Authorities concluded the latest effort to locate a four-year-old boy, whose disappearance in the rugged outback of South Australia gripped the nation.
The operation to find Gus Lamont covered 95sqkm on foot, expanding beyond areas previously combed by the police and the Australian Defence Force (ADF).
Southern Australian Police confirmed on Friday that despite a “detailed, meticulous and protracted” effort, the search yielded no new evidence.
“Police had been hopeful the extensive ground searches would uncover any evidence of Gus, but this has not been the case,” they said.
“The fact Gus is a small child, the terrain is extremely rugged, harsh and subject to changing weather conditions has made the searching difficult and more challenging for those involved.”
Gus went missing on 27 September while playing outside his home on a remote homestead near Yunta in South Australia – about 300 km from Adelaide.
His grandmother had left him unattended for around 30 minutes and found him gone, sparking one of the largest land and air searches in the state’s history.
Gus, known for being adventurous yet shy, was last seen wearing a grey hat, light-grey trousers, boots, and a blue long-sleeve T-shirt with a yellow Minion design.
The boy’s disappearance captured national attention, with images of his blond, curly hair circulating widely in the media and online speculation running high. A number of other fake images of the boy were also spread online, including several claiming to show breakthroughs in the case.
Police had earlier urged the public to refrain from sharing unverified “opinions” and instead rely on credible sources for information.
Police do not suspect foul play and have described the case as a “recovery operation” now. In a statement, SA Police said: “In the initial stages, police had hoped to find Gus alive, but sadly the search has become a recovery operation.”
Earlier this month, police, assisted by sniffer dogs, drones and helicopters, launched one of the largest and most intensive searches of South Australia in recent years to find the blond-haired boy, but were unable to locate him even after six days after his disappearance.
Addressing a press conference at the time, assistant police commissioner Ian Parrott said that the search had been scaled back, but that they would continue to investigate all lines of inquiry. “We are confident that we’ve done absolutely everything we can to locate Gus within the search area, but despite our best efforts, we have not been able to locate him, and unfortunately, we are now having to scale back this search for Gus,” he said at the time.
Around 50 personnel worked on the ground to search for the boy near the homestead and surrounding bush, covering a 470sqm area over the past week. Searches on foot covered about 25km every day, police said.
