A four-year-old boy who vanished from a remote outback farm more than four months ago is believed to be dead, with police declaring the case a major crime and identifying a suspect who lives on the property.
Gus Lamont was last seen on 27 September 2025 playing on a mound of dirt at his family’s Oak Park Station, a sheep farm about 300km north of Adelaide in South Australia. He was wearing a grey sun hat, blue long-sleeve shirt with a yellow Minion character, light grey pants and boots.
His disappearance sparked one of the largest searches in South Australian history, covering roughly 470 square kilometres of rugged outback terrain. Hundreds of people, including police, emergency services personnel, Australian Defence Force members, Indigenous trackers and volunteers, scoured the area using trail bikes, all-terrain vehicles, dogs and drones.
Despite the extensive search, which included draining a 4,5m-deep dam 600m from the homestead, no trace of the boy has been found.
“We don’t believe now that Gus is alive,” Detective Superintendent Darren Fielke said last week.
Police said they found no evidence that Gus had wandered off or been abducted by a stranger. A footprint discovered 500m from the property was later ruled out as belonging to the boy.
“We found no evidence, physical or otherwise, to suggest Gus had wandered off,” Fielke said. “We found no evidence, either, that he may have been abducted.”
Instead, investigators formed a specialist unit, Taskforce Horizon, to focus on the possibility that someone who knew Gus was involved in his disappearance.
After reviewing statements from family members, police uncovered “a number of inconsistencies and discrepancies” in relation to timelines and versions of events.
“As a result of these inconsistencies and investigations into them, a person who resides at Oak Park Station has withdrawn their support for the police and is no longer cooperating with us,” Fielke said. That person “is now considered a suspect in the disappearance”.
The detective stressed that Gus’s parents are not suspects.
In mid-January, police executed search warrants at Oak Park Station, seizing a vehicle, a motorcycle and electronic devices for forensic examination. Officers returned to the property in mid-February to search an outhouse and water tank area where fresh cement had been laid.
The day after the police announcement, lawyers for the boy’s grandparents, Josie and Shannon Murray, released a statement saying they were “absolutely devastated” by the development.
“The family has cooperated fully with the investigation and want nothing more than to find Gus and reunite him with his mum and dad,” the statement said.
No arrests have been made and the suspect has not been publicly identified.
