Police play down Cleo Smith family home search

Forensics officers from the WA Police Force returned to the family home of missing four-year-old Cleo Smith on Wednesday, 12 days since she vanished.

A police officer leaves the family home on Wednesday with what appear to be evidence bags. Picture: Jackson Flindell

Forensics officers from the West Australian Police Force returned to the family home of missing four-year-old Cleo Smith on Wednesday, 12 days since she vanished from a remote campground about 960km north of Perth.

It was the third time forensics officers investigating Cleo’s disappearance had been spotted at the Carnarvon home, 890km north of Perth.

On Saturday they limited their work to the outside of the house. Police wearing gloves and face masks looked for signs someone may have been watching the house or stalking Cleo. They tested for fingerprints on outside window frames and at least one perimeter fence.

On Tuesday and again on Wednesday, the forensics team went inside the house and emerged with what appeared to be evidence bags.

The family is believed to have decided not to move back into the house since Cleo went missing. Cleo’s stepfather Jake Gliddon met police at the front gate of the property on the weekend and showed them in.

Police have maintained there are no suspects. A police source told The Australian the forensic officers’ work at the family home was standard for an investigation into the disappearance of a child. It did not mean there had been a development.

Cleo’s disappearance sparked a massive week-long land, air and sea search in and around the Blowholes Campground where she was last seen. But the search was scaled back and ended on Friday when police concluded Cleo was not in the area.

Cleo’s mother Ellie Smith has given harrowing accounts of waking in the family tent at 6am on October 16 to discovering Cleo and her sleeping bag gone. Police say the zip on the tent flap closest to where Cleo had been sleeping on a mattress was open to a height Cleo could not have reached.

Ms Smith last saw Cleo at 1.30am on October 16 when she gave her a sip of water. A divider inside the family tent separated where Ms Smith and Mr Gliddon slept from where Cleo slept next to her baby sister Isla in a cot.

Police say a car seen on the main road to the Blowholes Campground at 3am on October 16 could be significant. It was driving away from the campground and turned south on to North West Coastal Highway towards the town of Carnarvon.