It’s been two weeks since Cleo Smith disappeared from her family’s tent at the vast Blowholes campsite. Here’s what we know so far.
7news.com.au
Cleo Smith search: Police reveal detailed timeline as search for missing girl continues
Police in
Western Australia have given an almost minute-by-minute account of the first day of their investigation into Cleo Smith’s disappearance from a remote campground on October 16.
The timeline
6.30am: A car with two officers is dispatched from the Carnarvon police station, using flashing lights and sirens.
6.41am: Another vehicle is sent with two officers and lights and sirens.
7.10am: The first police car arrives and the second arrives a few minutes later.
7.26am: Police establish a protected forensic area, taping off the tent and campsite.
7.33am: Police request a drone operator to be sent from Geraldton.
7.44am: A third police car is sent from Carnarvon.
8am: Friends and family members arrive to help search for Cleo. Detectives go to the family home in Carnarvon to look for signs of Cleo, then return to Blowholes to stop vehicles in the area.
8.11am: Police request an SES team to joing the search around the Blowholes area.
8.20am: Third police car arrives at the campsite.
8.24am: Police incident controller John Munday, from Geraldton, arranges to travel to the area with a mobile policing facility and contacts police airwing and volunteer marine searchers.
8.34am: Police set up a roadblock at the entrance to the Blowholes campsite.
9.25am: Nine SES personnel arrive and begin searching for Cleo.
9.30am: Carnarvon detectives sit down with mum Ellie and stay with her all day.
11am: Homicide detectives from Major Crime are sent by road from Perth to Carnarvon.
1pm: Homicide officers and search experts from emergency operations leave Perth by police airwing for Carnarvon.
3pm: The officers arrive in Carnarvon.
The key details
Sleep suit and sleeping bag
Cleo was last seen wearing a pink and purple sleepsuit with a blue and yellow pattern.
Her red and grey sleeping bag was missing from the tent, along with Cleo.
The tent zip
Police said that the zip on the tent Cleo was sleeping in was up too high for her to have reached it herself, leading them to conclude that she had been taken by a third party in a possible abduction scenario.
A car in the area
Police are still yet to hear from the driver of a car seen leaving the campsite about two hours after Cleo was last seen in her family’s tent, at around 1.30am on the morning of October 16.
“Certainly it’s a priority for us to identify who was in that vehicle,” Rod Wilde said.
Cleo’s voice
Police confirmed Cleo had been at the campsite by listening to CCTV footage from nearby shacks at the Blowholes.
The cameras recorded her talking just after the family arrived at the campsite on the night of Friday, October 15.
This verified that Cleo had indeed been at the campsite in the first place.
Cleo’s family home
Forensics officers have visited the family’s Carnarvon home on three occasions.
Police have said Ellie and her partner Jake Gliddon are not suspects.
The home has been searched as a “routine” part of the investigation.
Fences and windows were dusted to see if there is any evidence that the home may have been “stalked” or under surveillance for some time before the family went camping.
Campsite ashes and local businesses
Ashes have been taken from burnt-out campfires near shacks at the Blowholes site on Wednesday for analysis.
Police have also gathered CCTV footage from nearby businesses including bakeries and children’s clothing stores.
They announced that their search radius for information was a 1000km radius of the Blowholes, but no further south than Lancelin.
Industrial warehouses
Police have also conducted sweeps of light industrial areas around Carnarvon, looking at sheds, warehouses, and offices.
All hands on deck
Reconnaissance spy planes have been deployed in the search for Cleo.
The federal government on Wednesday pledged that “advanced capabilities” were being used in the search.
On Thursday, sources said those technologies included a reconnaissance spy plane.
Wilde said national and international agencies were engaged in the search for Cleo, including an offer of assistance from the FBI.
Past child ‘approaches’
Detectives are in the process of reviewing past reports of approaches to children in the area where Cleo went missing.
On Friday, Rod Wilde said they were looking at reports dating back as far as 10 years ago.
“Certainly over the years, and some of that we’re talking over … a 10-year span, some of these events do occur,” he said.
“So we’re going back and checking old reports.”
Return to campsite
On Friday, police returned to the Blowholes camp to undertake further mapping of the area with drones.
Wilde joined senior investigators at the site as the search for Cleo approached the two-week mark.
