An attorney representing Carlee Russell has said he expects her to be charged over false claims that she was abducted.
Emory Anthony told local news station WDHN that he had met with Hoover Police Department detectives to discuss his client’s case. Mr Anthony said that Ms Russell was better but still “dealing with her issues.”
“It was a great meeting; It was a short meeting,” Mr Anthony said. “We tried to identify some things about where we go from here. There [are] responsibilities that we need to take care of.”
Mr Anthony’s remarks come just a day after authorities confirmed that Ms Russell, 25, had admitted to lying about being kidnapped on the side of a highway after stopping to check on a toddler. The attorney did not elaborate on what motivated Ms Russell’s fake story.
He added: “I know you have a hundred questions but we won’t be able to answer them at this point in time, but just walk with us and we should be through this shortly ,” Mr Anthony said.
A statement issued by Mr Anthony and read out by Hoover Police Chief Nicholas Derzis on Monday revealed that there was no kidnapping and no baby on the side of the road as Ms Russell had claimed on a 911 call shortly after before going missing on 13 July.
“My client did not see a baby on the side of the road. My client did not leave the Hoover area when she was identified as a missing person. My client did not have any help in this incident, but this was a single act done by herself,” the statement read. “My client apologises for her actions to this community, the volunteers who were searching for her, to the Hoover Police Department and other agencies as well, as to her friends and family.”
During an interview with police after she turned up at her parent’s home on 15 July, Ms Russell alleged that she got out of her vehicle when she saw a barefoot toddler walking in a field next to the highway. A man with orange hair and a bald spot then “came out of the trees” and abducted her, she claimed.
Ms Russell told police that she heard a woman and a baby inside the trailer of an 18-wheeler semi, before making a brief escape. She said she was then recaptured and taken to a house, where her alleged captors supposedly forced her to take pictures while naked.
She then claimed to have escaped for a second time before fleeing to the woods. But authorities later found suspicious online searches made by Ms Russell after going missing, including the 2008 film Taken, Amber Alerts, and “how to take money from a register without being caught.”
Mr Derzis had previously said on Monday that he reached out to the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office about possible criminal charges.
Section 13A-10-9 of the Alabama criminal code states that making a false report to law enforcement, knowingly, is a Class A misdemeanour.
Mr Derzis did not provide the cost of the frantic search launched following Ms Russell’s fabricated abduction.
“We don’t have a dollar figure yet but we’re certainly working on getting one and not only ours, but the other agencies that gave us a lot of support,’’ he said. “We still don’t know what happened during those 49 hours, where she was, did she have any help.”
