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4-Year-Old Girl Vanished From Campsite In The Middle Of The Night — 18 Days Later, Police Solved The Mystery
Almost five years have passed since 4-year-old Cleo Smith vanished from her family’s tent at a remote campsite in Western Australia and was found alive 18 days later inside a locked house in her own hometown.
Her disappearance became one of Australia’s most notorious missing-child cases. For more than two weeks, police searched by land, air, and sea while her family insisted the little girl had not wandered away on her own.
Highlights
- Cleo Smith was 4 years old when she vanished from her family’s tent at the Blowholes campsite in Western Australia in October 2021.
- Police found her alive 18 days later inside a locked house in Carnarvon, just a few miles from her family’s home.
- Nearly five years after her rescue, Cleo is now nearly 9, part of a local swimming club, and recently competed in an international gymnastics competition in Singapore.
Then, in the early hours of November 3, 2021, officers smashed their way into a house in Carnarvon and found her alone in one room.
One of the officers lifted the preschooler and asked her name.
“My name is Cleo,” she replied.
Now nearly 9, Cleo is once again in the spotlight after an interview revealed what her life looks like after the incident, bringing hope and relief to all who followed her case.
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One night in October 2021, 4-year-old Cleo Smith disappeared from her family’s tent while everyone slept
Image credits: ABC News Australia
Cleo was camping with her parents, Jake Gliddon and Ellie Smith, as well as her younger sister, Isla, at the Blowholes campsite near Point Quobba, about 40 to 50 miles north of Carnarvon.
The family arrived at around 6:30 pm on Friday, October 15, 2021. The campsite, also referred to in reports as the Blowholes Shacks campsite, sat in remote coastal country outside Carnarvon, the town where Cleo’s family lived.
By about 8 pm, Cleo and Isla were asleep inside the family tent.
@60minutes9 Five years ago, the world waited with bated breath for 18 days as authorities searched for little Australian girl, Cleo Smith. Today, her parents share how the now-nine-year-old is coping and thriving after the life-changing ordeal. Full story on the 60 Minutes Australia YouTube channel. #60Minutes#cleosmith♬ original sound – 60 Minutes Australia
A few hours later, in the early morning darkness of October 16, Cleo woke up and asked for water. Ellie gave her a drink and put her back to bed.
It was the last ordinary moment before the family’s camping trip turned into a nightmare.
Image credits: 60 Minutes Australia
At around 6 am, Ellie woke and found the tent open. Cleo was gone and her sleeping bag was missing.
The zipper was partially open, later described as about 30 centimeters, or 12 inches, from fully open. Police later identified the zipper’s position as an important detail because of its height and how unlikely it was that Cleo had left by herself while carrying her sleeping bag.
The family knew immediately that Cleo had not simply wandered off, but had been abducted
Image credits: Facebook/Ellie Smith
“The second we realized she was gone and her sleeping bag was gone, that was the second we knew that she did not walk away,” Ellie told 60 Minutes.
“There were no drag marks of the sleeping bag, we knew she couldn’t have carried it,” she continued. “I mean, we were hoping that she was around the corner and that it was just a nightmare, you know?
Deep down, we knew that she did not walk away; she was taken.”
Image credits: ABC News Australia
Ellie called the police at 6:23 am. A police car was dispatched seven minutes later and arrived at the campsite at 7:10 am.
By 7:30 am, the area had been cordoned off.
Image credits: ABC News Australia
Carnarvon detectives first searched the family home, then headed to the Blowholes. A helicopter joined the search at 8:10 am, and police set up a roadblock at the Blowholes entrance at about 8:30 am.
By 9:30 am, search personnel were combing the area for clues. That afternoon, homicide detectives and Emergency Operations Unit search experts arrived from Perth by plane.
Image credits: ABC News Australia
The first hours of the operation were treated as a search-and-rescue effort. Police deployed helicopters, drones, land crews, and sea searches across a wide area. Authorities publicly said they were “gravely concerned” for Cleo’s safety.
Image credits: ABC News Australia
The search grew quickly. Police released photos of Cleo’s missing sleeping bag and pink jumpsuit. They appealed for dashcam and CCTV footage from a wide radius across Western Australia.
For Cleo’s family, the theory that she had walked away never made sense. On October 19, Ellie said Cleo “would never leave us, she would never leave the tent.”
Two days later, police officially said they believed Cleo had been abducted.
Australian police announced a $1 million reward for information regarding Cloe’s whereabouts
Image credits: ABC News Australia
On October 20, Acting Deputy Commissioner Daryl Gaunt clarified that claims the case was being handled as an abduction were incorrect. At the same time, Inspector Jon Munday said the height of the tent zipper was one of the details raising serious concern.
By October 21, investigators publicly shifted their position.
Police said they now believed Cleo had been abducted. That same day, Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan announced a $1 million reward for information leading to a resolution in the case.
Image credits: ABC News/James Carmody
The reward attracted bounty hunters to Carnarvon. The search for the missing 4-year-old moved beyond Western Australia and into international headlines.
A special police operation, Taskforce Rodia, was launched. It was led by Superintendent Rod Wilde and involved more than 100 officers, with assistance from the Australian Federal Police.
Image credits: Facebook/Ellie Smith
Investigators did not rule out the possibility that Cleo had been taken out of Western Australia. However, strict COVID-era border controls made undetected interstate travel difficult.
Police kept working through CCTV, dashcam footage, phone data, witness information, and tips.
Image credits: ABC News Australia
On October 25, they publicly asked for information about a car seen leaving the campsite in the early hours of October 16. The vehicle had reportedly been seen between about 3 am and 3:30 am at the Blowholes Road intersection, turning south onto the North West Coastal Highway.
That time window became critical.
Information about a vehicle leaving Cleo’s campsite at 3 am led to the capture of her kidnapper
Image credits: 60 Minutes Australia
After more than two weeks of searching, police identified a 36-year-old man known as Terence Darrell Kelly as the suspect.
By then, Cleo’s family had spent 18 days suspended between dread and hope. Every hour that passed made the search more desperate.
Police had combed remote coastline, reviewed footage, followed tips, and searched by land, air, and sea, while Ellie and Jake waited for the answer every parent fears and prays for at the same time.
Image credits: 60 Minutes Australia
The breakthrough came from a mobile phone tower ping recorded at 3:05 am on October 16, the same morning Cleo disappeared. Police later used that signal to connect Kelly to the area near the campsite.
Without that single ping, investigators indicated Cleo might not have been found.
Kelly had arrived at the campsite under the influence. According to court details, he had gone there intending to steal handbags.
Instead, he abducted a sleeping child.
Watch the moment four-year-old Cleo Smith was found by police after she was missing for more than two weeks and told she was being “taken to see mummy and daddy”
Read more here: https://t.co/WG0lgypO2Mpic.twitter.com/B3y5PZUrsb
— ITV News (@itvnews) November 3, 2021
At Kelly’s sentencing on April 5, 2023, the court heard that Cleo was taken “in relative silence” sometime between about 2:40 am and 4:40 am.
After leaving the campsite, Kelly switched off his phone and took a dirt road back to his house in South Carnarvon, about 2 miles from Cleo’s family residence.
When he activated his phone again while returning home, it created the signal that helped police connect him to the area near the campsite.
By November 2, detectives had received the lead and began planning a raid.
Officers were described as “crying with relief” after Cleo was found safe and sound
Image credits: Getty/Handout
At 11:24 pm on November 3, police intercepted Kelly while he was driving near the house where Cleo was being held.
At around 12:45 am on November 4, officers arrived at the locked Carnarvon property. They forced their way in.
Cleo was alone in one room.
The missing 4-year-old had been found alive about 62 miles from the campsite where she had vanished and only a few miles from the home where her parents had been waiting for her.
In a now-famous moment, one of the officers lifted the little girl and asked her what her name was.
“My name is Cleo,” she replied.
Image credits: The West Australian
The news moved through the police operation almost instantly. Seasoned detectives were later described as “openly crying with relief” after Cleo was found alive.
Deputy Commissioner Col Blanch later said that, at the most uncertain point in the investigation, finding the child felt like looking for a “needle in a haystack.”
Despite being “physically okay,” Cleo was taken to Carnarvon hospital as a precaution.
Then came the call Ellie and Jake had spent 18 days begging to receive.
Image credits: Getty/Tamati Smith
“When the police called and said, ‘We have her,’ I was like, ‘Where are you?’” Ellie later recalled. “And they’re like, ‘Oh, at the hospital,’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, but where?’ ‘In Carnarvon in emergency.’ And I was like, ‘What?’”
For 18 days, her parents had woken up without her, searched for answers without knowing whether she was alive, and lived with the terror of an empty sleeping space inside a tent.
That night, the search ended with Cleo back in their arms.
Cleo’s parents were taken aback by the fact that she had been abducted by someone from their hometown
Image credits: Getty/Tamati Smith
“There was no way that I thought it was anyone in Carnarvon that did it,” Ellie said.
“We grew up there, I was born there and someone that lived there, grew there, was the person that did it.”
After the reunion, Ellie noticed that Cleo’s hair had been cut and dyed. Still, her daughter was alive and healthy. Later that day, Ellie posted a short message on Instagram.
“Our family is whole again,” she wrote.
Police Commissioner Chris Dawson called the day of Cleo’s discovery “one of the most remarkable days in policing in Western Australia.”
Ellie later praised the police response.
“They were fast, they were efficient,” she said. “The second they got details in, they jumped, they acted, they did what they needed to do.”
Terence Darrell Kelly was sentenced to 13 years and six months in prison
Image credits: ABC News/Anne Barnetson
The culprit was born in Wickham, Western Australia. His parents were described as having drinking problems and creating an unsafe environment for their children.
At age two, he was placed in the care of his aunt Penny Walker, whom he called his grandmother.
Kelly was diagnosed with ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder at a young age. At 12, he was hospitalized for mental health issues. He was later expelled from school due to antisocial and inappropriate behavior.
Before Cleo’s abduction, Kelly had served prison time for aggravated burglary and had been fined for the possession of illegal substances.
Image credits: 10 News
He was released from prison in 2017 and returned to live with his aunt. After her passing in 2020, he remained in her public housing property in South Carnarvon.
After his arrest, details emerged about his fixation on dolls and fantasies of parenthood. Kelly had collected dozens of Bratz dolls, some still in their original packaging, and had posted photos and videos of himself with them on social media.
He also created Facebook pages for fictitious children and falsely told police they were real.
Image credits: spiceblackford
Image credits: Getty/Tamati Smith
A medical assessment before sentencing found that Kelly had a “severely fragile, disturbed and fragmented identity.”
He was also described as “detached, anti-social, depressive and narcissistic” with a severe personality disorder, paranoid schizophrenia, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, moderate depressive disorder, and anxiety.
Kelly was transferred to Casuarina Prison and will be eligible for parole in October 2034
Image credit: Facebook/Ellie Smith
On April 5, 2023, Kelly was sentenced to 13 years and six months in prison. According to The Guardian and the BBC, he will be eligible for parole after serving 11 years and six months.
On September 30, 2024, Kelly failed in his appeal to reduce the sentence.
For the family, on the other hand, coming home was only the beginning. Cleo had difficult nights after the rescue and that her emotions could change quickly as she tried to process what had happened.
“Mistakes are easily made. But they’re also easily prevented. And Seven really needs to get its act together and take a breath before publishing.”
Seven accuses an innocent man of abducting four-year-old Cleo Smith. #MediaWatchpic.twitter.com/aO8dXGYzk0
— Media Watch (@ABCmediawatch) November 8, 2021
The family understood that healing would take patience and support.
“We’ve got a long way to go and so does she,” her parents said.
In a 2023 interview, the family said they were still living with anger, but were trying not to let what happened define their lives.
Image credits: 60 Minutes Australia
The case also created a separate media fallout. On November 3, 2021, Seven News wrongly identified another man as Cleo’s alleged abductor. The outlet retracted the report and apologized later that day.
The misidentified man said he received threats, needed medical treatment for a severe panic attack, and planned to sue for defamation. The case was resolved in February 2022, with Seven West Media paying a settlement.
Almost five years later, Cleo has returned to the ordinary childhood moments her family fought to get back
Image credits: 60minutes9
Almost five years after her rescue, Cleo is no longer just the little girl from the police video.
As of this writing, Cloe has joined a local swimming club and recently returned from her first overseas trip to Singapore, where she competed in an international gymnastics competition.
Image credits: 60 Minutes Australia
Her progress, however, had been visible before that.
In July 2024, her family shared glimpses of Cleo’s life after the case, showing her in Grade Two and enjoying ordinary childhood moments with her loved ones.
The update showed a child growing up with the routines, celebrations, and family memories her parents once feared had been stolen from her.
Image credits: 60minutes9
Then, in September 2024, came another milestone: Cleo won gold in her first gymnastics competition.
The then-6-year-old, who was due to turn 7 the following month, was shown smiling with her ribbons, medal, and certificate. A video also showed her performing on the balance beam, an early sign that gymnastics had become something more serious than a casual hobby.
The achievement drew a proud caption from 60 Minutes on Facebook: “Future Olympian!”
Image credits: 60minutes9
By June 2026, that interest had grown into what was described as Cleo’s “greatest passion.” Videos recorded by Ellie showed her moving through a routine that included backward rolls, cartwheels, jumps, and dances.
That is where Cleo’s story rests now: in the pool with her local swimming club, on the balance beam, on a competition floor overseas, and in the everyday life of a brave, happy child.
“Miracles do happen!” Netizens celebrated alongside Cleo’s family on social media
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