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

[PixieStix]

So according to the released video we have:

- Carlee's vehicle traveling for a long distance with hazard lights flashing.
- No other vehicles pulling over near her.
- No gray car or man.
- No child visible.
- No visible abduction or struggle taking place.
- Carlee moving around the vehicle and disappearing shortly after.

To me, if we're going to talk about an abduction, you need to present some evidence that it took place. So far, there's none. The fact that there were that many vehicles on the interstate at that time, I just can't suspend my disbelief enough to think a violent abduction was taking place where they slapped off her wig and watch, and presumably stuffed her in a vehicle, and nobody reported seeing this. Nor did they report seeing the supposed child.

I don't understand why so many people here are being dismissive of the psychotic break theory when we've seen cases almost exactly like this that ended up being psychotic breaks. Teleka Patrick, Elisa Liam, Lars Mittank, and so on.

If Carlee is the only person who reported seeing a child, and possibly hundreds of other passing motorists did not, the most likely explanation is that she didn't actually see one.

I agree not to rule anything out. We know she is missing but the details and facts we have are limited, strange, and don't add up. Beyond a psychotic break, it could be some kind of medical condition, drug interaction, budding mental illness, drugs, a combination, or something else entirely. Unless we get 100% confirmation that another car was there it seems implausible that some predator was waiting in the grass on the side of the highway for a victim to drag to the woods. However, I am keeping all possibilities open!

 

[chipwhitley]

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.

Hmmm, it sure looks like it would be hard to drag/pull someone into those woods. I didn't realize it went up on an incline like that.

This doesn't seem like she was dragged or ran off into those woods... So strange.

 

[Fuhgetabouddit]

There are people who are not found for *years* after running away from a vehicle into the woods. Have you heard of Maura Murray? Missing since Feburary 2004. Brandon Lawson? Missing since 2013.

Let's not assume she's dead so quickly, but in that unfortunate event, it's not necessarily true you would be found quickly. Not at all.

Yes, she could’ve covered a lot of ground if she made a run for it. A search would be very difficult at night. Or the alternative is, it is very hot and there are lots of wild animals. It’s an awful truth but decomposition and scattering would be very quick in those circumstances.

 

[Palisades]

It's at this link, she's wearing her watch.

Carlee Russell: What we know after she vanished on I-459 in Hoover, returned home

Hoover police said they have found no evidence of a public threat after she said she was kidnapped.

www.al.com

View attachment 434842

That is the outfit. Nothing saying *that picture* was taken *the day she dissapeared*.

 

[justinkjones1993]

Different type of woods and terrain in this situation. There is a road and a neighborhood on the other side of a pretty shallow wooded area.

That means absolutely nothing when we don't know what direction she traveled, or how far. I live less than an hour from where she disappeared, and trust me, that interstate is heavily wooded on both sides for considerable stretches.

Look, if you want to believe the abduction theory, that's fine and I support keeping all possibilities open. But then you have to explain away a lot of things that make no sense.

Why was she the only person who saw a child? Why would abductors risk putting a child on the side of the interstate when there's a good chance this would cause detection by law enforcement? Why are there no other vehicles visible? Why didn't anyone report seeing a struggle or abduction in progress? Why were there no other 911 calls? Why was she traveling such a long distance with hazard lights if she already passed the child? Why did she even get out of the car? Why didn't 911 stay ont the phone with her? Why would abductors choose a busy interstate for an abduction plot to begin with? So on and so forth. None of it makes sense.

A psychotic break from undiagnosed bipolar disorder or schizophrenia would make a lot of sense based on the evidence we have, plus many other cases with eerily similar circumstances, involving people in the exact same age group.

 

[GoBuckeyes]

When they say they were there in a certain amount of minutes, they mean from the time the call was placed. For whatever reason, they really wanted the public to know this piece of information.

Maybe between getting their response time out to the public and their public statement about her strength of character, LE was attempting to ensure the public's help, encouraging people to take seriously the case details, etc.??

 

[Snail-Overlord]

I’m still not at all convinced that this was a psychotic break.

Have any of y’all ever talked to a person experiencing psychosis? Their behavior is not normal, and it’s immediately obvious. They exhibit paranoid and/or magical thinking. Their speech is usually jumbled and difficult to understand. They often struggle to maintain hygiene and personal appearance during an episode. As far as we know, Carlee didn’t show any of these signs at all. Her behavior was not in line with someone experiencing a psychotic episode.

The situation is weird but that doesn’t make a psychotic episode the most likely explanation. Unlikely and weird things do happen. There are always statistical anomalies. JMO

 

[Rosegold68]

Psychotic break is an interesting theory

Hope something happens soon. Family must be so worried

 

[duckcat]

Hmmm, it sure looks like it would be hard to drag/pull someone into those woods. I didn't realize it went up on an incline like that.

This doesn't seem like she was dragged or ran off into those woods... So strange.

Closer to the Hoover sign though the incline does seem to end and flatten out, it looks like you can see the houses beyond at this section. Easier to see in fall/winter recordings without the leaves. You can sort of see that slope ending in the attached angle.

From overhead view there seems to be a carved out section of the treeline right at this spot, but I can quite make it out from street view level.

 

[Snail-Overlord]

A further note: maybe Carlee did see something she mistook for a child, but that does not make her psychotic. I’m of the opinion that regardless of whether there was a child there or not, something bad happened to her after she got out of the car.

I have personally pulled to the side of the road to check on a “dog” that turned out to be a garbage bag. This was in the daytime. I didn’t hallucinate a dog and I wasn’t psychotic; I just saw something in my peripheral vision and my brain filled in the blanks.

It’s possible this is what happened to Carlee. But I personally strongly believe that she did see a person, because she asked “are you okay?”

JMO

 

[iamnotagolem]

I think voluntarily missing seems more likely than psychotic break, wouldn't co-workers, friends, acquaintances have noticed something leading to a psychotic break? I'm not informed on the subject, so maybe i'm wrong.

Voluntarily missing would just mean ultra planned and prepared. If she had another vehicle waiting in the neighborhood behind the wooded area, then it seems she could have staged the whole bit and just ran over there and left. But then why call 911? Why not just call her SIL to set it up? The last time I can clearly see her on video is just beyond the 1:30 mark, the officer arrives on scene 3 minutes later. She couldn't have known that an officer wouldn't arrive in less than 3 minutes. What if there had been one sooner?

No theory really makes sense to me.

 

[Van Helsing]

Wow, it’s so baffling to see how many other cars were on the road at the time, in regard to no other sightings of the child or Carlee’s disappearance. I do like another poster’s theory that she perhaps exited off the highway and circled back to take a look at what she may have seen.

I think see her exiting the driver’s side of the vehicle around the 50 second mark. If she walked towards the ditch, I suppose she would have been out of the vantage point of other drivers in the dark.

I wonder if it’s possible that she saw a wild animal, bear, bobcat, cougar? As she got closer she may have been attacked and dragged away. I would imagine that they would have been able to find evidence of this by now though.

As for the evidence of an animal attack, I thought this too, but remembered that LE arrived and started searching that night. They may have walked all over the area and obscured any flattened grass that the dragging would have caused. I'm thinking she could have run down into the ditch or into the wooded area. (Just speculation)

 

[Ontario Mom]

I can see her on this video then she seems to disappear. I wasn't expecting it to be so dark.

Just started reading from the beginning this morning and I'm still not caught up. All I can see (and I have a huge screen so that's helpful) is her exiting the driver's side, walking around to the back of the car and then over to the rear passenger side. After that - poof - she's gone. I can't see any other movement near the car.

 

[Arkay]

This traffic video is such a vital piece of information. It seems all we have other than her 911 call.

Yet I’m truly baffled. Sometimes I think I see Carlee walk around the car, sometimes I think I see other people, sometimes I can’t see anything.


Where I live, in a big, big city, the highways have light poles all along the way. I’m always squeamish on the rare occasions when I have to travel on a dark road. She seems to have put her blinkers on well before she pulled over, which is rational thinking. Making a call to 911 seems rational as well if she truly thought she saw a child.


Yet to my eye, the video does NOT show another car pulling over to either help or harm her. The notion that someone with ill intent was waiting at that precise part of the shoulder for a victim to come along just doesn’t add up, IMO. A big guy with a gun could have been someone who veered to the shoulder, rather than a young woman or anyone else vulnerable.

I agree with others that if there were a child alone on a highway, others would have noticed. When the police arrived, I would suppose they would have searched not only for the abruptly missing Carlee, but for an alleged unaccompanied child. The police appear to have arrived on the scene just a few minutes later.

She seems like an accomplished and lovely woman. Nothing makes sense to me.

JMO

 

[Snail-Overlord]

I hope LE will be able to enhance these videos enough to try to get something more out of them. They theoretically should be able to match the timelines up of the call and the video

 

[vls12345]

If anyone wants to see what the camera looks like in the daytime, you can see it live here:

Traffic camera from video

If you look at the preview for the 10am to 11am feed from today, you can see that some people are out searching. I hope they find some clues.

Eta: If you look for the previews/footage from the 13th, the footage from 5pm to 8pm is not available.

Eta: Previews from the night of the 13th seem to show police lights for a couple of hours.

On the morning of the 14th, starting with the 9am time frame, you can see a large search effort.

 

[chipwhitley]

i'd love to hear the 911 call to hear exactly what she said. Did she sound absolutely sure that she saw a toddler? Or was it more like "I THINK I saw a child on the side of the road but i'm not sure...it could have been ____ etc"

But then again, I guess you'd have to be pretty sure to pull off and check it out. I know I wouldn't pull off on the side of a busy highway at night to check out a "maybe". Of course, everyone is different.

 

[Van Helsing]

Is the wording of this odd??

View attachment 434840

Sounds like they have gotten some unhelpful tips.
[edit: Someone noted that this is generic wording for this LE.]

 

[Vern]

(As an aside, I, too, take off my Apple Watch and put it my purse fairly regularly. Sometimes it irritates my skin, and particularly after a long day I just want it off.)

I only wear mine at work; I get home and chillax without it 'bothering' me.

 

[duckcat]

You can actually see the search party at work at in the Live Feed. Hopefully they find something today.

Edit: whoops, sorry just saw someone mentioned this above already.