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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Narelle Towie

Cleo Smith abduction: how a solitary ping to a mobile phone tower was key to finding child

Police officers involved with the search for Cleo Smith leave Carnarvon in Western Australia after the four-year-old was found alive more than two weeks after she disappeared from her family's tent.
Police officers involved with the search for Cleo Smith leave Carnarvon in Western Australia on 5 November 2021 after the four-year-old was found alive more than two weeks after she disappeared from her family's tent. Photograph: Richard Wainwright/AAP

Fresh details have emerged about how close Terence Darrell Kelly, the abductor of Cleo Smith, came to slipping through the net.

A single ping to a phone tower, that was only built in 2018, led detectives to him 18 days after the four-year-old was snatched from the family tent at the Quobba Blowholes campsite on Western Australia’s midwest coast, in October 2021.

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