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Cleo Smith: New breakthrough in search for missing 4-year-old

Western Australian police are searching for a driver who may have been seen leaving the Carnarvon campsite where missing four-year-old Cleo Smith was last sighted.

Detective Superintendent Rod Wilde said some witnesses had come forward with new information, including a vehicle spotted the night Cleo disappeared from her tent.

"We want to speak to the driver and persons, if there were more than one person in that vehicle, to establish exactly what was going on and what they were doing," he said on Sunday afternoon.

Cleo Smith, 4, holds up an ice cream. She disappeared from a WA camping site nine days ago.
A $1 million reward has been offered to help find missing four-year-old Cleo Smith. Source: Instagram

Police said they believed the passenger vehicle turned right from Blowholes Road, heading south along the North West Coastal Highway towards Carnarvon, in WA's Gascoyne region, between 3am and 3.30am nine days ago on October 16.

"We want the person or persons who were in that vehicle to come forward and contact police," Det Supt Wilde said.

"We want to know who they were and what they were doing.

"No more than that, [they're] not a suspect as such. We just want to establish who they were and what they were doing at that time."

The sleeping bag Cleo Smith was last seen in before she went missing from the Carnarvon camping site with a photo of her.
Cleo was last seen at 1.30am on October 16. Source: WA Police Media

The make of the car is still unknown, with Det Supt Wilde saying he wasn't going to speculate on whether or not Cleo was in the vehicle.

Police believe Cleo was taken from the tent at the Blowholes site in the early hours of last Saturday morning.

Mr Wilde said there was no information to suggest that the family's home had been stalked before the girl's disappearance, saying that searching for fingerprints outside the home was "part of standard investigations of this nature".

"There's no evidence, there's no information that Cleo was stalked at all," he said.

Cleo Smith disappeared from WA camping site

The four-year-old was last seen about 1.30am on October 16 when she asked her mum for a drink.

When her parents woke up at 6am, Cleo, along with her sleeping bag, were missing with the door of the tent "completely open".

"As we passed the divider, I went into the other room and the zipper was open," the devastated mum said.

"Cleo was gone and that was about it for Saturday morning until everything started."

The WA government issued a $1 million reward for information about Cleo's whereabouts on Thursday.

No members of the public reported seeing Cleo at the campsite before her disappearance and police have no suspects at all in relation to her disappearance.

Inspector Jon Munday shut down the idea that Cleo was never at the site, saying based on "technological evidence" they were satisfied she was with her family on Friday night before she went missing.

"The account given to us by Cleo's parents, there is nothing to indicate to us that that account is anything but accurate and truthful," Inspector Munday said on Wednesday, adding they will continue searching for the little girl.

with AAP

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