On a sunny Wednesday in a windowless room, a tearful father appears onscreen begging for information about his missing four-year-old son, Gus Lamont.<\/p>\n
His aren\u2019t the only tears in the room. Police officers with him are emotional and frustrated after hundreds of people searching for months failed to find any trace of the little boy.<\/p>\n
Joshua Lamont and Jessica Murray had been through the immediate panic of a missing child. Days watching as the search area expanded, as hopes faded. Months where police and volunteers came in waves to search their vast sheep station, walking slowly grid by grid and dragging dams.<\/p>\n
Sunday marks one year since Gus disappeared from his home at Oak Park Station in the South Australian outback, 300km inland from Adelaide.<\/p>\n
Jessica Murray and Joshua Lamont appeared publicly in a video call-out for the first time on Wednesday. Photograph: SA police<\/p>\n
Lamont and Murray, intensely private people who have tragically become part of a grim public story, appeared publicly in a video call-out<\/a> for the first time on Wednesday, as police offered a $1m reward for information about the missing child.<\/p>\n Their distress palpable, the parents spoke about their \u201cbeautiful, sweet and unique little boy\u201d who had \u201csuch a bright future\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring the time Gus has been missing, he should have celebrated his fifth birthday and his little brother\u2019s first birthday with us,\u201d Murray says.<\/p>\n Lamont begs anyone to come forward with information, desperate for answers as to how their son could disappear without a trace.<\/p>\n From dams to mine shafts<\/p>\n Gus\u2019s grandmother saw him playing on a mound of dirt at 5pm on Saturday, 27 September 2025. Half an hour later, when she went to call him in, he was gone.<\/p>\n The search for the shy but adventurous boy has covered 700 sq km \u2013 an area the size of Singapore. It has scoured multiple buildings, scrubby stands of trees, and kilometres of creeks and waterways. Three dams have been searched then drained, as have open mine shafts that are just gaping holes in the red dirt.<\/p>\n Det Supt Darren Fielke, left, defended the police investigation. Photograph: Michael Errey\/AAP<\/p>\n It is the biggest and most intensive missing person search ever in SA. Police have dubbed it Task Force Horizon.<\/p>\n By the time Gus\u2019s case was declared a major crime in February, almost five months after his disappearance, almost 300 police, defence and emergency services personnel, volunteers and Aboriginal trackers had been involved. They used dogs, they searched on foot, on horseback, in all-terrain vehicles.<\/p>\n Drones and aircraft circled ever further from the homestead, taking images that would be analysed by AI and, later, painstakingly by humans.<\/p>\n By then, they had effectively ruled out Gus wandering off or being grabbed by a stranger. Police had a suspect, and it was someone in Gus\u2019s household \u2013 but not, they were at pains to stress, one of his parents.<\/p>\n Gus Lamont\u2019s parents spoke about their \u2018beautiful, sweet and unique little boy\u2019 who had \u2018such a bright future\u2019. Photograph: South Australia police\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n His grandparents, Josie and Shannon Murray, put out a statement saying they were devastated by the police announcement and wanted nothing more than to find Gus.<\/p>\n A further seven months later, police hope the offer of a $1m reward for information that leads to a conviction \u2013 or to a body \u2013 will motivate someone to come forward.<\/p>\n At the announcement last week, the SA police head of major crime, Det Supt Darren Fielke, was visibly emotional as he defended his team\u2019s dedication, saying they had been \u201cworking their arses off\u201d to find Gus. He said he was frustrated with time spent looking at \u201ccrazy theories, crazy stories\u201d, all of which had been discounted.<\/p>\n Within days of Gus\u2019s disappearance, police were begging people to only contact them with \u201cactual information\u201d not \u201copinions\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you don\u2019t know the detail, when you want to speculate and you want to make stuff up, and you want to drive clicks and inflate stories\u2026 it\u2019s unhelpful because all the information needs to be followed up,\u201d Fielke says.<\/p>\n Dr Toby Prike, a lecturer at Adelaide University\u2019s school of pychology, says people phoning the police with theories may want to feel they are making a difference, or just feel a sense of importance.<\/p>\n \u201cYou think you have special knowledge, or it could be plain old over-confidence,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n And along with the challenging physical terrain, there\u2019s the digital landscape. Tens of thousands of people shared a fake, AI-generated image purporting to show Gus being bundled into a car.<\/p>\n Other posts falsely claimed there had been a \u201cmiraculous return\u201d of the little boy, or that his clothes or backpack had been found.<\/p>\n Gus\u2019s grandmother Josie Murray had her own theory, telling Channel Seven the family would be searching nests in case Gus had been taken by a wedge-tail eagle<\/a>.<\/p>\n When asked about her claims, Fielke tells reporters that detectives have reviewed all the theories \u201cthat are being espoused by the person you\u2019re talking about\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have no investigative value. We can discount all of them,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Josie Murray told Channel Seven the family would be searching nests in case Gus had been taken by a wedge-tail eagle. Photograph: Michael Errery\/AAP<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t stop that person talking. Let them talk to whomever they want. They can come and talk to Task Force Horizon detectives any time.\u201d<\/p>\n In the meantime, he says, investigators are taking a look at some \u201canomalies\u201d they had spotted in the aerial imagery. Those anomalies are interesting enough that they might spark a new search, Fielke says.<\/p>\n One day after the offer of a reward was posted, Fielke tells the ABC they have already received more calls offering information.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe somebody knows something,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t believe that a four-year-old can just disappear.\u201d<\/p>\n