Cleo Smith found alive: WA police find missing girl in Carnarvon house
Dramatic footage has been released of the moment WA police officers carried four-year-old girl Cleo Smith from a locked house.
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Dramatic footage has been released of the moment WA police officers rescued four-year-old alleged kidnap victim Cleo Smith.
It comes after the officer who went through the door and asked the little girl her name said it was a moment he would never forget, even if it took him three goes to get an answer.
Detective Sergeant Cameron Blaine, a father himself, knew it was the West Australian girl but wanted confirmation from the child he saw sitting up on a bed in a backroom of a house.
He said after he and three colleagues broke down the door and moved through the house in the town of Carnarvon, he saw her alive and his initial shock turned quickly to elation.
“To see her sitting there, was incredible,” he recalled.
“I asked her what her name was as one of the guys jumped in front of me and picked her up.
“I just wanted to be absolutely sure. It certainly looked like Cleo, I wanted to be sure and I asked her ‘what's your name?’ and she didn’t answer and I said what’s your name?’, she didn’t answer again so I asked a third time and she looked at me and said ‘my name is Cleo’.
“And that was it, we turned around and walked out of that house.”
In the footage, Sgt Blaine can be seen introducing himself to Cleo.
“My name’s Cameron, how are you? We’re going to take you to see your mummy and daddy, OK? Is that good?”The girl shyly nods her head to both questions.
Sgt Blaine said they moved to the police car and his colleague Detective Sergeant Hutchinson, the family’s liaison officer, then rang Cleo’s mum Ellie Smith and step dad Jake Gliddon.
“He said ‘we’ve got someone here who wants to speak with you’ and it was a wonderful feeling to make that call. You can imagine just absolute surprise and they were absolutely ecstatic. Things developed so quickly we didn’t really have time to prepare them and certainly didn’t want to give them any false expectations about what might happen, we didn’t know ourselves.”
He said Cleo was physically fine and he told the family to meet them at the local hospital where she was going to be looked over and it was an honour to see that reunion.
She simply screamed “mummy” followed by big hugs, kisses and tears.
Sgt Blaine said taking evidence from someone so young was a tricky process and their mental health was critical and questions were presented in a form of a conversation.
“I have to say having seen her a couple of time this morning she’s a little Energiser Bunny and how she has that much energy, I wish I did I’m just about ready to go to sleep but she is very sweet, energetic girl, very trusting and open with us, we all wanted to take turns holding her,” he said, adding it was the best moment in his career.
Earlier, Det Supt Rod Wilde who led Task Force Rodia said the investigation would continue for “a week or two at least” as police prepared a case against the man whom he described as the only suspect.
He said the movements of a car as well as telephone data was critical in the case but the man was not a suspect before yesterday and hours before they moved in. He declined to say what changed ahead of his arrest.
Police Commissioner Chris Dawson said the whole nation would rejoice over this outcome.
“It was a thrilling and proud moment, our hearts are of course with Ellie and Jake to have Cleo back in their arms was just a wonderful, wonderful moment,” he said.
He added: “It is an outcome you hope for and you don’t always get what you hope for but hope was there, we dared to hope and we did and Cleo is back.”
Mr Dawson said a 36-year-old man was in custody and was “assisting police” with their inquiries.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has offered his thanks to the police and everyone involved in the search for Cleo, who was found in a locked house in the town of Carnarvon, 900km north of Perth this morning.
Speaking from the United Arab Emirates, on his way home from the UN climate summit in Glasgow, Mr Morrison said: “The fact that nightmare has come to an end and our worst fears were not realised is just a huge relief,” he said.
A brief insight into Cleo’s state of mind has been given after mum Ellie Smith responded to the community through an online post.
In a Carnarvon community Facebook post, Ms Smith commented when users debated whether the posters around town appealing for information to find the child should now be taken down.
One person said they should stay to remind Cleo and her family how special she is to which Ms Smith replied “Cleo has seen her photo. She thought it was beautiful.”.
‘STRONG LEAD’: MIDNIGHT PHONE CALL REVEALED
Earlier, WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson He said he had seen the bodycam footage of Cleo’s rescue, recalling a phone call at midnight from colleagues confident they had a “strong lead”.
“It was a thrilling and proud moment, our hearts are of course with Ellie and Jake to have Cleo back in their arms was just a wonderful, wonderful moment,” he said, adding words were hard to describe the moment.
He said full credit to the team of police and intelligence analysts who had gone through “thousands and thousands” of pieces of information and he was the proudest police commissioner in the world.
He said the four police detectives who found Cleo alive in the house were all fathers themselves.
“It is an outcome you hope for and you don’t always get what you hope for but hope was there, we dared to hope and we did and Cleo is back,” he said.
WA Police Deputy Commissioner Col Blanch released a statement on Wednesday morning announcing the groundbreaking development.
“It's my privilege to announce that in the early hours of this morning, the Western Australia Police Force rescued Cleo Smith,” Mr Blanch said.
“A police team broke their way into a locked house in Carnarvon about 1am. They found little Cleo in one of the rooms.
“One of the officers picked her up into his arms and asked her ‘what’s your name?’ She said ‘My name is Cleo’.”
A short time later, the missing toddler was reunited with family.
“This is the outcome we all hoped and prayed for. It‘s the outcome we’ve achieved because of some incredible police work,” Detective Blanch said.
“I want to thank Cleo’s parents, the Western Australian community and the many volunteers. And of course, I want to thank my colleagues in the Western Australia Police Force.
“We'll have more to say on the rescue of Cleo as the day unfolds. For now, welcome home Cleo.”
Cleo was found in a home in Tonkin Crescent, just a seven-minute drive away from her family home in Carnarvon.
Shocked neighbours said they saw Cleo being carried out of the home in the early hours of the morning looking “shocked and frightened”.
Police were also seen carrying a crow bar and a battering ram out of the house after breaking in and finding the girl.
Col Blanch later said “phone data” had helped lead them to the house where Cleo was found.
In an interview with Channel Nine this morning, Col Blanch said: “It will become apparent when we put the puzzle together ... It all led us to one place.”
He said when the final needle in the haystack came through police “acted in a heart beat.”
It has been confirmed Cleo was the only one in the home at the time. She was found in a locked room in a locked house.
Col Blanch said the 36-year-old man being questioned was picked up about the same time police broke down the door to the home where Cleo was found.
“It was a very dynamic situation,” he said.
Later he told 6PR footage from the body-worn camera of the detective who first located Cleo alone will stay with him forever.
“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,” Col Blanch 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. She basically looked straight in the camera and said, ‘my name is Cleo’,” he said.
WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson said the Carnarvon man in custody has no connection to Cleo’s family.
Mr Dawson said a trail of forensic evidence led them to the house where they found Cleo Smith early this morning.
“We followed every particular lead we had.
“It was methodical it was dedicated, it was dogged
“There was some really skilled work in finding her. I can’t release all those details, they will emerge. But it was following every particular lead.”
“There was some information which we followed up on. And it led us to a particular house.”
Cleo’s mother, Ellie Smith, posted a photo of her daughter with the caption “Our family is whole again” shortly after 8.30am AEST.
Messages of joy and claims of a miracle have inundated her Instagram account as people around the country celebrate the news Cleo has been found. The post attracted 774 comments in 20 minutes.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison expressed his relief at the breakthrough from Glasgow, where he is attending the COP26 climate summit.
“Our prayers have been answered,” he tweeted on Wednesday morning.
What wonderful, relieving news.
— Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) November 2, 2021
Cleo Smith has been found and is home safe and sound.
Our prayers answered.
Thank you to the many police officers involved in finding Cleo and supporting her family.
Western Australia’s top cop said he started crying when he heard the news Cleo was alive, NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said.
Commissioner Fuller said he spoke to his WA counterpart this morning.
“Whilst we were all hoping and praying, as the days went on the chances of finding her alive were so slim,” Commissioner Fuller told Sydney radio station 2GB.
“(Commissioner Dawson) said to me WA police never gave up on Cleo and it was just good old-fashioned police work that resulted in her being found alive.
“He said when he got the call this morning he broke down and cried.
“For a veteran in policing, it just speaks volumes in terms of the amount of effort they put in to finding her.
“You wouldn’t see too many tears from commissioners these days.”
WA PREMIER: ‘THEY WILL BE MAKING MOVIES ABOUT THIS’
“They will be making movies about this,” a visibly emotional WA Premier Mark McGowan told detectives and analysts involved in searching little Cleo, as then joked with the team about who would play who.
“I have a few ideas about who might play who but they were very excited by what they’ve done,” he recalled later.
The premier said there was “no doubt” charges would come from today’s events but the key thing was Cleo was with her family.
He said he was texted an image at 3am this morning of Cleo sitting up in a hospital bed smiling, police had been keeping him abreast of the evolving case in the hours leading up to her rescue.
He said he could not thank police and analysts enough for their work, usually unsung heroes.
“It often is a tragic outcome but this is great news and uplifting for the entire country, especially those who put their heart and soul into finding little Cleo,” he said.
“I know they are so proud and pleased with what has been achieved and often aren’t acknowledged and police are often not acknowledged for what they do and I want to make sure we all acknowledge them for what they’ve done to solve this.”
Mr McGowan described the abduction as “remarkably brazen and shocking” thing to do to go to someone’s campsite, unzip the tent and snatch a little girl.
“It is beyond belief really that someone would do that, like many people I love going out in a tent and camping particularly with my children and the idea someone would steal your child away is beyond awful,” he said.
He added that police across Australia would analyse how WA Police achieved this outcome, a combination he said of basic human work, utilising the best tech and instinct.
SUSPECT DID ‘LAPS’ BEFORE ENTERING HOUSE
Police had some information the man in custody would drive around the house “doing laps” before entering the property, possibly to see if there were strangers about or indeed if police were waiting for him.
He was described as a quiet man who kept to himself and was known by members of the community as a local.
He was not a clear suspect until just hours before he was arrested by detectives at a different property to where Cleo was found. They analysed phone data in the hours before they moved on him and the property at 12.46am WA time.
Police were armed with a battering ram and crow bar to enter the locked house and locked room where she was kept.
Police are now working backwards through a mountain of evidence to piece it all together to make their case as they continue to interview the suspect.
Early on, police attached to Task Force Rodia were told by superiors to ignore the “internet detectives” and trolls and not let their claims sway their focus on facts of the case, described as one of the most complex and expansive in Australian law enforcement history; the internet was alive pointing a suspecting finger at Cleo’s mother Ellie Smith and partner Jake Gliddon.
SUSPECT WAS ‘BUYING NAPPIES’ AT WOOLIES
Those in the small community of Carnarvon thought it was strange when they saw their neighbour buying nappies at the local Woolworths.
They did not know he had a toddler but thought little more of it until the early hours when they saw a detective carrying a child on his shoulder out of his home.
“We really are in shock, that it happened here,” said one neighbour who lives a few doors down from the Carnarvon home believed to be where Cleo Smith was found “alive and well”.
“We saw him buying Kimbies (nappies) at Woolworths but didn’t think … we are all a bit shocked that this has happened here on our street.”
More than 100 detectives have worked tirelessly on the case for 18 days since the missing four-year-old vanished from a camping trip in Quobba Blowholes in Macleod about a 50-minute drive away.
The case has captured the nation’s attention and in the end she was found alive in the centre of police operations, in a house about a two-minute drive from the police station that has been the headquarters for the massive search operation.
It is understood a single tip off came in overnight and detectives moved in about 12.46am in an apparently low-key raid on the suspect’s house.
She was found in the locked house alone.
Acting Police Commissioner Col Blanch said there was not a dry eye among his officers when Cleo was found.
“We were looking for that needle in the haystack then late last night they found that needle,” he said.
He said a tip off just from earlier in the day after a “hard, hard slog” poring through more than a thousand clues from intelligence and witness statements led them to the house.
“It was just an amazing moment, I have never seen seasoned detectives break down and cry with relief and I know that is the sentiment that is shared across the community,” he told Channel 7.
“It’s just an amazing moment and I still can’t believe it at this time … from the commissioner down we have all had tears in our eyes this morning … a massive outpouring of relief.
“It was an extraordinary moment this morning when the police in there asked her name and she answered back in her little voice ‘my name is Cleo’, there is not a dry eye in the house when you hear something like that. The look in the police officers’ faces said it all, they were shocked, they were emotional, they picked up Cleo into their arms, just an amazing, amazing moment. . .
DESPERATE SEARCH FOR 18 DAYS
The desperate search for Cleo Smith led police to scour through tonnes of rubbish in a bid to find any crucial evidence that could solve her mystery disappearance.
Officers on Monday collected more than 50 cubic metres of rubbish from roadside bins as far north as Minilya, which is about 1020 kilometres north of Perth, and as far south as Geraldton.
“The rubbish was packed into two trucks and transported to Perth, where four forensics officers and 20 recruits spent two days sorting through hundreds of bags in an effort to find any items that may assist in the investigation,” police said in a statement.
However, nothing of significance was found.
West Australian Premier Mark McGowan had previously hit out at online trolls who had accused Cleo parents of being involved in the four-year-old girl’s disappearance despite police repeatedly saying they are not suspects.
Police suspected Cleo was abducted from the family tent at the Quobba Blowholes campground, in Macleod near Carnarvon in WA’s north, on October 16.
Mr McGowan, who along with his young family has recently copped threats from anti-vaxxers over his Covid-19 vaccine mandate, said he could sympathise with Cleo’s parents after they were subjected to abuse online.
“They’re going through a huge amount of angst and pain and suffering — they don’t need this,” he told reporters on Sunday.
“I just don’t get why some people get all this courage when they get a keyboard, and they say the most horrible and shocking things that they would never say otherwise.
“I just urge them to stop. This social media world where people are just emboldened to say shocking and horrible things is awful.
“I just urge people to go back to a sense of decency and civility towards one another, particularly (towards) people who are suffering.”
Police have repeatedly said Cleo’s mother Ellie Smith, stepfather Jake Gliddon and biological father Daniel Staines are not suspects in the case.
When asked about the online trolls on Friday, lead investigator Detective Superintendent Rod Wilde said it was terrible.
“They (the parents) have been very helpful. We’re doing everything we can to find out what happened to Cleo,” he told reporters.
“They’re holding up, but I just ask all members of the public, it’s not helpful for anyone to publish anything online.”
Cleo was last seen about 1.30am on that fateful day when she woke to ask for water.
About 6am, when Ms Smith and Mr Gliddon woke up, they discovered Cleo and her sleeping bag were missing, prompting a large scale search.
Originally published as Cleo Smith found alive: WA police find missing girl in Carnarvon house
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