Outback search to resume for missing four-year-old boy
Police will resume a search for a child missing in remote South Australia, saying they’ll expand the area of the hunt.
Source: SA Police
A search for a missing four-year-old boy will resume at an outback sheep station more than two weeks after the child disappeared.
Police announced a new search, involving army personnel, would look at a section of the farm not covered to date.
“The search …will concentrate on an expanded area outside of the zone already searched extensively following Gus’s disappearance,” South Australia Police said on Monday.
“There continues to be regular and close engagement with the Lamont family who are continuing to assist with the investigation.”
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SA Police have pledged to “never give up hope of finding Gus”, with the search to resume on Tuesday.
The “shy, adventurous” pre-schooler was last seen playing on a mound of dirt at the homestead, which is about 300 kilometres north of Adelaide, at 5pm on September 27.
Half an hour later, when his grandmother returned, he was nowhere to be found.
A police helicopter and a tracker last week conducted a significant search at a dam about 3.5 kilometres west of the homestead after a small boot print was found.
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The print was subsequently found not to be related to the four-year-old, police said.
Also last week, policed used a special drone with infrared capabilities for an aerial search of the property. Results of the drone analysis will be finalised in coming weeks.
Police scaled back the search after hundreds of officers, defence personnel and volunteers scoured the remote property for almost a week.
Police are continuing to investigate Gus’s disappearance, including the possibility he might not have become lost while playing outside the property.
The investigation is being managed by missing persons, part of SA Police’s major crime investigation branch.
However, senior police have told Gus’s family he is unlikely to still be alive, based on expert advice about the outback weather conditions and clothing he was wearing when he disappeared.
Gus has long, blond, curly hair and was last seen wearing a grey sun hat, a blue T-shirt with a yellow Minion on the front, light-grey long pants and boots.
-with AAP
