{"id":218768,"date":"2025-10-16T22:28:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T22:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/218768\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T22:28:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T22:28:13","slug":"expanded-search-for-gus-nears-conclusion-as-missing-persons-advocate-speaks-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/218768\/","title":{"rendered":"Expanded search for Gus nears conclusion as missing persons advocate speaks out"},"content":{"rendered":"

As this week’s renewed outback searches for four-year-old Gus move closer to completion, a missing persons advocate has spoken out about the emotional impact of such cases on all families who have experienced the disappearance of a loved one.<\/p>\n

The fresh effort to discover clues about the boy’s disappearance was launched south of Yunta in outback South Australia on Tuesday in “an expanded area outside of the zone already searched”<\/a>, police said.<\/p>\n

Thursday’s search was conducted in hot and at times dusty conditions<\/a> which proved challenging even for Australian Defence Force (ADF) vehicles \u2014 one of which was spotted broken down with a flat tyre.<\/p>\n

\"Outback<\/p>\n

Trucks amid hot and dusty conditions during the expanded search for Gus. (ABC News: Genevieve Blandin de Chalain)<\/p>\n

“The search resumed in zones outside of the original search area at sunrise, but was concluded at midday because of extreme heat and windy conditions,” SA Police said on Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

“It will resume on Friday \u2026 when it is anticipated the searching of the remaining identified zones will be completed.”<\/p>\n

Gus disappeared almost three weeks ago from his family’s sheep station about 40 kilometres south of Yunta.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Police earlier released this photo of missing four-year-old boy Gus.\u00a0 (Supplied: SAPOL)<\/p>\n

This week’s renewed search to identify clues has involved police and more than 80 ADF personnel across an area described by SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens as “approximately 470 square kilometres” in size<\/a> \u2014 a zone, he said, that is more than 100 times the size of Adelaide’s city centre.<\/p>\n

But efforts on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday all concluded without any evidence found, police said.<\/p>\n

The president of advocacy group the Centre for Missing Persons, Nikii Smith, said such circumstances were “heartbreaking” for loved ones.<\/p>\n

“It’s very hard to understand what families are going through,” she said.<\/p>\n

“From the get-go it’s a rollercoaster of emotions.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Centre for Missing Persons president Nikii Smith said it was important to “never give up hope”. (ABC South East NSW: Floss Adams)<\/p>\n

Ms Smith, whose father disappeared nine years ago, said that for families who have experienced the disappearance of a loved one, all such cases brought back memories.<\/p>\n

But she said it was important to “never give up hope”.<\/p>\n

“It’s a heartbreaking feeling because it brings everything up that happened in the early days with our loved ones \u2014 it makes it fresh,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I just don’t want other families going through what we went through and what I know other families have gone through.”<\/p>\n

Friday’s weather forecast for Yunta is for a mostly sunny day with a top of 27 degrees Celsius and the “slight chance of a shower” south of the township in the early morning.<\/p>\n

\"Outback<\/p>\n

Thursday’s search resumed at sunrise, police said. (ABC News: Genevieve Blandin de Chalain)<\/p>\n

ABC reporter Genevieve Blandin de Chalain headed to the outback property earlier this week, and said that as dawn broke on Thursday “dozens of ADF vehicles were headed into the search zone early to make the most of the cooler part of the day”.<\/p>\n

“On our way in this morning we passed two groups of ADF vehicles that had broken down, one with a flat tyre the other bogged in the sand,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Once again, the vehicles are navigating increasingly deteriorating dirt tracks, as access to the property becomes a challenge in itself.”<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Commissioner Stevens announced the creation of Task Force Horizon to “investigate all of the circumstances that possibly might have occurred” that resulted in Gus going missing.<\/p>\n

The commissioner said the task force would consist of 12 experts who would “analyse information [and] assess opportunities for further searches on the property”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As this week’s renewed outback searches for four-year-old Gus move closer to completion, a missing persons advocate has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,17405,12753,115597,115293,45318,44,2950,10174,7452,87230,118098],"class_list":["post-218768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boy","tag-child","tag-four-year-old","tag-gus","tag-missing","tag-news","tag-person","tag-sa-police","tag-search","tag-sheep-station","tag-yunta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}