Carlee Russell is home.
The Alabama woman who disappeared Thursday night after calling 911 to report a toddler on the side of the interstate knocked on her parents’ door in Hoover Saturday at about 10:45 p.m., CrimeOnline reported.
The 25-year-old nursing student said she was having difficulty breathing and was taken to the University of Alabama-Birmingham hospital, where she spent the night and was released Sunday morning, AL.com reported.
Talitha Robinson-Russell, Russell’s mother, posted a joyous statement to Facebook asking for privacy and promising to “give a general statement in the near future as this is an ongoing investigation.”
“We do want to ask for privacy at this time to allow us to just love on our daughter and each other with our close family and friends, she wrote. “Also, please consider the fact we have not slept for 3 nights and we are mentally and physically exhausted.”
Hoover police say they don’t yet know what happened, AL.com reported.
“We don’t have to move quickly,’’ Police Chief Nick Derzis said. “Our priority was to get her home and she’s home. We’ll investigate and do what we have to do.”
Police spoke briefly with Russell Saturday night but have not had an in-depth interview as yet.
“We’re respecting the privacy of Carlee and her family. Our main goal has been achieved and that is getting her home safe,’’ Derzis said.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s our obligation as police to put it all together,” he said. “The goal now is to find out what happened in the 48 or 49 hours after she disappeared a mile from her house and then ended up back at the house, to fill in the gaps.”
Russell was driving home from work in Birmingham Thursday night and stopped to pick up dinner before getting back on Interstate 459, Hoover police said Sunday. They said she spoke with people she knew while on the highway, then called 911 at 9:34 p.m. to say she’d “seen a male toddler in a diaper on the side of tI-459 and was stopping to check on him.”
After speaking with a dispatcher, she called a relative — said by her mother to be her brother’s girlfriend — and gave the same report. The brother’s girlfriend said she heard Russell ask, “Are you OK?” but heard no response, as CrimeOnline reported. Then Russell screamed and the only sounds left on the open line of her phone were highway noises.
Police arrived five minutes later and found Russell’s wig, phone, and purse on the roadway near her car, but no signs of her or a toddler. Investigators obtained traffic camera footage which showed Russell’s car, with hazard lights blinking, slow and stop on the highway. Police said they’re still analyzing the footage “to accurately determine the timeframe.”
According to AL.com, police were dispatched earlier Saturday evening to the Red Roof Inn on Montgomery Highway in Vestavia Hills. Police radio communications indicated that some of Russell’s family members had arrived there, saying they got a phone call from Russell saying she was there. She apparently was not, however, and this incident was not mentioned in the police statement.
A few hours later, Russell knocked on her parents’ door.
For the latest true crime and justice news, subscribe to the ‘Crime Stories with Nancy Grace’ podcast.
[Featured image: Carlee Russell/Hoover Police Department]
