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

DNA Solves
DNA Solves
DNA Solves

New Posts

Status
Not open for further replies.
AubrieC said:
The coordinates where the police are at currently (based off of this tweet) is: 33.364629, -86.843675
Just copy paste that into google maps. Its not a forestry area but its def a bit wooded. There is shopping centers and neighborhoods just beyond the trees. The restaurant, Taziki's is a 9 minute drive to this spot.

However, I'm curious as to why she didn't stay on the line with the 911 operator and contacted her family on the phone instead. I wonder what she told the operator.

What worries me a little bit is the possibility of the child being bait, as a few of you have mentioned. As bizzare as that is.

Clip from this article: Alabama - htcourts.org.
"Human trafficking is a big deal across Alabama. It is a significant issue in Birmingham, the state, and the region. Human trafficking is not only confined to the 1-20 corridor, as suggested by many media reports. This vice is spread across Alabama, in vast cities and rural areas, occurring in several variations. According to the Global Slavery Index, there is an estimate of more than 6000 human trafficking victims every day in Alabama, including forced labor and sex trafficking."

In November 2022, an undercover human trafficking operation in West Alabama was discovered and 6 people were arrested.
www.wbrc.com

6 people arrested after undercover human trafficking operation in West Alabama

The West Alabama Human Trafficking Task Force conducted a two-month undercover human trafficking operation that led to the arrest of six men on 12 felony charges.
www.wbrc.com www.wbrc.com

That's my biggest concern for Carlee right now.
Click to expand...
If I were going to attract a trafficking victim, I’m not walking a toddler on a highway. Statistically the odds of me getting what I wanted in that scenario are near zero, and the risk of exposure is tremendous. That’s not what happened, MOO.
 
Arkay said:
I would certainly not argue mental health with @BeginnerSleuther, as I am not a physician.

However, I’m wondering if Carlee did in fact suffer an auditory hallucination, perhaps for the first time and therefore undiagnosed?

IMO anything nefarious could have occurred here. I am speculating that if she did in fact hear voices, she may have thought she was being told to tear off her own wig and hat, or “heard” something that made her bolt out of the car and leave the engine running and the car door open.

Something definitely seems to have terrified her.

It could be that after little Émile in France, I just don’t want to believe there is an epidemic of toddlers walking alone and going missing.

The circumstances here, on a highway, IMO preclude that there was an actual toddler there.
Click to expand...
A man was seen with her on the highway, so someone was there with her during the short period of time after she stopped but before she went missing. That doesn't scream mental health breakdown to me, it screams abduction. I just am not seeing why so many people are writing this off as nothing but a mental health break so quickly. It doesn't give me that vibe at all.
 
If it was 9 at night and she was on the highway, certainly she would have had to double back to the toddler’s location, right? That would have given her time to call 911 and her family member before arriving back at the location of the sighting. Though, if I had flown by a toddler at highway speeds in the dark, I’m not even sure I would have felt confident enough in what I thought I had seen to make the 911 call….
Certainly she didn’t slam on her brakes right after seeing the toddler. At that point she would have skipped the 911 call altogether and ran to assist the kid, right?
Anyone have insight into how this might have gone? My mind can’t put it together in a way that makes sense.
 
AllisonS said:
A man was seen with her on the highway, so someone was there with her during the short period of time after she stopped but before she went missing. That doesn't scream mental health breakdown to me, it screams abduction. I just am not seeing why so many people are writing this off as nothing but a mental health break so quickly. It doesn't give me that vibe at all.
Click to expand...
Part of it is the unlikelihood of opportunism. An avowed bad guy, an abductor, someone out to do no good - he rarely coincidentally rolls by a solo woman frantic on the side of a highway in search of a missing child she is sure she saw. Statistically, it rarely if ever happens. If an opportunistic bad guy happened to roll up on this, snatch off her wig, ditch her watch, drop her phone and leave with her while the child also vanished — this will be a case so rare we talk about it decades from now. Bruno Hauptmann level of rare.
 
AllisonS said:
A man was seen with her on the highway, so someone was there with her during the short period of time after she stopped but before she went missing. That doesn't scream mental health breakdown to me, it screams abduction. I just am not seeing why so many people are writing this off as nothing but a mental health break so quickly. It doesn't give me that vibe at all.
Click to expand...
Certainly this may be true.

That’s why I stated that I think “anything nefarious” could have happened, and why I said I was “wondering” and “speculating.”

None of us know what happened to this lovely woman, so we are spitballing.


IMO it’s the mention of a child whom no one else heard or saw that allows for the possibility of alternate scenarios. Personally I do also lean more to a domestic or other violent attack.

But I don’t know, so I speculate.
 
I don't see the mental health angle here... even if you ignore the child story, there were at least two other people she'd have to "involve" for this to be some sort of hoax? The guy who called in her empty car and mentioned the man with the gray car... and that man with the gray car. Given that sighting it's not likely that she just walked off.

I sadly think of the Eliza Fletcher case - think she was just grabbed completely at random. This story is crazy, sounds like one of those "beware of robbers using crying babies as bait!" email chains that went around 20 years ago.
 
eloquence said:
I don't see the mental health angle here... even if you ignore the child story, there were at least two other people she'd have to "involve" for this to be some sort of hoax? The guy who called in her empty car and mentioned the man with the gray car... and that man with the gray car. Given that sighting it's not likely that she just walked off.

I sadly think of the Eliza Fletcher case - think she was just grabbed completely at random. This story is crazy, sounds like one of those "beware of robbers using crying babies as bait!" email chains that went around 20 years ago.
Click to expand...
That could well be true and you might be right. Reported sightings of cars and men on the side of the road with her … am confident that LE is looking hard for any evidence of this. Someone else on this thread made a great point about dashcams. Kinda tempted to get one myself!
 
bizaleth said:
Good thinking, I'm an RN who had to do LiveScan fingerprinting before clinical rotations and then again to get my license.
Click to expand...

Agreed, this could be possible.

Nursing programs (in my experience) also sometimes require their students to engage in public service and volunteer activities. Maybe this is another possible reason for her interaction? I do find it odd that the interaction occurred on the same day as her disappearance, which seems to be a coincidence at this point.
 
If we run with the theory that someone was trying to lure a Good Samaritan driving on the interstate to stop and get out of their car… where was the abductor lying in wait? Were they waiting on foot in the wooded area? Were they parked in the wooded area or on the shoulder of the interstate a ways away? There would likely be at least two people: one to grab the toddler and one to grab the victim.

Also, how did the abductor know that a young woman traveling alone would be the one to stop? What if it had been a pair of gun-toting burly men? What if multiple people stopped? What if a bad person stopped and abducted the child?
 
hblunt said:
Agreed, this could be possible.

Nursing programs (in my experience) also sometimes require their students to engage in public service and volunteer activities. Maybe this is another possible reason for her interaction? I do find it odd that the interaction occurred on the same day as her disappearance, which seems to be a coincidence at this point.
Click to expand...
The toddler angle makes it seem unlikely that some unsavory person from the police station could have followed her and staged this, which would otherwise be my thought. Like Cheshire CT - perps see woman at store and follow her home in their car.
 
Starkville said:
If we run with the theory that someone was trying to lure a Good Samaritan driving on the interstate to stop and get out of their car… where was the abductor lying in wait? Were they waiting on foot in the wooded area? Were they parked in the wooded area or on the shoulder of the interstate a ways away? There would likely be at least two people: one to grab the toddler and one to grab the victim.

Also, how did the abductor know that a young woman traveling alone would be the one to stop? What if it had been a pair of gun-toting burly men? What if multiple people stopped? What if a bad person stopped and abducted the child?
Click to expand...
Sounds like there was a gray car involved/ended up near her car, so maybe the gray car was stopped on the shoulder a few hundred feet behind?

It's a wild story but I really can't think of what else we could have here. Given the sighting involving multiple people I don't think she just walked into the woods. Staged disappearance perhaps but I get none of those vibes from this case, it's not like she had some big life issue to escape from.
 
Starkville said:
If we run with the theory that someone was trying to lure a Good Samaritan driving on the interstate to stop and get out of their car… where was the abductor lying in wait? Were they waiting on foot in the wooded area? Were they parked in the wooded area or on the shoulder of the interstate a ways away? There would likely be at least two people: one to grab the toddler and one to grab the victim.

Also, how did the abductor know that a young woman traveling alone would be the one to stop? What if it had been a pair of gun-toting burly men? What if multiple people stopped? What if a bad person stopped and abducted the child?
Click to expand...
A situation where there is some domestic indecent on the highway, bystander stops to help and they panic in fear she will be the reason they are reported for child abuse and injury/grab her?
 
Palisades said:
The toddler angle makes it seem unlikely that some unsavory person from the police station could have followed her and staged this, which would otherwise be my thought. Like Cheshire CT - perps see woman at store and follow her home in their car.
Click to expand...
I pick up on your Petit reference, but that was no roadside grab. This case is extremely different, respectfully.
 
eloquence said:
Sounds like there was a gray car involved/ended up near her car, so maybe the gray car was stopped on the shoulder a few hundred feet behind?

It's a wild story but I really can't think of what else we could have here. Given the sighting involving multiple people I don't think she just walked into the woods. Staged disappearance perhaps but I get none of those vibes from this case, it's not like she had some big life issue to escape from.
Click to expand...
Unless she was failing in her nursing career.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

DNASolves

Who is Escambia County John Doe (1989)?

Staff online

Members online

... and 247 more.
Total: 2,133 (members: 248, guests: 1,885)

Online statistics

Members online
248
Guests online
1,885
Total visitors
2,133
Totals may include hidden visitors.

Forum statistics

Threads
598,412
Messages
18,080,888
Members
230,624
Latest member
NumquamObliviscarEorum
Back
Top