A 26-year-old woman from Alabama found herself in a tricky situation with a bizarre plot that included a missing child, kidnappers in an 18-wheeler, and a daring escape but also some puzzling gaps.
On Wednesday, a 26-year-old woman named Carlethia "Carlee" Nichole Russell, hailing from Alabama, was declared guilty of playing a wild hoax involving a kidnapped child, shady kidnappers with a big truck, and a daring getaway. However, the story had quite a few loose ends.
She was convicted of misdemeanor charges related to providing false information to the police and falsely reporting an incident. This could land her in jail for up to a year, cost her $831 in fines, and demand $17,975 in restitution.
Her lawyer, Emory Anthony, has stated that they plan to appeal this verdict, as reported by WPMI-TV, an NBC affiliate in Mobile.
The whole saga began on July 13 when she dialed 911 to report that she had spotted a child wandering alone along I-459 South. Later, she called her family, claiming she had pulled over to check on the child. However, something strange happened.
"The family member lost contact with her, but the line remained open," according to the Hoover Police Department's press release. The police found Russell's car but neither her nor the child. This sparked a frantic search that concluded on the night of July 15 when she suddenly appeared at her parents' home.
Russell told investigators that a man with orange hair and a significant bald spot had kidnapped her. She said he forced her into a car, and her next memory was being inside the trailer of an 18-wheeler.
According to Russell's account, she overheard the man talking to a woman and heard a baby crying. She claimed to have escaped the 18-wheeler but was captured again, blindfolded, and put into another car. She insisted she wasn't tied up because the captors didn't want to leave marks on her wrists.
She maintained that she was taken to a house, made to undress, and believed her captors took pictures of her. She asserted that she wasn't sexually assaulted. The next morning, she was given food, and a woman "played with her hair" before she was returned to a vehicle. She managed to escape and claimed to have run through the woods and arrived near her home.
The police began to question her story, starting with the child on the highway, as no evidence supported it. Further doubts arose when they discovered that Russell had searched online for phrases like "Do you have to pay for an Amber Alert," "how to take money from a cash register without being caught," and "Birmingham bus station."
She also looked for a one-way ticket from Birmingham to Nashville, Tennessee, with a departure date of July 13.
On the day she disappeared, Russell searched for the movie "Taken," which is about a young woman being abducted. Surveillance footage from her workplace on the night of her disappearance showed her concealing a dark robe, a roll of toilet paper, and other items that belonged to the business.
Later, she picked up food from a restaurant and snacks from Target before getting on the highway and heading toward her home. Her vehicle was found with her personal belongings and the restaurant food inside, but the Target snacks and the items taken from work were missing.
Regarding the 911 call, the data from Russell's phone indicated that she traveled about 600 yards while talking to the dispatcher, supposedly following the toddler.
Then, on July 24, Russell admitted through her attorney in a statement that it was all a fabrication and issued an apology.
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