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Cleo Smith: what we know about the rescue of the Australian girl who was missing for 18 days

2021-11-03T08:31:07.895Z


Cleo Smith's rescue came more than two weeks after her disappearance from her family's tent at a camp.


They find a 4-year-old girl missing for more than two weeks 1:01

(CNN) -

Just after midnight Wednesday, Western Australian police broke down the door of a locked house in the small town of Carnarvon, ending an extensive 18-day search for a missing 4-year-old girl.

A police video captured the moment when an officer picked up the girl and asked, "What's your name? The girl replied," My name is Cleo, "according to police.

Cleo Smith's rescue came more than two weeks after her disappearance from her family's tent at a remote camp in Quobba Blowholes, a popular seaside resort, about 950 kilometers (590 miles) north of Perth.

Her disappearance triggered a massive police search that initially covered several square kilometers around the site and then spread across the country as alerts were issued for sightings of the girl.

On Wednesday, police said the evidence had led them to that specific home, a short drive from the family residence where their distraught parents had spent weeks anxiously awaiting updates on the police investigation.

"We were looking for a needle in a haystack and we found it, that led us to what happened at 12:46 am this morning," Deputy Police Commissioner Col Blanch told 6PR radio.

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Cleo Smith was found Wednesday morning in a locked home in Carnarvon.

Agents entered the locked home and found Cleo alone in one of the rooms, Blanch said.

"When he said 'My name is Cleo', I don't think there was a dry eye in the house," he added.

"I have seen seasoned detectives openly cry with relief. I am speechless, which is very rare ... this is something we all waited for in our hearts, and it has come true."

Cleo's mother, Ellie Smith, who had issued tearful pleas for help finding her daughter, posted on Instagram: "Our family is whole again."

A 36-year-old local man with no "family connection" is in police custody, Washington Police Commissioner Chris Dawson told ABC Radio Perth.

He was not at the home at the time of the raid, Blanch said, and is currently being questioned.

Police do not suspect that anyone else is involved, they said.

Cleo Smith, 4, was found by police after two weeks missing.

The girl disappeared from a camp

Cleo disappeared in the early hours of October 16 from the family's tent at a camp near Blowholes, about 30 miles north of the home in Carnarvon.

They had arrived the night before for their first camping trip as a family of four.

Around 8 p.m. Cleo settled in for the night in a sleeping bag, a few feet from her mother, stepfather and baby sister, police said.

Smith said Cleo had woken up at 1:30 a.m. and asked for a drink of water before going back to sleep.

When Smith woke up again at 6 in the morning, Cleo was gone.

As police flocked to the scene, helicopters and drones scanned the rugged landscape near the camp, a short walk from the shoreline where waves crash against cliffs.

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Justin Borg of Coral Coast Helicopter Services deployed a team to scan the area;

they ended up searching for three days.

He described the sandy hills as slow-moving terrain, the kind of terrain that makes walking slow and difficult: "It's soft sand with thorns underfoot," he said.

"When we hadn't found her in the first hour or two, we automatically thought they had taken her," added Borg.

https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/.e/interactive/html5-video-media/2021/11/03/Helicopter.mp4

Coral Coast Helicopter Services scanned the shoreline for three days looking for Cleo Smith.

Credit: Coral Coast Helicopter Services

Cleo's sleeping bag was also missing and the tent's zipper was so high that the police assumed she had been kidnapped.

Smith and her partner, Jake Gliddon, made public appeals for help finding their daughter.

"Everyone asks us what they need; all we really need is our little girl at home," said Smith, who described her daughter as beautiful and delicate with "the biggest heart."

"Every day she wants to wear a princess dress," she said.

"She is so sweet, everything you would want in a girl."

Officers collected more than 50 cubic meters of trash from roadside containers from the north to Minilya to the south to Geraldton.

Millionaire reward

Less than a week after the search, the Western Australian government offered a reward of AU $ 1 million (US $ 750,000) for information leading to the finding of Cleo.

Information came in, including more than 200 reports of possible sightings of the girl, none of which was confirmed as Cleo.

Hours of CCTV and dashcam footage were uploaded to the police website for analysis.

Meanwhile, a massive online campaign was building to find Cleo.

Volunteers running the Bring Cleo Smith Home Facebook site called businesses to request stickers, brochures and posters that featured Cleo's face.

Approximately 50,000 were printed and plastered throughout Carnarvon and throughout the state.

Evelyn Fowkes, a Perth mother who did not know the family, opened the Facebook page to take pressure off Cleo's mother, who was being bombarded with messages.

Fowkes was soon joined by a team of volunteer administrators and moderators, mostly mothers, who worked to keep Cleo's case in the public eye.

Cleo was last seen sleeping in a red and black sleeping bag and wearing a pink / purple one-piece nightwear with a blue and yellow pattern.

The page now has more than 65,000 members worldwide, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe.

"If that was my daughter, I'd like someone to do the exact same thing," Fowkes said.

Ashleigh Flynn, who worked as a volunteer overseas administrator from the country in Brisbane, said the team was shocked by the news that they had found Cleo: "We are in shock, so many tears of joy. And I think Australia is crying with us ".

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The investigation

Throughout the investigation, the police said they had no suspects and repeatedly ruled out that Cleo's family had any role in her disappearance.

One of the few clues came from witnesses who reported seeing a car heading south on the main road from the camp to Carnarvon.

The police urged the driver or occupants of the vehicle to go ahead.

As of Tuesday, police had not released whether they had found that car.

Earlier this week, police searched hundreds of garbage bags collected from roadside containers north and south of the camp where Cleo disappeared.

Agents also began visiting homes in the Carnarvon area, looking for any sign of the girl.

Western Australian Police Minister Paul Papalia told reporters that Cleo's rescue was the result of a "tough police routine", not a warning or a single suspicious event.

Over 18 days, the police collected a large amount of evidence, including interviews, CCTV footage, phone data and 1,000 calls from people offering information that, once analyzed, pointed in the direction of the house.

Detective Sergeant Major Cameron Blaine was one of four officers who entered the one-story home with a search warrant shortly after midnight Wednesday and found Cleo in a bedroom.

"Seeing her sitting there the way she was was amazing," Blaine told reporters.

"I just wanted to be absolutely sure it was her, so I said, 'What's your name?'

Blaine said he asked her the same question three times before she answered, then once satisfied that they had found Cleo, the police took her outside to their car and called her parents.

A family liaison officer passed the news to her that she had been found with the words: "We have someone here who wants to talk to you."

"It was a wonderful feeling to be able to make that call," said Blaine.

Xanthe Mallett, a criminologist at Newcastle University in New South Wales, said that finding Cleo after so long was "extraordinary" and that the chances of finding a missing child after a suspected abduction by a stranger were "Very low".

"When a child disappears, especially after this amount of time, everyone thought the worst, and it's such an amazing result," he said.

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Mallett said Western Australian police appeared to be closing in on Cleo earlier this week by revealing only small, seemingly strategic amounts of information to the public.

A sign offering a million Australian dollar reward for information on the missing girl Cleo Smith on a digital tower in Yagan Square in Perth on October 30.

"They were using public support and pressure that they were exerting through the media, to pressure people or maybe around the criminal who might know something," he said.

Police said it was unlikely anyone would claim the $ 1 million reward, as Cleo's ransom was the result of hard work by the police.

Western Australian State Prime Minister Mark McGowan said he received a message from the state police commissioner in the middle of the night informing him that Cleo had been found.

He also posted a picture of Cleo sitting on a hospital bed, smiling, McGowan added.

"This is great and uplifting news for the entire country and especially for those people who put their hearts and souls into finding little Cleo," said McGowan.

"And I know they are very proud and pleased with what has been accomplished."

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison described the news as "wonderful" on his official Twitter account.

"What wonderful and relief news," he said.

"They have found Cleo Smith and she is safely home. Our prayers were answered. Thank you to the many police officers involved in finding Cleo and supporting her family."

Anusha Rathi contributed to this report.

Missing girl

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2021-11-03

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