Incredible moment ‘Australia’s Maddie’ Cleo Smith, four, is rescued by police

This is the incredible moment four-year-old Cleo Smith was rescued from a stranger’s house in Western Australia, 18 days after going missing from a remote campsite where she was staying with her family. 

Cleo, dubbed ‘Australia’s Madeleine McCann‘, was discovered by detectives around 1am Wednesday alone inside the bedroom of a locked house in Carnarvon – a rural town 47 miles from the campsite where she vanished on October 16, and just two miles from her family home.

In the footage, police can be seen carrying the tired-eyed girl into the garden of the house before a detective asks whether she is OK. When Cleo smiles and nods, he tells her: ‘We’re going to take you to see your mummy and daddy, OK?’

The tender moment brings to an end a desperate investigation that began when Ellie Smith – Cleo’s mother – reported her missing from a tent the family was sharing on the Blowholes campsite, and which had been overshadowed from day one by fears of a tragic ending for the little girl.

But Cleo is now safe and recovering in the company of her parents – having been pictured smiling from a hospital bed while eating an ice lolly, waving to the camera as her mother’s hand rests on her leg. Rod Wilde, the detective who led the investigation, said Cleo is ‘physically OK’ after being checked by doctors.

Meanwhile police have arrested a 36-year-old man, who they have not yet named or charged, in connection with her disappearance. The man was pictured being taken to hospital with a bandage around his head in the early hours, after apparently being beaten by other inmates when taken into custody. 

Neighbours described his as ‘a loner’ who had been behaving ‘weirdly’ in recent days, including one who recalled seeing him buying nappies in a nearby supermarket despite not having children. 

Detectives say the man was not at the house when Cleo was found, but was arrested a ‘short’ distance away. He is not known to Cleo’s family and is not a registered sex offender, detective Wilde added, but said he is ‘known to police’ for other issues, without elaborating. ‘I have to be very careful about that,’ he said. 

Cleo was first reported missing at 6.23am on October 16 by Ellie, who said she had last seen the girl asleep next to her in the family’s tent at 1.30am but awoke to find her gone. The tent zipper was undone, and the sleeping bag that Cleo was using had also disappeared.

Police quickly launched a search and rescue operation, using helicopters, drones, dogs and officers to scour the sparse countryside around the campsite and nearby coastline amid fears Cleo had wandered off. But after no sign of her was uncovered, police quickly pivoted to the theory that she had been taken.

Officers trawled through hours of CCTV footage, combed satellite images, interviewed other campers and even dug through rubbish heaps for any sign of the missing girl before a ‘tip off’ led them to the Carnarvon house. 

Police have not yet outlined how or why they believe Cleo was taken from the campsite, or how she came to be inside the locked house, just a two minute drive from their own headquarters. 

Investigators have also not disclosed exactly what led them to the house, saying only that a report of a car in the area was crucial to tracking the girl down.

Officers had previously spoken of trying to trace a car seen leaving the Blowholes campsite around 3am the day Cleo vanished. 

Detective Blaine, who has been working the case since Cleo vanished, said the first thing he did upon finding the little girl was to ask her for her name. After three attempts she finally replied: ‘My name is Cleo.’

Once he realised they had found the missing girl, Blaine said detectives were ‘openly crying with relief’ before calling Cleo’s parents to tell them the good news.

‘We’ve got someone here that wants to speak to you,’ Blaine recalled telling Ellie as he put Cleo on the phone, before adding: ‘Please start making your way to the hospital, we’ll meet you there.’

The family were then reunited as doctors gave Cleo a check-up, with Blaine saying the little girl shouted ‘mummy’ before the pair shared a hug and kisses.

‘It was really an honour to be able to witness that reunion,’ he said. Asked whether that moment counts as the highlight of his career, he added: ‘Without a doubt.’

Mother Ellie then took to social media to express her relief, posting a picture of her daughter with the caption underneath: ‘Our family is whole again.’ 

Speaking about the moment Cleo was found, Blaine said: ‘It was a shock to start with, quickly followed by elation. That could have been any one of the team, but it turned out I was one of four guys that were fortunate enough to go through that door and make that rescue.

‘We had always hoped for that outcome, but were not prepared for it. It was absolutely fantastic to see her sitting there in the way that she was. It was incredible.’

‘I wanted to be sure it was her. I said, “What is your name?” She didn’t answer, I asked three times, and then she looked at me and said, “My name is Cleo.”

‘And that was it. Then we turned around and walked out of the house. Not long after that we got into the car and the officer called Cleo’s parents. It was a wonderful feeling to make that call.’

Police used battering rams and crowbars to break their way into the Carnarvon house, located on the outskirts of town in a suburb called Brockman, with neighbours telling Daily Mail Australia they were first alerted to the commotion when flood lights lit up their cul-de-sac in the middle of Tuesday night. 

‘My nephews went up to see what was going on and then they saw cops leading out the little white girl,’ a neighbour said. 

He added that he has known the owner of the property for more than a decade, describing him as ‘a loner’ who ‘kept to himself’ and was not the type to stop and talk to others who lived on the street.

He last saw the man just three days after Cleo disappeared. ‘His grandmother raised him… but after she died a year or so ago, nobody went over to [speak] to him,’ the man said.

‘He got a new car after… he used to park it in the driveway and then close the gate, every day, always went and put the car in the same spot and closed the gate.’

Former friends added that the man had not long been released from jail, though did not say what he was in prison for. Police said only that he was ‘known’ to them and was not a registered sex offender.

While a handful of people witnessed the moment Cleo was rescued, others in Carnarvon woke to the news that she was safe – with the streets of the usually-quiet town, population 4,500, filled with pink balloons and ‘welcome back’ signs.  

Superintendent Wilde said Cleo was in good spirits and communicating well with officers after being found, though added that there are more interviews to do in coming days.

‘Having seen her a couple times this morning, she is a little Energiser bunny. How she has that much energy, I wish I did, I am about ready to go to sleep,’ he said.

‘Very sweet, energetic girl. Very trusting and very open with us. We all wanted to take turns holding her. It was a really good experience.’ 

Police said the man arrested only became a suspect in the case on Tuesday, the same day that Wilde revealed officers were trawling the ‘Dark Web’ for images of the girl.

Hours before Cleo was found, Wilde also said he believes her disappearance was an ‘opportunistic’ kidnapping by someone who had only been aware of Cleo for a ‘short time’. Police have not yet elaborated on whether any of that information turned out to be accurate.

The early-hours raid came after officers received a tip-off Tuesday night with ‘really important information about a car’, which they confirmed with phone data and ‘a lot of forensic leads’.

Neighbours interviewed after the raid also recalled other signs that a child was being kept at the property, but said they only realised the connection to Cleo in hindsight. 

Sahntayah McKenzie recalled hearing a little girl crying one night, but did not think anything of it at the time.

‘Not last night, the night before it… I heard a little girl crying but I wouldn’t expect it to be Cleo,’ she told the West Australian. ‘I didn’t expect it would happen in this little neighbourhood, a lot of people know each other.’ 

It’s reported that police were tipped off to the address after neighbours spotted the suspect buying nappies.

One of them told Seven News she became suspicious after seeing the suspect buying Kimbies nappies from a supermarket. 

‘The other day, I think it was Monday, we saw him in Woolworths buying nappies but we didn’t click on who it was or what he was buying them for,’ she said. ‘Until now.’

Another neighbour told Nine he had spotted the arrested man behaving bizarrely in recent days, driving at speed through the streets with his dogs in the front seat of his car.

‘He’s been acting a bit strange lately,’ Henry Dodd told Nine News. ‘He will get in his car, drive that fast. 

‘He doesn’t have his dogs at the front [normally], he has his dogs out the back, but through this week he had his dogs out the front and he has been acting weird.’

Henry Dodd said police spent several hours driving up and down the street before breaking into the home.

Neighbours described the man as ‘quiet’ and said they wouldn’t expect him to be involved.

‘Everyone that knows the person that stays in that house, wouldn’t think that it would be him,’ he said.

‘We got a shock ourselves that it was him.’

Another neighbour told the Today show: ‘S**t, she’s been that close.’

Another local described the man in custody as an ‘oddball’.

‘He is a very quiet guy, bit of an oddball… definitely wouldn’t have picked him… it has completely derailed me,’ Rennee Turner said.

‘I’d heard whispers… I kind of figured the police might have had an idea of what was going on, because I have never seen such a massive amount of cops here for so long.’ 

Others said he in recent weeks bought food he didn’t usually buy, and that he moved his dog that usually stayed in the backyard to the front yard.

Neighbours who witnessed the dramatic police raid, after which officers were seen carrying a crow bar and a battering ram out of the house, described how Cleo was carried to safety.

‘We stood back and waited but after that, we saw someone, on the detective shoulder. We thought it might be the little girl, which it was,’ Henry Dodd told Seven News.

‘I went closer to the detectives car and I saw her in the back of the car with the detective, he was holding her. They put her in the back and I came over, rushed over here and seen her there. She looked at me, a bit scared.’ 

Mr Dodd said he was shocked he had been just metres away from her while the nationwide hunt was going on for her.

‘I just can’t believe it and get over the fact that she is just the house down from us and locked up here for a couple of weeks,’ he added.

‘Going on three weeks, she is straight across from us. I’ve got little sisters there…’  

Deputy WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch said Tuesday night’s tip was the final piece of the puzzle that allowed detectives to finally track down Cleo.

‘We’ve collected phone data, witness statements, DNA, fingerprints, rubbish along the highways, CCTV – we’ve collected everything,’ he said.

‘The million dollar reward helped us with collecting even more from the members of the public. Everyone came forward to helping us.

‘There were car movements, there were phone movements, there were antecedents of people, the jigsaw fit the puzzle.

‘We had to find that needle. Last night the needle in the haystack came out and they acted in a heartbeat.’ 

The vital tip-off was the last piece of the puzzle in a case that until then frustrated and eluded detectives and had Australians fearing Cleo would never be found, let alone alive.

Police said Cleo was smiling when she was rescued at the house, with the moment captured on police bodycam footage that brought a tear to his eye.

‘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,’ he 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.’

Daily Mail Australia understands a local police officer rang Cleo’s mother to break the incredible news. She is now in hospital for assessment.

Ms Smith wrote on Instagram hours later: ‘Our family is whole again.’

A close family friend also revealed the emotional message Ms Smith earlier wrote to her loved ones to let them know her ‘beautiful girl is home’.

‘To be woken at 4.50am with my phone going crazy and see the words Cleo is home alive and safe,’ she wrote on Facebook.

‘Seeing Ellie saying her ‘beautiful girl is home’ is nothing short of a miracle.’ 

In a local Facebook group, a concerned local suggested people in the small town remove ‘missing’ posters and stickers to prevent the family from suffering any more trauma.

But the youngster’s mother Ellie Smith commented on the post to let people know it was unnecessary.

‘Cleo has seen her photo. She thought it was beautiful,’ Ms Smith wrote.

Cleo’s biological father Daniel Staines, who lives with his parents about 1,000km south of Carnarvon in Halls Head, said he is ‘overjoyed’ that the little girl was found alive.

‘We are all absolutely overjoyed at the good news this morning and so happy that Cleo has been reunited with her mum and dad,’ the Staines family said in a statement to The West Australian.

‘Thank you to everyone who helped look for her and bring her home, particularly the WA Police, SES and the Carnarvon community.’

 They sent Cleo, her step-father Jake Gliddon and Ellie their ‘best wishes’. 

What happened to Cleo in the house where she was held captive for more than two weeks, without her family, but psychologists said she would have a long road to recovery.

Police Air Wing PC12 picked up the suspect, who has no relation to Cleo’s family, from Carnarvon and landed at Perth’s Jandakot Airport late on Wednesday morning. 

Police Commissioner Chris Dawson was on board the plane and will spend the day meeting with police involved in the rescue and checking in with Cleo’s family.

The police chief broke down in tears upon learning the heartwarming news. He said Cleo was as good as can be expected.

‘I saw the vision, Cleo is a beautiful little four-year-old girl,’ he said.

‘She’s as well as we could expect in the circumstances. She’s alive, well, smiling, so it is a wonderful, wonderful result.’

He said Cleo’s parents were emotional but doing well.

‘They’re strong people, they are really strong people. They have good support around them,’ Commissioner Dawson said. 

‘It’s a wonderful result today but it’ll be a tough journey for them.’