After three weeks, police have decided to call of the search for a four year old boy who went missing in the Australian outback after they failed to find any traces of his whereabouts
Police have made the tragic decision to finally call off the search for a little boy who vanished after three weeks of tirelessly searching for him in Australia.
Gus Lamont vanished without a trace when he was playing outside his grandparents’ house, set back in a rural area near Yunta, South Australia. He was last seen on September 27 having fun on a remote sheep station outside of the property, around 186 miles from Adelaide.
His grandmother, who was taking care of him, left him alone for roughly half an hour before going back outside to check on him, only to discover that he was not there. His sudden disappearance prompted one of the largest searches across both land and air in the state’s history.
With distinctive features including his head of long blonde curls, the hunt for him set out straight away, and yet all they were able to find was a single footprint.
Gus was described as an “adventurous” child who was wearing a grey hat, light grey long trousers, boots and a blue long-sleeve T-shirt with a Minion on it on the day he was thought to have wandered off.
While police did not suspect any signs of ‘foul play’, they continued to investigate before bringing it to a brief close and restarting it again on Tuesday, October 14.
Alongside 80 Australian Defence Force personnel, the search was accelerated to wider areas based on updated assessments from survivability, medical and search specialists.
During the search, an AI-generated social media post, which had garnered thousands of views claimed that Gus had been spotted with an “unfamiliar” man in a car roughly 100 km from Yunta.
While, the information was proven to be untrue, it sparked police to ask the public to withhold from making calls to share their “opinions” on the case.
Although, after restarting their search, with no signs of little Gus, the police confirmed the end of their search on Friday, October 17. The police released a statement to say: “The fact Gus is a small child and the terrain is extremely rugged, harsh and subject to changing weather conditions has made the searching difficult and more challenging for those involved.”
Commissioner Grant Stevens further commented: “You can imagine just how they are feeling… without having answers as to exactly where Gus is and what’s happened to him. This would be traumatic for any family.”
According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, a family member, Bill Harbison said: “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.”