The family of missing four-year-old Gus Lamont are “stoic” but traumatised, police say, as they start a new and expanded stage of the recovery operation.
The blond, curly haired Gus – described by a family member as shy but adventurous – went missing from his family’s outback sheep station more than two weeks ago.
At 5pm on Saturday 27 September, Gus’s grandmother saw him playing on a mound of dirt at the homestead, which is near Yunta, about 300km from Adelaide.
When she went to call him in, 30 minutes later, he was gone.
Gus was wearing a blue T-shirt with a yellow Minion on the front, a grey sun hat, light-grey long pants and boots.
The search was scaled back a week ago, but on Tuesday South Australian police expanded the search area, with the help of Australian defence force (ADF) personnel. On Tuesday afternoon, police said the first day of the continuing search had concluded with “no evidence being located”.
The search – which is in areas outside of the original search area – will continue on Wednesday. Tuesday’s search involved 18 police officers, 82 ADF members and 33 vehicles. It also included seven SES members, a drone and two utility terrain vehicles.
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The South Australian police commissioner, Grant Stevens, said there was no evidence to suggest it was anything but a missing child case.
“This [renewed effort] is not based on new information,” Stevens said on Tuesday. “This is based on our search coordinator specialists, medical specialists and survivability specialists looking at every possibility, and this is us exhausting those possibilities.”
Stevens said there had been advice “about survivability and the distance that Gus could possibly have travelled” and “we’re extending that even further now to ensure that if there is any likelihood of finding Gus that we take those opportunities”.
“There is nothing to suggest foul play … our focus is largely on an exhaustive search of the property on the basis that Gus has wandered off and we’re hopeful that we can find him and return him to his family.
“We’re very grateful for their [ADF] support and assistance helping us expand our search area beyond where we have currently searched to ensure … we’re leaving no stone unturned in our efforts to now recover Gus from the property.”
Stevens said he was not hopeful they would obtain anything significant from thermal drone data currently being analysed.
A week ago, senior police prepared Gus’s family for the fact that he may not have survived “due to the passage of time, his age and the nature of the terrain he is missing in”.
At that time, they said those involved in the search had been “hoping for a miracle” but that the search had become a recovery operation – and would be scaled back and handed over to the missing persons team.
SA police said it had been “one of the largest, most intensive and most protracted searches” they had ever undertaken. A PolAir helicopter with infrared technology assisted the initial ground search, which was conducted by police, defence personnel and volunteers.
They have been frustrated by people calling in with “opinions”. There has also been AI-generated misinformation.
So far, the overall search has covered about 470 sq km of “unusual terrain”. Police have formed Taskforce Horizon to coordinate the ongoing investigation.
Last week, a helicopter and a tracker searched a dam after a small boot print was found, but it turned out not to belong to Gus.
– Additional reporting by Australian Associated Press
