Police shared new details Wednesday on the case of Carlethia “Carlee” Nichole Russell, the Alabama woman who went missing for 49 hours last week after calling 911 to report a toddler walking alone on the side of the highway.
At a news conference, Hoover Police Chief Nick Derzis said the investigation continues but authorities do not believe there is a threat to the community, which is just south of Birmingham.
Derzis told reporters no one has reported a missing child and investigators have found no evidence of one.
The chief said officers “have been unable to verify” most of Russell’s initial statement, though they want to interview her again.
Russell’s mother has said she believes her daughter was abducted before she returned home two days later on foot. “Carlee has given detectives her statement and hopefully they are pursuing her abductor,” Talitha Robinson-Russell said in a statement to CNN affiliate WBRC.
Derzis told reporters that investigators have learned Carlee Russell took items from work, stopped at a restaurant to get food and bought snacks at Target before she went missing. He also spoke about web searches on her cell phone in the lead-up to her disappearance.
CNN has reached out to her parents for comment.
Russell was driving Thursday to her home in Hoover from her job in Birmingham, about 10 miles to the north, when she called 911 to say she was stopping her car to check on a child and then called a family member who lost contact with her – though the line remained open, according to the Hoover Police Department.
Here’s what we know about the investigation:
Russell spoke one time to investigators
Police haven’t spoken to Russell since just after she returned home Saturday.
Derzis told reporters she told investigators she got out of the vehicle Thursday to check on the child and a man came out of the trees and mumbled that he was checking on the baby.
“She claimed that the man then picked her up and she screamed,” he said. According to the chief, Russell told police the man made her go over a fence and she was forced into a car.
“The next thing she remembers is being in the trailer of an 18-wheeler. She stated that the male was with a female, however, she never saw the female, only hearing her voice. She also told detectives she could hear a baby crying,” Derzis said.
Russell told detectives that her abductor had orange hair with a bald spot. She told them at one point she was able to escape the 18-wheeler but was caught again and put into a car.
“She claimed she was blindfolded but was not tied up because the captors said they did not want to leave impressions on her wrists. She said that they took her into a house and made her get undressed. She believes they took pictures of her but does not remember them having any physical or sexual contact,” he added.
Russell told police the next day she woke up and the woman fed her cheese crackers and played with her hair.
The chief said Russell told police she was able to escape after being put back in the vehicle. She said she ran through woods before coming out near her home, Derzis said.
Russell came home around 10:45 p.m. Saturday, returning on foot, according to Hoover police. Authorities said she was taken to a hospital, treated and released.
Detectives want to speak to her again.
“The family has stated to us that they didn’t think that in her mental state right now because of trauma of the incident, that she’s not ready to talk,” the chief told reporters.
Her parents appeared on NBC’s “Today” on Tuesday and said she was abducted.
“She definitely fought for her life. 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,” Robinson-Russell said.
Phone reveals variety of searches
After police found Carlee Russell’s cell phone Thursday, they looked for information on it.
They discovered web searches that included “Do you have to…