Carlee Russell.
The Alabama woman who returned home on Saturday after she went missing for two days, searched for Amber Alerts and the movie “Taken” on her phone before her disappearance, Hoover Police Department Chief Nicholas Derzis told reporters Wednesday. Carlee Russell.
Russell also made searches related to bus tickets in the hours before she went missing, he said.
“There were other searches on Carlee’s phone that appeared to shed some light on her mindset,” Derzis said, adding he would not share them out of privacy. Carlee Russell
“Taken,” the 2008 movie starring Liam Neeson, centers around a young woman who is abducted and the quest to save her from her kidnappers.
Derzis said that it’s “highly unusual” that Russell searched for Amber Alerts and “Taken” in the hours before she went missing. Carlee Russell
“We want to talk in facts and I do think it’s highly, highly unusual to the day that someone gets kidnapped that several — seven hours or eight hours before that — that they’re searching the internet, Googling the movie ‘Taken’ about an abduction. I find that very, very strange,” Derzis said.
Russell told police that she was taken by a male and a female when she stopped to check on a toddler that she reported on the highway, Derzis said. Carlee Russell
“She stated when she got out of her vehicle to check on the child a man came out of the trees and mumbled that he was checking on the baby. She claimed that the man then picked her up and she screamed,” he said.
Asked if investigators saw a man abduct Russell in the surveillance video of the interstate, Derzis said that they didn’t.
“From what we can tell, we don’t see anybody on the interstate other than her car and then someone getting out of her driver’s side,” he said. “We have sent that that off to the FBI for enhancement. Carlee Russell
Russell called 911 to report a toddler walking down the highway before her disappearance, but the Hoover Police Department said in a press release on Tuesday evening that investigators have not found any evidence of a child walking on the side of the road.
“The Hoover Police Department has not located any evidence of a toddler walking down the interstate, nor did we receive any additional calls about a toddler walking down the interstate, despite numerous vehicles passing through that area as depicted by the traffic camera surveillance video,” the press release said.
Police also previously said that they did not receive any calls to report a missing toddler.
“We’ve been unable to verify most of Carlee’s initial statement made to investigators and we have no reason to believe that there is a threat to the public safety related to this particular case,” he said.
