The grandmother of missing South Australian boy Gus Lamont has spoken publicly for the first time, revealing police have told her they believe she may have been involved in covering up the four-year-old’s death.
Nine months after Gus vanished from a remote sheep station near Yunta, Josie Murray has broken her silence in an emotional interview with 7NEWS Adelaide and 7NEWS Spotlight, describing allegations against her as “ludicrous” and insisting she had nothing to do with her grandson’s disappearance.
“They think that I buried him, took him out and buried him. That’s all they’ve said so far,” Ms Murray said.
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“It’s ludicrous. It just doesn’t make sense. Why would you inflict what’s happening to us now?”
Joise Murray, Gus Lamont’s grandmother Credit: 7NEWS
The 75-year-old became emotional during the interview, firmly denying any involvement in the case that has gripped the nation since Gus disappeared on September 27 last year.
“We absolutely know we’re innocent,” she said.
“We know that we couldn’t and didn’t do anything and the hard part obviously is to convince other people of that. There’s no way of completely convincing people.”
Police upgraded the investigation to a Major Crime inquiry in February, but despite extensive searches, no trace of the young boy has been found.
Gus Lamont Credit: Supplied
Investigators have not located any physical evidence, including clothing fibres, hair, blood, or any indication of what happened to Gus after he vanished from the vast property.
As days of searching stretched into weeks, family members say the emotional toll became overwhelming.
“I’d be in tears and I know Shannon (Josie’s former partner, who still lives with her on the property) said the same thing, that you’d just suddenly be hit by the horror, the enormity of this,” Ms Murray said.
Joise Murray, Gus Lamont’s grandmother Credit: 7NEWS
“And then to be accused of doing something like this is just — you could not wish a more horrible experience on anyone.”
The search effort has been one of the largest conducted in regional South Australia, involving police, Australian Defence Force personnel, cadets, helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, drones and specialist technology.
Artificial intelligence was also used to analyse imagery covering hundreds of kilometres of rugged terrain surrounding the station.
Despite the unprecedented operation, investigators have found no definitive evidence explaining Gus’s disappearance.
Ms Murray has criticised aspects of the police response, arguing that the initial search may have compromised valuable tracking opportunities.
“I was frankly horrified at the number of vehicles that were parked around our house because we hadn’t actually seen them come in,” she said.
“My immediate thought was, ‘My God, they’ve destroyed any chance of tracking him.’”
She believes specialist tracking resources should have been deployed sooner.
“That was a mistake to come in with all those vehicles so early when they should have actually got the tracker guy from Port Augusta while there was still a chance to find the tracks,” she said.
“He didn’t get there until two or three days after Gus went missing.”
Josie Murray talking to police during the search for Gus Lamont Credit: 7NEWS
Ms Murray also pointed to observations she made around the property in the hours after Gus disappeared, including what she believes were unusual signs near the area where he had been playing on AFL Grand Final night.
She recalled seeing a heavy bedstead that appeared to have been moved and noticing small wheel tracks nearby.
“A child would not be able to shift it,” she said.
“And then I saw wheel tracks going down past where the bedstead was and past where the weather station was, and these wheel tracks were small.”
The grandmother maintains her belief that Gus may have been abducted by a stranger, despite police repeatedly stating that an abduction is considered highly unlikely given the station’s isolated location.
Gus Lamont Credit: 7NEWS
“We haven’t got a body, we haven’t got a live body, we haven’t got a dead body,” she said.
“We have no idea quite where he is, but we feel that yes, he has been taken.”
South Australia Police continue to investigate the case and have not laid any charges.
With no breakthrough, no physical evidence and no answers, the mystery surrounding Gus Lamont’s disappearance remains one of the state’s most baffling unsolved cases.
For the Murray family, the uncertainty continues to be compounded by suspicion and public scrutiny.
“No one’s come up with any idea on that, no motive, nothing for any wrongdoing on our part,” Ms Murray said.
“It just doesn’t make sense.”
Full statement from South Australia police
The investigation into the disappearance of four-year-old Gus Lamont has been one of the largest and most intensive undertaken by SA Police in connection with a missing person.
It has involved an unprecedented level of ground and air searching across a very large search zone and utilised unlimited resources and the expertise of multiple other agencies and organisations.
Sadly, despite 11 individual, large-scale searches of Oak Park Station, no evidence relating to Gus Lamont’s disappearance has been located.
From the time Gus disappeared SA Police have been investigating three specific lines of inquiry – that Gus had wandered off and become lost, that he had been abducted or that a person known to him was involved in his disappearance.
The Officer-in-Charge of the Major Crime Investigation Branch Detective Superintendent Darren Fielke has conducted regular press conferences to update the community on the investigation into Gus’ disappearance – revealing significant operational details because of the intense public interest in the case.
Task Force Horizon has and will continue to investigate any and all information, including information provided by Gus’s family, that could assist in identifying what has happened to Gus.
As the investigation is ongoing it is not appropriate for SA Police to discuss specific aspects of the investigation that could compromise any potential future court proceedings.
