‘He wanted a little doll. It’s just so sickening and disgusting’: Cleo Smith’s parents give first TV interview
Cleo Smith’s parents have released uplifting footage of the four-year-old shortly after her rescue as they revealed new details from the day she went missing.
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Newly-released footage of Cleo Smith shows the four-year-old smiling as she plays shortly after her rescue, as her parents reveal their daughters kidnapping was opportunistic.
Dressed in pink PJs, the brave preschooler is seen happily dancing and singing and twirling hours after the end to her 18-day kidnapping ordeal.
In other snippets, Cleo blow bubbles, cuddles her baby sister Isla, plays on a waterslide and paints her dad’s toenails.
Cleo was snatched from her family’s tent as they all slept at a campsite near Carnarvon in Western Australia on October 16.
During a tell-al interview won 60 Minutes aired on Sunday night, Celo’s family revealed her pretty, pink bicycle placed outside the tent alerted her kidnapper that a little girl must be inside.
Cleo’s mum Ellie Smith said the man who stole her daughter had not been stalking them or following and wasn’t there when they were setting up camp.
“He came after. He’s seen the bike,” she said.
“He’s seen that we had a child, and it was just the time and the place for that person to take her.”
She said they were told it was an opportunistic crime.
“We weren’t a target. … it was just the time and the place that he could do it.” she said.
In a tell-all interview with 60 Minutes Ms Smith and Cleo’s stepdad Jake Gliddon have shared their never-before-heard story of what happened from the heart wrenching moment they discovered four-year-old Cleo missing from their tent, until her miraculous police rescue 18 days later.
“That’s what he wanted, he wanted a little doll. It’s just so sickening and disgusting,” Ms Smith said.
It is believed the family were paid $2 million for the interview which went to air after Cleo’s kidnapper Terence Darrell Kelly, 36, suddenly pleaded guilty to a charge of child stealing.
Cleo was snatched from the tent where she was sleeping with her baby sister Isla, Ms Smith and Mr Gliddon during the night of October 16 last year.
The family of four had been camping at a remote beach known as the Quobba Blowholes, north of the fishing town of Carnarvon, nearly 1000km north of Perth.
“IT WAS A NIGHTMARE”
Ms Smith woke early the morning after their first night to find Cleo and her sleeping bag missing, and the tent zipped open to a height only an adult could reach.
Stepfather Jake Gliddon said he knew Cleo would not have gone off by herself.
“I was a bit worried because I didn’t think she would actually leave the tent by herself, ‘cause she’s pretty timid. Scared of the dark, so I knew she wouldn’t be out there by herself,” he said.
Ms Smith and Mr Gliddon also realised the tent flap on their side of the tent had been opened a small amount.
“He’s taken a step in there, grabbed our child and we were sleeping right next to it all … we were a metre away from them and it was just so gut-wrenching that someone could step into a tent and take our child,” said Ms Smith.
When police started to investigate they a footprint inside the tent and DNA which provided crucial clues in the hunt for the man who stole their daughter.
“He has taken a step inside there and we are sleeping right next to it all,” said Ms Smith.
“So, not only did he have access, obviously, to Cleo, but he had access to Isla, and we were, you know, a metre away from them, and it was just …. yeah, it was just so gut-wrenching that someone could step into a tent and take our child.”
As Ms Smith later found out during the 18 days Cleo was missing, Kelly was following the mother-of-two on Facebook.
“It’s so heartless, I was begging for my daughter and someone had her and was reading me begging for her back,” she said.
THE FAMILY IS WHOLE AGAIN
Ms Smith remembered the moment the call came in from the police to say her daughter had been found.
“I was asleep when the phone call came through and I was like, this is either good or bad,” she said.
She answered it and a police officer said: “I’ve got someone who wants to say hello to you, and I was swearing, I was like, oh my God, no way. Cleo got onto the phone and she’s like, ‘hi mummy’, and I was like, ‘hi baby, hi’.”
When they arrived at the hospital Cleo was sitting on the bed.
“We just kind of ran up to her and were like, ‘Hi!’ and she was like, ‘Hi mum’, like nothing had happened,” Ms Smith said.
“I’m like, ‘I missed you’, and she’s like, ‘yeah I missed you too’, and it was beautiful, and I’m holding her. Jake’s right behind me and we’re trying to take turns but both don’t want to let her go.”
CHANGES TO CLEO’S APPEARANCE
It didn’t take long for the couple to notice differences in their daughter.
“We’d seen her hair was cut, her hair was dyed,” Ms Smith said.
“I was just angry that someone tried changing her to kind of fit what they wanted. She (Cleo) said she got the pink put in her hair and then it washed out, she said it didn’t work, and we had to then get her hair cut again because it was basically all cut into chunks.”
She also told them about being held prisoner in Kelly’s home.
“She told us that she was scared, she was locked in a room … and she didn’t know where we were,” Ms Smith said.
But the couple have not pushed Cleo to relive any more of her ordeal than she is willing to share. As Ms Smith says, their lives have changed forever, Cleo has been changed forever, but this is their new life and they will deal with what comes along.
“We don’t know the full story, but it’s just minor things she would say, her necklace was taken off her, and she’d turn and say, ‘But mum, my necklace is still at that place’,” Ms Smith said.
“Her emotions are very up and down … she’s blocked out a lot as to what’s happened, she kind of went into survivor mode and pushed it very far away.
“We’ve got a long way to go and so does she, she’s probably going to have to be dealing with this for the rest of her life and we’re going to eventually have to find out everything that’s happened and we’re going to have to carry that as well.”
THE DAYS AFTER CLEO’S RESCUE
“When police found Cleo, she was awake, so one o’clock in the morning she was awake playing with cars, just little cars, so her night and day was very mixed up,” Ms Smith said.
“I was going to explode, I was just so angry the things (Cleo) was saying, I just needed a second to get away so I didn’t give off my anger while she was there because I didn’t want her to know that was how I was feeling.
“As a parent, you want to … make sure that they stay as a child for as long as they can because you don’t want them to be in this big, bad world, and she lost that, that was taken from her.”
And while Cleo was recovering, she has happy, sad and angry moments, her mum said.
“Every day is a new day, every day and night is different, but she’s okay,” Ms Smith said. “She’s happy, she’s bubbly, she’s sad, she’s angry, but she’s getting there.”
After the elation of having Cleo back, Ms Smith and Mr Gliddon began to notice more changes in their daughter. Cleo becomes upset if a door in the house is closed.
“The first week, it was probably the worst, we had to have all the doors open, all the lights on, just for her to go to sleep and even then, she would wake up screaming. It was nightmare after nightmare after being through the nightmare,” Ms Smith said.
“Her emotions are very up and down. She would lash out a lot. A lot of the time, she never really understood her feelings, so during our healing process that’s kind of what we’re doing, helping her understand it’s okay to be angry, it’s okay to be sad, it’s okay to be happy, we’re just helping her along the way with her journey now.”
WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE FAMILY?
As for what’s next, the family has a big announcement. They have decided to leave Carnarvon for a fresh start in a new town. They have bought a caravan and when the borders open up they will hit the road.
They are determined to give their girls the amazing life they always wanted to.
“Hopefully we find somewhere that is pretty similar to what we love and what we do because we don’t want to let go of everything that we are and who we are, we want to still build our girls’ childhoods the way we wanted to with fishing and camping, we’re just going to do it on the road for a little bit and then find somewhere to settle down,” Ms Smith said.
“They are going to have such an amazing life and we’re going to stay positive about that.”
Originally published as ‘He wanted a little doll. It’s just so sickening and disgusting’: Cleo Smith’s parents give first TV interview
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