Police Probe Whether Anyone Else Helped Kidnap Cleo Smith

Tabloid report claims girl told police a woman helped brush her hair, dress her
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 9, 2021 2:15 AM CST
Cops Probing Whether Anyone Else Helped Kidnap Cleo Smith
Cleo Smith, right, and her mother Ellie Smith leave a house where they spent the night after 4-year-old Cleo was rescued in Carnarvon, Australia, Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021.   (Richard Wainwright/AAP Image via AP)

When Cleo Smith was rescued last week, Australian authorities said they believed just one suspect was involved in abducting the 4-year-old from her family's campsite. But this week, investigators were back in the town of Carnarvon, where the girl was found, asking the public for anyone recently in contact with suspect Terence Darrell Kelly to come forward, the BBC reports. "Our focus this week is for us to ascertain if there was anyone else involved. That's why we're still here," a detective said. On Tuesday, forensics officers were focusing on a car parked in Kelly's driveway, ABC.net reports.

A tabloid report says police are probing whether a woman helped Cleo get dressed and brush her hair during the 18-day ordeal, claiming the girl told police that someone did, but police have not commented on that report. In other news related to the case, News.com.au takes a look at audio tapes that reveal Kelly was abandoned by his mother at age two. And ABC.net reports that Cleo's ordeal has sparked calls for the same police resources to be used for missing indigenous children, and the same amount of media attention to be paid to those cases. "Why didn't they use the same protocols, realize it's a missing child and use the same urgency and the effort to find Charlie?" wonders the aunt of a baby who was kidnapped and killed in 2013. (More Australia stories.)

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