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Cleo Smith search: Carnarvon shire president vows ‘we look after our own’

Joe SpagnoloThe West Australian
VideoPolice are exploring whether whoever took Cleo Smith from her tent had visited her family home beforehand, amid fears the abduction could have been pre-meditated.

Shire president Eddie Smith says Carnarvon will support Cleo Smith’s mother Ellie and her partner Jake declaring: “We look after our own.”

“We are a stoic lot,” Mr Smith said of Carnarvon. “We look after our own. Carnarvon is like that.”

As WA prays that four-year-old Cleo is found alive and well, Mr Smith said Carnarvon was doing all it could to support the grief-stricken family.

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“The community is doing its very best, in a very sad situation,” he said.

“There is a lot of anxiety and wondering what the outcome is going to be. (But) I’d implore the whole community to stay positive.

“You can’t give up on hope. It’s important we stay as positive as we can. Everybody is doing their best.”

Shire of Carnarvon president Eddie Smith.
Camera IconShire of Carnarvon president Eddie Smith. Credit: Cally Dupe/Countryman

Mr Smith said he did not know the family but he remembered Cleo’s mother, Ellie, as someone with a “beaming smile”.

He had come to know her a bit, through her work at Bankwest.

“She (Ellie) always had a beaming smile,” he said.

“Every time you walked in (to the bank) you were greeted with a smile.”

Missing girl Cleo Smith, 4.
Camera IconMissing girl Cleo Smith, 4. Credit: Facebook / Ellie Smith/Facebook / Ellie Smith

Mr Smith said candle-light vigils had been important not just for Ellie and her partner, Jake Gliddon, but for the Carnarvon community.

“There have been candle-light vigils. There will be another one (Sunday) evening at one of our churches. It’s somewhere they can go to collect their thoughts.”

WA Premier Mark McGowan said yesterday night that Cleo’s disappearance was “resonating with us all”.

He said the Government and police would throw everything at solving the case.

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