Former homicide squad detective Gary Jubelin has raised the possibility that wildlife may have played a role in the disappearance of four-year-old Augustus “Gus” Lamont, as South Australian police prepare to resume their search for the missing boy.
Gus was last seen playing in the sand near his family’s sheep station, Oak Park, close to the remote town of Yunta in South Australia’s mid-north on the afternoon of September 27. When his grandmother called him inside about half an hour later, the preschooler had vanished.
A massive 10-day search involving helicopters, drones, police, Aboriginal trackers and volunteers failed to find any trace of the child. Now, police and army personnel will return to the property to comb an area outside the zone already searched.
“The search …will concentrate on an expanded area outside of the zone already searched extensively following Gus’s disappearance,” South Australia Police said on Monday. “There continues to be regular and close engagement with the Lamont family who are continuing to assist with the investigation.”
Mr Jubelin, who led the high-profile investigation into missing New South Wales boy William Tyrrell, told news.com.au the renewed search suggested investigators were expanding their scope “for the sake of completeness”.
“Police would be looking at, did young Gus disappear through misadventure, wander off, or was there some form of intervention – either human intervention or even, given the nature of the land out there, perhaps wildlife,” Mr Jubelin said.
He added that minute evidence can easily be missed in such vast and rugged terrain.
Mr Jubelin also noted that SA Police appear to be running a concurrent criminal inquiry alongside the search, an approach he said reflected lessons learned from the William Tyrrell case.
“When a young child of Gus’s age disappears, it’s a horrible thing,” he said. “I fully understand why police are doing what they’re doing. They have to try to establish what happened to him.”
However, unlike during the Tyrrell investigation, Jubelin said police now face the added challenge of online misinformation and AI-generated images spreading false leads.
One widely shared fake post appeared to show Gus being bundled into a car by an “unfamiliar man”, while Meta’s AI tool circulated false claims that police had found a bloodied toy belonging to the boy.
“It’s just distracting; we don’t need this. We need to find answers,” Mr Jubelin said. “There’s so much speculation going on… it just adds to the confusion.”
SA Police said they remain in close contact with Gus’s family, who are assisting with the investigation. Authorities have stressed that no family members are suspected of any wrongdoing.
Gus lived at the station with his mother Jess, baby brother Ronnie and his grandparents. His father, Joshua, resides in the town of Blyth North near Jamestown, about 100 kilometres west.
Deputy Commissioner Linda Williams said police “will never give up hope of finding Gus”.
Images: SA Police
