July 15th 2023.
Carlethia “Carlee” Nichole Russell, an Alabama woman, is unfortunately missing after stopping on the side of the road to help a toddler she saw walking alone along Interstate 459. According to CNN, contact was lost with Russell as she was talking to a family member even though the call never dropped. The Hoover Police Department has since taken to Facebook in an effort to call for public assistance in the search for Russell and included in their post is a detailed description of Russell, what she was wearing when she disappeared, and a contact number should anyone have any information.
So far, rewards totaling $25,000 have been offered for any information regarding Russell. When officers arrived at the scene following her 911 call, they didn't find any evidence of a toddler but did find her car, still running, and some of her personal effects which had been abandoned. Lt. Daniel Lowe spoke at a press conference called to inform the public of the case and shared that the department was allocating all available resources to the case, and that they are in close contact with Russell's family who have been leading the search efforts in the area where Russell was last seen.
A trucker reported that Russell may have been abducted by a tall, brown-skinned man wearing cargo shorts, and officers found tire tracks in the grass which supports the theory. According to the Black and Missing Foundation, their data is focused on Black girls under 18 and around 40% of all missing girls are Black, yet many of those missing persons cases go underreported. In fact, at the end of 2022, 97,127 people were missing, and of that number, 14,627 were Black women. This means that Black women made up 15% of all open missing persons cases at the close of 2022 despite only making up a fraction of the population.
It is often left up to the families of the missing to advocate for their loved ones, and what this too often means is a lack of media attention and traction for their stories. In this regard, Russell's case is an abnormality, too often the stories of Black women like her are met with silence from the media and a lack of urgency from law enforcement. This is why it is so important for the public to come together in efforts to help Russell and her family, so that she can be found safely and quickly.
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