Carlee Russell has been missing since last Thursday, when she vanished from a Birmingham, Alabama neighbourhood. The authorities began looking for the woman, but she turned up on Saturday night. Her boyfriend has just published a message that seems to suggest she was kidnapped.
On July 13 in the Hoover area of Birmingham, a woman named Russell, then 25 years old, contacted 911 to report seeing a toddler walking down the side of an interstate. She eventually pulled over to see, cutting off her mother’s call in the process. A local TV station reported hearing Talitha Robinson-Russell’s daughter ask the youngster if they were OK, followed by the child’s scream. She called the police out of concern and they located Russell’s car abandoned on the side of the road. The story received widespread media attention, but Russell was not located after two days.
On Saturday night, however, the Hoover Police Department received word that Russell had returned home. She was evaluated at the University of Alabama hospital after paramedics were called; she was later discharged after providing a statement to investigators. No one knows for sure where she was for the past 48 hours.
On July 16, Russell’s boyfriend Thomar Simmons added to the intrigue by posting a statement on Instagram. He wrote that Russell was “fighting for her life” in the absence of her in the post. He asked readers to be “respectful of Carlee’s situation” and referred to “her kidnapper.” Although kidnapping has long been considered a possible cause of her disappearance, Simmons is the first person to admit as much. As an additional detail, he brought up “the false allegations about [him] having something to do with her abduction.”
The investigation into Russell’s disappearance is ongoing, but a Hoover police spokesman informed reporters on the same day that there is no new information about her condition or disappearance’s cause.
