Australia AUSTRALIA - 4YO AUGUST (GUS) Missing from rural family home in Outback, Yunta, South Australia, 27th Sept 2025

[musicaljoke]

I wonder if that is an indication of how far Gus might have wandered on his own or whether someone would have been with him. If the former, it sounds as though he could find his way back home from that distance and was probably comfortable being so far from mum. If the latter, why did the other person's footprint not show up, considering how much heavier they would have been.

Thinking about it, how well would sound carry over 500m in the bush/outback if Gus was crying or searchers calling him?

A child on a mission could walk 500 metres in about 10 minutes. He was described as a good walker and the terrain looks manageable. Even if he walked fairly slowly, he could be a couple of kms away within the first hour.

I'm not sure that a four year old would have the logic skills necessary to find his way back. I doubt that he would think to look for the lights on the horizon that showed him his way home. Nor would he know the danger he was in if he didn't turn back. If, for example, he thought his parents had gone to the city for the day, then he was on his way there too, or wherever his young imagination was taking him.

 

[CredibleSauce]

I've been thinking about what most likely has happened.
It's getting to the point where I don't believe out there, anymore. I still hold out hope of course that he will be found.
However there are a number of growing reasons to look at alternatives to him wandering off.
The land is not hard to search. No or few big trees to hide. It's pretty flat and easily searched. He wandered off supposedly close to sunset. If he was list he most likely was still close enough to see the lights if the homestead. If it wasn't windy he would of heard the yells for his name also. I feel pretty certain once the sun went down he would be scared and want home. In the country it gets completely dark without the light pollution.
I think it's a chance he did wander, but would of walked along a road if he could, if dark. Anyone driving along that road would not be expecting him there and likely complacent behind the wheel. There would be the odd kangaroo or wallaby to watch out for and rabbits likely running around everywhere. There concerns on hitting anything big perhaps not big as non country people because they likely to have a 4WD with a huge bullbar.
So perhaps tragically hit and killed and the person who did it had a choice to own up or to try and save themselves.
There seems to be a time period where this could have happened and to me it's becoming, sadly, the likely scenario.

Can’t see this being likely IMO - there would be tracks, noise, evidence of a collision (or evidence of panicked attempts to cover up tracks etc) if this were the case, especially nearby the homestead. The fact they’ve found nothing at all is the biggest concern altogether.

You’d expect a hat, shoes socks to have turned up SOMEWHERE by now. Damp edges of dams would show disturbance, his little tracks amongst sheep and kangaroo prints.
I’m hoping (still with dread) that something tragic, but simple and quick has happened to him - perhaps went wandering and suddenly slipped into a hidden abandoned mineshaft somewhere fairly close to the homestead, fatally bumped his head and that he was never aware of being hurt, alone or scared. Just wandering off in his own little world then “poof”.

The absence of any tracks or trace of him is so distressing though and doesn’t really fit with any realistic theory - I’m just hoping there were tracks to start with and they were trampled over in the initial frantic search to the point that when the more methodical searchers arrived, there was nothing to find.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

In some cases it turned out that the toddler did walk a lot further than the search area.

 

[Total_C]

I’ve uploaded a quick overlay I made using Telstra’s public 4G coverage map on top of a satellite image of the area. It’s rough but it looks like the homestead sits inside a coverage zone while the signal drops off fast once you move out into the paddocks.

It got me thinking about how much information police could actually pull from that local cell tower. In a remote area with very few active devices, would a cell dump or call detail request give them a clear picture of who was there that evening? How quickly could that data be produced and analysed in a case like this?

Another thing I’ve noticed is that there haven’t been any public calls for dash cam or CCTV footage from nearby roads, which is something we normally see very early on in similar cases. Does that suggest investigators already have a good sense of the local phone traffic, or am I reading too much into it?

I’ll admit I’m starting to question parts of the official narrative but I’m also aware I might be spending too long looking at this. Would love to hear from anyone with telco or investigative experience who can explain how these processes actually work in a place this remote.

 

[BreakingNews]

I haven't seen anyone mention the barefoot right footprint to the left of Gus' footprint. Am I imagining it? View attachment 618163

I mentioned that at the time

 

[BerylTutu]

Was the child walking there (now) 2 weeks ago, for them to think it’s possibly an old print ?
Walking by himself, 500 metres from the homestead ?
Did he regularly go off walking by himself ? and walking those distances ?
Did he go off late that afternoon looking for someone?
Was he in the habit of meeting someone at the end of the day / expecting someone to arrive who didn’t - so he went to find that person ?
I would expect that at that time of the day a 4 year old would be getting hungry - why would he head off AWAY from his dinner ?

Like others on here, I have a background in the Australian ‘bush’ / slang for rural Australia, in all its different forms.

And like others, I’m very confused as to why he hasn’t been found in country that would usually be considered ideal for ‘searching / tracking’.
That country is not heavy scrub / forestry / national park / rain forest / mountainous etc, .. . It’s pretty much salt bush plains.

Sadly, after almost of week of Nothing, this is starting to give me a very uneasy feeling.

Official update : Police statement regarding Yunta search.

Agree with all this. Also a home grown Aussie here with extensive bush experience. Just doesn’t make sense. There’s definitely more to this we haven’t been made aware of yet (IMO)

 

[tedtink]

View attachment 618173

I’ve uploaded a quick overlay I made using Telstra’s public 4G coverage map on top of a satellite image of the area. It’s rough but it looks like the homestead sits inside a coverage zone while the signal drops off fast once you move out into the paddocks.

It got me thinking about how much information police could actually pull from that local cell tower. In a remote area with very few active devices, would a cell dump or call detail request give them a clear picture of who was there that evening? How quickly could that data be produced and analysed in a case like this?

Another thing I’ve noticed is that there haven’t been any public calls for dash cam or CCTV footage from nearby roads, which is something we normally see very early on in similar cases. Does that suggest investigators already have a good sense of the local phone traffic, or am I reading too much into it?

I’ll admit I’m starting to question parts of the official narrative but I’m also aware I might be spending too long looking at this. Would love to hear from anyone with telco or investigative experience who can explain how these processes actually work in a place this remote.

Mobile numbers, time of calls, duration of call, SMS in and out, IMSI and IMEI, within the area, I believe.

 

[Total_C]

After my last post about Telstra’s coverage in the area, I dug a bit deeper and found something interesting. According to the ACMA database, there’s an actual Telstra radio terminal (site 24420) about 200 metres south of the Oak Park homestead. It sits at roughly –32.842 / 139.604, elevation ~297 m.

That means there’s confirmed infrastructure right there on site, not just fringe coverage. So it seems likely that mobile handsets or connected devices would have logged with that tower if they were active around the time Gus went missing.

Given how remote this area is, there probably wouldn’t be many devices connecting to that site at all. So if investigators pulled tower data for the evening of the disappearance, any movement or disconnection should stand out.

Does anyone here know how quickly police can usually obtain and process rural tower data in a case like this? And if there’s a solid 4G link at the homestead, why hasn’t there been any mention of phone data helping to map movements or timings?

(Attaching the ACMA screenshot showing the site info for reference.)

 

[CredibleSauce]

View attachment 618173

I’ve uploaded a quick overlay I made using Telstra’s public 4G coverage map on top of a satellite image of the area. It’s rough but it looks like the homestead sits inside a coverage zone while the signal drops off fast once you move out into the paddocks.

It got me thinking about how much information police could actually pull from that local cell tower. In a remote area with very few active devices, would a cell dump or call detail request give them a clear picture of who was there that evening? How quickly could that data be produced and analysed in a case like this?

Another thing I’ve noticed is that there haven’t been any public calls for dash cam or CCTV footage from nearby roads, which is something we normally see very early on in similar cases. Does that suggest investigators already have a good sense of the local phone traffic, or am I reading too much into it?

I’ll admit I’m starting to question parts of the official narrative but I’m also aware I might be spending too long looking at this. Would love to hear from anyone with telco or investigative experience who can explain how these processes actually work in a place this remote.

I don’t know how quickly they’d be able to get their hands on it but imagine major crime are having a look to rule things in or out at the very least.
Calls for CCTV or dashcam would be next to useless unless police really did suspect he’d been taken from the property and that he’d been taken via Yunta toward NSW - any other CCTV is going to be well outside of a 100km radius and even if removal from the property/abduction was suspected, can’t imagine the abducter would have the abductee sitting atop their lap in the front seat to be seen on dashcam (especially at night time) anyway.
We have movement triggered security cameras on important buildings at our property so if I were a neighbour I’d be checking the SD cards just in case any unexpected traffic happened to be captured, but I’d imagine all neighbours have been spoken to and asked for anything that might be useful to the investigation already (realistically they were all likely there to help or checking their own boundaries etc as soon as the news reached them).

 

[tedtink]

View attachment 618175

After my last post about Telstra’s coverage in the area, I dug a bit deeper and found something interesting. According to the ACMA database, there’s an actual Telstra radio terminal (site 24420) about 200 metres south of the Oak Park homestead. It sits at roughly –32.842 / 139.604, elevation ~297 m.

That means there’s confirmed infrastructure right there on site, not just fringe coverage. So it seems likely that mobile handsets or connected devices would have logged with that tower if they were active around the time Gus went missing.

Given how remote this area is, there probably wouldn’t be many devices connecting to that site at all. So if investigators pulled tower data for the evening of the disappearance, any movement or disconnection should stand out.

Does anyone here know how quickly police can usually obtain and process rural tower data in a case like this? And if there’s a solid 4G link at the homestead, why hasn’t there been any mention of phone data helping to map movements or timings?

(Attaching the ACMA screenshot showing the site info for reference.)

Depends on the request, time frame of calls requested, legal request, but in this case, a missing child I don't think it would take very long.
JMO

 

[CredibleSauce]

View attachment 618175

After my last post about Telstra’s coverage in the area, I dug a bit deeper and found something interesting. According to the ACMA database, there’s an actual Telstra radio terminal (site 24420) about 200 metres south of the Oak Park homestead. It sits at roughly –32.842 / 139.604, elevation ~297 m.

That means there’s confirmed infrastructure right there on site, not just fringe coverage. So it seems likely that mobile handsets or connected devices would have logged with that tower if they were active around the time Gus went missing.

Given how remote this area is, there probably wouldn’t be many devices connecting to that site at all. So if investigators pulled tower data for the evening of the disappearance, any movement or disconnection should stand out.

Does anyone here know how quickly police can usually obtain and process rural tower data in a case like this? And if there’s a solid 4G link at the homestead, why hasn’t there been any mention of phone data helping to map movements or timings?

(Attaching the ACMA screenshot showing the site info for reference.)

Is that possibly a HCRC tower?
Anecdotally (and in my experience) the 4G map can be pretty hit or miss (to the point of being blatantly incorrect, even using boosters and other equipment) especially since the 3G shutdown - which yes, I know isn’t the same thing, but definitely coincided with issues with the 4G reliability too.
The report linked above from 2019 reports 6400 households still using RRADIO landlines so wouldn’t surprise me if it is.

 

[musicaljoke]

In some cases it turned out that the toddler did walk a lot further than the search area.

Indeed it did. I wish that there were enough searchers that they could begin their search from the furthest point the child could possibly walk and work their way in, while also working from where the child was last seen and work out. I just keep imagining a child staying far ahead of the search team. Out of necessary attention to detail, search teams progress outward so slowly that by the time a few days have past and all hope is lost, one if left wondering if the child is still out there.

 

[Total_C]

Is that possibly a HCRC tower?
Anecdotally (and in my experience) the 4G map can be pretty hit or miss (to the point of being blatantly incorrect, even using boosters and other equipment) especially since the 3G shutdown - which yes, I know isn’t the same thing, but definitely coincided with issues with the 4G reliability too.
The report linked above from 2019 reports 6400 households still using RRADIO landlines so wouldn’t surprise me if it is.

I think you're right, nice catch

 

[BerylTutu]

Thank you, it’s a bit frustrating listening to the repeated misinformed questions and accusations that have been answered over and over again by people who actually understand the reality of properties like these. Some statements are beginning to sound like people are deliberately missing the point/s when the living situation is vastly different from what someone living in a city or even regional town would experience.

For example, I can nearly guarantee the property would have a “dump” - generally a hole the property owners have dug themselves (usually with a loader or bulldozer) maybe 1-3kms from the homestead where they dispose of their household rubbish and general property waste. There is likely a scrap heap next to/surrounding it consisting of things like old steel, washing machines, vehicles, timbers from old buildings etc - anything that could be recycled or repurposed down the track.
The concept of this seems outlandish, might even seem illegal or disgusting to someone who doesn’t live on a property like this. But rubbish has to go somewhere, and you sure as hell don’t have a friendly garbage truck driver come past once a week/fortnight to empty your bins on a station 40kms from the nearest town. The places a 4 year old could get lost in just “the dump” are extensive and take hours to search properly if you even knew for a fact they were there, let alone covering the rest of the outbuildings, sheds, yards and vehicles we’d have to search if one of my kids went missing on a similar property and weren’t responding to anyone calling their name. Just a nightmare situation altogether.

Absolutely agree with this and feel your frustration too.

 

[Serononin]

I’m still stuck on Gus being left alone for 30 minutes. A four year old left unchecked for half an hour isn’t just unsupervised, they are unprotected. Bush kid or city kid, it doesn’t matter. Toddlers don’t need thirty minutes to vanish. They need two. If this is correct, it’s indefensible.

To be fair, we don't know how many adults were in the house at the time. I could easily imagine a scenario where there were two or three people who each thought that the other(s) had eyes on Gus

 

[Serononin]

I wonder if it's possible we/they don't actually know an accurate time that he was last seen. We think we know he was last seen about 5pm, IIRC, and noticed not where he was expected to be about a half hour later. Maybe that's not correct. Maybe there was a much longer period of time from when he was last seen to when he was nowhere to be found.

There is a small part of me that wonders when the last confirmed sighting of Gus by anyone other than his family was. Would a four-year-old typically be in school in Australia?

I'm sure the police have all that information, though

 

[tedtink]

There is a small part of me that wonders when the last confirmed sighting of Gus by anyone other than his family was. Would a four-year-old typically be in school in Australia?

I'm sure the police have all that information, though

He may be attending "School Of the Air" (Homeschooling)

Yunta school to close

Yunta residents say they fear the imminent closure of the local school will be the death knell for the community.

www.abc.net.au

jmo

 

[tedtink]

"Yesterday Assistant Commissioner Ian Parrott announced that police would scale back what he described as "one of the largest, most intensive searches" for a missing person in the state in recent times.
Police returned to the family's property to investigate what is now the presumed death of the four-year-old boy.
Officer spent more than two hours speaking with family and taking photos around the property.
Police said all the evidence so far suggests the boy's disappearance is not suspicious.
A friend of the family spoke out against what she described as "hurtful conspiracy theories" about what had happened to the four-year-old.
"Stop with the conspiracy theories," family friend Fleur Tiver said.
"This child has not been taken. In theory there's a public road, but in reality there's six gates on that road out to the highway."
The team of officers appeared to re-trace and record Gus's last known movements at the property last night.
The information will form part of their ongoing investigation.
Locals in the region have been left saddened and baffled by the disappearance.............
"It's hard to believe how he could just disappear, in a short circumference of their farmyard, house, station," local Braithe Selleck said.
"A little boy, four years old, is not I wouldn't have thought, just got too far away."
Before it was ended, the search for Gus spanned seven days and an area of almost 500 square kilometres, involving aircraft and teams on the ground.
Each day at least 50 people were involved, but they found nothing apart from a footprint.
Everyone's thoughts now with the parents, and family, suffering a terrible loss.
"Even the whole community, you know, it's a very close knit community," Selleck said.

Police return to property where four-year-old vanished

www.9news.com.au

 

[sunspun]

Has the family said how long he had been playing in the sand pit before he was noticed not there? I know the grandmother saw him about a half hour before she couldn't find him, but I wondered how long he had been playing there before that (and actually wondered what he was doing before that too, but I know it's not my place to demand this info, esp. when it may be totally irrelevant to the only thing that matters, which is finding him.)