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Do we have another damn Tawana Brawley or Jussie Smollet on our hands? We sure hope not!

Carlethia “Carlee” Nichole Russell, the 25-year-old Alabama woman who went missing last week before miraculously showing up at her parents front door over the weekend, has got Black America holding its breath praying that she did not do what many are speculating she did.

Was her disappearance all part of a made up storyline, seeking attention? We don’t know, we will just lay out the facts as they have been presented thus far.

Here’s a recap of the timeline of events given by the Hoover Police Department.

On July 13, Carlee called a 911 operator at around 9:24 p.m. saying that she saw a toddler in a diaper along the side of Interstate 459 South near Birmingham, Alabama.

After the 911 call, she called a relative telling them the same thing, then abruptly stopped talking, but the line “remained open.” That relative reported hearing a scream.

And just like that – she was gone – leaving her distraught mother and father pleading for answers on national televison interviews and almost everyone around the country praying for her safe return.

Then…two days later, Carlee returned home at around 10:45 p.m. Surveillance video shows her walking down the street in her neighborhood before she banged on her front door.

SO WHERE THE HECK WAS SHE? WELL… MANY INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW.

Investigators said she told them when she got out of her vehicle to check on the child, a man came out of the trees, picked her up, made her go over a fence and forced her into a car. Carlee told detectives that her alleged abductor had orange hair with a bald spot.

She said the next thing she remembered was being in the trailer of an 18-wheeler with a woman and a baby.

She said, when she woke up the next day, the woman fed her cheese crackers and played with her hair.

Carlee said she was eventually able to escape and ran through the woods before coming out near her home.

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Well police have tracked her movements leading up to her disappearance, and they are suggesting that some things aren’t quite adding up, laying out a timeline of bizarre occurrences.

The Hoover police captain said that Carlee took a “dark-colored bathrobe, a roll of toilet paper” and other items that belonged to her employer, the Woodhouse Spa Birmingham, at around 8:20 p.m.

Afterward, she ordered food from a Mediterranean Café and picked it up before going to Target, where she bought some granola bars and Cheez-Its….remember those cheese crackers she said her captors fed her?

Well…anywho… she remained in the Target parking lot until 9:21 p.m.

Then after the mysterious 911 call happened at 9:24 p.m., police arrived to the scene within 5 minutes but there was no sign of Carlee or the alleged child.

Carlee’s personal items, including her purse, an Apple Watch and the takeout order were found inside the car.

Her cell phone was located near the car, but the snacks she bought from Target were nowhere to be found.

Investigators also discovered a slew of bizarre searches Carlee made before she vanished.

The police chief said that Carlee searched “do you have to pay for an Amber Alert and the maximum age for an Amber Alert” days before her disappearance, and on the day of the disappearance, she searched “how to take money from a register without being caught.”

She also searched for the movie “Taken,” which is a movie about a retired CIA agent (Liam Neeson) who travels around Europe to save his daughter who was kidnapped while on a trip to Paris.

The police chief did not call Carlee a flat-out liar, but he did say it is “highly unusual” for someone to have searched for the movie “Taken” just hours before she was allegedly kidnapped.

In addition to all of that, early that morning, she searched for a one-way bus ticket from Birmingham to Nashville with the departure date being July 13.

If this was all a hoax, shame on whomever was involved because the U.S. Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and U.S. Marshals assisted in the investigation.

We are not passing judgment, we are simply sharing what the investigators have revealed thus far and leave you all to form your own opinion.

But.. this might not be passing the “scratch and sniff test” for many. It is screaming Smollett and Brawley.

The younger generation will keenly remember Smollett – the Empire actor now fallen from grace – staged a hoax saying he was attacked by Trump supporters. That led to a huge trial, where he was found guilty of lying to police – although he maintains his innocence – and jail time.

Those who are a bit older may remember how Brawley shamed a younger Rev. Al Sharpton when he became her spokesman, fighting for justice. According to CNN, in fall 1987, Brawley, who is African-American, was found disheveled inside a trash bag with racial slurs written across her body in Wappingers Falls, New York. Brawley, then 15, claimed she was kidnapped and repeatedly raped by a group of white men.

This, too, turned out to be a lie by a young person seeking attention.

Let’s pray that Black America has not been duped – and embarrassed – yet again.