JUST after midnight yesterday, police in Western Australia broke down the door of a locked home in the small town of Carnarvon, ending an extensive 18-day search for a missing 4-year-old girl. A police video caught the moment an officer picked up the child and asked her, “What’s your name?” The girl replied, “My name is Cleo,” according to police. Cleo Smith’s rescue came more than two weeks after she disappeared from her family’s tent at a remote campsite at Quobba Blowholes, a popular tourist spot on the coast, around 950 kilometers north of Perth. Her disappearance triggered a massive police search that initially covered several square kilometers around the site and later extended nationwide as alerts were issued for sightings of the girl. Police said yesterday that evidence had led them to that specific home, a short drive from the family residence where her distraught parents had spent weeks anxiously waiting for updates about the police investigation. “We were looking for a needle in a haystack and we found it, that led us to what happened at 12:46 a.m. this morning,” Deputy Police Commissioner Col Blanch said. Officers entered the locked home and found Cleo alone in one of the rooms, Blanch said. “When she said ‘My name is Cleo,’ I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house,” he added. “I have seen seasoned detectives openly crying with relief. I am speechless which is very rare ... this is something we all hoped in our hearts, and it has come true.” Cleo’s mother, Ellie Smith, who had issued tearful pleas for help in finding her child, posted to Instagram: “Our family is whole again.” A 36-year-old man with “no family connection” is in police custody, WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson said. He was not in the house at the time of the raid, Blanch said, and is currently being questioned. Cleo disappeared in the early hours of Oct. 16 from the family’s tent at a campsite near the Blowholes, about 48 kilometers north of the home in Carnarvon. They’d arrived the night before on their first camping trip as a family of four. Around 8 p.m. Cleo settled in for the night in a sleeping bag, lying just feet away from her mother, stepfather and baby sister, police said. Smith said Cleo had woken at 1:30 a.m. and asked her for a drink of water before going back to sleep. When Smith woke again at 6 a.m., Cleo was gone. As police swarmed to the scene, helicopters and drones scanned the rugged landscape near the campsite, a short walk from the coast where waves smash up against the cliffs. Justin Borg, from Coral Coast Helicopter Services, deployed a team to scan the area — they ended up searching for three days. He described the sandy hills as slow-moving terrain, the type of ground that made walking slow and difficult: “It’s soft sand and prickly underfoot,” he said. “When we hadn’t found her by the first hour or two, then we were automatically thinking that she’s been taken,” Borg added. Cleo’s sleeping bag was also missing and the zip on the tent was at such a height that police surmised she had been abducted. Smith and her partner, Jake Gliddon, made public appeals for help to find their child. “Everyone asks us what you need — all we really need is our little girl home,” said Smith, who described her daughter as beautiful and delicate with “the biggest heart.” “Every day she wants to wear a princess dress,” she said. “She’s so sweet — everything you’d want in a little girl.” Throughout the investigation, police said they had no suspects and repeatedly ruled out Cleo’s family as to having any involvement in her disappearance. One of the few leads came from witnesses who reported seeing a car heading south on the main road from the campsite to Carnarvon. Police urged the driver or occupants of the vehicle to come forward. As of Tuesday, police hadn’t revealed if they had found that car. Earlier this week, police sorted through hundreds of bags of trash collected from roadside bins north and south of the campsite where Cleo went missing. Officers also started visiting homes in the Carnarvon area, looking for any sign of the girl. Blanch, the deputy police commissioner, said the task force of 100 officers had gathered “massive amounts of evidence.” However, he didn’t reveal the specific clue that led police to the house in Carnarvon where Cleo was found. Officers who broke in found Cleo alone in the home — she appeared to be in good physical health though was being examined by medical professionals, Blanch said. She was reunited with her parents soon after police carried her to a waiting car, he said. (SD-Agencies) | 