Gus Lamont vanished without a trace almost a full year ago – and now, his grandmother has spoken out after she was ‘accused’ of having something to do with the four-year-old’s disappearance
(Image: SOUTH AUSTRALIA POLICE/AFP via G)
New and chilling details have emerged in the disappearance of four-year-old Gus Lamont, who vanished without a trace from a remote sheep station in the Australian outback nearly a year ago.
Golden-haired Gus Lamont was last seen playing outside his home on his family’s a sheep station, Oak Park Station, near Yunta, in the Australian Outback on on September 27.
So far, an extensive search operation has so far failed to uncover hide nor hair of the plucky toddler on the sprawling South Australian sheep farm – which is about 3.5 times the size of the city of Manchester or twice the size of Edinburgh, Scotland.
One of his grandparents left him alone for about half an hour before she realised he was nowhere to be found. Gus’ disappearance has since become one of the largest land and air searches in the history of South Australia.
Now, in her first public interview since the tragedy, Gus’ grandmother Josie Murray has revealed the little boy had previously gone missing on the isolated outback property.
(Image: South Australia Police)
Speaking as part of a major joint investigation by 7NEWS and its specialist deep-dive investigation programme Spotlight, the 75-year-old described a frightening incident in which Gus wandered off and could not be found.
“Shan had taken him down to the Shearer’s quarters while Jess and I were out mustering and he had wandered off… Shan couldn’t find him when she was going to come home,” Murray told 7NEWS Spotlight in the tell-all interview to air on Sunday at 8.30pm (local time).
The interview also sheds new light on the crucial hours after Gus vanished last September, with family members revealing their version of events for the first time.
Ms Murray recalled returning to the homestead at around 5.30pm after working with sheep on the property. She said another grandparent, Shannon, told them Gus had been playing outside near what the family calls the “bomb shelter plane”. But when they looked, there was no sign of him.
“We said to Shannon, ‘When did you last see him?’ And she said, ‘Five o’clock’,” Ms Murray recalled.
“And so in that half-hour timeframe, he disappeared.”
The family’s first fear was that Gus may have fallen into a cellar that was under construction nearby. “We immediately were a little bit concerned about the cellar we were building, because it was possible he could have fallen down there,” she said.
The area was quickly searched, but there was nothing to suggest the boy had been there.
“There was no sign that he’d been down there, no blood on the concrete floor, nothing.”
Members of the Australian military and South Australia Police during a search for little Gus(Image: South Australia Police)
As panic set in, family members spread out across the vast property searching dams, water tanks, sheds and nearby buildings before darkness fell.
Ms Murray believes the first call to emergency services was made at around 8pm to alert authorities to the fact that little Gus was missing.
In the days and weeks that followed, Gus vanished, South Australia Police conducted extensive searches of the area, covering about 470 square kilometres around his home at the Oak Park station homestead.
In late October, a 12-member taskforce was appointed to continue the investigation, which then sifted through previous statements given by family members which “identified a number of inconsistencies and discrepancies” of the timeline around the boy’s disappearance.
In March, police confirmed that relatives of Gus Lamont are not cooperating with the South Australian constabulary.
Lawyers representing two grandparents of missing four-year-old Gus have responded after South Australia’s police commissioner claimed some relatives are no longer cooperating with the investigation into the boy’s disappearance.
Gus’s grandparent Josie Murray is being represented by leading Adelaide criminal lawyer Andrew Ey. Asked by When asked by South Australian daily newspaper The Advertiser whether his client wished to respond to the commissioner’s comments, Mr Ey said there would be “no further comment at this stage”.
Meanwhile, prominent defence lawyer Casey Isaacs is acting for Gus’s grandmother Shannon Murray. Mr Isaacs also told the Advertiser his client “is co-operating through her solicitor”.
Josie Murray, Gus Lamont’s grandmother(Image: 7NEWS)
When the case was escalated to a major crime investigation February 5, Detective Superintendent Darren Fielke revealed that someone living at the property had withdrawn their assistance and was now being treated as a suspect.
During the investigation, Josie Murray told 7News interviewed by police but was never charged.
Reflecting on the ordeal, she said: “We say ‘how, why’… we just can’t believe it.
“To be accused of doing something like this… you could not wish a more horrible experience on anyone.”
The 7News Spotlight programme will see crime reporters from the news network’s specialist investigation team reconstruct the timeline of Gus’ disappearance and examine the many unanswered questions that continue to surround one of Australia’s most baffling missing persons cases.
Spotlight host Michael Usher said: “This is the interview that could provide answers to the many questions being asked about the disappearance of little Gus.”
“His grandmother has never spoken before, but in an extraordinary set of circumstances has now given her first interview.”
7NEWS Spotlight airs on Channel Seven and 7plus at 8:30 PM tonight (local time).
