#279: Woman Vanished After Spotting Toddler On The Side Of The Highway - LATEST UPDATES!

0:01It is exhausting to exist in this world, especially if you're an empathetic person. it's like a fight within yourself, right? Your personality tells you, hey, go over there and help that stranger. That poor old man looks like he's struggling to load his groceries into his car. But then you have the voice in the back of your head and maybe my videos did this to you, but it's like, no, the minute you go over there, you're gonna turn around, grab another bag of groceries, he's gonna bonk you on the head, throw you into his trunk and you're gonna end up dead on a pig farm. I get it, it's a lot. And social media doesn't help.

0:34There's always a new thing on social media that everyone is like, be on the lookout for this. Zip ties on your car door. You walk out of Target, there's a zip tie on your car door. Human trafficking. Dollar bills laced with drugs. Paper bags on your windshields. Baby seats in the parking lot. And the one that I think of most is the baby on the side of the road or the baby crying outside your door at night. What would you do if you saw a child on the side of a busy interstate? Alone, distraught. You got to help. Right? You would have to stop. You would have to stop and help. There's no other option.

1:10Yeah. That was a huge question that was lingering in the air this past week, not just on social media, but really on mainstream media. Every news outlet was asking this question. Would you stop on the highway if you saw a small child that was just standing there? There was no other car there. Nobody else was there. Would you stop? Yeah. July 13th, 2023. So a week ago, if you're listening to the audio the day it comes out, 25-year-old Carly Russell stopped. She said that she had spotted a small, small toddler on the side of the highway, of a busy highway, on her way home from work. It was about 9.30 p.m., so it's not super late.

1:46It's not like 3.30 in the morning. There's nobody else around. It's not a time that makes you go, ooh, that's weird. Maybe this is a setup. 9.30, it's still pretty early. She called 911 to alert them of this unattended child. There was no car parked on the shoulder, so it's not like a family had stopped on the side to get out and the child got out of the car. The child was alone. She called 911. They said, okay, can you stay right there? And we'll be there in like a few minutes. She hangs up. Then she calls her brother's girlfriend. She stays on the phone with her waiting for the police to arrive.

2:20But maybe Carly is afraid that the kid is going to run off into the woods. So most highways are stationed and there's usually like wooded areas nearby, right? Maybe she's worried about that or maybe she's concerned that the kid is going to run into uncommon traffic. So she pulls over. So she gets out of her car and her brother's girlfriend could hear her asking this child if the child was okay. She asked about three times before she started screaming. All her brother's girlfriend could do was listen helplessly on the phone. She heard Carly scream. She heard rustling noises. She kept screaming Carly's name, but there was no audible response other than what sounded like a struggle.

2:58She didn't hear any other voices or people talking, but it definitely, it definitely sounded like something very, very bad had happened. Her brother's girlfriend happened to be at the Russell family home. So she rushed into Carly's parents' room and motioned for Carly's mom to rush over. And she's quickly trying to explain what's going on. And her mom starts screaming into the phone, Carly, Carly, are you okay? Are you there? She tries using her phone to call Carly. No response. The police would arrive at that scene in the highway about five minutes later, less than five minutes, like four minutes later.

3:28Carly's car was left unattended. Her driver's side door was left wide open. Her purse with her Apple watch inside were in the front seat of her car. And in the grass near the wooded area off the highway was Carly's wig and her phone in the grass on the ground. And Carly was gone. And the kid? Yeah, gone. No one was there. She had gone missing and all initial signs pointed to an abduction or at least that's what netizens thought the stories the urban legends that merged with real life reports started to kind of mush together and a lot of netizens were concerned and they asked what if it was human traffickers what if they used a little toddler to lure in helpful woman to come out of their cars and then snatch them what if that's what happened to carly if that's the case would they even find her would they ever even find the human traffickers?

4:19The only person that would know for sure what happened on that highway that night would be Carly Russell and she was gone until she wasn't. Just two days later, exactly 49 hours later, Carly showed up to her parents' home barefoot. She was back and the world had so many questions. What happened during the past 49 hours? How did you escape? How did you find your way back home? Where is the child? All of these are very reasonable questions. But because of the intrigue, because of the mystery, because of the almost evasiveness that Carly had, and a lot to do with the internet's obsession for conspiracy theories, and a lot of inconsistencies in the case, the question slowly comes to, is Carly Russell even telling the truth?

5:06And unfortunately, I think some of the answers coming out right now are a lot worse than what we thought could be. As always, full show notes are available at RottenMangoPodcast.com. This case, along with the arrest of the Gilgo Beach murder suspect, has been filling up my inbox and DMs. We are currently working super hard to get the Gilgo Beach case to you guys ASAP, but with that being said, something to note about this case. It is an ongoing case. It is a viral case. There have not been any arrests or warrants that have been made known to the public. I'm sure that there's a lot that law enforcement is privy to that maybe we are not still.

5:42And since we don't have the case files or trial or anything like that, that means that this is the information we have as of now. It could very likely change or there could be new information that comes out that changes the perspective of what we think we know now. So this episode is coming to you a day late because of a press conference that I wanted to include in all of this. Hopefully I'm giving you guys the newest, most up-to-date recap of everything that's happened so far. And with that being said, let's get into it. Let me walk you through July 13th first. Carly Russell was a nursing student at Jefferson State Community College, but she also worked part-time at like a local day spa.

6:17So she had just finished work around 8 20 p.m. She left work, ran a few quick errands. I mean, everything sounds like a normal day. By all accounts, it's nothing spectacular happened. Law enforcement stated that as she drove away from work to run her first errand and her second errand, she was constantly on the phone with people that she knew. So talking to friends, family, right? She goes to pick up Mediterranean food for herself and her mother. Then she does a quick target run to pick up a few quick snacks. And then she starts heading back home on Interstate 459. Now, side note, Carly lived with her parents.

6:52I'm not sure if her brother and her brother's girlfriend all lived in the house too, but it seems like her brother's girlfriend was at the house that night keep this in mind so this is about an hour after she gets off work she calls her brother's girlfriend and tells her that she sees a small child on the side of the highway the child is in a white shirt and a diaper she turns on her hazard lights and starts slowly pulling over like slowing down and then pulling over safely on the shoulder of the highway her brother's girlfriend tells her i'm so sorry she was just pulling over while she was on the phone with the girlfriend but you say she called the police already oh no this is when her brother's girlfriend is like oh you need to call the cops don't get out of the car so she's like oh okay let me call the cops right now so as she's slowing down she's calling the cops got it and then she gets on the call with dispatch and the 911 call was recently released in the press conference yesterday uh july 19th and it starts with carly stating that she's on i-459 and there's just a kid that's walking by themselves now a lot of the conversation and initially is about if she's going southbound or northbound and where exactly what's the mile marker and then the dispatch asks how old do they look were they walking northbound or southbound um they're walking towards tuscaloosa walking southbound or how old do they look um like a toddler like maybe like three or four did you pull over with them are you still with them yes okay you're are you with the child right now?

8:21No, I'm not. I didn't get out of the car. I'm just, I can see them though. Can you, do you mind staying and keeping an eye on them until we get there? Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. What is he wearing? Um, it's a white t-shirt and it doesn't look like he has any pants on. It looks like a diaper. You don't see any cars anywhere? No, no cars are anywhere. And the whole thing about Carly's voice is it sounds so normal. It sounds like if I were to call 911 about a missing child or like a child that I see on the side of the road. It's just concerned, but not stressed out. It's more like, uh, like a toddler, maybe three or four.

9:01Did you pull over with them or are you still with them? Yes. Okay. You're with the child right now? No, I'm not. I didn't get out of the car. I can see them though. Do you mind staying with the child until we get there? Yeah, yeah, sure. Dispatch asks questions about the kind of car that Carly is in. And then they go, did you talk to the child at all? Or did you say anything to them? No. Do they look like they're injured? No, they don't. Are they white, black, Hispanic, or Asian? They're white. Male or female? I think it's a boy. A little boy? White male? Okay, so is he wearing clothes? Yes, it's a white shirt and it doesn't look like he has pants on.

9:42It looks like a diaper. And you don't see any cars anywhere. No, no cars anywhere. Okay, try to keep an eye on him as best as you can. I don't want you to lose track of him. Does he have shoes on? No, not that I can see, but I can't see him that well. It's really dark. Officers are on the way. Keep an eye on him, okay? Thank you. Okay, thanks. Bye. And once she's done, she hops back on the phone with her brother's girlfriend. I will say it is important to note that the dispatch initiated the hang up. So I saw some discourse about it online. Like, why did she hang up? Usually dispatch tries to stay on the phone with you.

10:19But it's pretty indicative in the call that dispatch was like, OK, thanks. It was like a very natural end. So now she's on the phone with the brother's girlfriend. And I think the brother's girlfriend most likely thought that she was just going to stay on the phone with her until the police arrived. But before she could even do much, she can hear Carly talking to someone. I mean, it's pretty clear Carly got out of the car and it sounded like she was trying to ask the child if the child was okay. Like, are you okay? Are you all right? It said that Carly asked maybe two to three times and the brother's girlfriend could not hear a response.

10:51So she never heard the toddler respond or maybe he was too scared to speak. And then there was a scream, some sort of shuffling, a lot of background noise. Carly's brother's girlfriend didn't even dare hang up. She starts running around the house trying to get all Carly's family gathered and she's screaming Carly's name into the phone. When Carly's mom found out what was going on, she picked up her own phone and starts calling Carly because yeah, I mean, she knows that her son's girlfriend has an open line, but still she has to at least try. She doesn't know what else she can do. Right now, all they hear is background noise and Carly hasn't said anything after she screamed.

11:28Thankfully, the family all use Life360, an app to share locations with family and friends, and they threw on their clothes and they start racing to the location that shows up on their phones. It was a residential street. Wait, it wasn't highway? No, so not where Carly was. Her phone wasn't there either. The family would later find out that her phone was on the other side. So it's the highway and in the middle, a wooded area. And then on the other side of that was a residential street. So I guess Life 360 is not like that precise. Oh, okay, okay. So they went to the residential area and the phone and everything is across the fence almost.

12:06Basically, yeah, there is a fence, yeah. And so they're like, oh my God, she's not here. Her phone's not here. Like what's going on? Now, side note, Carly's mom also called 911 after she found out Carly wasn't responding to the phone anymore. There were technically two 911 calls that made that night about this incident. The first being Carly calling about the toddler on the side of the road. The second being Carly's mom to report the strange incident with her daughter. there would be no other calls to report a child missing or a child spotted on the highway just these two calls and there would be no sign of carly russell anywhere the police in this case i will give it to them they were on it i mean the same cannot be said for a lot of missing persons cases especially missing black women's cases but they were on the scene within four minutes ish Yeah.

12:53And they started pulling CCTV cameras from the highway. We do have footage of her vanishing. But the footage is so grainy, so unclear. We can barely make out human figures in it. The footage is almost like an aerial view of the highway. It's nighttime. All the lights are like reflecting off of each other. It shows Carly Russell's red Mercedes, though, starting to slow down with her hazard lights on. She safely pulls over to the side of the highway. and I will note one thing as she starts slowing down she's driving for a while we're gonna later find out exactly how long she drove for but that was like the first thing everyone noticed is like wow she's driving for a long time so did she see the kid that far ahead because if she did then more people should have seen the kid or was the kid like running away from her like what's going on so we're gonna find out the distance that she's driving slowly for In the distance, well, I guess I can tell you right now, it's six football fields long.

13:54What? 600 yards, if you want to use metrics. Oh, wow. That's, yeah. Wow. Yeah. Okay. So she's driving for a while. Maybe she has really good eyesight. Because something else to note is, again, there were no other 911 calls made that night, nor any witnesses that came forward that stated that they also saw a child on the side of the highway. she starts slowing down she makes it to the mile marker like a giant sign on the highway right she stops the car and from the footage it's hard to see any child like look some people say they can make out a few figures other people say that they can't i personally don't see anything and i'm very aware that humans are more prone to see human faces and human figures and shadows so i can't say for sure it is like way too dark way too grainy in the footage we do see carly's car stop and what appears to be her driver's side door opening and like a blob of a figure, because this is how bad the cameras are, leaving the driver's side area, going through the back of her car and opening the passenger side door.

14:57So she's like walking around the back of her car, going to the passenger side, opening it, and then she seems to walk off into the wooded area. And that was the last she was seen. Yeah. To tell you how grainy the footage is, you can't even make out which direction she went in after she leaves the passenger side door. Like you don't know if she's going northbound or southbound, or at least I can't with the footage that we have publicly available right now. She just vanished. The highway is still busy. You can see there's cars nonstop. It's 9 40 p.m. and she was gone, just vanished into thin air.

15:33And the next 48 hours would be excruciating for the family. Her parents pleaded with the public to help find their beloved daughter. Carly Russell had so much ahead of her. She had graduated Auburn University with a degree in psychology. She was a nursing student. She worked hard. Her mom described her as being so kind and compassionate. She was a joy to be around. She had this like deep love for God. And neighbors said, this could have happened to any one of our kids. That's what got the world so passionate. I mean, it could have been my daughter that had seen the child on the side of the road, what kind of person wouldn't stop?

16:09How could you not, right? Of course you would stop. You would do that because you're a good person. A lot of Carly's neighbors had kids that Carly once babysat for, so they were all holding prayer circles. It's Alabama, so it's pretty religious there. The prayer circles, they were holding vigils, they were looking and spending their entire weekend turning the entire town upside down. The non-profit Crime Stoppers of Central Alabama raised money from the community donations from people who wanted to help from afar they were able to secure a$63 ,000 reward for anyone who knows anything about Carly's whereabouts that's a lot yeah and then it happened so quickly right yeah like within maybe 24 hours I mean I don't know if there's a national average that I could find that seemed accurate but many cases we've talked about I mean we've seen rewards of five ten thousand dollars and that's usually after they've been missing for a period of time.

17:02This is a big deal. I think it just goes to show the whole nation wanted Carly home. Law enforcement this time, they quickly get to work and it is not just the Hoover Police Department. I'm talking local, state, federal agents were involved. The FBI, Secret Service and the U.S. Marshals Office were involved. Huh. So when did it start going viral? The same day. She went missing, like the next day. Really? Volunteer search parties made up of civilians They hit the ground running And at first there were a lot of alarming rumors And whispers going around At one point there was a rumor that a witness Claimed to see a gray car pull up And a man get out to approach Carly Now I will say there is no evidence of that On the CCTV footage But the problem is that every single tip Anonymous, reasonable or not Every tip has to be investigated That's what the FBI mainly worked on The case went viral and they were getting hundreds of tips The Russell family would get tips and they would be sent over to the police to look over as well.

18:03And it was just a lot of manpower being poured into this case. It was said at one point in time, there were about 50 or 60 police officers working on this case. And that's not including federal agents. But like Carly's parents, the agents had hope. Carly's mom told the media, my daughter is a fighter. We believe that if there is any opportunity for her to make it home to us, she's going to seize that opportunity. She continued. We want people to do everything in their power, no matter how big or how small, to make a joint effort. Carly's dad said, we're going to scour the earth. There is no stopping us.

18:38And Carly had a lot of people on her side. A lot of family members who had dealt with their own loss of their own family member being a victim of a crime or having gone missing. They came out in show of solidarity and support. Anaya Blanchard's mom being one of them. Anaya Blanchard went missing in 2019 in Auburn, Alabama. She was a 19-year-old college student. She texted her roommate that she was going to be home soon. CCTV cameras showed Anaya stopping by a gas station before heading home, and her phone activity stopped around midnight. She wasn't seen alive again. About a month later, her body was found in a wooded area.

19:19She was shot to death. a man named Ibrahim Yazid had been arrested and charged with her murder this is really not that long ago 2019 these are some fresh wounds but Aniyah Blanchard's mother showed up to help look for Carly and she said very emotionally my heart is breaking for the Russells but I'm gonna help them I'm gonna be right there beside them when Aniyah went missing for the whole 32 days I mean your body is in a constant find my child state There's nothing you can say There's nothing you can do to make that go away Time is of the essence to bring Carly home Share Carly's information with everybody Tell your friends, just share it Be on the lookout, everyone And be safe I think most people were really worried That Carly Russell was already being human trafficked

20:10There were some social media posts not too long ago That really stuck with a lot of women So one famous one reads Ladies, please read this Ryan, my husband and I were at the mall We walked out to our cars by Sears And Ryan noticed that there was a baby crying in a car With no adult So we pulled over to that mysterious car Ryan got out and found out that the window Was rolled down a tiny bit And there was no baby in the car There was like a tape recorder, it was a recording Then I noticed that there was another shady car Parked several spots down With blacked out windows And I think that this is a setup These are the kind of setups psychopath killers do to abduct you Please be careful everyone don't walk to the car or just call security or 911 if you hear a baby crying.

20:52Please share this to inform others. Wow. Another post read, this was forwarded to me by a friend. They don't know if it's true or not, but I'm passing it along. We might see this on the news as like the latest internet hoax, but Joan, my friend just told me that her friend heard a baby crying on her porch the night before last. She called the police because it was late and she thought it was weird. And the police told her, whatever you do, do not open the door. The lady said that the the baby had crawled near a window now and she could hear the baby through the window. And she was so worried that the baby was going to crawl out into the street and get run over.

21:25And the police said, we already have a unit on the way. Do not, whatever you do, do not open the door. Then the officer told her that they think there's a killer who uses baby's cries recorded and uses it to lure women out of their homes thinking that someone dropped off a baby. He said that it wasn't verified, but several women had called saying that they heard a baby crying outside their door when they're home alone. so these took over the internet by storm along with the human traffickers that will zip tie your door handle at target parking lots because that's how they mark you many of these have been i don't know i don't want to say proven false because that makes it seem like that's never happened at all and i i don't have the knowledge of that but just they haven't been connected with human trafficking so major advocacy groups to end human trafficking said this is not really a concern what is not a concern baby crying outside your door this doesn't it seems more of like an urban myth what is a zip tie supposed to do oh okay apparently that's an urban myth too but it's supposed to make you distracted and try to unzip tie your door handle and it marks if you're like a single woman got it because they work in teams right but because all of this is constantly online and like don't get me wrong i fall for these all the time i'm like honey honey i can't go to the Target parking lot because they're gonna zip tie my car and put a paper bag on my windshield and jump out from the back and slice my Achilles heel.

22:49And he's like, okay. But I think that this case really just resonated with a lot of women because, I mean, these are the messages that we've been hearing. These are the messages online that have been going around for so long. And it's like, it's so frustrating. It's wow, really another thing we can't even be kind people anymore. and then it happened. It didn't happen to some random friend on Reddit, but to someone with a name. It happened to someone with a face who was so relatable. A young woman who was studying and working. It felt like Carly Russell could have been any one of us. So everyone rallied together to look for her.

23:25And then she was found. Almost exactly 49 hours later. July 15th, 2023, Hoover police receive a call from the Russell residence. Carly is home. We don't have that many details right now about how she got home, but here's what we know so far. She came home on foot. She didn't drive. Nobody dropped her off. She walked home somehow. She was barefoot. She was seen on neighbors' home security cameras walking through the neighborhood alone before arriving home. At first, the fire department, and I'm not sure where exactly the miscommunication came from, but the fire department initially thought Carly was unconscious and unresponsive.

24:04But when paramedics arrived at the scene to take care of her, she was responsive and speaking. She was rushed to the hospital to be evaluated. She was briefly questioned by the police, treated, and released. Now, I am going to go over what the police uncovered in their brief conversation with Carly once she's home and other key pieces of evidence that they found. But before that, let me walk you through the public's perception. Long before yesterday's press conference, there seemed to be a rabbit hole of inconsistencies about this case, according to the Internet. For one, nobody else reported seeing a child on the side of the highway.

24:39And if you just look at the people of Hoover who came together to look for Carly, I feel like this is not a community that would just see a child and go, I'm sure someone else will deal with it. There were no reported sightings of that said child, but also there were no reports of a missing child that fit the description. but that doesn't mean that the child doesn't exist it could have been a child that had gone missing long long ago or that nobody knew to be missing but the biggest thing that everyone came back to was if there was an abductor if there was a child on the side of the highway the police would absolutely announce that they were looking for this victim or this suspect after carly got home right because for like a week the police were silent okay for like four days actually the police were silent after carly came home they released like little tidbits here and there but they never said hey this is the composite sketch of the guy that we're looking for or this is what the baby looks out everyone don't go out at night if you hear a baby on the highway don't stop they didn't put out any of these and so the community is like are we in danger are we not someone let us know so one side of people believe that carly was lying and they said well they would warn the public they would ask the public who's already looking for answers it's a national case they would ask the public to be on the lookout.

25:52They didn't release any sort of sketch or anything. I mean, allegations that a child was being used to human traffic woman or kidnap someone, that's a very big deal. Maybe they're not doing that because there's no abductor. There's no missing child. Others who are a bit more hesitant to believe someone would lie about something like this, they said, yeah, well, the public is already freaking out and creating all these conspiracies. Why would the police want the public involved? It would just cause more harm than good. Now, there were other things that the netizens had a hard time wrapping their heads around.

26:22There was a whole saga with the Red Roof Inn. So apparently the day after Carly Russell went missing, there was a Red Roof Inn about 12 minutes away, like five miles away from where Carly went missing on the highway. And a 911 call was made from what appeared to be a worker at the Red Roof Inn. And they stated to authorities that about six cars of family members came in claiming to be Carly Russell's family members and they're like pulling up looking for Carly. The family members stated that Carly personally told them that she was here. What? So it seems like the family had a personal conversation with Carly is initially what netizens thought.

26:58Well, it was, I guess, kind of disproven. Depends if you want to take their word for it. But Carly's mother came out to state there is a horrible and heartless hoax we want to address out of several. I received a text at some point from someone claiming to be Carly and that she was at the Red Roof Inn. However, when my family went there and knocked doors and looked for her, there was no indication that Carly was there, nor had she ever been there. Either way, I'm mentioning this because a lot of netizens focused on it, you know, this part of the case, because it just seemed just peculiar, just strange.

27:32Now, Carly's parents were supporting her from the minute that she went missing and from the minute that she got back. They firmly believe that Carly has been kidnapped, even when she got back. They still believe without a shadow of doubt that their daughter's abductor is still out there. They stated Carly gave her statement to the police so that the police can continue to pursue the kidnappers. But a lot of people for some reason don't really like their media interviews. I've seen a lot of videos, maybe too many videos, overanalyzing the parents' body language. And again, while I do find body language experts to be fascinating and oftentimes insightful, I think especially with crime cases, it's way too speculative to be productive.

28:11But many netizens just didn't like how the parents were speaking of the case. So they didn't like their body language, but they also didn't like what they were actually saying, like the words they were using. The parents kept mentioning that anything regarding the actual case, they weren't going to talk about it. They said that they weren't allowed to discuss it. I guess netizens felt as if everything sounded like they had lawyered up, which again is pure speculation and it doesn't really matter to the case. I think anyone that is having a conversation with law enforcement would do well to have a lawyer, but that's just me, okay?