The parents of Carlee Russell, the Alabama woman who went missing for roughly 48 hours after making a 911 phone call, have spoken of their relief following her return home.
Speaking on NBC’s “TODAY” show in an interview that aired Tuesday, Talitha Robinson-Russell, Carlee Russell’s mother, said she felt “just so much joy” after her daughter returned home on Saturday.
“We tried to hug her as best we could, but I had to stand back because she was not in a good state,” she said.
Russell, 25, disappeared Thursday after calling 911 just after 9:30 p.m. She told the 911 operator she saw a toddler on I-459 South, police in Hoover, a city of around 92,000 south of Birmingham, said in a timeline of her disappearance.
She had also called a relative and told them she saw a male toddler in a diaper on the side of the road and that she was stopping to check in on him, but that relative lost contact with her, the Hoover Police Department said.
When officers arrived at the scene, they found her wig, cellphone and purse on the road near her car, but no sign of Russell or the child she called about, police said. Her call was the only report about seeing a child on the interstate, police said.
By Saturday evening, police said they received a call notifying them that Carlee Russell had returned home. Authorities responded to her home and she was transported to a local hospital for evaluation, treated and released.
Detectives also took an initial statement from her.
“The details of that statement are part of the ongoing investigation which is expected to continue over the next few days,” police said.
Talitha Robinson-Russell and Carlos Russell, Carlee Russell’s father, told the “TODAY” show they could not share details on how their daughter returned home or on her account of what unfolded during her disappearance, citing the ongoing police investigation.
However, Carlee Russell’s mother said her daughter had been abducted and that she believed the perpetrator was still out there. She also said her daughter had to fight for her life while she was missing.
Asked on Monday to comment on whether she was abducted, Hoover police public information officer Keith Czeskleba said only that authorities had “spoken to Carlee once and are following up on that information, however we are not able to publicly share the details from our initial interview.”
“We will follow up with her again to attempt to get a better understanding of the past 72 hours and will provide what information we can when we are able to do so,” he said. Police did not immediately respond to an overnight request for further comment.
In the days since her return, Carlee Russell’s father, Carlos Russell, said his daughter was struggling with “bad dreams” and “moments where some things make her cringe, afraid,” including loud noises. “Just different things that trigger,” he said.
Her mother said the family has also been left traumatized. She also said they received “many” texts and calls from people who “maliciously lied” to them and pretended to know their daughter’s whereabouts while she was missing. “I just didn’t know people could be so evil,” Talitha Robinson-Russell said, noting that there has also been widespread speculation around what happened during her daughter’s disappearance in the wake of her return home.
Jefferson State Community College has said that Russell is a student and that the entire community was praying for her.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
