Hoover Police Department held a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, revealing new details in the Carlethia "Carlee" Russell case. Russell's mysterious disappearance and subsequent reappearance last week has confounded the public for days, leading many to speculate that the entire thing was a hoax.
Now, the evidence shared by police seems to indicate that those theories may actually be valid. The 25-year-old Alabama woman went missing last Thursday, just after 9 p.m. after calling 911 to report that she had seen a toddler wandering alone on the highway. After a frantic search led by her parents, Talitha and Carlos Russell, she returned home on her own on Saturday, 49 hours after she was first reported missing.
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The police chief said there is no threat to the public.
During the press conference on Wednesday, Hoover Police Chief Nick Derzis said there is no reason to believe there is any threat or danger to the public, and confirmed suspicions that authorities have not been able to verify the majority of the information Russell gave them in the initial interview after her return home.
So far, the investigation has revealed evidence discrediting Russell's kidnapping story.
Throughout the ordeal, Russell's family has maintained that she was kidnapped and that she had to fight for her life to return home. But the police investigation has not indicated that to be true. In fact, many believe it points to the idea that it was all a scheme orchestrated by Russell.
Police said that video surveillance shows that Russell took a robe and a roll of toilet paper from her job before leaving work the night she vanished. She concealed those items before leaving the building. Then, she went to pick up food at a restaurant and made a stop at Target.
Just before 9:30 p.m., she reportedly left the Target parking lot and drove to Interstate 459, which is where she claimed to have seen the toddler and made the call to 911.
According to police, Russell told them that when she got out of her car to check on the toddler, a man with orange hair and a bald spot grabbed her and put her in an 18-wheeler truck.
When Russel returned to her parents' house, police said she had very minor injuries to her head and lip, and that she had $107 tucked into her sock.
The Secret Service got involved.
Hoover Police recruited the US Secret Service to help in the investigation and the organization discovered that someone in the areas Russel was in used Google to search the following terms:
- Do you have to pay for an amber alert
- How to take money from a register without being caught
- Birmingham bus station
- One way bus ticket from Birmingham to Nashville
- The movie "Taken"
- Maximum age of an amber alert
"There were other searches on Carlee's phone that appeared to shed some light on her mindset," Derzis said during the press conference, but declined to share those things in consideration of her privacy.
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Police also say there was never a toddler on the highway.
"The Hoover Police Department has not located any evidence of a toddler walking down the interstate, nor did we receive any additional calls about a toddler walking down the interstate, despite numerous vehicles passing through that area as depicted by the traffic camera surveillance video," a press release confirmed on Tuesday, according to ABC News.
Russell has not granted police a second interview.
The Hoover Police Department has reportedly requested a second interview with Russell, but they have not been granted one, according to ABC 3340. No information about where she was during those two days has been released, nor is it clear whether police have obtained this information.
