The alleged kidnapper of Cleo Smith, a four-year-old Australian girl rescued on Wednesday after 18 days of her disappearance, was transferred this Friday to a maximum security prison in Australia, as police try to reconstruct the movements of the 36-year-old defendant during that incident.
A group of officers took the alleged kidnapper in handcuffs, Terence Darrell Kelly, in a plane from the town of Carnarvon, in the northwest of Australia, to a maximum security prison in the city of Perth, the Western Australian Ministry of Justice said in a statement.
Kelly, charged Thursday in a court in Carnarvon for kidnapping a minor, as well as an undetermined number of charges that were not disclosed due to being under a suppression order, he will appear from Perth prison by video conference at the next hearing scheduled for December 6.
The suspect, who apparently has a fondness for dolls, was arrested early Wednesday on a street in the town of Carnarvon, three kilometers from Cleo’s family home, shortly after the police rescued the minor from the house. from Kelly where he kept it locked up.
Investigations are currently focused on tracking Kelly’s movements in the days leading up to the girl’s rescue.
The head of the investigations, Rod Wilde, who has asked businesses in the area to provide the images captured by their security cameras, commented that the police are not sure if Cleo spent the 18 days locked in that house and it is something “that we are watching and trying to establish,” according to ABC.
Police consider that the suspect – who was taken to the hospital twice after attempting to injure himself and was questioned for more than 30 hours – allegedly acted alone, and had no ties to the minor’s family nor was he in the records of pedophiles.
The little girl, who is physically well and has returned to her family life, disappeared at dawn on October 16 when she was inside a tent at the Blowholesda campsite, along with her mother and stepfather, Jake Gliddon.
The girl had woken up at one in the morning to ask for water, but five hours later, when the mother and her partner got up, they discovered that Cleo and her sleeping bag had disappeared.