Cleo’s rescue has special meaning for Katie Beers, who was kidnapped in 1993 when she was 10 years old and later rescued by police from an underground bunker.
The world is rejoicing after a 4-year-old girl was found physically unharmed 18 days after she was kidnapped. Cleo Smith was snatched from her family’s tent while they were camping in Western Australia.
The moment Cleo was rescued from a locked home on Wednesday was captured in emotional audio.
“What’s your name sweetheart?” an officer asks the little girl.
“My name is Cleo,” she replies.
Cleo’s rescue has special meaning for Katie Beers, who was kidnapped in 1993 when she was 10 years old and later rescued by police.
"My god, how devastating for her, for her family, but so grateful that she had a happy ending," Beers told Inside Edition.
Beers was held for 17 days, chained by the neck in a soundproof underground bunker that her kidnapper built beneath his home in Bay Shore, Long Island.
"I was able to watch the news. I understood a little bit of what was going on in the outside world. And I've always said that I think that if the media stopped reporting on my story, I think I might've given up hope, and then that would have made me think that my family had given up hope that I would ever be found," Beers said.
The suspect in Cleo's kidnapping has been identified as 36-year-old Terry Kelly. He is said to be obsessed with Bratz dolls, posting on social media, “I love taking my dolls for drive arounds and doing their hair and taking selfies in public.”
News cameras captured a brief glimpse of Kelly inside a moving ambulance. His head was bandaged, reportedly after another inmate beat him.
Millions of Australians followed the search for Cleo, and hope was running out when she was found.
"There wasn't a dry eye in Australia when we heard that audio of police saying, 'What's your name?' [And Cleo answering] 'My name is Cleo.' It was just a heart-stopping moment," Ashlee Mullany of 7 News Australia said.
Kelly has been charged with one count of forcibly taking a child.
