‘My sweet girl’: Cleo Smith’s mum shares heartbreaking post
Cleo Smith's mother has made a short, but heartbreaking post, as the search for her daughter enters its sixth day.
Four-year-old Cleo has not been seen since about 1.30am on Saturday morning and police have admitted there is evidence to suggest she was taken from the Western Australian campsite.
On Thursday morning, Cleo's mother Ellie Smith shared a photo of Cleo to Instagram, eating an ice cream and begging for her to come home.
"My sweet girl," Ms Smith said.
"Come home to me."
The short and sweet post attracted many people expressing their solidarity with the mother.
Investigators probe offenders in the area, no suspects
On Wednesday, police admitted there was evidence to suggest the four-year-old was taken from a tent at the Blowholes campsite on Western Australia's northwest coast.
The family's tent was found open at a height Cleo would not have been able to reach and her sleeping bag was also missing.
Ms Smith last saw Cleo at around 1.30am on Saturday, when she asked for some water.
At the time, Ms Smith and her partner Jake Gliddon were sleeping on a blow-up mattress in a room next to Cleo and her sister Isla, in the same tent.
When Ms Smith went past the divider in the tent, she went into the other room and saw the zipper on the tent was open and Cleo, along with her sleeping bag, were gone.
"There's circumstances around her disappearance that make it very concerning and it's things like the fact that the (tent) zipper was allegedly up so high, the sleeping bag is missing," Inspector Jon Munday told reporters on Wednesday.
"We are hopeful that Cleo is still alive and we're operating on the premise that she is still alive, so we're going to keep searching until we find her."
'Gravely concerned': Chilling detail after girl, 4, vanishes from campsite
Search for Cleo focuses on coastal shacks as new challenge looms
Inspector Munday said the family were Carnarvon locals and he understood they had set up their tent "in the same vicinity as people they knew".
Homicide detectives are working alongside local police, and investigators have spoken to up to 20 registered sex offenders in the Carnarvon area, however, there are currently no suspects.
The shacks along the coastline are being re-examined by detectives.
A GoFundMe set up by a Carnarvon local has now raised over $60,000 and organiser Bill Kent said they now have "unlimited amount of resources and people" to assist with the search for Cleo.
In an update Mr Kent said the money raised through the GoFundMe would be put towards search efforts and covering the cost of the assets and small businesses involved in the search.
After the costs associated with the search have been covered, the rest of the money will be given to Ms Smith and Mr Gliddon.
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