Carlee Russell could face jail time for enacting her own disappearance and lying about being kidnapped, a former detective told Newsweek.
Russell, a 25-year-old nursing student from Hoover, Alabama, disappeared on the night of July 13 as she was driving home from work on Interstate 459. Minutes before police found her vehicle abandoned on the road, she had called 911 about seeing a toddler walking alone on the side of I-459.
Authorities started a frantic nationwide search for the missing woman, who reappeared 48 hours later at her parents' home, saying she had been kidnapped by a man with orange hair and a bald spot.
But a lack of action from the police, which did not mention a kidnapper in their updates on the investigation to the public nor launched a search for a missing child, led many online to speculate that Russell had lied about being kidnapped.
On Monday, Russell admitted that she had in fact lied about being kidnapped and that she had not seen a child on I-459, as reported in a statement written by her attorney and read by Hoover Police Chief Nicholas C. Derzis during a news conference.
"My client apologizes for her actions to this community, to the volunteers who were searching for her, to the Hoover Police Department and other agencies as well," Russell's attorney wrote. The woman said that she acted alone and never left Hoover in the 48 hours she went missing.
Russell has not been charged with any crime at this time, but Derzis said his department is now consulting with the district attorney's office on whether to push potential criminal charges against her.
"We will announce those charges when, and if, they are filed," he said.
Newsweek reached out to the Hoover Police Department via email for comment on Tuesday.
Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD Sergeant SDS (Supervisor Detective Squad) and now a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told Newsweek that Russell could face jail time for faking her own kidnapping, based on precedent.
"Filing a false report is a crime, and think about how much money was spent on the search," Giacalone said. "And you have the precedent of the Sherri Papini case."
Last year, a California woman who had faked her own kidnapping in 2016, Sherri Papini, was sentenced to 18 months in prison followed by 36 months of supervised release after she admitted the whole case was a hoax. Papini was also ordered to pay nearly $310,000 in restitution.
"[Russell] reported an abduction, she disappeared for a couple of days, came back, said she had been held captive," Giacalone said.
Crucially, Papini's case went on for years, not hours like in Russell's case—and the California woman never willingly confessed, but was exposed by detectives, Giacalone said.
"So they may put her off the hook because the investigation didn't go on for years and she came clean," he said. "Filing a false report is a crime, you're putting other people in danger and you're spending a lot of money. So they might [try] to get something back from all these shenanigans, but it's up to the district attorney whether they want to press charges. I think they will."
Giacalone said that he thinks there will be a punishment for Russell to avoid copycats, "especially in the age of TikTok."
Under Alabama state law, a false report to law enforcement is considered a Class A misdemeanor if the person involved "knowingly makes a false report or causes the transmission of a false report to law enforcement authorities of a crime." A Class A misdemeanor carries a sentence of no longer than one year in a county jail or a year of labor in the county, Al.com reported.
