A new search is underway for four-year-old Gus Lamont, almost two months after he vanished from his family’s remote sheep station in South Australia.
Police are set to search six unsealed, unfenced mine shafts on Oak Park Station, about 40 kilometres south of Yunta, on Tuesday morning.
The shafts, which had not been known to authorities before, are located between 5.5 and 12 kilometres from the homestead in areas that have not previously been searched. Officers are expected to spend the next three days combing the area.
Gus was last seen playing in sand on the property at around 5pm on September 27, wearing a long-sleeved shirt, long pants, boots, and a hat. His sudden disappearance sparked an extensive search involving dozens of police, volunteers, and rescue teams scouring the surrounding countryside and nearby waterways.
“Four-year-olds, they drop everything,” Yorke Mid North Superintendent Mark Syrus said in early October.
“The fact we haven’t found a hat or a shoe or something is pretty unusual.”
The new search is the first since police drained a dam about 600 metres from the homestead in late October.
The dam, which was about 4.5 metres deep, has now been cleared as a possible location for Gus, with authorities ruling out the chance he fell in and drowned.
Police have confirmed there is no evidence of foul play, and the Lamont family has continued to fully co-operate with investigators.
The family released a statement through police on September 30, expressing their heartbreak over Gus’s disappearance. “We are devastated by the disappearance of our beloved Gus on Saturday afternoon,” the statement read.
“This has come as a shock to our family and friends, and we are struggling to comprehend what has happened. Gus’s absence is felt in all of us, and we miss him more than words can express. Our hearts are aching, and we are holding onto hope that he will be found and returned to us safely.
“We are incredibly grateful to the South Australia Police, emergency services and the many organisations and community members, neighbours and friends who have come together to help find Gus.”
Images: 9News/ South Australian Police
