Carlee Russell, Who Admitted to Faking Her Own Kidnapping, Is Facing Jail Time — Details

The Gist:

• Nursing student Carlee Russell was reported missing in July 2023.
• Her disappearance led to a 49-hour search before she returned home on foot and claimed she'd been abducted.
• Speculation about her story led her to admit she'd faked her abduction; she was later charged with two misdemeanors.

In July 2023, Carlee Russell — a 25-year-old nursing student from Hoover, Ala. — went missing. Following a three-day nationwide manhunt, Carlee returned home on foot, leaving everyone with plenty of questions.

As more evidence about the case came to light, people began to believe that she wasn't actually kidnapped. In fact, many were convinced that she faked her own abduction.

So, what really happened? Here’s what we know — including the misdemeanor charges that were eventually leveled against her.

There were a lot of twists and turns in Carlee’s case, which was been a roller coaster for everyone involved. When Carlee first returned home, the general public was desperate for details on her abduction, but Carlee’s family shared that she wasn’t ready to talk. The Hoover PD police, however, had a press conference that detailed the facts of the case.

Carlee told cops that she was abducted by a man with orange hair while she was parked on the shoulder of an Alabama highway. She said she had stopped because she'd seen a toddler walking alone by the road.

But according to authorities, there was no evidence of the toddler or Carlee’s allegedly kidnapping. In fact, rumors began circulating that Carlee staged the hoax to get attention — specifically from her boyfriend. And boy, did she get it …

Via the press conference, we also learned that Carlee had searched terms like “Do you have to pay for an Amber Alert," "How to take money from a register without being caught," "Birmingham bus station," and "maximum age for an Amber Alert," right before she went missing.

Additionally, her internet searches proved that she had looked up Liam Neeson’s 2008 crime thriller Taken.

As the days after Carlee’s disappearance passed, the plot of her story continued to thicken. Amid the search to find her, a recording of a 9-1-1 call involving Carlee surfaced on social media.

On the phone, a front desk agent told police that six cars of people showed up looking for Carlee. At the time, the group claimed to be her family. According to them, Carlee had reached out to let them know that’s where she was. However, the family later denied that it ever went down like that.

Toward the end of July 2023, Carlee admitted through her attorney that she'd never been kidnapped or seen a toddler on the side of the road at all — although she did not say where she'd been the whole time. She turned herself into the police and was released from jail on bond.

In October 2023, Carlee appeared in municipal court and pled not guilty to the two charges against her (false reporting of an incident as well as false reporting to law enforcement). Her attorney had asked the judge for a verdict so that they could go ahead and appeal the case to the circuit court — in order to try avoiding jail time.

The judge found Carlee guilty on both charges and recommended a year in prison and about $18,000 in restitution fees.

"We stipulated an appeal of the case and the reasoning behind it was that they were trying to ask for jail time, which we totally disagree with, all right," Carlee's attorney Emory Anthony said, per WVTM. "So, in fairness, it's no need of having a trial here knowing their position. So we have stipulated an appeal of the case, it will start anew in the Bessemer circuit court."

Anthony said, however, that they felt the restitution fines were fair.