Carlee Russell, the woman who is suspected of faking her own kidnapping, is now fired from her job. Stuart Rome, owner of the Woodhouse spa in Birmingham, Alabama, confirmed to the New York Post that he has terminated Russell. Rome said many of Russell’s colleagues were furious when they heard that she may have made up her story.
“It was really devastating for them thinking a co-worker was abducted,” the owner told The Post. “The following day, Saturday, it was the busiest day of the week, and they had to plug along and work and in the off times pass out flyers and other things.”
As Blavity previously reported, Russell became a national story after she called 911 on July 13, saying she saw a toddler walking alone on the highway. When police responded to the scene, they didn’t find Russell or the child. Officers said they only found the woman’s found her car, cellphone and wig at the scene.
Russell’s mysterious disappearance caused concern among her family, friends, community and people around the country. But the 25-year-old returned home two days later and said she managed to escape after being abducted.
Hoover Police Department Chief Nick Derzis said investigators looked into Russell’s recent internet history and found inquiries about Amber Alerts and bus tickets, as well as search results for Liam Neeson’s movie Taken.
“There were other searches on Carlee’s phone that appeared to shed some light on her mindset,” Derzis told reporters, according to ABC News. “I do think it’s highly, highly unusual to the day that someone gets kidnapped that several — seven hours or eight hours before that — that they’re searching the internet, googling the movie Taken about an abduction. I find that very, very strange.”
Rome said people have been sending insulting messages to his company’s social media pages as they continue to express their outrage at Russell.
“I’ve had to shut down my comment section on Instagram and Facebook page which hurts us because we do a lot of marketing there. We’re just trying to keep the doors open,” Rome said.
Like many people around the world, Russell’s colleagues also feel that they may have wasted their time and resources when they organized search effort after she disappeared.
“As the information came out that there were some questionable things, we’ve been a little pissed off, mainly because so many people took so much time out to search,” Rome said.
Meanwhile, Russell’s boyfriend, Thomar Latrell Simmons, is asking the public stop “bullying” her.
“The only thing I can say is, I want everyone to stop bullying her. I know what it seems like what she did. Just stop bullying on social media,” he said to the New York Post. “Think about her mental health. She doesn’t deserve that. She doesn’t. Nobody deserves to be cyberbullied.”
