CANBERRA, Australia — As Cleo Smith returned to her family home on Thursday, a stranger was charged with abducting the 4-year-old from a camping tent last month.
The astonishing recovery of the little girl after 18 days was celebrated across Australia.
Terry Kelly, 36, was charged with offenses including forcibly taking a child, a police statement said. He appeared briefly in court; a magistrate refused to release him on bail.
Kelly was not in his Carnarvon home when officers raided it early Wednesday. Police said he was arrested around the same time on a nearby street.
Cleo’s family also lives in Carnarvon, about two miles from Kelly’s house, but there is no known connection with the suspect.
Detective Superintendent Rod Wilde, who heads the police investigation, said specialist child interviewers had traveled to the town from the state capital, Perth, and would be speaking with Cleo.
Another of the lead investigators, Detective Senior Sergeant Cameron Blaine, told reporters: “I can only see her on the outside, but from that point of view, I’m amazed that she seems to be so well-adjusted and happy, and it was really … heartwarming to see that she’s still bubbly and she’s laughing.”
Blaine was part of a four-member police team that used a battering ram to smash into Kelly’s locked house. The lights were on and Cleo was alone and awake.
“My name is Cleo,” the girl told the police officers who asked her name as confirmation that they had found the right child.
Kelly was taken from police detention to a hospital late Wednesday and again on Thursday, with what media reported were self-inflicted injuries.
Asked about reports Kelly was injured after banging his head against a cell wall, Western Australia Police Deputy Commissioner Col Blanch only replied that there were “no serious injuries.”
A police statement said Kelly’s “medical matter does not relate to any police involvement with him.”
Police have disclosed little information about what made the man a suspect.
“It wasn’t a random tip or a clairvoyant or any of the sort of things that you might hear,” Police Minister Paul Papalia said. “It was just a hard police grind.”
Cleo was taken in her sleeping bag from her family’s tent at Quobba Blowholes, a beachfront camping area about 45 miles from Carnarvon, between 1:30 a.m. and 6 a.m. on Oct. 16. Her mother and stepfather were sleeping just feet away on the other side of a partition.
A fellow camper had reported a car speeding away around 3 a.m., and police combed roadsides and trash barrels between the campground and the town.
Xanthe Mallett, a criminologist at Australia’s Newcastle University, said finding a victim of stranger abduction alive after more than two weeks was rare.
“Sadly, they’re normally killed quickly, usually during the first three hours,” Mallett said.
The Carnarvon community’s willingness to help police find Cleo was likely a key factor in the investigation’s success, she said. Police had offered a 1 million Australian dollar ($743,000) reward for information, but don’t expect the money will be claimed.
“I always thought that this was going to be somebody with local connections because it was somebody who knew that campsite, so the fact that she was so close to that campsite and so close to Cleo’s home wasn’t a surprise to me,” Mallett said.
After Kelly’s arrest, neighbors spoke to reporters about his recent behavior that they considered odd: He had been seen buying diapers at a supermarket, and he had recently moved his dogs from the backyard to the front.
Source: Orange County Register
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