Fears for missing girl
Police consider all options as search continues
LITTLE girl who vanished from her family tent at a remote camping ground in Western Australia’s north may have been abducted or wandered off and became lost in the rugged terrain.
Police have not ruled out any ideas about what happened to Cleo Smith, 4, who was last seen about 1.30am on Saturday at the Blowholes Campground in Macleod, 50km north of Carnarvon.
Her parents woke up about 6am and raised the alarm when they discovered she was not in the tent with them.
Inspector John Munday said search efforts had continued throughout Saturday night, including the use of an AMSA jet, while other patrols – including drones, helicopters and SES crews – had resumed at first light on Sunday.
“We’re really throwing everything we can at this search in these initial stages,” he said on Sunday.
“We are gravely concerned for the safety of Cleo. We’re not leaving anything to chance. We’re trying to cover all our bases and we’re not ruling anything out – we’re going as hard as we can for as long as we can to try to find Cleo.”
Inspector Munday said police were yet to make any breakthroughs in their investigation, but had been “really heartened” by the public help.
He agreed one of the possible theories was the “nightmare scenario” that Cleo was taken and said that was why police were going so hard with their search. “We’ve gathered a lot of information and a lot of intelligence from things like dashcams (and) CCTV cameras,” he said.
The other possible theory was that Cleo wandered off and became lost. Inspector Munday said it was a “fairly harsh environment” but he was confident that if Cleo was in the area she would be found.
He also revealed a sleeping bag was missing from the famA
ily’s tent. Cleo was last seen wearing a pink/purple onepiece sleepsuit with a blue and yellow pattern.