The Australian
Police have begun tracking down everyone TK communicated with on his phone in the weeks before CS was abducted and while the four-year-old was missing.
Analysis of a mobile phone seized from the accused child abductor after his arrest was completed in Perth at the weekend.
It is considered crucial as detectives work towards a clearer picture of what TK did, where he went and to whom he spoke before CS vanished from the Blowholes Campground in the early hours of October 16 and in the 18 days before she was rescued from his rented duplex.
On Tuesday, a police source told The Australian that after a week at the house where CS was found on November 3, forensics officers had not found anything that made investigators believe anyone besides CS and TK had been inside while she was missing. “There’s nothing to say anyone’s actually been to the house,” the source said.
However, police have not ruled out the possibility that more than one person could have been involved in or had knowledge of CS abduction. They have also not revealed whether they believe CS was at the house the entire time she was missing. That is one reason why the phone data is so crucial, a separate source close to the investigation told The Australian on Tuesday.
A detective accompanied the phone - sealed in an evidence bag - on a flight from the remote northwest town of Carnarvon to Perth late last week.
Police are privately adamant that a mobile phone tower near the campground where CS vanished shows a phone owned by TK was detected at 3am on October 16, about 90 minutes after CS mother, ES, gave her a drink of water in the family tent and about three hours before she woke to find her gone.
Mobile phone tower data cannot show whether calls or messages were made and received on an individual phone, only that a particular phone was in the area at a certain time.
Items removed from TK’s two-bedroom rental since CS’s rescue include carpet and a Bratz doll. TK’s fascination with dolls was revealed in a labyrinth of social media accounts.
A tradesman who painted the inside of the house for the landlord - Western Australia’s Housing Department - has told police one room was decorated for a little girl with shelves lined with dolls. He told police that when he saw the room, TK told him he had a daughter.
On Tuesday, forensics officers turned their attention to a dust-coated Mazda SUV parked on TK’s property since his arrest. The first development made public during the investigation into CS’s disappearance was that motorists had seen a car driving away from the blowholes and turning south towards the town of Carnarvon between 3am and 3.30am on October 16.
Police revealed on October 24 that credible witnesses had seen the car at what they considered a crucial time, and asked for anyone with information about the vehicle to come forward.
They have never revealed whether they identified that vehicle.
Police sources were on Tuesday downplaying one media report that a woman was known to have been involved in CS’s abduction. They said the investigation was ongoing.
“Our focus this week is for us to ascertain whether there was anyone else involved, that’s why we are still here,” Detective Cameron Blaine said on Monday.
“We just ask that if there was anyone that had any contact with TK, whether you saw him or met him or spoke to him on the phone, during the relevant period – please make yourself known to police.”
*Edited to bold the main point of my post.