A young boy vanished in the desert one year ago. Why are there still no clues?

Little Gus Lamont was wearing a gray sun hat over his long blond curls and a blue Minions T-shirt as he played in the sand outside his grandparents’ house in the Australian outback last September.

When his grandmother went to check on him, he was gone.

The disappearance of the four-year-old boy from the fenced front yard of a home on a remote sheep station, almost 30 miles from the nearest town, sparked the largest police search in South Australian state history.

Over hours then days, hundreds of police officers, military personnel and other search teams scoured a 3.4-mile radius around the house on foot. But there was no sign of Gus – not his hat, nor his shirt, nor the small boots he was wearing.

Detectives drained three dams, searched six mineshafts and sent up drones with specialized cameras to take detailed imagery, later analyzed with artificial intelligence.

Still, nothing. Then five months later, Police dropped a bombshell announcement –– the case was now considered a “major crime.”

South Australia Police/Handout/AFP/Getty Images

Young children go missing all the time, and statistics will tell you that most are found within hours, inside their own homes, or having wandered not much more than a mile away.

Some are caught on doorbell or security cameras that offer vital clues; others are taken within sight of witnesses who can point police toward a potential abductor.

None of that applies in the case of Gus Lamont.

Police narrowed their focus to three family members who were at the property on September 27, 2025, when Gus disappeared: his mother and her parents.

Detective Superintendent Darren Fielke, of South Australia Police, told reporters in February that “inconsistencies” had been found in information provided by the family members.

“As a result of these inconsistencies and investigations into them, a person who resides at Oak Park Station… is no longer cooperating with us,” Fielke said.

Fielke ruled out Gus’ parents as suspects, leaving the finger of suspicion pointing at one of his grandparents –– who has issued a public denial.

Seven months on, no one has been charged and, publicly at least, police seem no closer to solving what’s become one of Australia’s most cryptic missing-person cases.

From the air, Oak Park Station is a dot on a vast, mostly barren landscape scattered with trees, low-lying vegetation and long lines of roads and fences, around 150 miles north of Adelaide.

Two long dirt tracks lead miles away from the nearest town, Yunta, past other pastoral stations and through several gates that police say were regularly locked by landowners.

Until last September, the residents largely kept to themselves – it wasn’t hard given the distance and the long hours needed to maintain a working sheep station.

The ranch is owned by Gus’ grandparents, Josie and Shannon Murray, the parents of Gus’ mother Jessica Murray.

Josie Murray and Jess had been mustering sheep in the paddock with their dogs and returned to the house at about 5:30 p.m. on the day Gus disappeared, Josie told CNN affiliate Channel 7’s Spotlight program.

Shannon had been at the homestead looking after Gus and his little brother Ronnie and had taken her eyes off him while he amused himself, as he often did around the property.

“Shan said that Gus was just down near what we called the bomb shelter, playing,” Josie said in June.

“When we had a look, no sign. And we said to Shan, ‘When did you last see him? And she said, ‘5 o’clock.’ And so, in that … half-hour time frame, he disappeared.”

Josie said Gus loved to explore the property on foot or on his bike, and had wandered away before, but never too far.

Video released by the family to aid the search showed Gus in a large hat, using his bare feet to push his balance bike across a rocky driveway.

“He loved his push bike, pushing that around and just letting it roll down the hill,” Josie recalled. “He was just a normal happy four-year-old child.”

When they realized Gus was gone, his mother and grandparents started searching for him around the property, starting with the cellar they were constructing, the pool, and all the buildings.

‘We’ve got 45 minutes of daylight,” Josie remembered telling Jess, so they jumped on their motorbikes to check further afield: the tanks, the dam, the shearing shed.

By 8 p.m., the roads around Oak Park Station were bathed in a darkness only broken by headlights and torches, and the family realized it was time to call the police.

One officer from the nearest town arrived to help them search the property, while a police helicopter with an infrared camera circled above. Daybreak saw the start of a foot search that spread 36 square miles (94 square kilometers), as drones scanned the dusty land.

But high-tech gear has limitations in such an unforgiving environment. Outback sand caught in scrubs and desert grass retained warmth long after the sun went down, meaning “every single bush looked like a heat target,” said Daniel Wood, CEO of Working Drones Australia.

Daytime temperatures were close to 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit), and the nights were cold, less than 10 degrees Celsius.

“When it gets dark, most small kids have the ability to find somewhere to sleep, whether it be under a park bench or under a bush or something like that,” said retired Queensland Police Senior Sergeant Jim Whitehead, who wrote Australia’s search and rescue guidelines.

“But they don’t have the skills to find water, to find food, to find heat, to modify their environment,” he added.

And searching for children requires looking at the world from their point of view.

“They generally never walk in a straight line. They’re often doing things that adults won’t understand; looking for dappled light, or following a butterfly, or even following a pet.”

When a child goes missing in the city, police are on alert for a possible abduction.

In the US, roadblocks are erected as the FBI’s Child Abduction Rapid Response team swings into action . Drivers in the vicinity are questioned, neighboring households searched, and any available video scrutinized for suspects.

In the sparsely populated Australian outback, help takes time to arrive. A second police officer called to the farmhouse that night got lost, and despite the family’s best instructions, gave up trying to find them , Josie Murray told 7 Spotlight.

Oak Park Station is not signposted, and finding the property requires knowledge of the area, Fielke told reporters in February, as he explained why police didn’t believe Gus had been abducted.

“It’s not a place that you just go to,” he said.

No unexplained vehicle tracks were located running to or from the property, he said, and everyone in the area with a risk profile of child offending had been questioned and discounted.

Gus had no routine that regularly put him outside his grandparents’ house at that time of day, so it was “very unlikely” that someone had compiled a dossier of his movements and was there at exactly the right time to snatch him, Fielke said.

“The opportunity for anybody to abduct Gus is extremely low.”

Josie Murray disagrees. She believes it’s entirely plausible that someone drove along the remote road and snatched Gus from outside their house.

And she says that evidence of an intruder – tire tracks or footprints – could have been lost in the flurry of activity that whipped up dust on roads around the property in the early days of the search.

“There would be something out here. There has to be something,” she told 7 Spotlight.

Hope of finding Gus alive faded as the days and weeks passed. And with no answers, the aerial search zone was widened to 706 square kilometers (273 square miles).

If he died in the bush, his body should be out there. Or at the very least a scrap of clothing.

In late October, police turned to Nearmap, a company that captures images for insurance claims, in far higher resolution than anything you’ll see on Google Earth.

From a plane flying at 6,000 feet, their photos can show cracks in roof tiles after a hailstorm.

Their plane flew for several days over the entire search zone, taking photos so large and detailed that they needed to be analyzed by AI. For that, Nearmap turned to Sci-eye, a company that uses its AI models to count kangaroos, to inform government culls.

In the images of Oak Park Station, Sci-eye found 10,000 sheep, 6,000 goats, 6,000 red kangaroos, a few hundred emus, grey kangaroos, wallaroos, and a few wedge-tailed eagles.

But they didn’t find Gus Lamont.

Fifteen inconclusive items were flagged to police but “there weren’t any objects in there that were obviously related to what we would expect from Gus,” said Andrew Walsh, Sci-eye’s founding director. Police checked the inconclusive objects, and found nothing.

The technology isn’t perfect, Walsh said; if Gus had crawled beneath a bush to sleep, the camera wouldn’t necessarily find him.

“Maybe he wandered off and is hidden under a tree, and we can’t see under that specific tree,” he added.

A friend of the family, Bill Harbison, shared a theory with 7 Spotlight that maybe a wedge-tailed eagle had swooped down and picked him up.

Raptor expert Ian Falkenberg said it’s an example of the misleading folklore shared among farmers about the power of Australia’s largest bird of prey. “Could an eagle have taken the child and flown off into the distance? Absolutely not,” he told CNN.

Female wedge-tailed eagles are larger than the males, but even they don’t weigh more than a few kilograms, he said. And both are too light to lift a child of Gus’ age – roughly 13 kilograms, according to pediatric guidelines.

Falkenberg said wedge-tailed eagles have an undeserved reputation for killing livestock, and in all his years, he hasn’t come across any credible reports of attacks on humans.

Dingoes are a different story.

The native dogs are known to have killed baby Azaria Chamberlain, who was taken in the outback in 1980, and mauled Canadian tourist Piper James , who died on K’Gari off the coast of Queensland earlier this year. But according to Walsh from Sci-eye, no dingoes were seen in the massive search area around Oak Park Station.

Highly venomous brown snakes are also found in the area, and a bite could have killed a small child. But even if Gus had sadly died in the outback, an influx of scavengers would likely have alerted searchers to the presence of his body, experts said.

Birds would have been circling in the sky above, said Falkenberg.

Feral pigs are also known for scavenging carcasses across most of Australia. But Walsh said Sci-eye’s analysis found no feral pigs in the search area.

The absence of clues, even a scrap of clothing, has pointed police in a direction initially considered unthinkable.

“When we don’t find anything at all, then we’ve got to start thinking: Are they actually here?” said Whitehead, the search expert. “Were they missing in the first place?”

SA Police didn’t name their suspect when they announced they were treating Gus’ disappearance as a “major crime,” but it wasn’t long before word spread that their suspect was Gus’ grandmother – Josie Murray.

Police had earlier said they were considering three options: Gus had wandered off; he was abducted; or someone known to him was involved in his disappearance and suspected death.

Having discounted the first two options, the possibility narrowed to the third.

“They think that I buried him,” Josie told 7 Spotlight in her only public interview. “For so many reasons, it’s ludicrous,” she added. “To think that I could face up to the trauma of doing that would also be ridiculous.”

When asked by CNN to confirm that Josie Murray was a suspect, SA Police declined to comment, citing the active investigation.

Josie and Shannon Murray used to be married, before Josie transitioned in the 1990s. They remain business partners, living and working together at the property.

Their friend, Bill Harbison, suggested to Spotlight that police had focused their attention on Josie because of her “transgender situation.” That was quickly rejected by South Australia’s Deputy Police Commissioner Linda Williams, who told 7 News the claim was “nonsense.”

In January, detectives seized several items during a search of Oak Park Station, including a vehicle, a motorcycle, and some electronic devices. By May, police said forensic examination of those items produced no new lines of inquiry . Nor did they help exclude any suspect, they added.

In June, Josie faced court on an unrelated charge after police found an unregistered silencer during a search of Oak Park Station. In Australia, silencers are classed as prohibited weapons, and owning one requires a permit.

Her lawyer, Andrew Ey, told the court: “This isn’t some James Bond movie where you’ve had a villain or an assassin walking around the corners taking out targets with little more than a whisper of a gun – that is not what the court is dealing with.”

Murray was fined around 10,000 Australian dollars ($7,000) and barred from holding a gun license for five years.

Murray’s lawyer did not respond to CNN’s request for an interview. Lawyers acting for Shannon Murray told CNN she was cooperating with police and had no further comment.

Falkenberg, the raptor expert, said he knew the Murrays for a decade or so when he worked near Oak Park Station, years before Gus was born.

“Most of those pastoral people out there, they’re salt of the earth… That community, they help each other. They’re part of the community,” he said.

“Sitting around the kitchen table talking to them… they were delightful people.”

People are still looking for Gus, one year after he disappeared. Search parties were sent out again in May after heavy rain in the hope that water would uncover more clues, to no avail.

Nearmap took more images of the search zone in August that Walsh from Sci-eye is still examining. “It looks very different from the first time the plane was out,” he said.

Rain has brought new life to the barren, red earth and, rather than giving up new clues, it may have further concealed any evidence of Gus’ whereabouts.

“If there’s anything obvious out there that we feel should be reported back, then we will immediately let the police know,” Walsh said.

Whitehead, the police search expert, often testifies in the Coroner’s Court to comment on the strength of the police search when a person goes missing.

Asked whether SA Police had done enough to find the young boy, he said: “Absolutely.”

“They searched way beyond any chance that Gus could have survived by himself,” Whitehead said.

Gus’ parents have kept a low profile throughout. After police announced they were treating his disappearance as a “major crime,” they thanked the search parties and urged anyone with information to come forward.

“Even the smallest detail could give us the answers we so desperately need,” they said in a statement.

“All we want is to bring Gus home and understand what happened to our beautiful boy.”

去年九月，小格斯·拉蒙特戴着一顶灰色遮阳帽，遮住了他长长的金色卷发，穿着一件蓝色小黄人T恤，在他祖父母位于澳大利亚内陆的房子外面的沙滩上玩耍。

当他奶奶去看他的时候，他已经不见了。

一名四岁男孩在距离最近的城镇近 30 英里的偏远牧羊场的一户人家围栏前院失踪，引发了南澳大利亚州历史上规模最大的警方搜寻行动。

在数小时乃至数天的时间里，数百名警察、军人和其它搜救队徒步搜寻了房屋周围3.4英里半径的方圆。但始终没有找到格斯的踪迹——他的帽子、衬衫，甚至他穿的小靴子都不见了。

侦探们抽干了三座水坝的水，搜查了六个矿井，并派出装有专用摄像机的无人机拍摄详细图像，之后用人工智能进行分析。

然而，仍然没有任何进展。五个月后，警方突然宣布了一项重磅消息——此案已被列为“重大犯罪”。

南澳大利亚警方/供图/法新社/盖蒂图片社

幼童走失的情况时有发生，统计数据显示，大多数走失儿童会在几个小时内被找到，要么是在自己家中，要么是在离家不超过一英里的地方徘徊。

有些被门铃或监控摄像头拍到，提供了重要线索；有些被绑架者在目击者的视线范围内，目击者可以向警方指出潜在的绑架者。

以上这些都不适用于格斯·拉蒙特的情况。

警方将调查范围缩小到 2025 年 9 月 27 日 Gus 失踪时在场的三名家庭成员：他的母亲和外祖父母。

南澳大利亚警方的警司达伦·菲尔克 (Darren Fielke) 在 2 月份告诉记者，在家庭成员提供的信息中发现了“不一致之处”。

“由于这些不一致之处以及对它们的调查，居住在橡树园车站的一名居民……不再与我们合作，”菲尔克说。

菲尔克排除了古斯父母的嫌疑，怀疑的矛头指向了他的一位祖父母——这位祖父母已公开否认了此事。

七个月过去了，仍然没有人被起诉，至少在公开场合，警方似乎还没有更接近侦破这起已成为澳大利亚最扑朔迷离的失踪人口案件之一的案件。

从空中俯瞰，橡树园车站就像是一片广袤无垠、大部分荒芜的土地上的一个小点，周围散布着树木、低矮的植被和绵延的道路和栅栏，位于阿德莱德以北约 150 英里处。

两条长长的土路从最近的城镇云塔延伸数英里，经过其他牧场，穿过几道大门，警方称这些大门经常被地主锁上。

直到去年九月，这里的居民大多与世隔绝——考虑到距离遥远以及维持一个运转中的牧羊场需要长时间的工作，这并不难做到。

这个牧场属于格斯的祖父母乔西和香农·默里，他们是格斯的母亲杰西卡·默里的父母。

乔西·默里告诉 CNN 附属电视台 7 频道的“聚光灯”节目，格斯失踪当天，她和杰西带着狗在围场里放羊，大约下午 5:30 回到了家。

香农当时正在农舍里照顾格斯和他的弟弟罗尼，趁格斯在院子里玩耍时，她没注意他，格斯经常这样做。

“珊说格斯就在我们称之为防空洞的地方附近玩耍，”乔西在六月份说道。

“我们过去查看，没有发现他的踪迹。我们问珊：‘你最后一次见到他是什么时候？’她说：‘五点钟。’就这样，在那……半个小时的时间里，他消失了。”

乔西说，格斯喜欢步行或骑自行车探索这片土地，以前也曾走失过，但从未走得太远。

家人发布的视频显示，格斯戴着一顶大帽子，光着脚推着平衡车穿过布满岩石的车​​道。

“他很喜欢他的自行车，喜欢推着它到处跑，让它顺着山坡滑下去，”乔西回忆道。“他就是一个普通快乐的四岁孩子。”

当他们意识到格斯不见了时，他的母亲和祖父母开始在房子周围寻找他，从他们正在建造的地窖、游泳池和所有建筑物开始。

“我们还有 45 分钟的日光，”乔西记得她告诉杰西，于是她们跳上摩托车去更远的地方查看：坦克、水坝、剪羊毛棚。

到了晚上 8 点，橡树园车站周围的道路一片漆黑，只有车灯和手电筒的光芒划破夜空，这家人意识到是时候报警了。

附近城镇的一名警员赶来协助搜查，一架配备红外摄像机的警用直升机在空中盘旋。黎明时分，搜查行动正式展开，范围达36平方英里（94平方公里），无人机也对这片尘土飞扬的土地进行了扫描。

但高科技装备在这种恶劣的环境下也有其局限性。澳大利亚工作无人机公司首席执行官丹尼尔·伍德表示，内陆灌木丛和沙漠草丛中积聚的沙子在日落后仍能长时间保持温度，这意味着“每一丛灌木看起来都像是一个热靶”。

白天气温接近 30 摄氏度（86 华氏度），夜晚寒冷，低于 10 摄氏度。

“天黑之后，大多数小孩都能找到地方睡觉，无论是公园长椅下、灌木丛下还是其他类似的地方，”昆士兰州退休高级警长吉姆·怀特黑德说道，他曾撰写了澳大利亚的搜救指南。

“但他们没有寻找水源、食物、取暖设施以及改造环境的技能，”他补充道。

寻找儿童需要从他们的角度看待世界。

“它们通常不会走直线。它们经常做一些成年人无法理解的事情；比如寻找斑驳的光影，或者追逐蝴蝶，甚至追逐宠物。”

城市里一旦有儿童失踪，警方就​​会提高警惕，怀疑可能发生绑架事件。

在美国，联邦调查局的儿童绑架快速反应小组立即展开行动，并设置路障。附近司机将被盘问，邻近住户将被搜查，所有可用的视频资料都将被仔细审查，以寻找嫌疑人。

在人口稀少的澳大利亚内陆地区，救援需要时间才能到达。当晚被叫到农舍的第二名警官迷路了，尽管这家人提供了明确的指示，他最终还是放弃了寻找，乔西·默里告诉7 Spotlight栏目。

菲耶尔克在二月份告诉记者，橡树园车站没有路标，找到这处房产需要了解该地区的情况，他以此解释为什么警方不相信格斯是被绑架的。

“这不是一个你可以随便去的地方，”他说。

他说，没有发现任何无法解释的车辆痕迹通往或离开该房产，而且该地区所有有儿童犯罪风险的人员都已被询问并排除嫌疑。

菲尔克说，格斯并没有什么固定的作息时间，不会在一天中的那个时间出现在祖父母家外面，所以“不太可能”有人收集了他的行踪档案，并且恰好在合适的时间出现把他绑架。

“任何人绑架格斯的可能性都极低。”

乔西·默里对此持不同意见。她认为完全有可能有人开车沿着这条偏僻的道路，从他们家门外把格斯绑架了。

她表示，在搜寻初期，房屋周围道路上扬起的尘土可能掩盖了入侵者的证据——轮胎痕迹或脚印。

“这里肯定有什么东西。一定有什么东西，”她告诉7 Spotlight。

随着时间推移，找到格斯生还的希望越来越渺茫。由于始终没有线索，空中搜索范围扩大到706平方公里（273平方英里）。

如果他死在丛林里，他的尸体应该还在那里。或者至少应该找到一块衣物残片。

10 月下旬，警方求助于 Nearmap，这是一家专门为保险索赔拍摄图像的公司，其图像分辨率远高于 Google Earth 上的任何图像。

从6000英尺高空飞行的飞机上拍摄的照片，可以显示冰雹过后屋顶瓦片上的裂缝。

他们的飞机在整个搜索区域上空飞行了数天，拍摄的照片尺寸巨大且细节丰富，需要借助人工智能进行分析。为此，Nearmap公司求助于Sci-eye公司，该公司利用其人工智能模型统计袋鼠数量，为政府的捕杀行动提供数据支持。

在橡树公园站的图像中，Sci-eye 发现了 10,000 只绵羊、6,000 只山羊、6,000 只红袋鼠、几百只鸸鹋、灰袋鼠、岩袋鼠和几只楔尾鹰。

但他们没有找到格斯·拉蒙特。

警方收到了15件无法确定具体原因的物品，但“其中没有任何物品明显与我们预想中格斯会留下的东西有关，”科学眼组织（Sci-eye）的创始主任安德鲁·沃尔什说道。警方检查了这些无法确定具体原因的物品，一无所获。

沃尔什说，这项技术并不完美；如果格斯爬到灌木丛下睡觉，摄像头不一定会找到他。

“也许他走丢了，躲在某棵树下，而我们看不到那棵树下的情况，”他补充道。

这家人的朋友比尔·哈比森向 7 Spotlight 分享了一种说法，认为可能是一只楔尾鹰俯冲下来把他叼走了。

猛禽专家伊恩·福肯伯格表示，这体现了农民之间流传的关于澳大利亚最大猛禽威力的误导性民间传说。“一只鹰有可能叼走孩子然后飞向远方吗？绝对不可能，”他告诉CNN。

他说，雌性楔尾鹰比雄性体型大，但即使是雌性，体重也只有几公斤。而且，根据儿科标准，它们都太轻，抱不动像格斯这么大的孩子——大约13公斤。

福肯伯格表示，楔尾鹰因捕杀牲畜而臭名昭著，在他多年的观察中，从未遇到过任何可信的袭击人类的报道。

澳洲野犬的情况就不同了。

众所周知，澳洲野犬曾于1980年在内陆地区杀害了婴儿阿扎里亚·张伯伦，并于今年早些时候在昆士兰海岸附近的卡加里岛袭击了加拿大游客派珀·詹姆斯，导致其死亡。但据Sci-eye公司的沃尔什称，在奥克帕克牧场周围的大片搜索区域内，并未发现澳洲野犬的踪迹。

该地区也栖息着剧毒的棕蛇，被咬一口就可能致命。但专家表示，即使格斯不幸死在了荒野之中，大量食腐动物的到来也很可能会引起搜救人员的注意，让他们发现他的遗体。

法尔肯伯格说，当时天空中应该有鸟儿盘旋。

众所周知，野猪在澳大利亚大部分地区都会觅食动物尸体。但沃尔什表示，Sci-eye 的分析显示，搜索区域内没有发现野猪。

由于没有任何线索，甚至连一块衣物碎片都没有，警方的调查方向最初被认为是不可想象的。

“如果我们什么都没找到，那就得开始思考：他们真的在这里吗？”搜寻专家怀特黑德说，“他们一开始就失踪了吗？”

南澳警方在宣布将 Gus 的失踪案作为“重大犯罪”处理时，并没有透露嫌疑人的姓名，但不久之后就有消息传出，嫌疑人是 Gus 的祖母——Josie Murray。

警方此前曾表示，他们正在考虑三种可能性：格斯走失了；他被绑架了；或者他认识的人参与了他的失踪和疑似死亡。

排除前两种可能性后，就只剩下第三种可能了。

“他们以为是我埋葬了他，”乔西在接受7 Spotlight的唯一一次公开采访时说道。“这太荒谬了，原因有很多，”她补充道。“要说我能承受那种创伤，那也太可笑了。”

当 CNN 要求确认 Josie Murray 是否为嫌疑人时，南非警方以调查仍在进行为由拒绝置评。

乔西和香农·默里曾经是夫妻，乔西在 20 世纪 90 年代变性。她们仍然是商业伙伴，一起生活和工作在这处房产中。

他们的朋友比尔·哈比森向《聚光灯》杂志暗示，警方之所以将注意力集中在乔西身上，是因为她的“跨性别身份”。南澳大利亚州副警务专员琳达·威廉姆斯迅速驳斥了这一说法，她告诉7 News，这种说法“纯属无稽之谈”。

今年1月，侦探在搜查奥克帕克车站时查获了多件物品，包括一辆汽车、一辆摩托车和一些电子设备。警方表示，到5月份，对这些物品的法医鉴定并未发现任何新的调查线索，也没有排除任何嫌疑人。

6月，乔西因另一起案件出庭受审。此前，警方在搜查奥克帕克车站时发现了一个未注册的消音器。在澳大利亚，消音器属于违禁武器，持有消音器需要许可证。

她的律师安德鲁·艾伊告诉法庭：“这不是詹姆斯·邦德电影里的情节，一个反派或刺客在街角走来走去，只用枪的轻微声响就能干掉目标——法庭处理的不是这种情况。”

默里被罚款约 1 万澳元（7000 美元），并被禁止持有枪支许可证五年。

默里的律师没有回应CNN的采访请求。香农·默里的律师告诉CNN，她正在配合警方调查，没有其他评论。

猛禽专家福肯伯格说，他在橡树园车站附近工作时就认识了默里一家大约十年，那时格斯还没出生。

他说：“那些牧师大多都是淳朴善良的人……他们互帮互助，是社区的一份子。”

“和他们围坐在厨房的桌子旁聊天……他们真是非常可爱的人。”

格斯失踪一年后，人们仍在寻找他。五月份一场大雨过后，搜寻队再次出动，希望雨水能冲刷出更多线索，但最终一无所获。

Nearmap在8月份拍摄了更多搜索区域的图像，Sci-eye公司的沃尔什仍在研究这些图像。“它看起来和飞机第一次进行搜索时的情况大不相同了，”他说。

雨水给贫瘠的红色土地带来了新的生机，但它非但没有提供新的线索，反而可能进一步掩盖了格斯的下落。

沃尔什说：“如果我们发现任何明显的异常情况，认为应该上报，我们会立即通知警方。”

怀特黑德是警方的搜寻专家，他经常在验尸官法庭上作证，对有人失踪时警方的搜寻力度发表评论。

当被问及南非警方是否已尽力寻找这名男孩时，他回答说：“绝对足够。”

怀特黑德说：“他们的搜寻范围远远超出了格斯独自一人能够幸存的任何可能性。”

格斯的父母一直保持低调。警方宣布将他的失踪案作为“重大案件”处理后，他们感谢了搜寻队伍，并呼吁知情者提供线索。

“即使是最小的细节也可能给我们带来我们迫切需要的答案，”他们在声明中说。

“我们只想把格斯带回家，弄清楚我们可爱的孩子到底发生了什么事。”