Ex-SES volunteer Jason O’Connell casts doubt on search area of Gus
A volunteer who searched for missing Gus for more than 90 hours said there is “zero evidence” the four-year-old is on the property.
A former SES volunteer who covered more than 1200km in the search for missing Gus Lamont believes there is “zero evidence” the four-year-old is on the property.
Jason O’Connell – an SES volunteer for nearly 11 years – told The Advertiser he and his partner, Jen, spent more than 90 hours searching the family’s Oak Park Station and found nothing to indicate that the child was there.
“It’s just wide, open land,” the 50-year-old said.
“There’s really not much there, and with our lights I’m surprised because we just didn’t find anything.
“He’s not on that property.”
August – affectionately known as “Gus” – was last seen playing in the sand outside the homestead, 40km south of Yunta, about 5pm on September 27.
His disappearance prompted a large-scale search involving dozens of police, SES volunteers and members of the Australian Defence Force, checking dams, troughs, gullies, dry creek beds and scrub.
Mr O’Connell said he and his partner were joined in the search on Monday night by Gus’s father.
“It pretty much devastated him. It’s his little boy, and he’s pretty close to his son,” he said.
The Advertiser attended the home of Gus’s father, at Croydon Park, on Monday.
A neighbour said the family was still “up north” on the property where Gus disappeared, and were “nice people”.
“He was a nice young kid,” they said.
“I’ve known them all for years – the parents, the grandparents. They’re nice people.”
Mr O’Connell said he and his partner were the only volunteers searching the vast property during the hours of darkness.
SA Police did not respond to questions from The Advertiser on his claim.
Mr O’Connell said they searched mostly by vehicle, checked fence lines and tracks over the span of several days but found nothing.
The Peterborough local, who is also a wildlife carer, added that the absence of birds of prey also indicated Gus was not on the homestead.
“If he was in a bad way or if he passed away, we’d listen for foxes, look for birds of prey,” he said.
“No birds of prey means he’s not there.”
Tracker and former policeman Aaron Stuart, who has helped police locate missing people and escaped prisoners in the bush, said it was unusual that only one footprint had been found so far.
“You’d find the next one (footprint), and the one after that,” Mr Stuart said. “You don’t find one track, you find tracks.
“You’d soon find out if it was a decoy or anything like that.
“If it was me, if I had been looking for him, I would have also been looking for other stuff – people trying to mislead you and stuff like that.
“That’s always in the back of my mind.”
Police on Sunday told The Advertiser the search for Gus has been suspended but the investigation remained ongoing
On Friday, they announced they were scaling back the search with the grim admission that despite best efforts “we have not been able to locate him”. Addressing the media, Assistant Commissioner Ian Parrott said search teams had done “absolutely everything” possible to find Gus.
“We’ve all been hoping for a miracle, but that miracle has not eventuated,” he said.
Despite police suspending the search, Mr O’Connell vowed to keep looking for Gus as long as the father wanted.
“As long as (the dad) wants to search, then we’re willing to help him,” he said.
“I don’t think (he) is going to stop, so if (he) wants us out there, we’re out there. But I think it will be off-property.”
