Locals in the street where little Cleo Smith was held prisoner have revealed the tell-tale signs they missed about the ‘oddball’ neighbour suspected of abducting her.
Police smashed through the door of a home in the Brockman suburb of Carnarvon, Western Australia, to rescue the four year old in the early hours of Wednesday.
She was described as safe and well but was immediately taken to hospital for further tests and to be reunited with relieved and overjoyed parents, Ellie and Jake.
A 36-year-old man – who was not in the home when it was raided – has been arrested in connection with Cleo’s abduction from her parents’ tent at Blowholes campsite, 74km away, on October 16.
But residents in Tonkin Crescent where she was imprisoned admit they had ignored key clues that could have led police to the home days earlier.
Neighbours of the home where little Cleo Smith (pictured) was kept prisoner before she was rescued by police on Wednesday have revealed the tell-tale signs they missed.
Sahntayah McKenzie recalled how she heard a little girl crying one night, but did not think anything of it at the time.
‘Not last night, the night before it… I heard a little girl crying but I wouldn’t expect it to be Cleo.’ she told the West Australian.
‘I didn’t expect it would happen in this little neighbourhood, a lot of people know each other.’
It’s reported that police were tipped off to the address after neighbours spotted the suspect buying nappies.
One told Seven News she became suspicious after seeing the suspect buying Kimbies nappies from a supermarket.
‘The other day, I think it was Monday, we saw him in Woolworths buying nappies but we didn’t click on who it was or what he was buying them for,’ she said. ‘Until now.’
Another neighbour told Nine he had spotted the arrested man behaving bizarrely in recent days, hooning through the streets with his dogs in the front seat of his car.
Sahntayah McKenzie recalled how she heard a little girl crying one night, but did not think anything of it at the time
‘He’s been acting a bit strange lately,’ Henry Dodd told Nine News. ‘He will get in his car, drive that fast.
‘He doesn’t have his dogs at the front [normally], he has his dogs out the back, but through this week he had his dogs out the front and he has been acting weird.’
The neighbour said he saw the police swoop on the address and watched as detectives clutched Cleo tightly as they brought her out to safety.
‘We weren’t sure [what was happening], we stayed our distance,’ he revealed. ‘We stood back and waited but after that, we saw someone, on the detective’s shoulder.
In the early hours of the morning, police smashed through the locked door of a home (pictured) in the Brockman suburb of Carnarvon, Western Australia, to rescue the four year old
‘We thought it might be the little girl, which it was. I went closer to the detective’s car and I saw her in the back of the car with the detective – he was holding her.
‘They put her in the back and I came over, rushed over here and seen her there. She looked at me, a bit scared.’
He said he was shocked he had been just metres away from her while the nationwide hunt was going on for her.
‘I just can’t believe it and get over the fact that she is just the house down from us and locked up here for a couple of weeks,’ he added.
‘Going on three weeks, she is straight across from us. I’ve got little sisters there…’
One neighbour Henry (pictured) said he had spotted the arrested man behaving unusually in recent days, hooning through the streets in his car with his dogs in the front seat
He said the arrested suspect usually kept to himself.
‘I was shocked, at the same time, because the person, like I said, he’s in our street. We walk around here,’ he said.
‘The neighbour is quiet, they do their own thing but everyone that knows the person who stayed that house, they wouldn’t think it would have been him.
‘We got a shock that it was him.’
Another local described the man in custody as an ‘oddball’.
‘He is a very quiet guy, bit of an oddball… definitely wouldn’t have picked him… it has completely derailed me,’ Rennee Turner added.
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