Then what would be the point of kidnapping her, and making her drive to the border, if the kidnapper got out of the car, and let her go on by herself?
What's the normal border-crossing protocol? Is it sometimes a 'wave-through' situation outbound versus individual cars being checked?
The man who grabbed her could have jumped out shortly before the checkpoint, (hopefully something that'd be caught on someone's dashcam), and he could have gone across some way that avoided the checkpoints.
It could have also been a situation where he had planned to just go through in the car, but then saw the news articles that she'd already been reported missing, (so would have been stopped), so changed his plans.
I sincerely hope that some highway cam between Desoto and Laredo caught the car, (and the number of occupants) - It should be relatively easy to find with the bumper sticker and panel damage mentioned. The TxDot site is showing all of those cameras unavailable right now, so I'm not sure if they have archival footage.
Edit: I'm not seeing ANY cameras active in that area - I wonder if it's related to this case.
The thumbnails from the inactive ones give a sense of whether you'd be able to, (or not be able to), see how many people are in a car:
Check out the current traffic and highway conditions on LRD-US83 at Tilden EB in Laredo, TX. Avoid traffic & plan ahead!
www.weatherbug.com
I wonder if she had one of those insurance gizmos in the car, and if it recorded the weight of the passenger seat and/or if the seatbelt was used? I tried searching if the type of car that she had has a black box, (since those would also record seat belt usage), but apparently how and when it's captured is variable:
Beware the black box
If no one comes forward with any footage, this woman's going to be living with the specter of Carlee Russell for the rest of her life.