"We've got her. We've got her.
"Hey bubby, What's your name?
"What's your name sweetheart?
"My name is Cleo."
It's been three years since Australia woke up to the incredible news that little Cleo Smith was safe.
A still image from the moment after Cleo Smith was rescued by police. Image: AAP.
The four-year-old had been missing for 18 days, snatched from a tent her family were camping in on the West Australian coast.
It was the stuff of nightmares. Ellie Smith woke up at 6am, on October 16, 2021, to find her eldest daughter missing. She and her partner Jake frantically did laps around the campsite before calling triple-zero.
They knew immediately that something was very wrong. Cleo's sleeping bag was also missing, but there were no drag marks. There was no way the little girl could have carried it on her own.
This image of Cleo Smith was circulated around Australia after her abduction. Image: WA Police.
A wide-scale search started immediately, with 60 SES volunteers and police on land, in the sea and in the air.
But hours, turned into days. Little Cleo's picture was plastered on news websites, billboards and signs, with police offering a $1 million dollar reward for information.
Her devastated mum and step-dad did a tearful plea, begging whoever took her to bring her home.
"We're going to find her, we have to," they said, their terror evident.
Image: AAP.
So many stories like this one end badly. As the days stretched into weeks, the news started to slip from the headlines and hope of finding Cleo alive started to wane.
But on November 3rd, Cleo was found by police, alive and well, inside a locked house located minutes from her family home in Carnarvon.
Ellie got a call at 1am in the morning from Homicide Squad's Detective Sergeant Jason Hutchinson.
"We've got someone here that wants to speak with you," he told her. Her daughter's voice was in her ear before the Sergeant had finished his sentence, and Ellie, in disbelief, started excitedly shaking Jake awake. Their little girl was okay!
By 4am, the media was sharing the news, with Cleo's rescue attracting relief and happiness from all over the world as global headlines re-shared the videos and photos released by West Australian police of the incredible rescue mission.
They also had someone in custody, Terence Darrell Kelly, who plead guilty in 2022 to abducting Cleo and holding her captive in a locked room with a mattress on the floor in his duplex. He was a stranger to the family.
The court was told he has a severe and complex personality disorder and had injected methylamphetamine on the night he stole the child. He says he took her because he wanted to fulfill his idealised fantasy of having a little girl he could dress up, play and be with. Videos online show him playing with Bratz dolls; piles of paraphernalia visible in his home.
Kelly was pictured on social media holding Bratz dolls. Image: Facebook/ABC.
He says he tried to tie her up, but she fought him, and he "roughed her up" at times, but he didn't want to hurt her badly. He said he'd play loud music to drown out her cries.
Kelly was sentenced to 13 years and six months in prison.
Sensationally, he tried to appeal his sentence, on the grounds that his mental impairments should have been given greater weight in sentencing. On 30 September, 2024, the Court of Appeal decided that his sentence will not be reduced.
"On any view, the appellant's abduction of such a young and highly vulnerable child from her parents, at night, and then holding her captive in his house for 18 days was extraordinarily serious," Justices Robert Mazza and Stephen Hall found."As tragic as the appellant's background is, the sad fact remains that his risk of reoffending required that the sentence imposed upon him have regard to the sentencing objective of public protection."
The lasting image we have of Cleo after her ordeal, is a photo shared by WA Police of a smiling little girl holding an icy-pole while propped up in her hospital bed.
This image of Cleo was broadcast around the news, to celebrate her safe arrival back home to her family. Image: WA Police.
To the rest of the world, Cleo looked the picture of health, but as Ellie shared in a 60 Minutes interview a year after her ordeal, "we noticed the little things".
Immediately they saw that her hair had been cut and dyed. They had to get it cut again, as it had been hacked at in chunks.
In the wake of her experience, Cleo had nightmares and would wake up screaming. She hated doors being closed and lights being turned off while she slept.
Ellie also said Cleo appeared to have blocked out a lot of the memories from those 18 days.
"She's pushed it very far away," she told Tara Brown.
Watch some of their interview:
Three years later, Cleo is now a happy seven-year-old, with 60 Minutes sharing a series of photos of her with her little sister Isla.
The photos show the little girl, now in Grade Two, celebrating her 7th birthday with face paint and cake, fishing with her step-dad, on her way to school with Isla and enjoying icy-poles in the Aussie sun.
The caption reads, "All grown up! The 7-year-old is enjoying life in Western Australia, loving school and being a big sister to Isla".
The comment section is flooded with well-wishes.
While Cleo's healing will likely take many years, the photos of her enjoying her childhood with her loving family are a touching reminder of how lucky she is.
That her story, among a sea of horrible ones, had a happy ending.
Happy seventh birthday, Cleo. We're so glad you're home.
Feature image: WA Police/60 Minutes.
