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

[obscidian_scribe]

Jason O'Connell, from Mid North Wildlife Rescue South Australia, volunteered his services within hours of Gus vanishing from his family's farm, drawing on decades of his SES training and specialist tracking skills to assist Major Crimes detectives.

The veteran searcher said there are 'two locations off property' that had raised concerns with his team based on what they saw, heard or were told by family.

He did not go into specifics about what was of interest at the two sites or whether any items had been found, but said one, a conservation park, was now a focus for police based on his tip, and that his team could not go there until cops had 'done their work'.

Mr O'Connell and his partner Jen Balchin previously spent about 100 hours scouring the isolated property, travelling more than 1200km across rough terrain and often searching alone through the night.

Gus Lamont search focusing on a new area beyond farm where he vanished

Jason O'Connell, from Mid North Wildlife Rescue South Australia , volunteered his services within hours of Gus vanishing from his family's farm, drawing on decades of his SES training.

www.dailymail.co.uk

«The whole story is horrible, if what we believe is all true.»

This is a quote from a Volunteer Mr Aldrich cited in the article who was part of the team that was supposed to go out to a location in the national park right before the police announced their search.

This gives me chills, I don’t want to imagine what he means by that. That poor baby.

 

[Fantastic]

Grandma Josie is fiercely protective of her privacy, when a reporter visited, she saw her off, while holding a shotgun.

The dark past haunting town where Gus Lamont vanished: JONICA BRAY

When news first broke of Gus's mysterious disappearance, no photos were released and details of the family's identity and dynamics were kept tightly under wraps - now I know why.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[seasideForest]

This means police are clearly communicating the charges have nothing to do with the major crime which is suspected and currently being investigated. That's what unrelated means.

I thought I'd picked up on some threads that police don't actually have to quite honest in their phrasing of these kinds of things, for tactical reasons? That was maybe on the Jack and Lilly thread in Canada. Might not be the same for Australia?
JMO

 

[seasideForest]

MOO
Sadly a lot of people find it difficult to admit when they've done something wrong, even when its an accident. It seems in some people's minds, its much easier to run away from or hide the truth.

MOO

RSBMFF
Or easier to try and blame somebody else.

A bit off-topic, but fwiw I grew up in a family where it was generally best not to admit to having done something wrong not even wrong 'by accident'. Much better to blame somebody else, and that included adults blaming children... For me up into my 30s admitting to a mistake felt like I was about to be emotionally annihilated. The cause in our family's case is multi-generational trauma and I've been able to move beyond it only through trauma therapy. Others in my family have not moved beyond the instinct to blame others... or even done any therapy. Before I was in therapy I didn't even understand why I so badly wanted to find out 'who was at fault' in every day life situations rather than anything tragic like this case or cases where there are legal implications. It wasn't till I was deep in therapy that the fear of impending emotional annihilation came up. I'm not excusing my past behaviour but trying to explain how it could come about since my family will not be the only family around with such behaviour. otoh I cannot imagine trying to run from this amount of 'mistake' or accident or whatever it was. But again, people are different and react differently.

JMO

 

[seasideForest]

Yes they can iMO. Concrete is actually porous so properly trained dogs can get the scent even if buried many feet down, is my understanding

JMO

Correct. Somebody even provided a link from the BBC explaining it all, further upthread.

 

[musicaljoke]

It's hard for me to believe that this firearms charge has no connection to this missing child incident. It seems like it is a minor infraction of some kind. WHY bother to bring the simple charges against someone in the middle of a possible homicide case?

I feel like there was some strategy involved. Maybe they wanted the two grandmothers to be separate from each other long enough for the detectives to speak to one or both of them alone?

Arresting someone is a big deal. Police can't just arrest a person without good reason. If they wanted to speak to the grandparents separately, then they could simply bring them in for questioning. And no doubt, that has already happened.

It may yet turn out that the firearms charge is related to the missing boy, but I suspect that if and when it happens, the firearms charge will be dropped.

 

[linge]

Perhaps the guns are all in Josie’s name so the silencer was seen to be Josie’s too?

I don’t think the gun is important here. The separation of the two non-cooperators is. That gives each a chance to speak unheard by the other. Maybe not even speak, if loyalty to the other was a concern. Plenty can be communicated non-verbally - for example, likely places to search.

It’s interesting we now have both not cooperating rather than one. Why is this? Misplaced loyalty? Annoyance at the charging of Josie? Fear about consequences?

What I keep thinking is why doesn’t one of them relieve their daughter’s agony and at least indicate where Gus is? Surely their daughter has confronted one or both? To ignore that agony is beyond callous MOO.

Think your questions here are important ones. I'm very curious if the second one stopped cooperating with SAPOL before or right after the firearms arrest.

From cases I've followed, it doesn't seem very uncommon for the partner of someone suspected of a crime who was initially helpful to LE to then stop helping and take the 'side' of that partner being investigated against police, particularly as the investigation ramps up enough to start feeling harassed. A lot of the time it seems to be feeling sorry for the partner ('they're all alone,' 'no one else believes them,' 'they need me,' 'the cops are picking on them,' 'it's not fair'), either believing innocence ('they could never') or feeling guilty, like it's a betrayal, for doubting innocence (or being made to feel guilty for it; 'You know me better than anyone, how could you believe I could ever kill someone?' paraphrasing many a killer), loyalty, as you say, getting sucked back into the 'we're a team, we're in this together, it's us against the world' mindset. Feelings of love, trust, history, loyalty, obligation don't just switch off when someone you have deep connections with is suspected of a terrible crime, they're both powerful forces that drive decisions all on their own and also things that can be actively manipulated by others.

But if this arrest was used as an opportunity to separate and question them, and the way it played out ended in the second one ending cooperation, it's possible something in the course of it made the previously cooperative non-suspect (or their lawyer) realize they were beginning to be implicated in this too, if they helped in a cover up or something of that nature. Or if somehow wholly innocent and genuinely in the dark as to what happened to Gus, possibly been shocked by the implications of the questions being asked, didn't believe it was possible the other could do what the police were suggesting, went into denial, whatever. Or even just realized that their own answers were beginning to make the suspect look more guilty, despite maybe initially believing that cooperating would help prove innocence. And any of those things could have been the push needed to comply with what the suspect probably already wanted, which was for them to help stonewall SAPOL, be a united front giving them nothing more than they already have.

JMO.

 

[GlobeFireCandle]

Wether you were innocent or guilty, you would be feeling harassed after months of this, I can imagine it is very stressful