As a lurker, read this thread start to finish and felt compelled to make an account with this new, sadly expected development. As others have noted, a large amount of what we've been told hasn't been confirmed at all but instead are statements that this presser cast in doubt by alluding to inconsistencies in the narrative. And beyond that, a lot of hearsay and rumors vaguely insinuating things about the larger context of this situation, and a lot to try to read between the lines, decipher subtext, interpret what little is being said and just as importantly what isn't being said. So here's my attempt to lay out some significant seeming details, and see how they might fit together, my own opinion and conjecture only.
The most widely repeated narrative of the timeline is that grandmother Shannon Murray was watching Gus and Ronnie while Jess and Josie worked far off on the property, that as of 5:00 pm Gus was left playing outside in a pile of sand/dirt while she prepared dinner and tended to his little brother and that at 5:30 pm when she went to call him in, he had vanished. I don't recall ever seeing a timeline for when Jess and Josie returned and/or were informed that Gus was missing, but from there they searched for several hours before calling the police, who arrived about an hour later, after nightfall. The police involvement is the only genuinely documented part of this whole story, the rest would depend on statements from the family about what happened leading up to that point, which we've now been told are inconsistent enough to make someone a suspect. The only trace found after an exhaustive search was a footprint that might have been made by Gus, but (if I recall correctly) the tracker said could have been left over a week before the day Gus as reported missing. The police no longer believe the story that he wandered off. There have been other anomalies with the usual course of missing children cases; the long delay before a single photo was released, the lack of direct appeal to the public. You may or may not have raised an eyebrow over these things, they're open to interpretation but not really conclusive of anything alone.
The police have said that neither of his parents are suspects/the suspect. Whether they've been actively ruled out or the police are working an angle remains to be seen, but they have made it clear that the suspect they were speaking of in the presser is not either of them, and by process of elimination with other official statements made that seems to point solidly at a grandparent (more on that shortly). We were told that Josh Lamont had not been informed that his son was missing until police contacted him, waking him early the next morning. We've heard less officially that Josh and Josie were at odds, that he was not staying on the property because of it, and that he felt it was unsafe for his children to be there (for unspecified reasons). It could potentially be read into this mentioned hostility that his relationship with Shannon was significantly better. We've heard that he and Jess were still in a relationship, though a 'commuter' one, and he was fixing up a home for his family to live in together and had planned to have Gus enrolled in a nearby preschool in the coming term. We've also heard that they mostly already lived together in a home owned by Shannon in Adelaide, with Jess presumably going out to Oak Park Station periodically to help her elderly parents manage it and bringing their children with her. I may be misremembering if it was established what Josh does for a living, but I believe it was implied it was mainly odd jobs rather than something more regular and structured? Which if so could potentially further speak to the extent of the hostility between Josh and Josie, if he were unwelcome on the property even temporarily when extra hands were needed (may also be misremembering if it was established if Josh was experienced working with sheep), if he had an open enough schedule to allow him to do so. We've heard particularly unsubstantiated rumors that Josh has a mouth that's made him some enemies and that Jess is painfully shy but very smart.
We've heard that Oak Park Station was in Jess's family for generations, that Shannon inherited it from her mother, Clair Jones, presumably intended to be passed on to Jess, and had he lived, maybe eventually on to Gus. We've heard that Jess's grandfather, Vincent Pfeiffer, was integral to running it while he was alive and was very much the patriarch figure of the family/property. We don't know the nature of the current property ownership, who is on the deed under what terms. We've heard that Josie's *preemptive mod snip by me* happened after Vincent died (and I believe that Clair died before him?). There is some uncertainty around whether Shannon and Josie are still married, or what the exact nature of their relationship to one another is now (not that relationships are always what they seem from the outside looking in anyway).
We've heard the Oak Park Station family is liked and respected in the area generally, and friends and neighbors have spoken to the media on their behalf, called them good people, expressed indignation about speculation that Gus may not have wandered off, helped search. We've heard that they are at least somewhat involved in their very rural community, but are also very private people. Some of the high regard expressed for the family seems to be inherited from the esteem the community held for Vincent (this is a familiar dynamic from my own rural hometown with deep generational roots; you get somewhat judged by who your family is). We don't know how close people in the community really are to any of them, though, if there are any people who are truly inner circle for Jess, Shannon, and/or Josie, who are confided in, who spend one on one time together. So we don't really know if anyone outside of the family would actually know if there was something wrong going on behind the scenes, or if that high esteem comes from being people who 'keep themselves to themselves' and don't cause trouble for their neighbors, maybe help out with community concerns, and seem pleasant enough in brief interactions. Of all people outside the Oak Park Station clan, Josh might be the most inner-circle 'outsider' due to his relationship with Jess...and his reportedly antagonistic relationship with Josie. We've also heard from a friend of Josh, who helped him search at least one night and seemed to express some skepticism about the whole thing, and might consider that he's most likely basing his interpretations on what Josh has told him (bearing in mind that Josh might not be a reliable narrator himself, particularly if he holds any anger and/or resentment about the whole situation leading up to this tragedy). We've heard Josh is furious, and the divide has worsened in the aftermath, that things were said that can't be unsaid, that he isn't welcome on the property.
Circling back to the official release, we know that police have said they have a suspect, no longer believe Gus wandered off, don't believe he was abducted. Believe he is dead. At the least, their latest statement implies that his death was covered up by this suspect and the 'wandered off' narrative was fabricated as part of this. It is unclear whether they believe he had an accident or this suspect hurt him, and they might not have come to a conclusion on this themselves. They have reported that they've seized vehicles and devices from the property. They have reported that there were inconsistencies in the narrative the family provided. They have said that neither of the parents is this suspect. They stated that no one was on the property at the time Gus vanished other than the three adults (I do think it's likely this was a misstatement and they just forgot to include Ronnie in that count, since he couldn't be reasonably looked at as a suspect), although they also stated that they are still looking into when Gus can last be confirmed alive rather than relying on the family's word. If taken at face value, this narrows the suspect down to the grandparents. They reported that the suspect has lawyered up and stopped cooperating. Both Shannon and Josie have reportedly employed high level criminal defense lawyers. It's been stated that Shannon is still cooperating with the investigation. If that's true, that implies Josie is the suspect.
We know Josie has a temper and a gun (outside of the police statement, this is one of the few things we do actually know). We know Josie has been photographed and filmed interacting with police and searchers, has seemed to be the one directing them and the one making direct statements (such as 'you can't help'), has been the most public face of the family. As the public from the outside looking in, Shannon and Jess are ghosts. Jess's whereabouts unknown since this started and shown only by photos lifted from social media, Shannon photographed a couple of times now in public places from a distance, always out with Josie. I find it slightly strange that, as someone who was named by the family as the last person to see Gus alive, Shannon has been so invisible in this, including when the media were first there in the initial search taking photos. No photos of her walking them through the last moments she saw before Gus 'wandered off.' Just Josie. It does make me wonder about the dynamics of this family.
But if (again, IF, this is based on piecing together a lot of different accounts that may not be accurate) Josie is the one and only suspect, how could that fit in with everything else? How would Jess and Shannon not know something else happened, particularly because one or both would have had to lie to support that narrative? Wouldn't that at least make them suspects for complicity in a cover-up, which would put them on equal footing with the suspect in event of an accident? Unless. Remember that nothing about that initial narrative before the police were called is confirmed. Just one slight change could change everything. Consider the possibility that Josie was at home with the children and Shannon was out working with Jess when whatever happened to Gus happened. Consider the possibility that Jess and Shannon were then told that Gus was playing on the dirt pile and wandered off instead of the truth. And consider the possibility that they decided (or were told) to tell a lie that seemed like a small, harmless one when they couldn't find him and decided to call the police: that Shannon had been the one watching him when he disappeared. A lie that would be almost irrelevant if he had just walked off into the scrub and gotten lost, and certainly wouldn't have made any difference to how quickly they could find him if you just swapped one grandma in the story for another, right? I can think of a couple of solid reasons that could motivate this particular lie. One, to protect Josie from being looked at with more suspicion than Shannon might be due to *preemptive mod snip by me* and provide an alibi, far off with Jess when it happened. 'They'll think I did something bad to him but will believe her.' And/or two, maybe Josh didn't want Josie watching his kids and would have been angry if he'd found out. Would be more likely to forgive a lapse in supervision if he believed it was Shannon. Maybe Josie, temper included, was why Josh didn't think his kids were safe there, not the land.
Again, my own opinion and conjecture only. I have additional questions and suspicions, but a public forum isn't the place for them and this is already a novel.
www.abc.net.au
