Cleo Smith: Man who held 'Australia's Madeleine McCann' captive for 18 days is sentenced to 13 years
PERTH, AUSTRALIA: A 37-year-old man has been sentenced to 13 years and six months in prison after he abducted a 4-year-old girl from her family’s tent and held her captive for 18 days. Terence Darrell Kelly pleaded guilty in January 2022 to one count of forcibly abducting Cleo Smith, and will have to spend at least 11 years and six months in prison before he is eligible for parole.
Cleo was reported missing on October 16, 2021 when Kelly snatched her from a tent at the Blowholes campsite, near Carnarvon, about 960km north of Perth. The young girl was sleeping with her mother Ellie Smith and stepdad Jake Gliddon when the kidnapper arrived at the campsite looking for items to steal. He immediately made the opportunistic decision to snatch Cleo, picking her up with her sleeping bag and taking her to his car in "relative stillness", while avoiding being noticed by her asleep parents, as per reported by Daily Mail.
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Julie Wager, the WA district court's chief judge, told a Perth court on Wednesday, April 5, that Kelly had a severe and complex personality disorder and had injected himself with methylamphetamine the night he abducted the kid. The court also heard how he kept Cleo at his Carnarvon home, where she heard on the radio that her parents were desperately looking for her. For 18 days, Kelly locked the little girl in a bedroom after modifying its door and often left her home alone for long periods of time while he went shopping and visited relatives.
'She was a bit of a fighter'
Kelly later told police that he often became angry with Cleo and had "roughed her up a few times" when she got "bossy" by demanding chocolate. He also attempted to use adhesive tape to bind the scared girl's hands and ankles to a chair, but dropped those plans because "she was a bit of a fighter."
"I wasn't planning to keep her forever, you know. I was getting guilty every day and it was just more weight on my shoulders," Kelly said during a police interview, according to Judge Wager.
It was also revealed that Cleo kept pleading to be returned to her parents but Kelly used a loud radio to drown out her cries. "When the young victim heard her name on the radio, she said, 'They're saying my name',"Judge Wager said, according to Daily Mail. During the 18-day-long ordeal, Kelly cut Cleo’s hair and colored them pink. The abductor admitted to authorities that he had been injecting meth at the time, including just before he arrived at the Blowholes campground. As per the judge, he had exhibited 'significant interest' in dolls and Facebook sites featuring 'fantasy children'.
‘This will stir up a lot of feelings and emotions’
Judge Wager cited Kelly's difficult upbringing, complicated personality, and developmental issues while sentencing. She acknowledged that if Kelly hadn't been drugged up, he would have been 'far less likely' to commit the crime. Judge Wager described the fear, distress, and trauma that Cleo and her parents experienced as "immeasurable."
"Eighteen days without contact or explanation, and with hours totally on her own and no access to the outside world, would have been very traumatic," she said. "In the world of a four-year-old, 18 days is a very, very long time indeed."
Reflecting on the 18-day-long search for Cleo, Police Commissioner Col Blanch described her rescue as the "greatest moment of WA Police history". "This is a really important day for the family to get closure," the commissioner told the ABC. "What everyone has to remember is it's been a long time since this incident occurred, over 500 days. This will stir up a lot of feelings and emotions for the family and in a lot of ways (they will) relive that."
A massive hunt titled Taskforce Rodia was organized to locate Cleo, with more than 100 police officers searching for her. The Western Australian government issued a $ 1 million reward for information on Cleo's whereabouts. Cleo was finally located on November 3, 2021. Police body cameras captured the moment when officers asked the girl, who was found playing with toy cars in a locked bedroom what her name was, to which she famously replied: "My name is Cleo."