Minutes from home: The suburban house where Cleo was found locked up
Images have emerged of the house where Cleo Smith was discovered 19 days after she vanished as fresh details about her rescue come to light.
The missing four-year-old was found alone inside a locked, semi-detached house on a suburban street in Carnarvon.
The address is roughly a seven minute drive from her family home in South Carnarvon and just three kilometres away.
It is two minutes from the nearest police station and about 70 kilometres away from where she was last seen at the remote Blowholes campsite.
The seemingly ordinary brick house with a cream colour-bond fence and large tree in the yard remains heavily guarded by police as detectives question a 36-year-old man who lives at the house over her disappearance.
Neighbours recall man buying nappies
Neighbours couldn’t believe their eyes as they watched detectives carry the toddler out of the house alive and well in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
“I was a bit shocked,” one man told the Sunrise program.
He described the man in custody as being “quiet” and claims to have seen him buying nappies on Monday but it “didn’t click” it could have been in connection to Cleo “until now”.
“Everyone that knows the person that stays in that house, wouldn’t think that it would be him,” he said.
A Carnarvon local tells @Ben_Downie he saw a man living in the house where Cleo Smith was found buying nappies on Monday, but "didn't click" that they were for the missing four-year-old. pic.twitter.com/0oc9yiaAQj
— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) November 2, 2021
Police acted on recent lead
Police raided the home at 12.46am Wednesday following a fresh tip-off.
“One of the officers picked her up into his arms and asked her what's your name? She said ‘My name is Cleo’,” Dept Comm Blanch said following the incredible rescue mission.
Officers are now combing over the scene as they try to piece together the motives behind the alleged abduction and what has happened in the weeks since she was taken.
Cleo disappeared without a trace in the early hours of October 16 from her family’s tent.
Her parents woke at 6am to discover she was missing.
Cleo Smith's parents recall details of night she was taken in desperate interview
Police turn to rubbish bins in desperate search for Cleo Smith
Relief as Cleo is reunited with family
On Wednesday morning, Cleo's mother, Ellie Smith shared a post to Instagram relating to the news of her daughter being found safe.
"Our family is whole again," Ms Smith wrote.
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