As the mystery into what happened to Gus Lamont continues to unfold a month after he disappeared without a trace, many experts are coming forward to share their thoughts on what could have happened to him.
While South Australia Police continue their investigation under Task Force Horizon, the Director of the Australian Missing Persons Register, Nicole Morris says the “shy but adventurous” four-year-old could have wandered away.
“Not everybody who goes missing is the victim of foul play,” she tells Woman’s Day. “Sometimes children just wander off, especially on such a large property.”
Gus was last seen playing on a dirt mount near the house on his family’s sheep station near Yunta, South Australia on the evening of September 27 by his grandmother Shannon.
At the time she was also watching Gus’s little brother Ronnie, one, while Gus’s mother and other grandparent tended to their sheep about ten kilometres away.
Shannon realised Gus was missing thirty minutes later and the family began frantically searching the 60,000-hectare property located about 360 kilometres north of Adelaide, for three hours before reporting him missing to the police.
Together with SES volunteers and ADF members, SA Police thoroughly combed the sheep station in two separate search operations – but heartbreakingly found no trace of the missing boy.
Nicole, who 20 years has been an advocate for the families of missing persons for the last 20 years, believes Gus could have fallen into a wombat hole.
“A tracker that I have spoken to said it could have been a wombat hole – the area is not well known for them but there are Wombats in South Australia,” Nicole shares.
“So Gus could have fallen into some sort of undetectable space.”
She also explains that Gus’s case is not an isolated incident.
“The book I’m writing at the moment features a case about a man who went missing in the Western Australian outback when he was searching for gold, and he was a huge man,” Nicole tells.
“And this massive search over quite a small area did not find him – it makes it easier to understand how Australia geographically can swallow up a child and no trace can be found.”
Despite the two searches conducted by SA Police returning no evidence of Gus’s whereabouts, the Indigenous tracker who helped with the investigation, Ronald Boland, is quietly confident he’ll eventually be found.
“Police will find him,” he told the Daily Mail. “They do what they do best – I do what I do best.”
Gus was last seen playing in the yard of his grandparents’ homestead on September 27. (Image: 7News Adelaide)
TRACKING DOWN GUS
As an experienced tracker, Ronald, 58, has helped recover around seven people over his career, which he started at just 13-years-old while working on remote cattle stations.
“Not all people are cut out to be a tracker – an average person will follow a footprint and keep going as long as they see a visual track,” he revealed.
“But a tracker has been taught to see and feel. Humans are easier to track than animals as animals learn from a young age not to leave their tracks.”
While he didn’t share much on his involvement in the search for Gus, Ronald shared that his tracking skills were honed by playing hide and seek with other children while growing up near Coober Pedy.
“All my teaching as from Aboriginal people in the north from South Australia,” he said.
“I was taught the ways by those old traditional Aboriginal stockmen, that’s where all my skills come from.”
Historically, South Australia Police employed 65 Indigenous trackers, most notably was Jimmy James who located missing girl Wendy Pfeiffer alive in 1966 after 150 police officers and volunteers failed to.
While trackers are no longer directly employed by police departments in Australia, Ronald is encouraging young people to join him to learn and preserve his skills.
“I am all about helping young Aboriginal people gain employment and learning new skills, so taking them out bush with me is a good turning point in their lives,” he said.
“This field shows them there is life outside of the big towns and cities.”
SA Police, SES volunteers and ADF members conducted two searches for Gus on the property, but found no trace of him. (Image: SA Police)
NO STONES UNTURNED
Former NSW Police detective Gary Jubelin is also confident investigators are leaving no stone unturned in their quest to find answers about what happened to Gus
“The environment would play a big part in how the police are approaching this,” the detective, who was in charge of the William Tyrrell investigation from 2015 to 2019 told 9News. “It’s very hard to move onto the criminal investigation side of it unless you’ve exhausted the possibility that the child has just wandered off.”
As the police work closely with Gus’s family to help bring him home, Jubelin thinks investigators on Task Force Horizon could intentionally be withholding information from the public.
“Police might be aware of stuff that they are not speaking to the public about, which is understandable,” Jubelin said. “There are certain things that they’ve got to withhold.”
While there is no new updates from the police, Jubelin says SA Police are refusing to give up hope of finding Gus.
“I’m sure the police working on the case wake up every day and say I’m going to solve this case, we will solve this case,” he shared. “It’s not a case you can just walk away from and say we don’t know what happened.”
Similar to Gus, William vanished from his foster grandmother’s home in Kendall on the NSW Mid-North Coast in September 2014.
Jubelin resigned from NSW Police in May 2019 after being accused of illegally recording a suspect in the investigation into William Tyrrell’s disappearance.
He was found guilty in April 2020 and was fined $10,000.
Since leaving the police force, Jubelin has become a best-selling author and true crime podcast host where he explores some of Australia’s most notable criminal investigations.
Before his retirement from the homicide squad, Jubelin was also involved in the investigations into the Bowraville murders that occurred between September 1990 and February 1991, along with the murder of drug dealer Terry Falconer in 2001.
Gus’s heartbroken parents Jessica and Joshua. (Credit: Instagram)
IMPACT ON THE FAMILY
As Task Force Horizon continue to examine Gus’s disappearance in the hopes of providing answers to his heartbroken family – Nicole says there’s a possibility the family won’t get closure.
“The pain for families of a missing child never goes away, and I cannot imagine what it’s like,” Nicole shares. “Even working with the families of missing persons for 20 years, I still have no idea what that feels like – but it’s something you never get over. There’s no such thing as closure in a case like this.”
A few days after Gus disappeared, family friend Bill Harbison delivered a statement on behalf of Gus’s devastated loved ones.
“This has come to a shock to our family and friends, and we are struggling to comprehend what has happened,” he said.
“Gus’s absence is felt in all of us, and we miss him more than words can express. Our hearts are aching, and we are holding onto hope that he will be found and returned to us safely.”
Bill also thanked the emergency services for their efforts in the search on behalf of Gus’s mum and dad, Jessica and Joshua Lamont.
“We are incredibly grateful to the South Australia Police, emergency services and the many organisations and community members, neighbours and friends who have come together to help find Gus,”
As Taskforce Horizon continues their investigation, Gus’s heartbroken family have not made any other public statements, however a gun was waved at a reporter on the sheep station by Gus’s grandmother Josie just before police started their third search of the property.
In Australia, over 50,000 people are reported missing each year, and while 99 per cent of those cases are resolved relatively quickly – there’s still around 2,700 people who won’t be located.
Nicole says the families of long-term missing persons, like Gus, experience a unique form of grief known as ambiguous loss.
It is characterised by the lack of definitive answers and no promise of ever getting any – which make it extremely hard for the loved ones of missing persons to properly grieve.
“Even if Gus if is found, his family’s life is forever changed as there is always going to be questions over why he wasn’t found, how did he wander away or what happened – even if he is found, those questions won’t be answered,” she tells.
“Particularly with cases involving children, your brain tries to figure out what’s happened and it imagines every possible scenario which is painful and awful.”
This AI-generated image depicting a mysterious figure putting Gus in a car went viral on social media. (Image: Facebook)
SOCIAL MEDIA WEIGHS IN
Since Gus vanished, social media users have been sharing their own theories on what happened to the four year old boy.
While some believe Gus could have been taken by wildlife like eagles, many others believe a more sinister reason for his disappearance.
“Seems odd that not a single piece of clothing or shoes have been found, something dodgy [has happened] on that farm,” one user commented.
“The grandmother knows exactly what happened to him,” wrote another.
Nicole says comments like these can be extremely harmful for the loved ones of a missing person, and is reminding the community that Gus’s family could potentially be reading everything being posted.
“To suggest the parents or grandparents must have killed them is just so awful, but people are always going to do that,” Nicole says.
“We saw in the Samantha Murphy case there was hundreds of thousands of people saying her husband killed her and clearly we now know that’s not the case.”
In a statement, South Australia Police confirmed Gus’s family are being fully cooperative, and are also being supported by a victim contact officer while Task Force Horizon continues to investigate the case.
“The fact Gus is a small child, the terrain is extremely rugged, harsh and subject to changing weather conditions has made the searching difficult and more challenging for those involved,” a spokesperson for SA Police said on October 17.
“Each of these factors may have contributed to the lack of evidence discovered. The location also presents less opportunities for police searching for a missing person, compared with an urban environment.”
Alicia is one of many psychics sharing their thoughts online. (Credit: Instagram)
PSYCHIC GUIDANCE
Along with social media users, many online psychics have begun sharing their own theories with the world on platforms like TikTok.
One psychic claims that the official timeline of Gus’s disappearance is wrong, and suspects more sinister explanations could surface soon.
“I keep seeing and hearing child protection/foster care involvement – if this boy is or was in the system, my intuition says it connects to something very sinister,” she wrote on social media.
“I’m being shown agencies, corporations and powerful interests working to protect themselves. The public rarely sees the full story.”
While Cartwright is not making any accusations and is not linked to the investigation in any way, she also claimed the family may know something about the disappearance, and more evidence could turn up soon.
“My intuition says another piece of clothing or an item of his will be found closer to the home.”
Other psychics have also taken to social media to share their thoughts, with another claiming Gus is still alive and has “fallen and hit his head somewhere close to the house”.
“I’m honestly seeing the police or emergency services finding him and wrapping him up in foil,” psychic Spooky T said on social media.
“I think he’ll be okay, a little shaken up of course, but I do think that there could be a happy ending with this one.”
While users on social media continue to debate and theorise about what happened to Gus, Nicole is reminding the community that their comments can compound the grief Gus’s family is feeling.
And while she’s not involved in the investigation into Gus’s disappearance, Nicole is encouraging the community to be mindful of what content they post online.
“Over the many years of making appeals on the internet, the advice I give is if the mother of the missing person was standing in front of you, would you make your comment to her face?” Nicole tells.
“There’s a chance they may be reading the comments, so if you wouldn’t say it to her face, don’t say it at all.”
SOURCE: https://www.nowtolove.com.au/news/local-news/gus-lamont-experts-weigh-in-on-where-he-could-be/
