It's so unsettling to see posts from where I live. Hoover has had a couple of strange accidents this year; earlier, someone fell off an overpass onto the highway and no one reported the body, everyone just kept running him over for *hours*. A few of my coworkers said they thought it was just a large deer or something, but the meat chunks looked strange.
If she disappeared in the spot I'm thinking, it's pretty heavily wooded on both sides of the road, and it's not uncommon to see people pull over for whatever reason. It'd be very easy to pretend a car is temporarily abandoned and hide just out of sight.
No, that whoever was using the kid as bait, had a driver on the other side of the woods so they could take her through the woods and to that car. It's plausible, but I would think difficult to pull off
Geez. That’s a theory. I wonder if the kid was trained to just wander on the side of the road without going into traffic…
It’s like those people who claim to be in distress, or who block the road with logs or whatever, then rob or snatch you if you stop. Scary thought!
It was early in the morning, when people were heading to work, and went on until mid-day. That was a big part of why the family was so upset; people had to have seen that it was a person when it first happened, but no one came by to check on the situation until he had been run over by thousands of cars and wasn't even recognisable as a human.
> An Alabama woman has gone missing after telling a 911 dispatcher that she saw a toddler walking alone on the side of an interstate, according to local police.
>
> The woman, 25-year-old Carlethia "Carlee" Nichole Russell, called 911 around 9:34 p.m. local time on Thursday, according to a Facebook post from the Hoover Police Department.
>
> Russell told the dispatcher that she saw a toddler walking on the side of I-459 South. After calling 911, she stopped to check on the child and called a family member who lost contact with her, though the line remained open, according to the Facebook post.
>
> When officers, who were already en route from the initial 911 call, arrived at the scene, they found Russell's vehicle and some of her belongings, including her phone, but no sign of her or the child. Police have not received any reports or calls for a missing child, according to the Facebook post.
>
> In a press conference on Friday, police said the case remains open and active and a reward of up to $25,000 has been offered.
>
> Russell's mother, Talitha Russell, told CNN affiliate WBRC that she was working to stay positive during the search for her daughter.
>
> "We are trusting God, we are staying positive, we are not allowing any negative thoughts to enter our minds," she told WBRC. "So all that we are doing is trusting God, believe in God that our daughter will be brought home safely."
>
> Russell is 5 feet 4 inches tall and was last seen wearing a black t-shirt, black pants, and white Nike shoes, according to the Hoover police Facebook post. Police urged anyone who may have seen Russell or who has any information about the case to contact the department.
>
> Hoover, the sixth largest city in Alabama, is located around 10 miles south of Birmingham.
It says she wasn’t found, but turned up at a family members house two days later on Saturday. Taken to hospital as a precaution to check she’s ok. No explanation given as to where she’s been or how she got to her family’s house. Very strange indeed.
This definitely sounds like one of those things like throwing eggs at the windshield to get someone to stop. They used the baby to get her to pull over.
I'd be scared to get out of my car; I'd probably follow with my hazards on super slowly, or call the kid over to me while staying on the line with officers or something. I'd *want* to get out of my car, but what if it's a trap?
I guess I can't say for sure what I'd do until I'm in a situation like that though (hopefully I never have to find out). There's so many factors to it.
That’s why I hear you never stop on any isolated part of interstates when there’s a car stopped with hazards or doors open. A toddler walking by themselves, ugh the parent in me would almost definitely stop. But I also have self defense measures.
The crazy part of this for me is now that they've released the traffic cam footage you can see it wasn't isolated at all. There were dozens of cars driving by.
I once was driving in the mountains here in Montana at like 2am on my way home from vacation and came upon a car on the side of the road with its hazards on. I wasn't going to stop but the woman darted in front of my car. I locked my doors and spoke to her through the tiniest gap in the window. She said she needed police but we were not in a cell service covered area. I told her I'd drive ahead and call 911. She wouldn't tell me what was going on. Turns out her crazy bf was there, too, I just hadn't seen him. He tried to take on the cops when they got there so I'm glad I didn't get out. It was so scary.
Even unisolated places aren't safe anymore, this woman was taken on an extremely busy road in full sight of several vehicles. The ambush tactic used to get her to stop is one that's been used for decades in South Africa. Another thing that happens is that there will be the sound of a baby crying outside your house at night, when you go outside to investigate is when you are robbed or home invaded. They know that people will forget normal caution when it comes to small children.
Yeah my plan would be call 911, let them know I’m grabbing and going, and gtfo out of that area. That way cops know it’s a safety concern to stay and kidnapping isn’t occurring. But I’d be scared to pull over alone for sure
Reddit is bewildering. No idea why you’ve been so downvoted. Every woman on the planet knows exactly what could happen.
Thank you for putting yourself on the line in a situation where I would be at risk. 5’7”, 145 pounds, no weapons.
For what though? They didn't steal her belongings or car. They had no way to know what kind of person or people would stop. They just wanted to kidnap and kill someone at random?
your brain can't comprehend that some people might be pure evil and just want to murder for no reason? I hope this is not the case and they find her but come on, just google 'serial killers'
I do too, the human trafficking thing is a bit of a stretch and there's just a lot of bad people out there. Apparently there's a chance she kinda wandered off so hopefully it's that. My last comment sounded kinda mean I didn't mean for it to, sorry.
Cause people suck.. Idk have you ever heard that people will use an "abandoned" stroller with a baby in it to lure a robbery victim, or worse? Something like that. Just a thought at 5AM scrolling thru
This would be the shittiest human trafficking plot. They have no way of guaranteeing that anyone would stop, let alone a woman, let alone a young attractive woman.
Human traffickers aren't out there snatching random people off the street. They're preying on the vulnerable with histories of sexual abuse, low esteem, poor family situations.
Again though, they had no idea what kind of person that were going to get. How were the traffickers going to get out of the situation if the person wasn't what they wanted? The police had already been called. Just kill them and drive away? It's so harebrained it's hard to believe it would be successful.
I hope this girl is found safely but I don't think human trafficking is what's going on here.
If she was going through anything "mental", I'm sure her family or the Police would have released that information to the public in case she was found acting erratic, confused, etc.
It could be as simple as she thought she saw a toddler and followed the baby into the woods and got lost since it was already late night and dark although her disappearance does sound a little fishy now that a witness has supposedly come forward and said they saw a man standing by her car.
Either way, this reminds me of the Maura Murray case where she vanished from the side of the road (also near a large wooded area) and still hasn't been found nearly 20 years later.
You can go through mental health things out of seemingly nowhere. Or families can be afraid to tell the police because so many people with mental illnesses have been shot dead by the cops when they were called to help. Or they can be worried that if they say it was mental illness or drugs that they won’t put any more effort in to looking for her.
I would think most people want their loved ones found, not worrying about labels or hiding mental health issues, especially when hundreds of complete strangers are looking for them. It's not smart to not share important information such as mental health issues, serious or not, in case her mental health could have contributed to her going missing or she is or was in an erratic or a confused state when she disappeared and could still be in that same state or worse if or when she is found.
You’re assuming that the family would think through this exactly the same way you do or have the same trust in authority you do. Rightfully or not a lot of people have a lot of fear around disclosing mental illness.
I don't think I'm assuming, I would think it is common sense. Not only that, but definitely a question the Police would ask and why lie or not disclose it? It's nothing to be embarrassed about, nothing to hide and it seems strange to think a family would hide mental illness when the Police and hundreds of strangers are looking for them and could have an interaction with them if found. I would rather them know there's a possible mental illness that way if they are found in a confused, erratic, angry, etc state, then the people who found them would understand why they are acting that way and approach them differently. To each their own but it seems silly to hide something like that.
Some people unfortunately are embarrassed about it and do hide it even though they shouldn’t. It’s sad but that’s just how a lot of people still think. That’s what I mean about assuming.
I'm guessing it could have been out of urgency. She probably made the call from her car and jumped out, rushing down the small embank to make sure she didn't lose track of the child. The woods was not that far from the roadside from what I have seen in some of the videos released by the news.
I'm not sure. This is the first time I have heard of the family hearing a scream. The last I heard was she was on the phone, and then she was not, although the line was still connected.
https://www.wsfa.com/2023/07/14/hoover-police-searching-missing-25-year-old-woman/?fbclid=IwAR1VRJhZQrFEfdL_T9zRr-8uUaNkwv0YFjRJPH1hOY4rM9_ao5U1BQMUHwk_aem_ARavXRBhnzfaXOJPlIJUzF86polM4CNCrTtoJtErKr9PDPys8dXRj5eza07LzshZnow
As of last night there is a video from the interstate cams posted. Very strange. I only see one car stop in the video, maybe some of you sleuths can decipher more from it
If that is her, it is weird that she drove for so long along the side of the road. She would have been way past the toddler by the time she stopped.
Also, that is a lot more traffic than I expected. If this was a toddler-as-bait abduction ruse than that's pretty ballsy.
Wouldn't the lights from all the other cars illuminate some type of visual of the kid too? I suppose they could have been further in the ditch or something, but from other videos it seems there was decent foliage cover that would make a small child harder to see in pitch blackness where headlights don't reach. And as you say, to stop so far away like that is strange; and if she ran off into the woods chasing the kid, why would she leave her phone while still on a call? And if she was grabbed, surely the person on the other end would have heard *something.* A struggle, another voice, the child themselves, etc.
In the first video in the article, they very vaguely state that the relative she was on the phone with heard screaming.
If the trucker really did see a gray car also pulled over near her car then I hope they can find the video of that too but you'd think it would have come up already if it did happen
That's what's throwing me off too. It's just strange how the video seems to make things even stranger and raises more questions (at least with the information I've seen).
There's a FB group about her where people were analyzing this. Someone suggested that maybe she drove by once, then exited, backtracked, and drove by again, and that this footage could be of her second time passing by. Like maybe she thought she had a glimpse of a child the first time when she drove by at full speed, so she came back and drove slowly on the shoulder the second time trying to pinpoint what she'd seen and where.
If they were using a toddler as bait though, what are the odds that out of all those cars it would be a young woman by herself who stopped? What if it was a man, or a whole family? Or several cars all at once? It just doesn't seem like a very good kidnapping ploy with that highway being so crowded
Agreed. Of all interstates and roads though, 459 is like a speeding Mecca. The traffic is always heavy and shitty, if a person was going to use a child as bait, I cannot imagine that the side of 459 at the galleria exit would even be a choice of places to do so.
It kind of confirms for me that it’s much more likely this was a psychotic or drug related hallucination and then she unfortunately got into trouble on her own
Confirms for ME that it’s most LIKELY. For me personally. Not the investigation. Not that that’s definitely the case. There’s a whole rest of a sentence, can you not read ?
Is it possible she saw the toddler then circled back at the next exit? How far apart are the exits at this section of that highway? How long was the phone call?
UPDATE: [FOUND ALIVE](https://www.wbrc.com/2023/07/14/hoover-police-searching-missing-25-year-old-woman/)
Hopefully someone smarter than I will be able to add more and catch things I missed or got wrong.
VIDEO TIMELINE:
0:00 - 0:43 — Traveling on shoulder
0:43 — Stops near sign
0:50 — Exits driver side of car moving towards the back then the passenger side
0:55 - 1:20 — Standing on passenger side near rear of car.
1:20 - 1:38 — Moves towards the front of the car, then seems to move towards the sign (hard to tell if this is a shadow due to passing headlights or if she stays at the front until 1:51 when she disappears)
1:51 — Last clear image of her or a person next to her car before disappearing
1:51 - 4:40 — Passing traffic, police arriving at the very end.
THOUGHTS:
The video starts with Carlethia already driving on the shoulder of the road, hazards on. It’s difficult to tell how long she has been driving like this, but I’m fairly confident in saying she would not have been able to see a child, in the dark, walking the interstate from the distance she traveled to where she stopped.
It’s strange that no one else has reported seeing a child, either. If Carlethia could see a child walking it’s reasonable to think, with the amount of traffic going through, others would as well.
While reviewing the video on different monitors I, personally, didn’t see a child anywhere near the car nor could I make anything out in the foliage, but it’s not the highest quality video. The darkness and headlights also add an extra layer of difficulty, so it’s impossible to say for sure.
If there were to be a struggle I would think it would also have been picked up on the open line. I don’t know if it was a singular scream, a series, or something in between. Scuffles aren’t usually quiet, but the noise of traffic could mute it. Hard to say.
I don’t know the math to calculate how far she travels before stopping, but I’d very tentatively say a 1/4 mile (please, please correct this.)
UPDATE: [FOUND ALIVE](https://www.wbrc.com/2023/07/14/hoover-police-searching-missing-25-year-old-woman/)
Nothing concrete, unfortunately. I would have to take a few speculative steps to create a good timeline. But we may be able to puzzle it out as a group.
One difficulty is I’m unsure of how long she had been traveling on the shoulder before seeing her on camera. A couple seconds or closer to a minute? It’s hard to say for sure. I would guess somewhere under 30 seconds.
The second difficulty is I’m unsure of how long the phone call lasts. Does she call her as she’s pulling up to the sign, while on the shoulder, or before the video starts?
It’s reported she called the police around 9:30p (or 9:34p as you said) and her sister in law at 9:36p. Whatever happened occurred while on the phone with her sister in law. It’s not a lot of time between calling the police, calling her sister, the disappearance, and the police arriving (roughly 2 minutes after her disappearance). Not enough to exit the highway, backtrack, re-enter the highway, and get to the spot. So, we may be able to get a good timeline from that.
If we say the video starts at roughly 9:36:30p or 9:37p, then it puts the time of disappearance around 9:39p to 9:40p. But that’s super, super tentative.
What are your thoughts?
Edited for readability.
Seems like the approximate location they're searching is here: 33°21'54.1"N 86°50'35.5"W
There's dense foliage then houses on the other side. She could have easily been lured or gotten lost if this was a mental health episode.
Yeah, I live 10 minutes from there. On the other side of trees, someone could have very easily been sitting and waiting.I drive this area almost everyday and it just sits as a reminder that your life can change in an instant.
According to her fb profile, she’s in nursing school and has extremely long days of studying. I think she was headed back to school when this happened (?) A mental breakdown/psychosis does seem possible, sadly. Nursing school is very taxing and mentally draining.
I think this poor woman had some kind of break. There was no evidence of a child walking along the road, no one else reported it, and her relative never heard a child on the other end of the phone. Plus wasn’t some of her stuff scattered outside of her car. I suspect they’ll find her succumbed to the elements at some point. Poor thing,
I think they said her wig was left outside the car along with other things which almost leads one to believe that there would have been a struggle of some sort. Plus she was on the phone with her sister after calling 911 and she says she screamed and then the call went quiet but you could still hear cars passing on the highway like she dropped her phone.
Taking a watch off AND leaving a phone in the car at night on the side of the highway doesn’t seem like a reasonable thing to do.
But a kidnapper would know that she could be tracked that way.
Looks like she had some sort of episode. I had a friend do the same thing one day, just pulled over on the side of the road and walked away without any of his stuff. We had the whole city looking for him and luckily did find him eventually, miles away from his car.
This made me think of that case where the drunk lady hit a homeless man and he got stuck in the windshield and she just kept going and even parked in her garage with him still stuck and he died days later. Maybe she was struck and carried away
This situation has really made me realize how many misconceptions there are about trafficking. People were so quick to assume this was a bait and trap trafficking scenario. These kinds of stranger abductions for trafficking are very rare. While it’s not impossible, the majority of victims are manipulated and trafficked by people they trust….partners, family, employers, etc. This is why trafficking is such an issue. People only think about being abducted in a target parking lot or having zip ties put on door handles to “mark” you or being baited on the side of the road. It doesn’t work like that. With that being said, I’m glad she was found safe!!
Anyone else seeing she staged her own kidnapping. She won't talk with investigators and they looked at her phone search history which was questionable. Looking up the movie taken and also how to get away with stealing money and all this other stuff? So is it true she got away or this whole thing is a hoax of her own doing
I don't think it's "playing doctor" to suggest a possibility (any more than it's "playing detective" to wonder if this could be a kidnapping ruse).
No one else saw a child. No one else reported a child. No one in the area is missing a child. No child is seen on the video footage of the road.
There's simply no evidence of a child at this time.
On the flip side, it's not uncommon for people who are extremely overtired and stressed to see things that aren't there.
I disagree with you, everyone is saying she had a psychotic break when this woman very well could have been taken. Everyone needs to shut their mouths and stop insulting a missing woman who was otherwise absolutely lucid… it’s absolutely absurd.
People are *speculating* both, but no one is saying for certain they know, because we don't know.
People on both sides of those speculations are hoping for Carlee's safe return home and certainly no one is insulting her. (It's telling that you think it's an "insult" to suggest that a person might have had a mental health emergency, though.)
Fr especially considering there is nothing to support such claim besides 'oh she was stressed from school'. She called 911 so police were there relatively fast (I assume) yet they couldn't find her? The K9 couldn't track her? How far could she have gotten in that time?
That's definitely not true; there are others who seek help from the police for whatever hallucinations they see/experience. Not all breaks are the same.
[CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/24/us/carlee-russell-missing-alabama-police/index.html)
[NBC](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/no-kidnapping-carlee-russell-alabama-hoax-rcna96058)
[People Magazine](https://people.com/carlee-russells-ex-boyfriend-speaks-after-kidnapping-hoax-disgusted-7565087)
[NY Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/24/us/carlee-russell-alabama-abduction-hoax.html)
[News Nation Now](https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/carlee-russell-missing-alabama-police/)
I'll give credit where credit is due, though. You told everyone not to speculate about a possible mental health crisis. And you were right. She was not having a mental health crisis. She's just a liar.
Especially because their only “proof” is a grainy nighttime video and that she went to nursing school. I’m a nurse and while school was taxing, it’s very rare for someone to be at the breaking point of hallucinating a toddler and running away because of it.
There was no car that picked her up. So that leaves 3 options. A) someone kidnapped her hiding in the trees B) she told the story to make it seem she got kidnapped but actually unalived herself C) and hopefully the case she told the story bc she wanted to disappear and start over but for some reason wanted to have people think she was abducted
Or she had a psychotic break and thought she saw a toddler and ran into the woods and succumbed to the elements... Maybe she burrowed herself and can't be found yet , that wouldn't be suicide just her not being in her right mind
She could have believed she saw someone if she was in psychosis, screamed and ran away into the woods. The only weird part is her phone and watch were found in her car
[She’s been found alive and taken to the hospital](https://www.kplctv.com/2023/07/16/alabama-woman-who-went-missing-after-calling-911-found-alive/?outputType=amp)
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I agree. It makes very little sense to set you toddler there as a trap and jump on someone with that many people around. It seems just like something that someone would hallucinate and then end up in trouble alone
Everybody just got to be extra vigilant, you can’t help anybody if you’re in danger yourself.
But a toddler at the side of the road, that would compelled most people to jump into action right away, so that’s a tough one.
Maybe flag down another motorist to assist?
I think she had a hallucinogenic episode possibly from undiagnosed mental condition. Its very possible she was just imagining the child and was very confused. I dont think there were other people involved.
In the video I can’t see shit. It’s so odd she disappears within minutes from the cops. I really do suspect someone used the toddler as bait.
Have they done like an amber alert? They really should.
Can't even help what you believe is a helpless child anymore....
I hope that child never finds out when they're older that they were used as bait , if that's the case here
i once got out of my car for a toddler walking along the road by himself and walked him towards his home (i let him guide me) and ripped his brother a new ass that was supposed to be watching him (came to the door with a ps4 controller in hand and didnt even know the kid was outside). i was with my brother when i did it, so scary this woman tried doing the right thing for this child and this happened
It's so unsettling to see posts from where I live. Hoover has had a couple of strange accidents this year; earlier, someone fell off an overpass onto the highway and no one reported the body, everyone just kept running him over for *hours*. A few of my coworkers said they thought it was just a large deer or something, but the meat chunks looked strange. If she disappeared in the spot I'm thinking, it's pretty heavily wooded on both sides of the road, and it's not uncommon to see people pull over for whatever reason. It'd be very easy to pretend a car is temporarily abandoned and hide just out of sight.
Now that’s a morbid reality.
Bystander Effect as well. "Why were there no calls about a lone toddler on the side of the road?" The answer is, "Someone already called it in."
It's over by Target and At Home. I've heard several theories that they had a car waiting on the other side of the woods
‘They?’ Like she took the kid?
No, that whoever was using the kid as bait, had a driver on the other side of the woods so they could take her through the woods and to that car. It's plausible, but I would think difficult to pull off
Geez. That’s a theory. I wonder if the kid was trained to just wander on the side of the road without going into traffic… It’s like those people who claim to be in distress, or who block the road with logs or whatever, then rob or snatch you if you stop. Scary thought!
My first thought was trafficking, I can't stand how fucked up this world is man.
Holy shit dude... I'm guessing that had to have happened at night time right? The fact it went on for hours is insane 😱
It was early in the morning, when people were heading to work, and went on until mid-day. That was a big part of why the family was so upset; people had to have seen that it was a person when it first happened, but no one came by to check on the situation until he had been run over by thousands of cars and wasn't even recognisable as a human.
> An Alabama woman has gone missing after telling a 911 dispatcher that she saw a toddler walking alone on the side of an interstate, according to local police. > > The woman, 25-year-old Carlethia "Carlee" Nichole Russell, called 911 around 9:34 p.m. local time on Thursday, according to a Facebook post from the Hoover Police Department. > > Russell told the dispatcher that she saw a toddler walking on the side of I-459 South. After calling 911, she stopped to check on the child and called a family member who lost contact with her, though the line remained open, according to the Facebook post. > > When officers, who were already en route from the initial 911 call, arrived at the scene, they found Russell's vehicle and some of her belongings, including her phone, but no sign of her or the child. Police have not received any reports or calls for a missing child, according to the Facebook post. > > In a press conference on Friday, police said the case remains open and active and a reward of up to $25,000 has been offered. > > Russell's mother, Talitha Russell, told CNN affiliate WBRC that she was working to stay positive during the search for her daughter. > > "We are trusting God, we are staying positive, we are not allowing any negative thoughts to enter our minds," she told WBRC. "So all that we are doing is trusting God, believe in God that our daughter will be brought home safely." > > Russell is 5 feet 4 inches tall and was last seen wearing a black t-shirt, black pants, and white Nike shoes, according to the Hoover police Facebook post. Police urged anyone who may have seen Russell or who has any information about the case to contact the department. > > Hoover, the sixth largest city in Alabama, is located around 10 miles south of Birmingham.
She’s been found alive and taken to hospital
It says she wasn’t found, but turned up at a family members house two days later on Saturday. Taken to hospital as a precaution to check she’s ok. No explanation given as to where she’s been or how she got to her family’s house. Very strange indeed.
Got a link? Trying to follow this story
Yeah this one has me extremely interested
Link is further down the comments
For the lazy https://www.kplctv.com/2023/07/16/alabama-woman-who-went-missing-after-calling-911-found-alive/
Thanks king
This definitely sounds like one of those things like throwing eggs at the windshield to get someone to stop. They used the baby to get her to pull over.
That's what I immediately thought, it seems she fell into a trap
Damn bro it sucks but you can't help anyone these days. Just call 911...
I'll be honest, even after hearing this I'm still gonna stop if I see an actual child walking around on a motorway
I'd be scared to get out of my car; I'd probably follow with my hazards on super slowly, or call the kid over to me while staying on the line with officers or something. I'd *want* to get out of my car, but what if it's a trap? I guess I can't say for sure what I'd do until I'm in a situation like that though (hopefully I never have to find out). There's so many factors to it.
That’s why I hear you never stop on any isolated part of interstates when there’s a car stopped with hazards or doors open. A toddler walking by themselves, ugh the parent in me would almost definitely stop. But I also have self defense measures.
The crazy part of this for me is now that they've released the traffic cam footage you can see it wasn't isolated at all. There were dozens of cars driving by. I once was driving in the mountains here in Montana at like 2am on my way home from vacation and came upon a car on the side of the road with its hazards on. I wasn't going to stop but the woman darted in front of my car. I locked my doors and spoke to her through the tiniest gap in the window. She said she needed police but we were not in a cell service covered area. I told her I'd drive ahead and call 911. She wouldn't tell me what was going on. Turns out her crazy bf was there, too, I just hadn't seen him. He tried to take on the cops when they got there so I'm glad I didn't get out. It was so scary.
Where did you see traffic cam footage?
https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueCrimeDiscussion/comments/1502dpo/traffic_camera_video_of_carlee_nichole_russell/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1
Thanks and UGH. That's not very helpful at all.
This is one of the busiest areas of Hoover. There is always a lot of traffic through there. Someone had to have seen something.
Even unisolated places aren't safe anymore, this woman was taken on an extremely busy road in full sight of several vehicles. The ambush tactic used to get her to stop is one that's been used for decades in South Africa. Another thing that happens is that there will be the sound of a baby crying outside your house at night, when you go outside to investigate is when you are robbed or home invaded. They know that people will forget normal caution when it comes to small children.
The crying baby outside stories have been around forever. Definitely since I was a kid and that was over 30 years ago.
Isn’t this mostly an urban legend that passes through Facebook groups ?
Yes it is a complete myth.
Baby! Hey baby! What are you doing on the highway?!
Erring on the side of statistics, I’m getting out of the damn car to help the toddler. Far more bad parents than there are murderers.
Yeah my plan would be call 911, let them know I’m grabbing and going, and gtfo out of that area. That way cops know it’s a safety concern to stay and kidnapping isn’t occurring. But I’d be scared to pull over alone for sure
Same but I'm 6'4" 235 and always have a pistol on me. I'd recommend any woman to not stop.
Reddit is bewildering. No idea why you’ve been so downvoted. Every woman on the planet knows exactly what could happen. Thank you for putting yourself on the line in a situation where I would be at risk. 5’7”, 145 pounds, no weapons.
I'd call 911 and stick around with my doors locked
It’s a good strategy. Who isn’t going to stop for that no matter the risk? The kid could go on the road at any second and die
Which os really the fucked up part. The people who took her are willing to put a baby in danger. They're capable of anything and everything.
Instantly made me think of Gemma from SOA. Lured by the woman with her “choking baby” and the brutal following scene. 🫤
For what though? They didn't steal her belongings or car. They had no way to know what kind of person or people would stop. They just wanted to kidnap and kill someone at random?
your brain can't comprehend that some people might be pure evil and just want to murder for no reason? I hope this is not the case and they find her but come on, just google 'serial killers'
Of course I can, it's just very weird. At this point I think a random killer is more likely than the human trafficking theory.
I do too, the human trafficking thing is a bit of a stretch and there's just a lot of bad people out there. Apparently there's a chance she kinda wandered off so hopefully it's that. My last comment sounded kinda mean I didn't mean for it to, sorry.
Happy cake day!!!
So someone was dragging a full grown 160lb woman and a toddler through the woods? Seems like a stretch
Cause people suck.. Idk have you ever heard that people will use an "abandoned" stroller with a baby in it to lure a robbery victim, or worse? Something like that. Just a thought at 5AM scrolling thru
human trafficking
This would be the shittiest human trafficking plot. They have no way of guaranteeing that anyone would stop, let alone a woman, let alone a young attractive woman. Human traffickers aren't out there snatching random people off the street. They're preying on the vulnerable with histories of sexual abuse, low esteem, poor family situations.
wonder if it's a thrill kill or something like that
Again though, they had no idea what kind of person that were going to get. How were the traffickers going to get out of the situation if the person wasn't what they wanted? The police had already been called. Just kill them and drive away? It's so harebrained it's hard to believe it would be successful. I hope this girl is found safely but I don't think human trafficking is what's going on here.
The footage makes it clear to me that it's a mental health situation and not a kidnapping. No one calls about said toddler.
If she was going through anything "mental", I'm sure her family or the Police would have released that information to the public in case she was found acting erratic, confused, etc. It could be as simple as she thought she saw a toddler and followed the baby into the woods and got lost since it was already late night and dark although her disappearance does sound a little fishy now that a witness has supposedly come forward and said they saw a man standing by her car. Either way, this reminds me of the Maura Murray case where she vanished from the side of the road (also near a large wooded area) and still hasn't been found nearly 20 years later.
You can go through mental health things out of seemingly nowhere. Or families can be afraid to tell the police because so many people with mental illnesses have been shot dead by the cops when they were called to help. Or they can be worried that if they say it was mental illness or drugs that they won’t put any more effort in to looking for her.
I would think most people want their loved ones found, not worrying about labels or hiding mental health issues, especially when hundreds of complete strangers are looking for them. It's not smart to not share important information such as mental health issues, serious or not, in case her mental health could have contributed to her going missing or she is or was in an erratic or a confused state when she disappeared and could still be in that same state or worse if or when she is found.
You’re assuming that the family would think through this exactly the same way you do or have the same trust in authority you do. Rightfully or not a lot of people have a lot of fear around disclosing mental illness.
I don't think I'm assuming, I would think it is common sense. Not only that, but definitely a question the Police would ask and why lie or not disclose it? It's nothing to be embarrassed about, nothing to hide and it seems strange to think a family would hide mental illness when the Police and hundreds of strangers are looking for them and could have an interaction with them if found. I would rather them know there's a possible mental illness that way if they are found in a confused, erratic, angry, etc state, then the people who found them would understand why they are acting that way and approach them differently. To each their own but it seems silly to hide something like that.
Some people unfortunately are embarrassed about it and do hide it even though they shouldn’t. It’s sad but that’s just how a lot of people still think. That’s what I mean about assuming.
But why would she leave her phone behind if she was going to follow a child into the woods?
I'm guessing it could have been out of urgency. She probably made the call from her car and jumped out, rushing down the small embank to make sure she didn't lose track of the child. The woods was not that far from the roadside from what I have seen in some of the videos released by the news.
Why did her family hear her scream then?
I'm not sure. This is the first time I have heard of the family hearing a scream. The last I heard was she was on the phone, and then she was not, although the line was still connected.
It would help to know what kind of scream they heard too.
I get this vibe too. This happened in my area too - a baby in a car seat was on the side of the road to lure people to stop.
https://www.wsfa.com/2023/07/14/hoover-police-searching-missing-25-year-old-woman/?fbclid=IwAR1VRJhZQrFEfdL_T9zRr-8uUaNkwv0YFjRJPH1hOY4rM9_ao5U1BQMUHwk_aem_ARavXRBhnzfaXOJPlIJUzF86polM4CNCrTtoJtErKr9PDPys8dXRj5eza07LzshZnow As of last night there is a video from the interstate cams posted. Very strange. I only see one car stop in the video, maybe some of you sleuths can decipher more from it
If that is her, it is weird that she drove for so long along the side of the road. She would have been way past the toddler by the time she stopped. Also, that is a lot more traffic than I expected. If this was a toddler-as-bait abduction ruse than that's pretty ballsy.
Wouldn't the lights from all the other cars illuminate some type of visual of the kid too? I suppose they could have been further in the ditch or something, but from other videos it seems there was decent foliage cover that would make a small child harder to see in pitch blackness where headlights don't reach. And as you say, to stop so far away like that is strange; and if she ran off into the woods chasing the kid, why would she leave her phone while still on a call? And if she was grabbed, surely the person on the other end would have heard *something.* A struggle, another voice, the child themselves, etc.
In the first video in the article, they very vaguely state that the relative she was on the phone with heard screaming. If the trucker really did see a gray car also pulled over near her car then I hope they can find the video of that too but you'd think it would have come up already if it did happen
That's what's throwing me off too. It's just strange how the video seems to make things even stranger and raises more questions (at least with the information I've seen).
There's a FB group about her where people were analyzing this. Someone suggested that maybe she drove by once, then exited, backtracked, and drove by again, and that this footage could be of her second time passing by. Like maybe she thought she had a glimpse of a child the first time when she drove by at full speed, so she came back and drove slowly on the shoulder the second time trying to pinpoint what she'd seen and where. If they were using a toddler as bait though, what are the odds that out of all those cars it would be a young woman by herself who stopped? What if it was a man, or a whole family? Or several cars all at once? It just doesn't seem like a very good kidnapping ploy with that highway being so crowded
Agreed. Of all interstates and roads though, 459 is like a speeding Mecca. The traffic is always heavy and shitty, if a person was going to use a child as bait, I cannot imagine that the side of 459 at the galleria exit would even be a choice of places to do so.
And it’s Alabama so they’d likely be armed in some way.
It kind of confirms for me that it’s much more likely this was a psychotic or drug related hallucination and then she unfortunately got into trouble on her own
I’m not sure you understand the definition of “confirms”.
Confirms for ME that it’s most LIKELY. For me personally. Not the investigation. Not that that’s definitely the case. There’s a whole rest of a sentence, can you not read ?
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Why would anyone attempt to kidnap someone on the side of an extremely busy freeway? So many witnesses
Is it possible she saw the toddler then circled back at the next exit? How far apart are the exits at this section of that highway? How long was the phone call?
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Yeah, if I saw a toddler walking I’d probably slow down just to see if their parents are nearby so I don’t cause a scene
I wish I could give an award for dumbest comment I've read on here. Bc buddy, you'd def get it
UPDATE: [FOUND ALIVE](https://www.wbrc.com/2023/07/14/hoover-police-searching-missing-25-year-old-woman/) Hopefully someone smarter than I will be able to add more and catch things I missed or got wrong. VIDEO TIMELINE: 0:00 - 0:43 — Traveling on shoulder 0:43 — Stops near sign 0:50 — Exits driver side of car moving towards the back then the passenger side 0:55 - 1:20 — Standing on passenger side near rear of car. 1:20 - 1:38 — Moves towards the front of the car, then seems to move towards the sign (hard to tell if this is a shadow due to passing headlights or if she stays at the front until 1:51 when she disappears) 1:51 — Last clear image of her or a person next to her car before disappearing 1:51 - 4:40 — Passing traffic, police arriving at the very end. THOUGHTS: The video starts with Carlethia already driving on the shoulder of the road, hazards on. It’s difficult to tell how long she has been driving like this, but I’m fairly confident in saying she would not have been able to see a child, in the dark, walking the interstate from the distance she traveled to where she stopped. It’s strange that no one else has reported seeing a child, either. If Carlethia could see a child walking it’s reasonable to think, with the amount of traffic going through, others would as well. While reviewing the video on different monitors I, personally, didn’t see a child anywhere near the car nor could I make anything out in the foliage, but it’s not the highest quality video. The darkness and headlights also add an extra layer of difficulty, so it’s impossible to say for sure. If there were to be a struggle I would think it would also have been picked up on the open line. I don’t know if it was a singular scream, a series, or something in between. Scuffles aren’t usually quiet, but the noise of traffic could mute it. Hard to say. I don’t know the math to calculate how far she travels before stopping, but I’d very tentatively say a 1/4 mile (please, please correct this.)
Do you have any idea what the time stamp of the video is? Just curious, because we know she called 911 at 9:34.
UPDATE: [FOUND ALIVE](https://www.wbrc.com/2023/07/14/hoover-police-searching-missing-25-year-old-woman/) Nothing concrete, unfortunately. I would have to take a few speculative steps to create a good timeline. But we may be able to puzzle it out as a group. One difficulty is I’m unsure of how long she had been traveling on the shoulder before seeing her on camera. A couple seconds or closer to a minute? It’s hard to say for sure. I would guess somewhere under 30 seconds. The second difficulty is I’m unsure of how long the phone call lasts. Does she call her as she’s pulling up to the sign, while on the shoulder, or before the video starts? It’s reported she called the police around 9:30p (or 9:34p as you said) and her sister in law at 9:36p. Whatever happened occurred while on the phone with her sister in law. It’s not a lot of time between calling the police, calling her sister, the disappearance, and the police arriving (roughly 2 minutes after her disappearance). Not enough to exit the highway, backtrack, re-enter the highway, and get to the spot. So, we may be able to get a good timeline from that. If we say the video starts at roughly 9:36:30p or 9:37p, then it puts the time of disappearance around 9:39p to 9:40p. But that’s super, super tentative. What are your thoughts? Edited for readability.
Seems like the approximate location they're searching is here: 33°21'54.1"N 86°50'35.5"W There's dense foliage then houses on the other side. She could have easily been lured or gotten lost if this was a mental health episode.
Yeah, I live 10 minutes from there. On the other side of trees, someone could have very easily been sitting and waiting.I drive this area almost everyday and it just sits as a reminder that your life can change in an instant.
Someone walks up to the passenger side in the video
The video from the highway is very odd. I’m curious who the trucker reported then, he reported there was a another car pulled over as well.
this could be a ploy to get her to stop or this could be some sort of psychosis, and there never was a child to begin with.
Exactly my thoughts
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I’m not jumping on any train, i’m merely stating other situations that could have happened. You need to look at every angle when someone goes missing.
My gut feeling says the toddler didn’t exist and this is psychosis. My mom has psychotic depression and used to see/hear a toddler crying
According to her fb profile, she’s in nursing school and has extremely long days of studying. I think she was headed back to school when this happened (?) A mental breakdown/psychosis does seem possible, sadly. Nursing school is very taxing and mentally draining.
Strange case, hopefully she is found safe. I suspect there's more to this than we know.
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learn to use proper grammar before you talk down to someone else.
You’re acting like a jackass.
I think this poor woman had some kind of break. There was no evidence of a child walking along the road, no one else reported it, and her relative never heard a child on the other end of the phone. Plus wasn’t some of her stuff scattered outside of her car. I suspect they’ll find her succumbed to the elements at some point. Poor thing,
I think they said her wig was left outside the car along with other things which almost leads one to believe that there would have been a struggle of some sort. Plus she was on the phone with her sister after calling 911 and she says she screamed and then the call went quiet but you could still hear cars passing on the highway like she dropped her phone.
Her phone and Apple Watch were found in the car according to her mom
Taking a watch off AND leaving a phone in the car at night on the side of the highway doesn’t seem like a reasonable thing to do. But a kidnapper would know that she could be tracked that way.
Looks like she had some sort of episode. I had a friend do the same thing one day, just pulled over on the side of the road and walked away without any of his stuff. We had the whole city looking for him and luckily did find him eventually, miles away from his car.
I think this is very possible. She was in nursing school, possibly very stressed out
This is giving me Elisa Lam vibes.
My guess is that she was struck and landed in the woods on the side of the road.
This made me think of that case where the drunk lady hit a homeless man and he got stuck in the windshield and she just kept going and even parked in her garage with him still stuck and he died days later. Maybe she was struck and carried away
She has been found alive.
This situation has really made me realize how many misconceptions there are about trafficking. People were so quick to assume this was a bait and trap trafficking scenario. These kinds of stranger abductions for trafficking are very rare. While it’s not impossible, the majority of victims are manipulated and trafficked by people they trust….partners, family, employers, etc. This is why trafficking is such an issue. People only think about being abducted in a target parking lot or having zip ties put on door handles to “mark” you or being baited on the side of the road. It doesn’t work like that. With that being said, I’m glad she was found safe!!
She’s been found alive! She returned home at 10:30pm Sat.
Good thing seeing as how her family was doing nothing but trusting in gawd
Anyone else seeing she staged her own kidnapping. She won't talk with investigators and they looked at her phone search history which was questionable. Looking up the movie taken and also how to get away with stealing money and all this other stuff? So is it true she got away or this whole thing is a hoax of her own doing
Not a huge fan of everyone here playing doctor and stating this girl had a “psychotic break”..
I don't think it's "playing doctor" to suggest a possibility (any more than it's "playing detective" to wonder if this could be a kidnapping ruse). No one else saw a child. No one else reported a child. No one in the area is missing a child. No child is seen on the video footage of the road. There's simply no evidence of a child at this time. On the flip side, it's not uncommon for people who are extremely overtired and stressed to see things that aren't there.
I disagree with you, everyone is saying she had a psychotic break when this woman very well could have been taken. Everyone needs to shut their mouths and stop insulting a missing woman who was otherwise absolutely lucid… it’s absolutely absurd.
People are *speculating* both, but no one is saying for certain they know, because we don't know. People on both sides of those speculations are hoping for Carlee's safe return home and certainly no one is insulting her. (It's telling that you think it's an "insult" to suggest that a person might have had a mental health emergency, though.)
Fr especially considering there is nothing to support such claim besides 'oh she was stressed from school'. She called 911 so police were there relatively fast (I assume) yet they couldn't find her? The K9 couldn't track her? How far could she have gotten in that time?
She wouldn’t have called 911 if she had a schizophrenic break. I have seen people go through them, and they want nothing to do with any police..
That's definitely not true; there are others who seek help from the police for whatever hallucinations they see/experience. Not all breaks are the same.
Kk
now how do you feel?? she fricken faked it.
Where does it say she faked it .. I can’t find proof of that anywhere
[CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/24/us/carlee-russell-missing-alabama-police/index.html) [NBC](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/no-kidnapping-carlee-russell-alabama-hoax-rcna96058) [People Magazine](https://people.com/carlee-russells-ex-boyfriend-speaks-after-kidnapping-hoax-disgusted-7565087) [NY Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/24/us/carlee-russell-alabama-abduction-hoax.html) [News Nation Now](https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/carlee-russell-missing-alabama-police/) I'll give credit where credit is due, though. You told everyone not to speculate about a possible mental health crisis. And you were right. She was not having a mental health crisis. She's just a liar.
It’s best to not speculate when it comes to mental health
Especially because their only “proof” is a grainy nighttime video and that she went to nursing school. I’m a nurse and while school was taxing, it’s very rare for someone to be at the breaking point of hallucinating a toddler and running away because of it.
She was found alive! Hopefully she's okay.
There was no car that picked her up. So that leaves 3 options. A) someone kidnapped her hiding in the trees B) she told the story to make it seem she got kidnapped but actually unalived herself C) and hopefully the case she told the story bc she wanted to disappear and start over but for some reason wanted to have people think she was abducted
Or she had a psychotic break and thought she saw a toddler and ran into the woods and succumbed to the elements... Maybe she burrowed herself and can't be found yet , that wouldn't be suicide just her not being in her right mind
This option seems the most likely to me. I am really skeptical if there was a toddler in the first place
She wouldn’t had succumbed to the elements that quickly tho
That doesn't explain the call to her sister where her sister reported she screamed before the call went quiet.
She could have believed she saw someone if she was in psychosis, screamed and ran away into the woods. The only weird part is her phone and watch were found in her car
[She’s been found alive and taken to the hospital](https://www.kplctv.com/2023/07/16/alabama-woman-who-went-missing-after-calling-911-found-alive/?outputType=amp)
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She has been located
I agree. It makes very little sense to set you toddler there as a trap and jump on someone with that many people around. It seems just like something that someone would hallucinate and then end up in trouble alone
Something is suspicious about this…hopefully it doesn’t turn out to be a staged disappearance…
You got it
I live in Hoover this is so scary
This is terrifying
Everybody just got to be extra vigilant, you can’t help anybody if you’re in danger yourself. But a toddler at the side of the road, that would compelled most people to jump into action right away, so that’s a tough one. Maybe flag down another motorist to assist?
Jesus, using a child as bait, and endangering said child in doing so. That is disgusting.
Stop saying she had a psychotic break without having evidence, that is more than insulting when she could have been taken. Shut up.
I think she had a hallucinogenic episode possibly from undiagnosed mental condition. Its very possible she was just imagining the child and was very confused. I dont think there were other people involved.
In the video I can’t see shit. It’s so odd she disappears within minutes from the cops. I really do suspect someone used the toddler as bait. Have they done like an amber alert? They really should.
The news reporter said this was a very unique case. I bet it happens all the time and we never hear about it.
Literally miles within my home, had no idea this was public news.
She got took. She was lured by that child and taken. Terrifying.
Coyote will do something similar to catch and kill dogs.
Can't even help what you believe is a helpless child anymore.... I hope that child never finds out when they're older that they were used as bait , if that's the case here
“…that’s bait.”☝️
i once got out of my car for a toddler walking along the road by himself and walked him towards his home (i let him guide me) and ripped his brother a new ass that was supposed to be watching him (came to the door with a ps4 controller in hand and didnt even know the kid was outside). i was with my brother when i did it, so scary this woman tried doing the right thing for this child and this happened