The 25-year-old Hoover, Ala., woman who disappeared earlier this month and returned to tell a bizarre abduction tale has now admitted, through her attorney, that the story was a hoax.
Carlee Russell went missing on July 13 at 9:30 p.m. after making a 911 call reporting she saw a toddler in diapers walking down the highway. She returned home on foot on July 15 — about 49 hours after she went missing. What happened in those 49 hours she was “missing” is still not clear.
“My client did not have any help in this incident. This was a single act done by herself,” the statement said. “My client was not with anyone or any hotel with anyone from the time she was missing. My client apologizes for her actions to this community, the volunteers who were searching for her, to the Hoover Police Department and other agencies as well, and to her friends and family.”
During the two days that Russell was absent from her home, local and national media made a big stink about how missing black girls and young women make up a disproportionate number of missing persons in the country. In fact, few cases ever become national issues.
“At any given time, there are tens of thousands of Americans categorized as ‘missing’ by law enforcement,” attorney Zach Sommers. author of “Missing White Women Syndrome,” wrote. “However, only a fraction of those individuals receive news coverage, leading some commentators to hypothesize that missing persons with certain characteristics are more likely to garner media attention than others: namely, white women and girls.”
The “certain characteristics” are decided by the news editors, and they choose stories based on what they think their audience wants to see. And police departments have a lot of say in what cases are highlighted. To hint that racism was at play in this case is simply race-baiting.
In the case of Carlee Russell, there is still skimpy evidence of what went on during those 49 hours she was “missing.” There is plenty of evidence that she carefully planned the hoax leading some in law enforcement to speculate she had help.
She returned home on July 15. During a police interview, she said a man with orange hair came out of the woods to check on the toddler, but picked up Russell and made her go over a nearby fence.
He forced her into a car, she said, before recalled being inside an 18-wheel trailer. She said that she was able to escape from the truck and fled the area on foot, but was captured again and placed into a car.
She claimed she was blindfolded in a house and forced to get undressed, and believed pictures were taken of her.
She also allegedly told police that the individuals didn’t have any sexual contact with her. Surveillance video footage showed Russell walking along the sidewalk before she went to her house July 15, officials said. No evidence of a toddler on the side of a highway was ever found by police.
Russell’s boyfriend, Thomar Latrell Simmons, has asked the public to consider her mental health.
“I know what it seems like she did. Just stop bullying on social media,” Simmons told the New York Post. “Think about her mental health. She doesn’t deserve that. She doesn’t. Nobody deserves to be cyberbullied.” Simmons later changed his tune, deleting the supportive message as well as most of the photos of the two of them together from his social media.
No one may “deserve it,” but the cyberbullying is understandable. No one likes to be punked, and there were some people who were heavily invested in the story. Angela Harris spearheaded the search for Russell after her own daughter had been abducted and murdered just four years prior.
“I feel heartbroken and sad for a lot of different reasons, but I wouldn’t do anything different than what I did,” Angela says, before breaking down in tears. “I’m not angry, a lot of people are, and rightly so, but I’m so happy Carlee is alive. I do want to say that because I thought she wasn’t.”
Russell’s internet searches prior to her disappearance were interesting. She searched “do you have to pay for an Amber Alert” on July 11 at 7:30 a.m. On July 13 at 1:03 a.m., Russell searched “how to take money from a register without being caught.”
She searched for the movie “Taken” on July 13 at 12:10 p.m., he said.
Crime Stoppers of Metro Alabama raised $63,000 to aid in the search for Russell. The organization says the money will not be returned.
Russell will probably plead mental illness and get off with a slap on the wrist. But because of the high cost of promoting this hoax — not just the law enforcement resources but the emotional toll on some people — Carlee Russell needs to pay a higher price for her fakery.
