The man suspected of kidnapping four-year-old Cleo Smith was not on the sex offenders register, police have revealed, as details begin to emerge about what happened to the toddler during her 18 day ordeal.
Investigators have revealed Cleo is ‘physically ok’, after being found in a locked house in her hometown of Carnarvon, nearly three weeks after disappearing from her family tent during a camping trip to the remote Blowholes site in Western Australia.
The incredible moment missing Cleo was rescued by startled police officers after they rammed their way into the house, just minutes from her own family home, has also been shared by proud detectives.
Cleo vanished in the early hours of Saturday October 16, with hopes fading fast that the toddler would be found alive.
But in a development which has shocked the world and led to celebrations across Australia, she was discovered in a house in her hometown of Carnarvon early on Wednesday morning, where she was picked up by police and taken to safety.
In bodycam footage, Detective Sergeant Cameron Blaine asks the four-year-old ‘are you okay?’ as she is carried out of the house.
The brave little girl, gripping onto her saviour, smiles and nods before Detective Sergeant Blaine says: ‘We’re gonna take you to see your mummy and daddy’.
Shocked neighbours (pictured) wake up to the news that Cleo Smith was found by WA police on their quiet street
An unremarkable house in the suburb of Brockman, Carnarvon, 900km north of the capital Perth in Western Australia (pictured), is now the scene of a major forensic investigation
Camera crews and police can be seen on the normally quiet street where missing four-year-old Cleo was rescued
The Homicide Squad veteran, who has been tirelessly working on the case every step of the way, described his adulation after Cleo was uncovered in a midnight raid following a ‘tip off’.
‘It was shock to start with. Quickly followed by elation. That could have been any one of the team, but it turned out I was of four guys that were fortunate enough to go through that door and make that rescue,’ he said.
‘We had always hoped for that outcome, but were not prepared for it, but it was absolutely fantastic to see her sitting there in the way that she was. It was incredible.
‘I wanted to be sure it was her. I said, “What is your name?” She didn’t answer, I asked three times, and then she looked at me and said, “My name is Cleo”.
‘Then we turned around and walked out of the house. Not long after that we got into the car and the officer called Cleo’s parents. It was a wonderful feeling to make that call.’
The preschooler was then immediately rushed to hospital for a welfare check, with detectives revealing she is ‘physically unharmed’.
Detective Superintendent Rod Wilde confirmed the 36-year-old man being questioned over her disappearance was not on the sex offender’s list.
He also said police ‘haven’t received that information’ when asked by a reporter about his reputation among locals as having an ‘unhealthy interest in children’.
Incredible bodycam footage shows the moment Cleo Smith was rescued by Western Australian Police (pictured)
Pictured: Detective Sergeant Cameron Blaine tells Cleo: ‘We’re gonna take you to see your mummy and daddy’
Propped up on a hospital bed as she sucked on an icypole, Cleo Smith smiled from ear to ear in her first photo since she was rescued after being abducted on the family camping trip.
Cleo excitedly waved to the camera as her relieved mother Ellie Smith lovingly touched her right foot as she sat on the side of the bed, just happy to see her alive.
Police believe she was ‘opportunistically abducted’ on October 16 and was found alive at 12.46am on Wednesday when police stormed a public housing home in the suburb of Brockman after police received information from the public.
Detective Superintendent Rod Wilde, who led the missing person investigation, said Cleo ‘is physically OK’ and had since been released from hospital to be with her mother and stepfather Jake Gliddon.
A 36-year-old man who was not in the home when it was raided and not known to Cleo’s family was arrested in connection with Cleo’s abduction from the family’s tent at Blowholes campsite.
He was reportedly beaten by another inmate when he arrived at the Carnarvon holding cells in the middle of the night after the other prisoner learned what he’d been arrested for.
Charges are expected to be laid later today with investigators saying there are no other persons of interest.
The first picture of Cleo Smith, safe and sound in hospital, after she was rescued from a house in Carnarvon, in northwest Western Australia, where she was held for 18 days
Neighbours of the home where little Cleo Smith (pictured) was kept prisoner before she was rescued by police on Wednesday have revealed the tell-tale signs they missed.
Police feared the missing girl could have been spirited away to anywhere in the country – but instead she was under their noses all along just 3km from her home and 75km from the campsite.
Cleo was likely already locked up in the house when her parents awoke at 6am to find she was no longer lying next to them and her baby sister Isla in their tent.
Shocked neighbours tell Daily Mail Australia they were first alerted to the commotion when police flood lights lit up their cul-de-sac, which is normally bustling with children playing in their front yards and at the park across the road during daylight hours.
‘My nephews went up to see what was going on and then they saw cops leading out the little white girl,’ a neighbour who has known the man for more than a decade said.
Others woke to the news that Cleo had been rescued, filing into the streets before the sun even rose to watch the scene unfold.
The neighbour said the suspect was a loner who ‘kept to himself’ and was not the type of person anyone else in the street would ‘have a yarn with’ despite being a long-term resident.
He last saw the suspect just three days after little Cleo disappeared. Former friends say he had not long been freed from jail.
‘His grandmother raised him… but after she died a year or so ago, nobody went over to yarn to him,’ he said.
‘He got a new car after… he used to park it in the driveway and then close the gate, every day, always went and put the car in the same spot and closed the gate.’
The suspect was reportedly beaten by another inmate when he arrived at the Carnarvon holding cells in the middle of the night after the other prisoner learned what he’d been arrested for
Forensic investigators are expected to remain at the taped off scene where Cleo was found (pictured) for several days
Officers are captured standing guard outside the house where missing Cleo was located in the suburb of Brockman, Carnarvon, WA
Detective Superintendent Rod Wilde said after Cleo’s rescue officers called her parents from the squad car.
‘You can imagine, absolute surprise and they were ecstatic,’ he said.
The moment Cleo was reunited with her mother was just as heartwarming, as she immediately shouted ‘mummy!’
‘A lot of kisses, hugs and tears,’ Superintendent Wilde said – and that included hardened police officers.
‘People were in tears. It is fair to say. It is an amazing outcome. We hoped, we kept working with that believe that we could get there, you could find Cleo. I don’t know what happened but we were lucky,’ he said.
Superintendent Wilde said Cleo was in good spirits and communicating well with officers, though there was more interviews to do in coming days.
‘Having seen her a couple times this morning, she is a little Energiser bunny. How she has that much energy, I wish I did, I am about ready to go to sleep,’ he said.
‘Very sweet, energetic girl. Very trusting and very open with us. We all wanted to take turns holding her. It was a really good experience.’
Police received a sudden tip-off on Tuesday night containing ‘really important information about a car’, which they confirmed with phone data and ‘a lot of forensic leads’ – and just hours later raided the house.
There were other signs too, from the sound of a little girl crying heard by neighbours to the suspected kidnapper pacing around the street and buying nappies for a child he didn’t have.
However, neighbours on Tonkin Crescent admit they didn’t join the dots until after Cleo was rescued and failed to report suspicious behaviour to police that could have led them to her days earlier.
Sahntayah McKenzie recalled hearing a little girl crying one night, but did not think anything of it at the time.
‘Not last night, the night before it… I heard a little girl crying but I wouldn’t expect it to be Cleo,’ she told the West Australian.
‘I didn’t expect it would happen in this little neighbourhood, a lot of people know each other.’
It’s reported that police were tipped off to the address after neighbours spotted the suspect buying nappies.
One of them told Seven News she became suspicious after seeing the suspect buying Kimbies nappies from a 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.’
Another neighbour told Nine he had spotted the arrested man behaving bizarrely in recent days, hooning through the streets with his dogs in the front seat of his car.
Sahntayah McKenzie recalled how she heard a little girl crying one night, but did not think anything of it at the time
‘He’s been acting a bit strange lately,’ Henry Dodd told Nine News. ‘He will get in his car, drive that fast.
‘He doesn’t have his dogs at the front [normally], he has his dogs out the back, but through this week he had his dogs out the front and he has been acting weird.’
Henry Dodd said police spent several hours driving up and down the street before breaking into the home.
Neighbours described the man as ‘quiet’ and said they wouldn’t expect him to be involved.
‘Everyone that knows the person that stays in that house, wouldn’t think that it would be him,’ he said.
‘We got a shock ourselves that it was him.’
Another neighbour told the Today show: ‘S**t, she’s been that close.’
Another local described the man in custody as an ‘oddball’.
‘He is a very quiet guy, bit of an oddball… definitely wouldn’t have picked him… it has completely derailed me,’ Rennee Turner said.
‘I’d heard whispers… I kind of figured the police might have had an idea of what was going on, because I have never seen such a massive amount of cops here for so long.’
Others said he in recent weeks bought food he didn’t usually buy, and that he moved his dog that usually stayed in the backyard to the front yard.
Neighbours who witnessed the dramatic police raid, after which officers were seen carrying a crow bar and a battering ram out of the house, described how Cleo was carried to safety.
In the early hours of the morning, police smashed through the locked door of a home (pictured) in the Brockman suburb of Carnarvon, Western Australia, to rescue the four year old
One neighbour Henry (pictured) said he had spotted the arrested man behaving unusually in recent days, hooning through the streets in his car with his dogs in the front seat
‘We stood back and waited but after that, we saw someone, on the detective shoulder. We thought it might be the little girl, which it was,’ Henry Dodd said.
‘I went closer to the detectives car and I saw her in the back of the car with the detective, he was holding her. They put her in the back and I came over, rushed over here and seen her there. She looked at me, a bit scared.’
Mr Dodd said he was shocked he had been just metres away from her while the nationwide hunt was going on for her.
‘I just can’t believe it and get over the fact that she is just the house down from us and locked up here for a couple of weeks,’ he added.
‘Going on three weeks, she is straight across from us. I’ve got little sisters there…’
Cleo was found alone in this suburban home in Carnarvon, in the north-west of Western Australia, shortly before 1am on Wednesday morning
Deputy WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch said Tuesday night’s tip was the final piece of the puzzle that allowed detectives to finally track down Cleo.
‘We’ve collected phone data, witness statements, DNA, fingerprints, rubbish along the highways, CCTV – we’ve collected everything,’ he said.
‘The million dollar reward helped us with collecting even more from the members of the public. Everyone came forward to helping us.
‘There were car movements, there were phone movements, there were antecedents of people, the jigsaw fit the puzzle.
‘We had to find that needle. Last night the needle in the haystack came out and they acted in a heartbeat.’
The vital tip-off was the last piece of the puzzle in a case that until then frustrated and eluded detectives and had Australians fearing Cleo would never be found, let alone alive.
Commissioner Blanch said seeing the police bodycam of Cleo brought him an other officers to tears.
‘I’ve seen it. It’s burned into my memory for life. You cannot look at that and not feel it in your heart. Unbelievable moment,’ he said.
‘I saw detectives that have worked for 18 days straight, 24/7 see little Cleo in a room, and just the look on their faces. The care that was expressed immediately, the cuddling, the asking of her name, her little voice.’
Cleo was found in her hometown of Carnarvon in Western Australia, 75km from where she went missing on October 16
Cleo is now back in the arms of her mum Ellie and stepfather Jake (pictured together)
Ms Smith wrote on Instagram hours later: ‘Our family is whole again.’
A close family friend also revealed the emotional message Ms Smith earlier wrote to her loved ones to let them know her ‘beautiful girl is home’.
‘To be woken at 4.50am with my phone going crazy and see the words Cleo is home alive and safe,’ she wrote on Facebook.
She’s alive, well, smiling, so it is a wonderful, wonderful result
‘Seeing Ellie saying her ‘beautiful girl is home’ is nothing short of a miracle.’
In a local Facebook group, a concerned local suggested people in the small town remove ‘missing’ posters and stickers to prevent the family from suffering any more trauma.
But the youngster’s mother commented on the post to let people know it was unnecessary.
‘Cleo has seen her photo. She thought it was beautiful,’ Ms Smith wrote.
Cleo’s biological father Daniel Staines, who lives with his parents about 1,000km south of Carnarvon in Halls Head, said he is ‘overjoyed’ that the little girl was found alive.
‘We are all absolutely overjoyed at the good news this morning and so happy that Cleo has been reunited with her mum and dad,’ the Staines family said in a statement to The West Australian.
‘Thank you to everyone who helped look for her and bring her home, particularly the WA Police, SES and the Carnarvon community.’
They sent Cleo, her step-father Mr Gliddon and Ellie their ‘best wishes’.
Commissioner Dawson reportedly broke down in tears upon learning the heartwarming news. He said the youngster (pictured) was good as can be expected
Cleo’s mum Ellie Smith broke her silence on Wednesday morning, sharing a series of love heart emojis on Instagram after her daughter was found alive and well
What happened to Cleo in the house where she was held captive for more than two weeks, without her family, but psychologists said she would have a long road to recovery.
Police Air Wing PC12 picked up the suspect, who has no relation to Cleo’s family, from Carnarvon and landed at Perth’s Jandakot Airport late on Wednesday morning.
Police Commissioner Chris Dawson was on board the plane and will spend the day meeting with police involved in the rescue and checking in with Cleo’s family.
The police chief broke down in tears upon learning the heartwarming news. He said Cleo was as good as can be expected.
‘I saw the vision, Cleo is a beautiful little four-year-old girl,’ he said.
‘She’s as well as we could expect in the circumstances. She’s alive, well, smiling, so it is a wonderful, wonderful result.’
He said Cleo’s parents were emotional but doing well.
‘They’re strong people, they are really strong people. They have good support around them,’ Commissioner Dawson said.
‘It’s a wonderful result today but it’ll be a tough journey for them.’