Cleo Smith and her mother Ellie Smith leave a house where the girl spent her first night after being rescued in Carnarvon, Australia, November 4, 2021. — AAP/Richard Wainwright pic via Reuters
SYDNEY, Nov 4 — Australian police said a 36-year-old man was likely to be charged today over the disappearance of a four-year-old girl from an outback campsite who went missing for 18 days before she was found safe in a locked house.
The man was twice taken to hospital for self-inflicted injuries, but was now back in police custody and being interviewed, authorities said.
“There is still a lot of work to do… the investigation continues,” Rod Wilde, a detective superintendent in the state of Western Australia, told a media conference.
The girl, Cleo Smith had last been seen in her family’s tent in the early hours of October 16 at the remote Blowholes Shacks campsite in Macleod, triggering an extensive search by land and aerial crews, along with roadblocks and CCTV footage.
She was found safe yesterday when police broke into a house in Carnarvon, a town about 100km south of the campsite on the far northwest coast of the state. The house is just 3km from her family home, Australian media said.
Today, police released an audio recording of their entry into the house and the discovery of the girl in a room. “We’ve got her. We’ve got her,” an officer could be heard saying.
After being asked her name a few times, the toddler answered, “My name is Cleo”. She had been playing with dolls with the light on at the time, police said.
After meeting her family, state Premier Mark McGowan said Cleo was a “very bright, upbeat, sweet little girl” and looked “very well adjusted”, considering her ordeal.
Specialist child interviewers would speak with her, and authorities had instructed her parents on how to talk to her to preserve her memory, authorities said.
The hashtag #CleoSmith has been trending on Twitter since yesterday, with a picture posted by police that showed a smiling Cleo waving from her hospital bed drawing nearly 54,000 “likes”.
Purple and pink balloons adorned the streets and many landmarks in Perth, the capital of Western Australia, were lit up in blue on Wednesday night to thank police for their efforts. — Reuters