HOOVER, Ala. — Police gave new details on Carlee Russell's disappearance Wednesday, including what they said she told detectives about what happened when she returned home after 49 hours missing and, they said, her search history in the time before going missing that they felt was "relevant."
According to police in Hoover, Alabama, Russell said after calling 911 to report a toddler walking down the side of the interstate Thursday night, she left her car to go to the child and that a "man came out of the trees and mumbled that he was checking on the baby," before forcing her through the woods, over a fence and into the back an 18-wheeler.
Police said she described being held captive by that man, who she described as having orange hair with a big bald spot on the back, and a woman she never saw. She said she escaped the 18-wheeler, according to police, but was caught and then taken to a house.
She told police at the house she was undressed by the pair and believes they took pictures of her, but she did not remember sexual or physical contact.
After a night at the house, she said she was put back in a vehicle but was able to escape and then make her way home on foot. She described running through lots of woods and coming out near her home, where she returned on Saturday night. 911 was called at that time and they took her to the hospital to be checked out in a state they described as "conscious and speaking."
Police did not say whether they doubt this story, but provided search terms she allegedly made from her phone and work computer in the days before the disappearance, saying there were "many questions left to be answered that only Carlee can provide."
Those included, two days before she went missing, "Do you have to pay for an Amber Alert or search."
In the early morning hours, they also said she searched for:
- "How to take money from a register without being caught"
- "Birmingham bus station"
- And for a one-way bus ticket from Birmingham to Nashville, with a departure date of later that day, July 13
They said in the afternoon of July 13, she searched for the movie "Taken." They also said there were two searches on her work computer related to Amber Alerts.
"We've asked to interview Carlee a second time, we have not been granted that request," Hoover Police Chief Nick Derzis said.
Chief Derzis also put emphasis on what he said was the fact that while on the 911 call reporting the child on the side of the road, cell phone data indicates Carlee traveled 600 yards.
"I've always been the kind of guy to say never say never, but six football fields (600 yards) - to think that a toddler, barefoot, that could be 3-4 years old, is gonna travel six football fields without getting in the roadway, without crying, without moving is very hard for me to understand," he said.
Derzis said on surveillance videos from the interstate they could see Carlee's car and someone get out of the driver's side during the time she called 911, but no child.
"We pretty much know exactly what took place from the time she left work to the time she got on 911 call, we can see that getting out of the car on the interstate after that - I think she only knows (what happened), we don't know," he said.
Police had earlier on Wednesday offered new details in the case, including that they had no evidence of a missing child. Derzis said during the press conference they had not had a child reported missing.
They say Russell's call is the only one that reported anything like that, "despite numerous vehicles passing through that area as depicted by the traffic camera surveillance video."
They also offered new details on her whereabouts in the roughly hour between when she left work Thursday evening and then made the 911 call on the highway.
"I wouldn't say I'm frustrated, I'm very happy that Carlee's home, that was the main ingredient here," Derzis said Wednesday. "We'll figure it out, I promise you that. We'll end up figuring it out."
Watch Wednesday's news conference below. The story continues below this video.
Carlee Russell evidence, disappearance timeline
Rusell's case gained national attention after she reported a toddler walking down the interstate and then went missing last week. She arrived back home on Saturday night.
Much remains murky about the few days Russell was missing. A police timeline has said she left her work Thursday night and then, on her way to pick up food she ordered, stopped on I-459 to report a toddler in a diaper walking along the side of the interstate. Police reviewed this timeline in detail during Wednesday's news conference.
She then called a relative and then went missing. Police arrived within five minutes of being dispatched to the scene where the toddler was reported, but did not find Russell there - instead discovered her wig, cellphone and purse with an Apple Watch inside.
So far it has not been detailed where she was or what was happening for much of the next roughly 49 hours.
But Hoover Police are saying, in a release issued Tuesday night and obtained by WVTM reporter Mattie Davis, that they have not been able to come across "any evidence of a toddler walking down the interstate" on Thursday night. They say Russell's call is the only one that reported anything like that, "despite numerous vehicles passing through that area as depicted by the traffic camera surveillance video."
Police have also additionally said that after leaving The Colonnade, a shopping complex where she'd ordered the food, she then stopped at a Target and bought "snack food type items." Police said those snacks were not with the other items - her phone, wig and purse - found in her car at the scene of her disappearance.
There had previously not been any details about Russell's whereabouts between 8:20 p.m. Thursday night when she left work to head to The Colonnade, and 9:34 p.m. when she called 911.
The release also detailed how first responders attended to Russell when she returned home Saturday night, saying she was "conscious and speaking" with surveillance video from her neighborhood showing her walking alone down the sidewalk.
"She was later treated and released from a local hospital," the police release said. "Numerous evidentiary items are still being evaluated, and those items are key in the process of determining exactly what took place in the approximately 49 hours Carlee was missing, but also what took place prior to her disappearance."
Carlee's parents, meanwhile, went on NBC's TODAY Show on Tuesday and said she "definitely fought for her life" during the period she was missing.
"There were moments when she physically had to fight for her life and there were moments when she had to mentally fight for her life," her mother Talitha Robinson-Russell said.
Robinson-Russell also described getting numerous texts and calls with "malicious" false reports. "I just didn't know people could be so evil." She also said her daughter is "having to deal with the trauma of people just making completely false allegations about her."
