A photo of smiling Cleo Smith, the four-year old found in a locked house eighteen days after her disappearance in remote Western Australia, reassured a nation on tenterhooks.
Mother Ellie Smith posted a photo of Cleo on Instagram yesterday with the caption, "our family is whole again".
But Cleo's successful rescue is almost unheard of after such an extended length of disappearance, experts say.
Approximately 25,000 young people are reported missing in Australia every year.
In Western Australia, Aboriginal people make up 17 percent of unsolved missing persons cases, but just 3 percent of the population.
University of Newcastle forensic anthropologist and associate professor of criminology Dr Xanthe Mallett called Cleo's rescue a miracle.
She spoke to Susie Ferguson.
