Searching for parity Why Cleo’s case was an exception
The rescue of Cleo Smith made global headlines. The four-year-old vanished from a tent in the middle of the night on a family holiday, sparking an 18-day search involving more than 100 police officers and thousands of volunteers.
She was recovered alive and apparently well in the locked room of a house in the small coastal town of Carnarvon, just minutes from her home, on Wednesday of last week.
The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, called it a miracle. Police officers, from the Western Australia police commissioner down, admitted to openly weeping.
The Western Australian premier, Mark McGowan, travelled 900km from Perth to present the four-year-old with two teddy bears in police uniform that he had named after two senior detectives who worked on the case.
On the morning she was found, talkback radio in Perth lit up with callers who admitted crying at the news, their
