Carlee Russell’s mom refuses to comment on daughter’s hoax: ‘Now is not a good time’
The mother of the Alabama nursing student who deceived the nation into believing she was abducted refused on Monday to address her daughter’s lies.
“Now is not a good time,” Talitha Robinson-Russell said when contacted by the New York Times hours after her daughter Carlee Russell admitted through an attorney that she made up a fake story about being kidnapped.
The mother had previously told NBC’s “Today” show on July 18 that her daughter had “fought for her life” to escape her captivity — claiming she was abducted by a man who forced her into a car and then an 18-wheeler truck while she was blindfolded.
“There were moments when she physically had to fight for her life, and there were moments when she had to mentally fight for her life,” the Robinson-Russell said during the interview.
Carlee Russell, 25, had been missing for 49 hours when she reappeared at her parent’s house last week in Hoover, Ala., after sending law enforcement and concerned citizens on a wild-goose chase after reporting a toddler wandering on the side of a busy highway moments before ‘vanishing’ on July 13.
Russell told the 911 dispatcher she would stay at the scene after calling to report the child on I-459.
She was on the phone with 911 at around 9:30 p.m. that night before speaking with her sister-in-law six minutes later. A “scream” was heard on Russell’s end of the line before going silent — igniting the now-confirmed hoax.
Her lawyer Emory Anthony revealed that his client never saw a child on the side of the road and that there “was no kidnapping” following mounting questions into her disappearance and reappearance.
“We ask for your prayers for Carlee as she addresses her issues and attempts to move forward understanding that she made a mistake in this matter,” Anthony wrote in a letter read by the chief of the Hoover Police Department Nicholas Derzis at a news conference Monday.
“Carlee again asks for your forgiveness.”
Anthony wrote that Russell had not received any help with her staged kidnapping and that his client had not been at a hotel with anyone during her time off the grid.
Derzis said Monday Russell’s whereabouts for the 49 hours she was reported “missing” remain unclear.
Neither Anthony nor Russell attended the news conference, and no criminal charges have been filed.
Derzis declined to say what possible charges Russell could face when asked by the New York Times, but in Alabama, it’s a misdemeanor to knowingly make a false report to law enforcement.
Following her return home on July 15, police could not find any substantial evidence indicating Russell had been abducted.
Further investigation into the nursing student’s time before going missing showed she had searched online for information about Amber Alerts and the movie “Taken” — a film about a father rescuing his daughter after she is abducted in Europe.
Russell also had been looking at bus tickets to Nashville leaving the day she disappeared and fired off a series of unusual tweets before dialing 911.
Investigators are still left picking up the pieces to figure out how and why Russell would fabricate such a severe situation and want to speak with her to understand the timeline and reason for the hoax fully, Derzis said.
The police chief also shared that he is still unsure how much money was spent to search for Russell, but he expects it to be in the tens of thousands of dollars, he said in a phone interview with the New York Times.
The more than $63,000 donated to Crime Stoppers to help aid the search for the nursing student will not be refunded, regardless that Russell had reappeared two days after she pulled off the ruse.
Crime Stoppers of Metro Alabama initially said it would give back the donations during the search, only to reverse the decision hours later.
