The man accused of abducting four-year-old Cleo Smith from her family tent and holding her captive for 18 days has been identified as Carnarvon man, Terence Kelly.
The 36-year-old was picked up by WA Police after detectives raided his locked Tonkin Crescent home at 12.46am on Wednesday local time and found the little girl alone inside a bedroom.
Terence Kelly.
On Thursday, Mr Kelly was charged with forcibly or fraudulently taking or enticing a child. He is due to appear before Carnarvon Magistrates Court.
WA Police Detective Senior Sergeant Cameron Blaine said Cleo was found in physically good health in a bedroom inside Mr Kelly’s house.
“The lights were on and she was playing with toys, I think that’s about all I want to say. This is still a matter that needs to go before the courts. There’s certain aspects about what we saw that is going to be evidence,” he said.
Detectives declined to comment on whether dolls were found inside the house, with the head of Taskforce Rodia, Superintendent Rod Wilde, telling journalists he “didn’t want to go into that”.
Neighbours described Mr Kelly as a loner who lived in his public housing property by himself. In recent days, residents said he had been coming and going from the house with groceries.
“He’s been acting a bit strange lately, he would get in his car drive that fast,” one neighbour said.
“He doesn’t have his dog out the front, he had his dog out the back, but for all this week he had his dog out the front and he’s been acting like weird.”
Shanika Dickerson, who was staying two homes down, said she was relieved Cleo had been found.
“It’s very scary, this is where we live and young kids live here,” she said.
Ms Dickerson’s cousin Henry Dodd said he saw police bring Cleo out of the home after hearing the loud banging of police storming the house.
Shanika Dickerson, Stuart Ranger, 11, and Henry Dodd who live near the home where Cleo Smith was found in Carnarvon.Credit:Peter de Kruijff
Another neighbour spoke of borrowing a lawnmower on Monday from Mr Kelly and how he was acting ‘normal’.
“He’d say hello and ask for a smoke,” she said.
“I didn’t think he would be like that but nobody thought that.”
The neighbour spoke about the horror of knowing Cleo was next door when she was looking after young relatives in her own home.
Cleo Smith with younger sister, Isla.
Mr Blanch said mobile phone data and CCTV footage of a car entering Carnarvon the night Cleo vanished led police to raid Mr Kelly’s house.
It followed reports from two witnesses of a vehicle turning south off the road that leads to the remote Quobba blowholes campsite where Cleo was snatched around 3am on October 16.
“The information acted on from last night onwards, starts out really small and quickly snowballs,” he said on Wednesday.
“There were car movements, there were phone movements … the jigsaw fit the puzzle.
“But it took really good intelligence analysts and detectives and specialists to look at all that information, put it together and go, ‘You know what, that doesn’t seem right to me, I’ve been doing this a long time, and we’re going to act on it’. And that’s how we get results.”
Forensic officers spent Wednesday combing Mr Kelly’s property, which included a grey car parked in the carport that had no number plate.
WA Premier Mark McGowan singled out the police analysts on the case for “very much assisting in solving the case”.
“They analyse a lot of the phone material … and that’s a painstaking job as there’s thousands and thousands of calls that need to be looked at.
“That’s a massive task, they did it methodically and in a very painstaking way to uncover information and I’d just like to thank them.
“I think there was a lot of information that put the clues together, it was both human intelligence, detective work around the town and also analytical work.”
Mr Blanch said mobile phone data and CCTV footage of a car led police to raid Mr Kelly’s house.
It followed reports from two witnesses of a vehicle turning south off the road that leads to the remote Quobba blowholes campsite where Cleo was snatched around 3am on October 16.
“The information acted on from last night onwards, starts out really small and quickly snowballs,” he said on Wednesday.
“There were car movements, there were phone movements … the jigsaw fit the puzzle.
“But it took really good intelligence analysts and detectives and specialists to look at all that information, put it together and go, ‘You know what, that doesn’t seem right to me, I’ve been doing this a long time, and we’re going to act on it’. And that’s how we get results.”
Forensic officers spent Wednesday combing Mr Kelly’s property, which included a grey car parked in the carport that had no number plate.
WA Premier Mark McGowan singled out the police analysts on the case for “very much assisting in solving the case”.
“They analyse a lot of the phone material … and that’s a painstaking job as there’s thousands and thousands of calls that need to be looked at.
“That’s a massive task, they did it methodically and in a very painstaking way to uncover information and I’d just like to thank them.
“I think there was a lot of information that put the clues together, it was both human intelligence, detective work around the town and also analytical work.”
More than 140 police officers were assigned to Cleo’s case, with 63 working full time out of Carnarvon.
More than 140 police officers were assigned to Cleo’s case, with 63 working full time out of Carnarvon.
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