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

[linge]

Jess is not living there she’s long gone it’s only the grandparents at the homestead.

A suspect was declared on February 5th. The innocent grandparent must know who killed Gus so why haven’t they come forward? It’s starting to look like they both know what happened and one is covering up for the other IMO

Last I'd heard, she hasn't been sighted since the day and no one (in the public) knows where she or Ronnie are, rumors with a friend. To the point where Daily Mail were snapping pictures of nappies drying on the line as evidence she was still there in the initial aftermath. Assume the police know at least.

Fear can be a powerful motivator. If there was an abusive component to this family dynamic, the innocent grandparent might be terrified to come forward. They've been together for a very long time, much of it living off in isolation. That's a lot of time and opportunity to just completely break someone down until they don't have it left in them to defy your will and just meekly cooperate. And if there's an abusive component, the innocent grandparent would likely have a lot of experience covering for the abuser (hiding bruises, making excuses, downplay, protect...). Cults operate on similar mechanisms, just larger scale. And that's even without more active measures taken to keep them in line: close monitoring, threatening to hurt someone they love, confiscating phones, taking away vehicle keys. There are ways of keeping someone on a very short leash, particularly once they've been 'trained.'

Also can't rule out the power of old fashioned denial. A lot of people have a hard time wrapping their minds around the possibility that someone they think they know so well could do something so terrible then carry on like normal.

 

[linge]

But if there was alleged abuse/neglect,
wouldn't Mum notice it?
There would be signs, no?
And yet
she left both kids under the care of grandmother.
She visited them, helped with farm work and trusted them enough to bring kids there.
Mum is not a suspect.
There is nothing reported that baby R. suffered harm/abuse/neglect.
So why would Gus?

IDK.

JMO

Some kinds of abuse is easier to hide than others.

Also, Jess is their daughter. If one (or both) of them was abusive to Gus, odds are good that Jess would have been abused growing up, too, if not still. What your parents do is your 'normal'; it can take time, distance, and outside perspectives to be able to label whatever you experienced as abuse.

Growing up, I was friends with a girl with abusive parents. Among other things, her father would beat the kids with a belt, including her 3-year old sister. I was horrified; my friend just thought he was 'strict.'

So if there was the kind of abuse that leaves bruises, it's possible that everyone who would have seen them would have 'understood.' Particularly because, while where I am people tend to strip down as much as they can get away with when it's hot out, I understand that in Australia it's normal to cover up to protect from the sun, long sleeves, long pants. That could cover up a lot of bruises without raising any suspicions from outsiders.