Carlee Russell was lured by toddler as bait, Hoover, Alabama parents claim as questions remain where missing nursing student disappeared to for 48 hours after calling 911 to say she’d come across stranded toddler only for cops to find no sign of her but her running car.
The plot thickens. The parents of the Alabama motorist who vanished after calling 911 to say she stopped to help a stranded toddler on a busy highway claim the child was being used as ‘bait’ to lure their daughter out of her car — before she was mysteriously returned home alive some 48 hours later.
Carlethia ‘Carlee’ Nichole Russell, 25, went missing Thursday night when she pulled over to help a wandering toddler on I-459, the Hoover Police Department said.
The nursing student called 911 before calling her sister-in-law.
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‘My daughter-in-law could hear her ask if the child was OK, and the child didn’t respond — at least she didn’t hear him or her respond,’ her mother, Talitha Robinson-Russell, told WVTM-TV on Sunday.
‘Then she heard our daughter scream.’
The parents believe the toddler Russell spotted on the side of the road may have been used as ‘bait’ to lure her out of her car, they told the local outlet.
Yet to be understood is why other motorists had called in to say also spotting a toddler along the side of the highway. Of note, no reports had been made that night of a missing child in the immediate vicinity.
Russell seemingly vanished the scene, with her car still running and authorities coming across her cell phone, and purse — only to suddenly re appear 48 hours later after being transported to her family’s Hoover residence.
The woman who returned home just before 11pm, Saturday night, ‘appeared to be in shock,’ according to Hoover police.
Russell was transported to a local hospital for evaluation, according to police.
It’s unclear where Russell had been since Thursday.
Police said they were going to give her time to recover before interviewing her.
