Found Alive AL - Carlethia “Carlee” Russell, 25, 911 call reported toddler walking on side of interstate, car found, she & toddler gone, Birmingham, 13 Jul ‘23

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I'm confused why 911 didn't stay on the line with her.)
The area was pretty dark. She might not have been certain she saw a child on the side of the road until it was too late to pull over. If she called 911 to report it but wasn’t at the scene, there wouldn’t be any reason to keep her on the phone? I know the timeline is pretty tight. She could have started to double back while on the phone with 911 or while talking to her sister-in-law. This is all conjecture.
 
It appears to be a quick 5 minute drive from The Summit to Tatziki's at the Colonnade. If she left work at 8:20 and grabbed her take out at 9, what was she doing for the 35 minutes or so between leaving work and grabbing take out? Who did she see? Who did she talk to? Was the restaurant super busy and had a crazy wait time for take out? If not, did she meet up with anyone before heading over to the restaurant after work?
It was said she picked up her take out around 9, then called her mom around 9:19 to tell her she was on her way home with food. You know how long you sometimes have to wait for food in a drive through line, right? Girls are bad about sitting in their cars on their phones she may have been sitting there for 10-15 minutes before going for take out.
 
With how she is driving in the video, I agree that it appears that she circled back to look again. She may not have called 911 until she got close again the second time and felt that she had verified that she was seeing something concerning.
This may make up for the gap in the timeline of when she talked to her mother and when she called 911. I wonder why she didn’t call her mother the second time to say hey, I know I just told you I’m on my way, but now I’m not and here’s why? Nothing to really read into from that, it’s just a thought.
 
I've seen some comments saying her wig was left behind so that signals abduction. I do think it is abduction, but she may have also taken her wig off on her way home after a long day. I've never worn one, but I've heard they can be hot and itchy. So I don't think the wig being left behind necessarily means anything.
This is just going to depend on where it was found. If laying neatly in her car along with the hat, I’d say this is very plausible. If either were on the ground, that brings questions.
 
I agree that there seems to be some gaps in the timeline. She got off work at 8:20 then went to Taziki’s at the Colonnade, which is only 10 or so minutes away from where she works at the Summit. Taziki’s closes at 9 and that location is unlikely to have been busy that late on a Thursday night, so she was almost certainly done picking up her takeout before 9. She then called her mom at 9:19, so basically an hour after getting off work and 15 minutes before she called 911. There seems to be more time than would be expected in this timeline. I guess it’s possible she picked up the food from Taziki’s then sat in her car and ate? Or sat in her car and read or talked on her phone?
 
This may make up for the gap in the timeline of when she talked to her mother and when she called 911. I wonder why she didn’t call her mother the second time to say hey, I know I just told you I’m on my way, but now I’m not and here’s why? Nothing to really read into from that, it’s just a thought.
Maybe she didn’t want her mom to know she was pulling over on the side of the road? That would have given my mom fits. Maybe that’s why she called her sister-in-law instead?
 
I think Carlee is still nearby. There are a lot of homes on the other side of the wood line. LE will be asking for security camera/ring doorbell captures in that area if they think she was taken through that wood line. Maybe they already have, I don’t know. I think Carlee saw a young child, probably not a toddler, but a small older child. The grass is very high there and the shadows very dark along the tree line. I haven’t seen anything about search dogs being utilized but I bet they are out there today.
 
Well, this is quite strange. You can streetview the stretch of the highway where Carlee pulled over. It’s right by/before a sign for Hoover/Bessemer and after a blue food exit sign with Waffle House in the top left corner.

There are shots from Jan 2023 which shows a gray car pulled over almost exactly where Carlee pulled over. Most likely coincidental, but if you track the street view movement, the car suddenly appears, so parked in that spot as the street view vehicle was approaching the area. I tracked back looking at oncoming traffic and could not see that same gray car heading towards the area on the interstate

Screenshots attached of the car not in frame, and then in frame in the next jump in movement, and screenshots looking back right before the jumps where the car appears.

Other notes that I see in steetview however, the ditch is much more narrow than I thought from the traffic cam video.
 

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Well, this is quite strange. You can streetview the stretch of the highway where Carlee pulled over. It’s right by/before a sign for Hoover/Bessemer and after a blue food exit sign with Waffle House in the top left corner.

There are shots from Jan 2023 which shows a gray car pulled over almost exactly where Carlee pulled over. Most likely coincidental, but if you track the street view movement, the car suddenly appears, so parked in that spot as the street view vehicle was approaching the area. I tracked back looking at oncoming traffic and could not see that same gray car heading towards the area on the interstate

Screenshots attached of the car not in frame, and then in frame in the next jump in movement, and screenshots looking back right before the jumps where the car appears.

Other notes that I see in steetview however, the ditch is much more narrow than I thought from the traffic cam video.
Having trouble uploading all screenshots in one post, but here are the shots of oncoming traffic prior to the gray car appearing parked.
 

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Well, this is quite strange. You can streetview the stretch of the highway where Carlee pulled over. It’s right by/before a sign for Hoover/Bessemer and after a blue food exit sign with Waffle House in the top left corner.

There are shots from Jan 2023 which shows a gray car pulled over almost exactly where Carlee pulled over. Most likely coincidental, but if you track the street view movement, the car suddenly appears, so parked in that spot as the street view vehicle was approaching the area. I tracked back looking at oncoming traffic and could not see that same gray car heading towards the area on the interstate

Screenshots attached of the car not in frame, and then in frame in the next jump in movement, and screenshots looking back right before the jumps where the car appears.

Other notes that I see in steetview however, the ditch is much more narrow than I thought from the traffic cam video.
Having trouble uploading all screenshots in one post, but here are the shots of oncoming traffic prior to the gray car appearing parked.
 
LE doesn’t work that way here. If you remember the case of Aniah Blanchard, they released a video of just her, even though they also had footage of the suspect around the same time. They intentionally left him out. They knew before they released that video that this was their guy. I can’t speculate as to why it was released that way except that they were setting bait. Possibly hoping that if she were still alive, he would release her once he saw that. Because if I’m not mistaken, he had priors on kidnapping.

The video in this case is much different. We see the entire camera range from the moment she entered the shoulder until LE arrived. They didn’t withhold anything, at least not at this point. But they also offered nothing to go with it. That doesn’t mean they don’t have something prior to this or after this that they are laying groundwork on.
Law enforcement didn't release the video. It's from a public traffic livestream. There's a site that records it and anybody can pay $250 an hour for access to the recording, which is what a TV station did so that's how we got the video.
 
I can’t find the post with the kind member who previously shared this footage, but thank you. *edited oopsie wrong link, here’s the right one:
That is much better quality! You can clearly see her get out and go to the rear passenger side and open the back door before moving up towards the front of the passenger side. It looks like she is standing there before getting closer to the high grass part? I can’t seem to make out any other people or lights from other cars possibly pulling up behind her car but out if view of camera. Also she is quite close to the lanes and there is a lot of traffic going by. I have to believe someone saw something more than we know.
 
I don't see a toddler.
I don't see a car stopping like it suddenly saw a toddler.
I don't see other cars reacting like they see a toddler wandering or a woman being attacked.
I think all of the other 'lights' that people see are just reflections on the camera lens from cars/trucks.
I'd say similar about the shadows on signs... vehicle lights hitting the backs of other vehicles.

I don't know what happened - but it just looks nothing like what I'd expect a trap/attack/kidnapping to look like - and that would seem to be about the worst place one could pick for something like that to happen unobserved.
I think it could be explained by her possibly taking the next exit after thinking she saw the child, looping back and getting back on the interstate and when she got back to where she might have seen something she got on the shoulder and put her flashers on.
 
I think it could be explained by her possibly taking the next exit after thinking she saw the child, looping back and getting back on the interstate and when she got back to where she might have seen something she got on the shoulder and put her flashers on.
ITA, I think she saw something, took the exit, went back to the previous exit got back on the highway and kept her flashers on and went slow until she saw the "toddler" again, then called it in. I initially assumed she saw "toddler" called 911, then called SIL as she exited and returned, but the timing doesn't seem to fit. Unless I've misunderstood the timeline.
 
That is much better quality! You can clearly see her get out and go to the rear passenger side and open the back door before moving up towards the front of the passenger side. It looks like she is standing there before getting closer to the high grass part? I can’t seem to make out any other people or lights from other cars possibly pulling up behind her car but out if view of camera. Also she is quite close to the lanes and there is a lot of traffic going by. I have to believe someone saw something more than we know.
Good eyes. Really bizarre video, and doesn't really line up with the "gray car" story. I'm starting to believe she walked off on her own, either into the woods or beyond the exit. Even with the darkness and terrible quality, I still think we'd see something more on this video if someone were abducting her right then and there.

If only it were 30 min earlier and a hair brighter, we'd know exactly what happened
 
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