Carlee Russell is speaking out 1 year after stunning the country by faking her kidnapping in Alabama. This notices the 1st time she’s spoken out on internet since the entire ordeal, including her subsequent allegations, conviction, and sentencing.
Russell is back on Instagram to celebrate her 27th birthday. Note that her page is now set to private. However, media obtained screenshots of her post highlighting her growth in the last year.
In her caption, she wrote that she wasn’t going to make the birthday post, but she’d be “remiss to publicly acknowledge the goodness God has shown to me.”
“[God] not only permitted me to see another year but He swapped the trajectory of my life from the negative place I was in this time last year.
To those who have been there for me, your kindness and support have meant the world to me,” Carlee Russell wrote.
She mentioned, “Whether it was a text, call, direct message on internet, post, prayer, thoughtful gift, or words of encouragement, nothing was too little, and each helped me to fight to live another day. Thank you sincerely for helping me discover the light in the darkest of moments.”
As mentioned, Carlee Russell’s words come over a year after she disappeared for 49 hours. On July 13, 2023, she reportedly stopped at a Target for snacks.
Afterward, she contacted the Hoover Police Department with a story about following a semi-nude toddler walking alone on the highway. When police arrived at the scene, they discover her car, cell phone, and wig, but no snacks.
It turns out she had staged the whole scene. There was never a toddler walking on the highway. Prior to fake disappearing, she had also done multiple internet searches about Amber alerts, the movie ‘Taken,’ and taking money out of a register without being caught. In addition, the then-26-year-old looked up bus tickets from Birmingham to Nashville.
To this day, it’s not clear where Carlee was for 49 hours before walking up to her parents’ house barefoot and alone. Her initial story was that someone had snatched her when she stopped to check on the nonexistent baby.
Before the end of July 2023, that story fell apart. She admitted through her advocate to lying about the entire incident, but it also remains not clear why she did it.