Additional photos of Carlee Russell (Hoover Police Dept.)
A missing woman came back home in a return just as puzzling as her disturbing disappearance. The Hoover Police Department in Alabama announced that their 911 center received a call at 10:45 p.m. on Saturday about Carlethia “Carlee” Nichole Russell, 25, reappearing.
Carlee Russell located #hooverpd pic.twitter.com/10Av7B6x8j
— Hoover Police Dept (@HooverPD) July 16, 2023
“She walked up, banged on the door, and that was her,” Hoover Police Chief Nicholas Derzis told WBRC.
He said he was unsure how she got there. Police still had to determine what happened after she went missing while reporting that she saw a toddler wandering alongside a local interstate. Investigators will sit down with her, but not yet.
“The first thing is to give Carlee and family a little time to get themselves back together,” the chief reportedly said. “I know it’s been a tough experience for them. When we think it’s time to sit down and have a conversation with Carlee and try to get some facts, we’ll do that.”
As previously reported, Russell went missing Thursday night after she got off work at The Summing in Birmingham, a shopping center. It was believed she stopped to pick up something to eat, then she headed back home to the city of Hoover, which is about 10 miles south of Birmingham.
Something strange happened along I-459 South, however. Russell told 911 she saw a toddler wandering on the highway.
She then called a family member and relayed the same details, telling this person she had stopped her car to check on the child.
“The family member lost contact with her, but the line remained open,” the Hoover Police Department wrote in a press release. “Officers who were already en route to the location of the initial 911 call located the female’s vehicle and some of her belongings nearby but were unable to find her or a child in the area.”
Carlethia “Carlee” Nichole Russell (Hoover Police Dept.)
On the 911 call, Russell told the emergency dispatcher that she had stopped near mile marker 11 between the Galleria flyover and Exit 10 leading to Highway 150.
Police have only identified one witness from the area who told investigators they remembered possibly seeing a gray vehicle with a light-complected male standing outside Russell’s vehicle.
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The details from the missing woman’s mother, Talitha Russell, were disturbing. Carlee had been speaking on the phone with her sister-in-law when something went terribly wrong.
“In the process, at some point, she got out of the car, and my daughter-in-law could hear her asking the child if they were OK,” Russell’s mother, Talitha Russell, told WBRC. “The child did not respond, or at least she did not hear her respond, he or she respond. And then she heard our daughter Carlee scream, and from there on, all we could hear was noise…background noise in her phone which we later found out was noise from the interstate.”
A Hoover police officer arrived just three minutes after Carlee’s 911 call about the toddler, according to AL.com. Even so, they did not find Russell or a child.
“Her car door was open, the engine was running, and they found her phone on the ground, along with her wig and her hat,” Talitha Russell said, according to AL.com. “Her purse was still in the car. Her Apple watch was in her purse, and her AirPods as well.”
The truth behind that 911 call, the toddler, Russell’s disappearance and her equally mysterious return remains unknown.
“We work with facts,” Derzis said early Sunday. “With social media, you got so many people that think they know what’s taken place. Right now, we’re just very pleased that she’s home.”
Jerry Lambe contributed to this report.
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