By Daniel Keane, Sara Garcia at ABC<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nPolice this week launched a renewed search for Gus, who disappeared on September 27.
\nPhoto: Supplied: SAPOL\n<\/p>\n
South Australian police have declared the disappearance of Gus Lamont a major crime and say a person who has lived at the outback property Gus went missing from is now considered a suspect. Police stressed that the boy’s parents are not under investigation.<\/p>\n
At an update on the case, Major Crime officer in charge Detective Superintendent Darren Fielke said police executed a warrant at the property in January, conducted a forensic search and seized items.<\/p>\n
“A person who resides at Oak Park Station has withdrawn their support for the police and is no longer cooperating with us,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The person who has withdrawn their co-operation is now considered a suspect in the disappearance of Gus.<\/p>\n
“I do want to stress, however, that Gus’s parents are not suspects in his disappearance.”<\/p>\n
He said police began to focus on the suspect after they identified “a number of inconsistencies and discrepancies” with information “as it relates to timelines and the version of events provided to us by the family members”.<\/p>\n
He said items seized included a vehicle, a motorcycle and some electronic devices.<\/p>\n
“All of these items are now subject to forensic testing,” he said.<\/p>\n
Asked whether the suspect was still living at the property, Superintendent Fielke said he could not provide further detail, but said they had secured legal representation.<\/p>\n
Gus was reported missing from his family’s remote property on Saturday, 27 September.<\/p>\n
![\"Searchers](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4K04HC3_Gus_Missing_South_Australia_Search_jpg.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\nThere had been at least eight searches for Gus since he went missing.
\nPhoto: SAPOL \/ SUPPLIED\n<\/p>\n
Superintendent Fielke was asked whether Gus could have been at the property when police arrived to launch the search, and replied: “Possibly”.<\/p>\n
“Police were on scene quite quickly \u2026 when they were advised Gus was missing. There was time in between but yes, it is possible,” he said.<\/p>\n
Police said they had been exploring three “investigation options” into relation to Gus’s disappearance – that Gus walked off from Oak Park Station, that he was abducted or that someone known to him was involved in his disappearance and suspected death.<\/p>\n
“At this time despite all of the combined search efforts we have found no evidence physical or otherwise to suggest that Gus has merely wandered off from the Oak Park homestead,” Superintendent Fielke said.<\/p>\n
“You can see from the level of searching that has been undertaken we have a high level of confidence that he hasn’t wandered off.”<\/p>\n
He said police had found “no evidence to suggest that Gus was abducted from the property”.<\/p>\n
“If Gus was abducted, it’s absolutely fortuitous,” he said.<\/p>\n
“There’s no pattern of Gus playing outside at Oak Park Station, for someone to start to get a dossier together on movements and time of the day, et cetera – we’re very confident is very, very unlikely. So, the opportunity for anyone to abduct Gus is extremely low.”<\/p>\n
Superintendent Fielke said there had been at least eight separate searches conducted at the station, involving more than 160 police and 230 non-SAPOL resources including the State Emergency Service volunteers, Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel and Indigenous trackers.<\/p>\n
“The search for four-year-old Gus \u2026 has been the largest and most intensive missing person search ever undertaken by SAPOL,” Superintendent Fielke said.<\/p>\n
“The foot search has been unprecedented and the resources that have been used have been significant.”<\/p>\n
His disappearance just over 18 weeks ago has so far baffled authorities, shocked the nation and generated international headlines.<\/p>\n
In the months that have elapsed since Gus went missing, multiple search efforts have been conducted, focusing on different areas of possible interest.<\/p>\n
– ABC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Daniel Keane, Sara Garcia at ABC Police this week launched a renewed search for Gus, who disappeared…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-268414","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}