?My name is Cleo?: how an 18-day search ended with an Australian detective holding a four-year-old girl - The Guardian Australia

When detective Cameron Blaine broke his way into the room of the small house on the outskirts of the Western Australian town of Carnarvon, he was pretty certain the four-year-old girl inside was the one he had been searching for.

But he needed to be sure.

That was how one of the biggest and most dramatic searches in Western Australian police history ended on Wednesday morning. It was a hunt that engaged a nation and garnered widespread international attention.

The search for little Cleo Smith had begun 18 days before - just hours after police say she was taken in the dead of the night from the family tent she was sleeping in at the Blowholes campsite, a 10-hour drive north of Perth.

During the next fortnight, an army of officers sifted through rubbish along 600km of highway, scoured unforgiving bushland, and combed through homes, industrial estates and CCTV footage. The search area - a 1,000km radius from the campsite - was enormous.

Trackers were brought in and drones were deployed, as well as specialist aircraft to search the vast areas.

But in the end, Cleo was found in her home town of Carnarvon, less than 100km away from the family tent from which she disappeared on 16 October.

For Cleo’s mother, Ellie Smith, and stepfather Jake Gliddon - who had used televised addresses to beg and plead for their little girl to come home - the agonising wait was over.

Blaine said things developed so quickly he didn’t have time to fully prepare Ellie and Jake, but Cleo was reunited with her parents in hospital in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Exactly what led to the breakthrough that has been hailed as one of the greatest moments in WA’s policing history has not been explained in detail.

Police had offered a $1m reward for information, but deputy police commissioner Col Blanch said there was no key piece that broke open the investigation so that reward won’t be claimed.

“There were lots of things - there were car movements, there were phone movements, there were antecedents of people.

Blanch said a 36-year-old man taken into custody by police for questioning was not known to the family and was the only suspect in the case.

He said the final moments of his force’s long search played out long before dawn on Wednesday, just 7km from Cleo’s own home.

He said detectives broke down in tears at the news and that the footage of body cameras worn by the four officers - who smashed their way into the house - capturing Cleo quietly giving her name is burned into his memory for ever.

Blanch also criticised social media users who pointed the finger at Cleo’s family without basis during the investigation. He said the breakthrough should send a strong message to people not to jump to conclusions on these cases.

Dr Paola Magni, a forensic scientist at Murdoch University, said finding a child alive so quickly was a rare outcome.

She said police would have used a mixture of traditional policing, digital evidence and profiling analysis.

While police admit that a car spotted at 3am turning toward Carnarvon off the road that leads from the campsite was a crucial piece of the puzzle, lead investigator Det Supt Rod Wilde said it was hard police grind that solved this case.

He said taskforce Rodia received more than 1,000 calls from the community, but the final piece of intelligence that led to the house raid where Cleo was found was only discovered on Tuesday.

The WA premier, Mark McGowan, said he was sent a photograph of a smiling Cleo in a hospital bed just after she was found.

McGowan said he initially missed the early morning call because he was asleep but woke at 3am and spoke to the commissioner.

On Wednesday afternoon the police commissioner, Chris Dawson, touched down in Carnarvon, held up a picture of Cleo and declared it a wonderful day.

The picture was taken earlier on Wednesday when Cleo was in hospital where she had been taken for medical tests. She was later discharged.

Later still on Wednesday, Cleo’s mother updated a Facebook post - made on 17 October, 24 hours after Cleo went missing - that called for people to help to find her little girl.