Australian Terence Darrell Kelly pleaded guilty to kidnapping four-year-old Cleo Smith and wrongfully imprisoning her for 18 days. This was reported on January 24 by the local TV channel. ABC.
The 36-year-old kidnapper addressed the court via video link from a prison cell in Perth.
After the confession, the municipal court of Carnarvon scheduled the next hearing in the case for March, leaving the accused in custody. Kelly did not ask for bail and would not disclose his motive for the crime.
The girl disappeared from her parents’ tent on October 16, 2021 at a camp located near the town of Carnarvon in Western Australia. To find her, the police brought in hundreds of volunteers, emergency workers, military personnel and rangers from search and rescue organizations. After a week of fruitless searches, the state government offered a $1 million ($745,000) reward for any information that could help find the child or catch his kidnapper.
The investigative team, which included 140 police and intelligence officers, analyzed footage from all street surveillance cameras in the area of Smith’s disappearance, as well as data from mobile phones, video recorders, and witness statements.
The girl was found alive and well on November 3 during a search in one of the homes of Carnarvon. Kelly was also in the house, he was charged with a number of crimes related to the kidnapping of a person under the age of 16.
Earlier, on January 12, the father of the girl Anastasia, who disappeared in 2013, from the village of Gidrotorf, Balakhna District, Nizhny Novgorod Region, told Izvestia his version of her disappearance. He stated that the remains of his daughter were thrown into the forest quite recently.
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