Cleo Smith search: Mum Ellie posts heartbreaking message to Instagram pleading for daughter to ‘come home’

Cleo Smith’s mum Ellie has made a new gut-wrenching plea for her daughter to “come home” six days after she disappeared from their tent near Carnarvon.

As hopes rapidly fade for her missing four-year-old daughter, Ms Smith has taken to social media to lay bare her heartbreak.

“I miss you I love you,” she wrote on Instagram.

“Please come home to me.”

It comes as search crews cast their net wider in the Blowholes area where Cleo disappeared from her tent while her family slept in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Ms Smith and her partner Jake Gliddon are staying in the region and WA Police Inspector Jon Munday said they were still clinging to hope Cleo would return safe and well.

“They don’t want to leave and that is completely understandable ... as you can imagine they don’t know what to do, they’re distraught,” he said on Wednesday.

The couple reported an “interaction” with Cleo about 1.30am before noticing she was no longer in the tent by 6am.

Insp. Munday said there was evidence placing Cleo at the Blowholes campsite, although he would not reveal exactly what that evidence was.

“The account given to us by Cleo’s parents ... there is nothing to indicate to us that that account is anything but accurate and truthful,” he said.

On Wednesday police indicated their increasing suspicion Cleo had been abducted after revealing the height at which her tent was unzipped would have been too high for the little girl to reach.

The entry which was found open by Ms Smith was a zipped entrance at the front-facing area of the tent, nearest where Cleo was sleeping.

“The positioning of that zipper for the flap is one of the circumstances which has caused us to have grave concerns for Cleo’s safety,” Insp. Munday said.

Forensics officers have examined the tent since Cleo was reported missing on Saturday morning and it is expected it will be taken to Perth for further investigation.

Anyone who was travelling in the area around the time she disappeared is asked to contact police on 131 444.