Carlee Russell’s Tweets Before Her Disappearance Revealed She Was Troubled About Work, Boyfriend and Was Feeling Unloved: ‘Everyone Wants to Feel Wanted’

Days after Carlethia “Carlee” Russell‘s mysterious reappearance, many have scanned her Twitter account, noting posts regarding her disliking her job, feeling unloved, and suspecting her boyfriend of cheating.

The Alabama native entered the public eye on July 13, when her friends and family launched a nationwide search campaign, fearing she had been kidnapped.

The Hoover Police Department shared with the public details of what she told them about her 48-hour disappearance.

According to the police chief, the 25-year-old nursing student said she stopped her car after seeing a toddler, seemingly stranded on the side of the I-495 interstate. She called 911 and a family member to report the child, screaming during the call as she allegedly was abducted by a man with orange hair.

On July 15, Russell popped up at her parents’ home barefoot with a cut on her lip.

Many suspect the abduction was staged and are pointing to her social media to show that she was stressed out. Authorities revealed on Wednesday that she had search for information on kidnapping and bus tickets leading up to the disappearance.

Twitter posts dating back at least a month show that she was having issues at work and with her boyfriend Thomar Simmons, one of the loudest voices asking for help when she vanished.

On June 17, she tweeted, “N##gas will risk everything for a hoe, stripper, etc. pitiful.”

https://twitter.com/carleeenichole/status/1670121385627385856?s=20

The next day she followed up with, “You think you have a bond with someone until they show you you never did.”

https://twitter.com/carleeenichole/status/1670609519796166657?s=20

She also tweeted on July 10, days before her alleged kidnapping,  “I always say one thing I WON’T do is stay with someone who cheated on me like you went and had sex with someone else and think it’ll be sweet one day?? Helllll no.”

https://twitter.com/carleeenichole/status/1678486066871824397?s=20

She also posted at 4:08 a.m. on July 8, “Everyone wants to feel wanted,” hours before complaining about her job. In a later tweet, she wrote, “My job is really starting to get on my dang nerves.”

https://twitter.com/carleeenichole/status/1677590577318187009?s=20
https://twitter.com/carleeenichole/status/1677653908045299713?s=20

A day before she disappeared, she tweeted that a man was staring at her for “10 minutes,” calling him a creep.

https://twitter.com/carleeenichole/status/1679302186713464832?s=20

On the day that she disappeared, everything seemed fine with her tweeting positive messages about her life and family.

https://twitter.com/carleeenichole/status/1679671036839698432?s=20

Despite her tweets about her relationship, Simmons was one of the main voices asking for people to help locate her.

“My girlfriend has been kidnapped tonight in Hoover, Alabama on the interstate & her phone, Apple Watch, & purse was all inside her vehicle still,” Simmons wrote in a now-deleted post.

At one point, he posted on Facebook that Russell was “fighting for her life for 48 hours,” but he has since deleted all mentions of her on all of his social media platforms. He has also not commented on the police department’s claims there is no proof that she was abducted.

“We have no reason to believe that there is a threat to public safety related to this particular case,” Chief Nicholas Derzis told reporters Wednesday.

Talitha Robinson also echoed this survival narrative, saying to NBC News, “There were moments when she physically had to fight for her life, and there were moments when she had to mentally fight for her life. She made it back.”

Russell has also not sat with law enforcement to answer the claims. Her Instagram following grew between Wednesday and Thursday from 19,000 to nearly 29,000 followers.

Democracy needs journalism it can trust.

This election season, the stakes are higher than usual — and so is the pressure on newsrooms to soften their coverage, stay quiet, or just disappear. Independent reporting, the kind that answers to readers instead of advertisers or political pressure, matters more in a moment like this, not less.

For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed independent and reader-funded. We have no corporate owner and no shareholders telling us what to cover or how to cover it. That independence is also our biggest vulnerability: nothing protects it except readers choosing to fund it directly.

Newspaper ad revenue has fallen more than 80% since 2005, and local newsrooms are closing at a rate of roughly two a week nationwide. When outlets go under in a moment like this, it's rarely the independent, reader-funded ones that get to stick around.

We know a request for support isn't why you came here. But without readers choosing to fund this work directly, the depth of reporting we can do at home and abroad shrinks along with everyone else's. If you're not in a position to give, that doesn't change how much we value you as a reader.

If you are able to, a recurring contribution does more for us than a single one-time gift, because it lets us plan the next investigation instead of just the next invoice. It takes about 30 seconds, no long form, no account. Thank you for continuing to support independent journalism and freedom of the press.

Back to top