Two rooms hold keys to Cleo Smith’s 18 days of hell as WA Police continue investigation

A group of 160 police is now zeroing in on how Cleo Smith spent her 18 days in captivity. This is where their efforts are being spent.

It was dubbed the biggest crime scene in the world with a radius of 1000km but the case of Cleo Smith is now down to a couple of rooms and a 36-year-old suspect, who is expected to be charged this morning.

Police have yet to charge a man who spent last night in custody after he was believed to have been arrested in a car over the alleged abduction of the four-year-old, whose rescue has made headlines around the world from Manila to Moscow.

For 18 days the West Australian community of Carnarvon held its breath – along with most of the nation — as 160 police and intelligence analysts sifted through thousands of pieces of evidence and data.

Then the break came at 12.46am on Wednesday when police found little Cleo “alive and well”, alone in a locked house just two minutes from the police station.

WA Police deputy police commissioner Col Blanch said it was a victory but the hard work had “begun again”.

Police forensics at the house where Cleo was found. Picture: Colin Murty

He said despite the “bags under the eyes” of the men and women working in Task Force Rodia, they knew they still had a job to finish. Some still had “a lot of work to do”.

“At the end of the day people have to be held accountable for what’s happened to Cleo and we’ve got to make sure we have collected all the evidence to do that and present it before a court,” he said.

The suspect was briefly taken to hospital yesterday afternoon for a self-inflicted injury after his arrest but he was back in hospital Thursday morning.

Four-year-old Cleo Smith being rescued by police in Carnarvon, Western Australia.

He was expected to be at Carnarvon police station being questioned later on.

Forensic officers are still going through his house to look for crucial evidence related to Cleo’s disappearance. Key to the investigation will be the sleeping bag she was in when she went missing from the Blowholes campsite, about 80km north of Carnarvon.

Some potential evidence found in the home on Wednesday is understood to have been flown to Perth for further analysis.

Detective Sergeant Rod Wilde revealed the man, believed to have been known to police, only emerged as a suspect in the hours before his arrest.

Sgt Wilde said it had been a methodological investigation trying to piece together “who was where and at what time”.

“There is no other person that we suspect was involved,” he said.

He confirmed crucial evidence centred on the movements of a car, seen on CCTV, for what he described as “an opportunistic” crime.

He said CCTV footage was analysed within 1000km radius of Carnarvon.

“That is the level of detail you go to with these type of investigations,” he said.

Originally published as Two rooms hold keys to Cleo Smith’s 18 days of hell as WA Police continue investigation