A 4-Year-Old Boy Vanished from His Rural Home 4 Months Ago. Police Now Have a Suspect Who Is ‘Known to Him’

Police investigating the disappearance of 4-year-old August “Gus” Lamont now believe someone known to the child may have been involved.

On Thursday, Feb. 5, South Australia Police (SAPOL) said in a news release that Gus’ case — after he vanished from his Oak Park Station home in the Australian outback on Sept. 27, 2025 — has been declared a “major crime.”

Gus was last seen while playing in the sand at his family’s sheep farm, a remote property about 25 miles from the South Australia town of Yunta.

At a Thursday press conference, Major Crime Investigation Branch officer-in-charge Detective Superintendent Darren Fielke said police are now treating a person who had lived at the outback property as a suspect. He emphasized that Gus’ parents are not suspects.

Fielke said investigators executed a search warrant at the property in January and seized “a number of items,” including “a vehicle, a motorcycle and some electronic devices.”

Authorities have also searched six mine shafts within a 10-kilometer radius of the Oak Park Station homestead, along with other areas tied to the case. According to the police release, the search area has included three dams and the mine shafts, while extensive aerial searching has been carried out across vast surrounding terrain.

Fielke said family members have been cooperating with investigators and providing information to help establish Gus’ movements around the time he disappeared. But he noted that police have identified “a number of inconsistencies and discrepancies” during the investigation.

He also told reporters that one person living at Oak Park Station has “withdrawn their support for the police” and is no longer cooperating.

“The person who has withdrawn their co-operation is now considered a suspect in the disappearance of Gus,” Fielke said, again stressing that Gus’ parents are not suspects.

The police news release described a major search effort involving 163 SAPOL members and 230 non-SAPOL resources, including SES, the Australian Defence Force, an Indigenous tracker and community volunteers. Yet, Fielke said the combined searches have not produced physical evidence indicating the child wandered away.

“Despite these extraordinary efforts, all of the combined searches have found no evidence, physical or otherwise, to suggest Gus has wandered off,” he added in the release. Task Force Horizon officers also searched several locations around Oak Park Station on Feb. 2.

During that wider operation, the release said, Task Force Horizon investigators were running two parallel lines of inquiry: one focused on the possibility Gus was abducted by an unknown person, and the other on whether someone known to him was involved in his disappearance and suspected death.

Investigators say they have found no evidence supporting an abduction scenario.

Fielke said further searches are expected at Oak Park Station and at several sites in an adjacent national park as new information and intelligence emerges.

“The disappearance of any child is tragic and distressing, not just for Gus’ parents, but also the entire community sharing their grief,” he said.

He added that Task Force Horizon will continue investigating “thoroughly and meticulously” until the case is resolved, saying officers remain determined to locate Gus and return him to his parents.