UPDATED 7/17, 4:45 p.m. ET: Hoover, Alabama police are looking to piece together the 48 hours in which 25-year-old Carlethia "Carlee" Nichole Russell went missing after she stopped her car to check on a child walking along a highway on Thursday, and now her boyfriend has shared a statement in which he said she had to fight to survive.
"Thank you to everyone who shared a picture, came out to the Hoover Met to help us with the search parties, & who went & proceeded to tell other people about Carlee to bring more awareness to her story," wrote her boyfriend Thormar Latrell Simmons on Facebook. "I have been going nonstop since I received the call that she was missing on Thursday night. I know she would’ve done the same for me, so I wasn’t going to give up until I saw her face again!"
He wrote that he saw various "false allegations" and "assumptions" about the missing persons case. "All I asked from everyone right now is to be respectful of Carlee’s situation. 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," he continued. "I also want to thank the people on social media who has been understanding & respectful about what she’s been through in these past few days."
Per WVTM13, police said Russell returned home on foot on Saturday, July 15, about 48 hours after police and a family member last had contact with her. Detectives have since spoken with her after she was checked into a nearby hospital for evaluation.
"The goal now is to find out what happened in the 48 or 49 hours after she disappeared a mile from her house and then ended up back at the house, to fill in the gaps," said police chief Nick Derzis, per The Guardian.
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Carlee Russell, the Alabama woman who went missing after allegedly finding a toddler wandering on the highway, has been found.
Local Alabama news station WBRC reported that after a two-day search, Russell returned to the home she shared with her parents around 10:45 PM. She was then taken to UAB Hospital shortly after for further evaluation.
The case began on Thursday night when Russell called 911 to report a child on the interstate in Hoover, Alabama. She then called a relative and told them the same thing. Russell pulled over to check on the child and the relative on the phone alleges that they heard a scream before losing contact. Authorities who arrived at the scene found her car and some of her belongings nearby, but couldn't locate her or the missing child. Hoover Police confirm that they hadn't received any missing child reports.
“At some point, she got out of the car and my daughter-in-law could hear her asking the child if they were OK,” said Talitha Russell, Carlee Russell’s mother. “The child did not respond, or at least she did not hear her respond. And then she heard our daughter Carlee scream and from there on all we could hear was noise...background noise in her phone which we later found out was noise from the interstate.”
The circumstances surrounding her disappearance are unknown as of now, but Chief Nicholas Derzis said that's not the main priority: "The first thing is to give Carlee and family a little time to get themselves back together."
News of her sudden disappearance and the circumstances surrounding it exploded on social media, with many people theorizing what could've happened to her. A lot of speculation comes from the unfounded claim that people lure in victims by placing strollers, car seats, and even young children along the highway. The Polaris Project, a nonprofit organization that operates the National Human Trafficking Hotline, confirmed to AP that the trap isn't real.
"One of the most pervasive myths about human trafficking is that it always — or often — involves kidnapping or otherwise physically forcing someone into a situation," a Polaris Project representative said in a statement. "In reality, most human traffickers use psychological means such as tricking, defrauding, manipulating or threatening victims into providing commercial sex or exploitative labor."
