Carlee Russell – update: Boyfriend deletes social media post on her kidnap story after controversial internet searches revealed

Police in Hoover, Alabama have said they were unable to verify most of Carlee Russell’s claims that she was kidnapped after pulling off to the side of the road while reporting a toddler was walking alone, leading to questions about whether she may face charges.

While police have not made any official allegations against Ms Russell, should they find that she made a false report, law enforcement could choose to charge her.

Section 13A-10-9 of the Alabama criminal code states that making a false report to law enforcement, knowingly, is a Class A misdemeanour.

When asked if law enforcement was planning on charging Ms Russell on Wednesday, Hoover police chief Nick Derzis replied: “To be perfectly honest with you, that hasn’t even entered our mind or been discussed.”

Mr Derzis said the priority of their investigation was to return Ms Russell home safely and find out where she was in the two days she was missing.

Police in Hoover, Alabama have said they were unable to verify most of Carlee Russell’s claims that she was kidnapped after pulling off to the side of the road while reporting a toddler was walking alone, leading to questions about whether she may face charges.

Investigators in the Hoover Police Department will focus the remainder of their investigation on Carlee Russell’s whereabouts in the two days she was missing.

At first, investigators were prioritising Ms Russell’s safe return home.

But after she walked home on 15 July, the focus switched to what happened to her.

Ms Russell told police she was kidnapped after pulling her car off the side of the road to assist a child. But later, police refuted this saying they were unable to verify most of her statements.

The parents of Carlee Russell, the 25-year-old Alabama woman who disappeared for 48 hours after reporting that she spotted a child on the side of a highway, have spoken out for the first time since their daughter returned.

“We tried to hug as best we could, but I had to stand back because she was not in a good state,” Talitha Russell told The Daily Beast about seeing her daughter return home. “So we had to stand back and let medical professionals work with her.”

The parents of Carlee Russell, told the media that their daughter had been kidnapped when she first returned home.

“We tried to hug as best we could, but I had to stand back because she was not in a good state,” Talitha Russell told The Daily Beast about seeing her daughter return home. “So we had to stand back and let medical professionals work with her.”

While Ms Russell has been reported safe, mystery still swirls around what happened in the two days in which she vanished. Her parents and the police haven’t shared what transpired in that period.

Her parents have maintained that she was “absolutely” abducted. “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 mother told the outlet.

“She’s having to deal with the trauma of people just making completely false allegations about her,” she added. “Carlee has given detectives her statement so that they can continue to pursue her abductor.”

Since police have come out and refuted some of those claims, the Russells have not made any public comments.

Carlee Russell drove 600 yards (548m) along an Alabama interstate while on the phone to a 911 operator claiming that she was following a lost toddler, authorities have revealed.

The 25-year-old told detectives she was abducted by a man with “orange hair” who appeared from the side of Interstate 459 after stopping to help a “baby boy in a diaper” just after 9.30pm on 13 July.

She turned up on foot at her parent’s home in Hoover two days later with $107 tucked in her right sock, and claimed she had barely survived after being forced to strip naked before escaping from her kidnappers.

Data from Ms Russell’s cellphone showed she had driven the length of six football fields while talking to police dispatch, an incredulous Hoover Police Department chief Nicholas Derzis said during a press conference on Wednesday.

“To think that a toddler, barefoot, that could be three or four years old is going to travel six football fields without getting on the roadway, without crying… it’s very hard for me to understand,” Mr Derzis said.

The boyfriend of Carlee Russell has seemingly deleted social media posts containing photos or mentions of Ms Russell after police cast doubt over her allegations that she was kidnapped.

Hoover Police have cast doubts on one of the key aspects of the case – saying that there is no evidence that there was ever a toddler walking along the highway that night.

Authorities also released other new details about the case including that Carlee Russell visited a Target store to buy snacks just before her disappearance and that they have obtained surveillance footage of the moment she returned home.

On the night she disappeared, Hoover police said that the 25-year-old left her workplace and ordered food from nearby restaurant The Colonnade.

After stopping by The Colonnade, she went to the Target on Highway 280 and bought some snacks, police said.

These items were not found inside her abandoned vehicle along the highway nor were they found with her cellphone and wig at the scene of her disappearance.

Police said that the investigation had uncovered no evidence of a toddler walking down the interstate and had not received any additional calls about a wandering child – despite surveillance footage capturing numerous other vehicles passing through the area around that time.