The disappearance and likely death of a four-year-old boy has been declared a major crime with a person known to him declared a suspect.<\/p>\n
Gus Lamont was last seen by his grandmother playing on a mound of dirt at a sprawling sheep station in outback South Australia on September 27.<\/p>\n
His disappearance from Oak Park Station sparked intensive searches spanning almost 500 square km by hundreds of team members using aerial support and mounted units.<\/p>\n
Detective Superintendent Darren Fielke on Thursday said Gus’s disappearance had been declared a major crime.<\/p>\n
“We don’t believe now that Gus is alive,” he told reporters.<\/p>\n
He said a person known to Gus, who resides at Oak Park Station, had withdrawn their co-operation in the investigation after “a number of inconsistencies and discrepancies” were identified in the information they provided.<\/p>\n
Fielke confirmed the boy’s grandmother, mother and younger brother had been on the property at the time Gus disappeared.<\/p>\n
“I do want to stress, however, that Gus’s parents are not suspects in his disappearance,” he said.<\/p>\n
Investigators searched the Oak Park Station homestead on January 14 and 15, seizing items including a vehicle, a motorcycle and electronic devices.<\/p>\n
“All of these items are now subject to forensic testing,” Fielke said.<\/p>\n
Investigators examined whether Gus had been abducted or had wandered off from Oak Park Station but no longer believed either possibilities were viable.<\/p>\n
The initial 10-day air and ground search for Gus was one of the largest SA Police had undertaken.<\/p>\n
In November, search teams focused on six mine shafts near property, 40km south of Yunta, using specialist officers, but found no trace of Gus.<\/p>\n
A four-day search within a 5.5km radius of the homestead in early-October also concluded without any evidence.<\/p>\n
The family previously expressed their devastation over the boy’s disappearance in a September 30 statement.<\/p>\n
“This has come as a shock to our family and friends, and we are struggling to comprehend what has happened,” it said.<\/p>\n
“Gus’s absence is felt in all of us, and we miss him more than words can express.<\/p>\n
“Our hearts are aching, and we are holding onto hope that he will be found and returned to us safely.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The disappearance and likely death of a four-year-old boy has been declared a major crime with a person…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-268847","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268847","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=268847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}