Police said Wednesday they have not been able to verify initial statements made by Carlee Russell, the Alabama woman who went missing last week after saying she saw a young child walking on the interstate.
But authorities said that before she disappeared, she did Internet searches on how to pay for Amber Alerts, how to get money from a cash register without getting caught and the movie “Taken.”
Police said Russell told them she was forced into an 18-wheeler and taken to a house where a man and woman told her to undress and then took photos of her.
Police in Hoover, a town about 10 miles south of Birmingham, have been investigating the disappearance of the 25-year-old nursing student, who returned home two days after she went missing Thursday night.
During a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Hoover Police Chief Nicholas C. Derzis said what happened during the 49 hours Russell was missing, after calling 911 and saying there was a child walking in the interstate, remains under investigation.
Derzis said investigators spoke with Russell on Sunday, who had a small gash on his lip and said he had a headache. She told police that after seeing the girl walking down the interstate, she was abducted and abducted by a man with orange hair and a woman, Derzis said.
“She claimed that he then forced her into a car and the next thing she remembers is being in the trailer of an 18-wheeler,” Derzis said. “She said the male was with a female. However, she never saw the woman, she only heard her voice.
Derzis said Russell told police he managed to escape his kidnappers the next day somewhere in West Hoover and made it home on foot.
But Derzis said investigators have been unable to substantiate much of Russell’s claims.
“What we can say is that we have not been able to verify most of Carlee’s initial statements to investigators. And we have no reason to believe that there is a threat to public safety related to this particular case.”
Derzis also said that investigators, with the help of the US Secret Service, analyzed Russell’s cell phone in the days leading up to his disappearance and the day he disappeared. Some of the internet searches found include:
- On July 11, a search on whether you have to pay for an Amber Alert.
- On Thursday, a search on a one-way bus ticket from Birmingham to Nashville.
- On Thursday, a quest on how to get money out of a cash register without getting caught.
- On Thursday, a search for the movie “Taken,” an abduction movie starring Liam Neeson.
“I think it’s very unusual…the day someone is kidnapped…that they’re searching the internet by googling the movie ‘Taken’ about a kidnapping. I find it very strange,” Derzis said on Wednesday.
Russell went missing Thursday night after calling 911 shortly after 9:30 p.m. to report seeing a young child on Interstate 459 South. hoover police saying. She also called a relative to inform him that she had seen the boy and said that he would help them before the relative lost contact with her, police said.
In a statement Tuesday night, police said they did not locate “any evidence of a young child walking the interstate” and that there were no additional 911 calls reporting sightings of the child.
Detectives also said that before they hit the road, Russell had gone to a Target to get some snacks.
When police arrived on the interstate after her 911 call, they found her car, cell phone, a wig and other items, but no Target purchases.
Russell walked home Saturday night.
Police said Tuesday they obtained neighborhood surveillance video of Russell showing her walking alone on the sidewalk before she got home.
Police responded to the home and Russell was taken to a hospital for evaluation, treated and released.
Police said Tuesday that detectives spoke to Russell “very briefly after she returned home” and were “waiting for a more detailed statement to be available” about what happened while she was missing.
When contacted by NBC News on Wednesday, Russell’s family would not comment on the police news conference. But in an interview that aired Tuesday on NBC “Today is the showRussell’s parents said their daughter had been kidnapped.
They did not share details of what happened in the hours Russell was missing or how he got back home, citing the ongoing investigation.
“We tried to hold her as best we could, but I had to back away because she wasn’t in good shape,” Talitha Robinson-Russell, Russell’s mother, said of the moments after her daughter returned home.
