Before 25-year-old Carlee Russell went missing for a mysterious 49 hours – a disappearance, she admitted on Monday, that was staged – she posted a series of bizarre tweets.
On the day she went “missing” on 13 July, she tweeted at 8.55pm: “today was a GREAT day God be looking out im telling you!!”
One minute later, Ms Russell wrote: “someone to tell you ‘i love you’ and don’t got a reason.”
Finally, she tweeted, “yeah i want a family now” at 9.19pm. Just moments later, around 9.30pm, the Alabama woman called 911 and told detectives that she was following a lost toddler along the interstate.
After she returned home, Ms Russell claimed was abducted by a man with “orange hair,” before escaping. She later turned up on foot at her parent’s home with $107 tucked in her right sock, and alleged she had barely survived the encounter.
Her tweets, in combination with her search history prior to her vanishing, raised doubts about the Alabama woman’s story.
Police revealed that Ms Russell’s internet search history gave hints she could have staged her own kidnapping, as she looked up Amber Alerts, the movie Taken, booking a bus ticket from Birmingham to Nashville and “how to take money from a register without being caught.”
A tweet on 10 July adds colour to this complicated picture, and indicates potential problems in her relationship. Ms Russell wrote, “I always say one thing i WONT do is stay with someone who cheated on me like you went and had sex with someone else and think it’ll be sweet one day?? hellll no.” Days earlier, she also tweeted: “everyone wants to feel wanted.”
Her boyfriend, Thomar Latrell Simmons, had posted on Facebook upon Ms Russell’s miraculous return, and supported her story that she had been abducted. She had been “fighting for her life for 48 hours,” he wrote, but has since taken down the post.
Two days earlier, her tweet revealed she may have been unhappy at work: “my job is really starting to get on my dang nerves.” She worked at Woodhouse Spa, the owner of which said on Thursday that he provided the police with “everything we uncovered.”
According to the New York Post, Ms Russell tweeted on 19 July, “I’m thankful I know how to identify when the enemy coming for me now, makes life a lot easier.” But the post has been taken down.
Police began expressing their doubts last week, saying Wednesday they were “unable to verify” most of Ms Russell’s claims regarding the events leading up to and during her disappearance.
