A local attorney says he can’t believe Carly Russell, who claims she was abducted on the side of the highway, hasn’t been arrested yet.
Russell, 25, claimed she was kidnapped from Alabama and held captive for two days, but local police said they could not substantiate any of her claims.
Now Alabama attorney Eric Guster says police are using every possible means to avoid him lying, but he believes Russell wasted police time and money.
‘She says she was kidnapped, and a kidnapping didn’t happen. [They say] Our citizens are safe. There is no abductor. So, they use all the other synonyms for lie to just say he lied, he told WVTM.
Nursing student Russell has now stopped cooperating with police, but initially told authorities she was taken by a white man with ‘orange hair’ who appeared from a tree beside I-459 after she saw a ‘baby boy in a diaper’ walking down the road around 9.30pm last Thursday.
Carly returned home 49 hours after she went missing, with her parents saying she was in ‘bad shape’. Carly is now refusing to be interviewed by police for a second time after initially claiming she was abducted
Alabama attorney Eric Guster said police are using all possible means to avoid Carly Russell lying about being kidnapped.
Hoover Police Chief Nick Darzis said Curley’s story could not be substantiated
Guster said Police Chief Nick Darzis outlined three crimes they believe Carley committed: theft, lying to authorities and filing a false police report.
He said in light of this, he was shocked that he had not already been arrested.
Guster also told the outlet that she is concerned the case could affect future missing persons cases, particularly African American women.
“It’s going to be a lot harder for African American women to be believed, and that may actually reduce the number of actual reports of things because people are already afraid that they won’t be believed,” she said.
Guster said he expects Curley to be charged with filing a false police report, but said police are likely waiting to finish their investigation first.
‘They cannot compel him to give a statement or make a statement. I think Hoover is continuing to investigate this case.
‘I hope Carly will be charged at some point, at least for making a false statement. But they have to make sure they complete the full investigation,’ he said yesterday.
It comes after Russell lashed out after Alabama teenager Anyah Blanchard’s mother was kidnapped and murdered.
Angela Harris, who campaigned to help raise awareness of kidnapping after her own daughter was abducted and murdered in 2019, helped find Carly Russell. On Tuesday, he said, the truth of the sensational Russell case will finally come out
Carly reappeared at her parents’ house on Saturday night. What happened to him remains a mystery
Carlethea ‘Carly’ Nicole Russell, 25, was seen driving into the shoulder lane in her red Mercedes with her flashers on. Police said he drove 600 yards — the distance of six football fields — before pulling over and claimed to have been looking at a child the entire time.
The mysterious disappearance and reappearance of Carly Russell in Alabama last week
Angela Harris, whose 19-year-old daughter was abducted and brutally murdered in 2309, has led a desperate search to find Carly Russell before she survives – and has now warned the family: ‘Things will come out.’
Harris appeared emotional as she issued a 10-minute TikTok statement following Russell’s reappearance over the weekend.
“Things will come out,” he says in the video.
‘But I’d do it all over again, in a heartbeat – I’d go right up.’
After a weekend of searching, an exhausted Harris, who suffers from an autoimmune disease, said she was overjoyed Russell was now home.
Emotional, tearful, and at times visibly angry, Harris told her social media followers that they should always be on their guard regardless of the case and repeatedly warned that there are ‘predators everywhere’.
‘I’m not going to address what happened, what didn’t happen,’ said Harris, whose daughter was brutally murdered by Ibrahim Yazid, 32, in October 2019 after last being seen at a gas station.
‘But put yourself in your mother’s shoes. It is a miracle that your child is missing for two days, and then you get your child back.
Anya Blanchard, daughter of Angela Harris, was last seen at a gas station in Auburn, Alabama on October 23, 2019, before she was kidnapped and killed by 32-year-old Ibrahim Yazid.
‘It’s so overwhelming I can’t even tell you how I broke down.’
Whatever emerged from Russell’s story, Harris said, the essential lesson was caution.
‘Yes, we are in danger,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter about this one situation. It is important that you are aware.’
Harris said he would talk more about the case Thursday as he thanked supporters on Facebook.
Anya’s father, Elijah, also said that her wound had reopened, and that it was not right to bring his family to the search.
The grieving father wrote on Facebook: ‘Please understand that it is not fair to put Anya Blanchard through this at this time for my family. My daughter was kidnapped and she was really fighting for her life. People don’t want this kind of trauma.’
Police said they traced Russell’s every move and backed up his story until the 911 call where Carly reported seeing a child along the interstate. Police found no evidence to support that scenario.
“We know pretty much what happened from the time he left work until he called 911,” Hoover Police Chief Darges said.
Carly’s parents said she ‘hit the door’ at 10.45pm on Saturday and was ‘in a bad state’
‘Carly gave her statement to detectives so they could continue to pursue her abductor,’ her mother Talitha Russell (left) said in an interview Tuesday.
Karlie Russell, seen with her boyfriend, reappeared at her parents’ home in Hoover Saturday night, 48 hours after she disappeared from an interstate.
‘We can see from that footage getting off the car on the interstate.
‘After that, I think he just knows. We don’t.’
He added: ‘We asked to interview Carly a second time but that request was not granted.
‘You can see there are so many questions left to be answered but only Carly can provide those answers.
‘All we can say is that we have been unable to verify most of Carley’s initial statements to investigators and we have no reason to believe there is a threat to public safety related to this particular case.’
Detectives stopped short of accusing him of maliciously lying, but instead questioned his mental state and said they were now struggling to believe his story.
Carly’s parents, Talitha and Carlos Russell, are said to be shielding her from further questioning.
Carly’s parents swallowed her story whole and repeated it on Monday’s Today show when Carly reappeared at their home with a busted lip and ‘in bad shape’.
‘He fought for his life,’ said his father Carlos, VP of underwriting at BBVA Bank.
Now they are gone to the ground.
Questions linger about whether the 25-year-old nursing student and spa worker may be on the hook for the crime while friends and neighbors who have rallied around the family are demanding answers.
Filing a false police report in Alabama is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a $6,000 fine.
The owner of the spa where she worked now also wants to know if the $102 in cash found in her sock came from her register.
He told Good Morning America today that Carly was a pleasant employee who got along with the other staff.
It also emerged that Russell researched the Liam Neeson movie ‘Taken’ and whether he was too old for the Amber Alert and searched for a one-way bus ticket to Nashville.
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