnapped and that the person responsible is “absolutely” still at large.
“She definitely fought for her life,” her mother said Tuesday, a day before police cast doubt on her daughter’s disappearance. “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.”
source: people.com
