The details of how police found missing four-year-old Cleo Smith in the locked house, just minutes from her family home have been revealed. The little girl was found by police in the public housing home 900 km north of Perth at 1 am on Wednesday morning. The Western Australian Police broke into one of the rooms and found the little girl alone by herself.
A 36-year old man has been taken into custody and questioned by the police. Police Commissioner Chris Dawson said that the man does not know anything about Cleo or her family nor have any connection with them.
18 days after she disappeared from her mother and stepfather’s tent at the Blowholes campsite, Cleo was found less than 75km away in Carnarvon. The police officer said that the child was smiling when she was rescued and is now being assessed by medical professionals.
WA Police Deputy Commissioner Col Blanch said, “One of the officers picked her up into his arms and asked her “what’s your name?”, ‘She said: “My name is Cleo”.”
Cleo’s mother received a phone call from the local police officer informing her that Cleo had been found. “Our family is whole again,” Ms. Smith said.
One of the neighbors reports that they became suspicious after they saw the man buying Kimbies nappies from the local supermarket. “The other day, I think it was Monday, we saw him in Woolworths buying nappies but we didn’t click on who it was or what he was buying them for,’ she said. ‘Until now.’
Neighbors described the man who lived at Tonkin Crescent as “quiet” and said they wouldn’t expect him to be involved in Cleo’s disappearance.
Commissioner Dawson was reportedly become emotional upon learning the news. He said, “I saw the vision, Cleo is a beautiful little four-year-old girl. She’s as well as we could expect in the circumstances. She’s alive, well, smiling, so it is a wonderful, wonderful result.
Commissioner Dawson revealed that an anonymous tip to the police led them on a raid where they found Cleo. “There was some information we followed upon. We had been following, you know a lot of the forensic leads and it led us to a particular house. We mounted our general duties police who did a tremendous job within minutes of arriving, the first officers in the scene declared it a forensic scene and sealed it off which was just really, really good policing. From that moment on, it’s just been a really dedicated team of well over 100 on the scene itself and we are prepared for a long haul but we’re so, so pleased.”
Deputy Commissioner Blanch expressed his gratitude to Cleo’s parents for their tireless efforts in searching the remote section of Australia, as well as all those volunteers who worked tirelessly alongside them. He also extended gratitude to the community for their support but most especially to the hundreds of police officers for their efforts to find Cleo.
The police will provide more details on the rescue of Cleo later this week. “For now – welcome home Cleo,” Deputy Commissioner Blanch concluded.
More than 110 people were interviewed by the police, many of whom had been camping at Blowholes that night on October 16. Cleo was last seen in her family’s tent, at the vast campsite on WA’s northwest coast, at about 1:30 am. Five hours passed before her mother and stepfather realized she had disappeared.
All evening, the family stayed near their tent and didn’t socialize with other campers. According to the report, police had stressed many times that Cleo’s mother and her partner were not suspects, nor was the child’s biological father. Ms. Smith tried her best to raise awareness of Cleo’s disappearance on social media, posting daily public appeals for help with information that might lead to the little girl’s return home.
This week, the police in WA took to collecting rubbish from roadside bins. From Minilya to Geraldton they collected over 50 cubic meters of it and transported it into Perth were forensic officers and recruits sorted through hundreds upon bags looking for any trace evidence which might help them find Cleo.
The reward offered by the State for information leading to Cleo’s location quickly reached one million dollars as police worked with all possible means available. The disappearance of Cleo was immediately treated with the highest priority, although it took two hours to establish a roadblock at the site.
The police visited Cleo’s family home in Carnarvon several times, gathered CCTV footage from local businesses, and collected samples at the Blowhole area. The police are looking for any footage that may have captured the child’s movements within a 1000km radius of where the little girl disappeared. They stressed the importance of these videos being from motel check-in, service stations, fast food outlets, truck stops, free camping areas, children’s clothing stores, pharmacies, and camping stores, so dashcams provide an excellent source as well. The selective list looked as though the police had narrowed down their suspect list to one person.
