Terence Darrell Kelly is escorted by police on to a flight from Carnarvon to a Perth prison. Photo / Getty Images
Terence Darrell Kelly is escorted by police on to a flight from Carnarvon to a Perth prison. Photo / Getty Images
Details about the troubled early years of the man accused of kidnapping Australian preschooler Cleo Smith have emerged in an audiotape that reveals he was removed from his mother's care at a young age.
Penny Walker, a respected member of the Indigenous community, said she took Terence Darrell Kelly under her wing when he was just two years old.
During a 2019 oral history interview with Denmark-based photographer Nic Duncan, Walker spoke about how a "little boy with jet-black curly hair" ended up in her care in 1987.
Born in 1943, Walker was 44 years old when she took him in and called him Terry.
Terence Darrell Kelly is escorted by police on to a flight from Carnarvon to a Perth prison. Photo / Getty Images
In the interview, she said she had been a heavy drinker in her youth and she was a domestic violence victim. She said her own six biological children had been taken from her.
Later in her life, she said she was blessed when she was given the chance to raise Kelly - whose mother was a drug addict and did not want him. When she took him in, she said she considered Kelly a gift from God.
"His mum didn't want him and she threw him away," she said. "I looked down at him and this little boy – God was giving me something back into my life … my children.
"So I had this little boy. Beautiful boy, Terry, two-year-old jet-black curly hair."
A still from video released by WA Police of the moment four-year-old Cleo Smith was rescued.
She said that she raised him alongside her two grandsons after the death of her daughter from multiple sclerosis.
Walker was part of the Stolen Generation and also spoke about her traumatic childhood – which included sexual abuse and beatings – at the Moore River Native Settlement and New Norcia Mission.
She died in 2020, leaving Kelly living alone in their Carnarvon house — where locals said he became increasingly withdrawn.
Other locals who knew Kelly said they didn't "notice any unusual behaviour" in his younger years.
A woman who went to school with the alleged kidnapper said police claims about the abduction of Cleo Smith "shocked, infuriated and saddened" her.
Cleo in hospital after her rescue. Photo / WA Police
I went to school with Terence Kelly, or Terry, as we knew him for many years," the long-term local and former classmate told PerthNow.
"I didn't notice any unusual behaviour, he was just one of the kids that I grew up with.
"His recent [alleged] actions have shocked, infuriated and saddened me, like they have most people that knew him."
It has been revealed that Kelly allegedly collected dolls and is believed to have had a significant collection in a room inside his home, which is being methodically searched by forensic officers.
Pictures from the search revealed a Bratz doll was among the items taken by police from inside the home after Cleo was rescued on November 3, 18 days after allegedly being snatched from her family's tent at Quobba Blowholes campsite.
Kelly was arrested last week after an extensive police investigation led detectives to his Carnarvon home, where four-year-old Cleo was found locked inside a room.
A tradie who worked inside the home has informed police that Kelly told him he had a young daughter.
Journalists wait outside the Carnarvon Courthouse on November 4. Photo / Getty Images
The Australian newspaper reports the painter, who worked on the house for Western Australia's public housing department, told police he had seen a room that looked like it was decorated for a little girl, with shelves that were lined with dolls.
Kelly's former social media pages show he had an apparent interest in dolls. The 36-year-old called himself Bratz DeLuca, a name appropriated from one of his favourite brands of doll.
Soon after his arrest, pictures he had posted to his Facebook account began circulating among the public, sparking widespread media coverage.
In one photo, shared to his account last April, Kelly poses with a doll inside his car.
Other pictures from his social media account show him posing with Bratz dolls and wearing a shirt bearing the Bratz dolls logo, while a separate post shows shelves lined with dolls.
Kelly was brought into custody on Tuesday last week and questioned for hours before police released a statement late on Thursday, saying he had been charged.
