Methodical analysis of thousands of pieces of information and data helped police discover the "needle in the haystack" that led them to Cleo Smith.
Key points:
- WA police found Cleo Smith in a Carnarvon house yesterday
- They say it was hard work rather than chance that led to her discovery
- A 36-year-old man is in custody and is expected to be charged
After almost three weeks of searching, police yesterday found the four-year-old in a house and took into custody a 36-year-old man they are expected to lay charges against.
It wasn't a tip-off, it wasn't an accidental sighting, or pure chance.
"It was the hard work of the team that did it," said Detective Superintendent Rod Wilde, who led the 140-strong team that never gave up hope of finding Cleo.
"Analysing all of that information, gathering it all, working through it and finding that needle in a haystack."
But what was that needle?
Superintendent Wilde said there was no one particular thing, but there was a development that led to a rapid breakthrough in the case when the dots lined up.
Information or evidence that led police to a Housing Commission home in a working-class suburb in Carnarvon, just three kilometres from Cleo's family home.
Police forced their way into the home, where Cleo was found in a bedroom on her own, 18 days after she disappeared from her family's campsite at the Blowholes, 70 kilometres north of the Gascoyne town.
Did it involve CCTV footage of the car which had turned off Blowholes Road towards Carnarvon between 3am and 3:30am on the day Cleo went missing, and the identification of a registration number?
Was there a crucial piece of mobile phone data?
Was it a clue found in the ashes of the campfire at the Blowholes, carefully combed through by forensic officers?
Or was it from something they found in the rubbish from the campsite?
Perhaps they came across the missing piece of the puzzle when officers searched inside and outside the family home in Carnarvon.
They searched the home three times, removing bags of evidence in a trailer, all the while reiterating Cleo's parents were not suspects.
Police certainly left no stone unturned in their efforts.
They spent days and nights relentlessly grid searching the Blowholes area, witnesses were interviewed, CCTV footage from homes and businesses in Carnarvon and as far as 1000 kilometres away was reviewed, and there were more than 1,000 calls from the community.
Superintendent Wilde described a methodical investigation where evidence was gathered and put together to paint a picture of what happened.
"It's a matter of piecing it through, working out who was there, who was where at the wrong time, and that's what happened," he said.
And that is what took police to the duplex where Cleo was found at 12:46am on Wednesday.
In the pitch black, four officers broke down the door of the locked home and found a blonde-haired little girl in one of the bedrooms.
Officer says reunion was highlight of his career
"To see her sitting there in the way that she was, it was just incredible," one of the four officers, Detective Senior Sergeant Cameron Blaine, said.
Twice he asked her what her name was, and twice she didn't answer, possibly scared or shocked at seeing these people in the middle of the night.
They walked straight back out of the house, one of the officers carrying Cleo in his arms.
Extraordinary bodycam video from one of the officers shows what then happens in Cleo's first moments of freedom.
"Cleo, my name's Cameron. How are you? Are you OK?" Senior Sergeant Blaine gently asks.
She nods with a half smile, nervously pulling at the hoodie of the policeman carrying her with both hands.
"We're going to take you to see your mummy and daddy, OK? Is that good?"
Cleo nods again, more enthusiastically.
That reunion, between mother and daughter, was "without a doubt" the best moment of Senior Sergeant Blaine's career.
"Mummy," Cleo cried as she was swept into her mother's arms.
"Big hugs, kisses and lots of tears," Senior Sergeant Blaine recalls with a smile on his face.
"It was an honour to witness that reunion."
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2021-11-03 16:17:26Z
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