Nine months after four-year-old Gus Lamont vanished from his family’s remote South Australian sheep station, his grandmother has broken her silence about the investigation into his disappearance.
Speaking publicly in an emotional interview on Seven’s Spotlight, Josie Murray, 75, revealed that detectives suspect she buried her grandson after he died in an accident.
“They have said that they don’t think I hurt him. They think that I buried him,” Josie said. “It’s ludicrous.”
Josie, whom police have identified as a “main suspect” in the investigation, strongly denies any involvement in Gus’ disappearance.
“No one’s come up with any idea on that, no motive, nothing for any wrongdoing on our part,” she said.
Following the case update, New Idea spoke with PsychOrium‘s forensic psychologist, Dr Carollyne Youssef, about the difficult impact of any family member coming under public and police suspicion in such cases.
Gus Lamont has been missing for nine months. (Credit: AAP)
“When the family of a missing child becomes the focus of public or investigative suspicion, they can carry two psychological burdens simultaneously: the pain of not knowing what has happened to their child, and the experience of having their own character, motives, and grief questioned,” she explains.
“From a trauma perspective, this can create a sense of psychological disorientation. The people and institutions one instinctively looks to for protection, validation, and support may instead become sources of scrutiny and mistrust. Even when investigative suspicion is a routine part of an inquiry, the emotional experience for those involved can feel deeply isolating.”
Dr Youssef details the impact of “hypervigilance” at this time, where “every word, facial expression, interview, or emotional reaction may feel as though it will be judged”.
“Family members may begin monitoring themselves, constantly wondering whether they appear ‘too emotional’ or ‘not emotional enough’, ‘too composed’ or ‘too distressed’,” she says.
“This self-monitoring can interfere with the natural process of grief and leave family members feeling detached from their own emotions. Media attention, coverage, speculation, and social judgement can change private suffering into a public spectacle
Four-year-old Gus was last seen on September 27, 2025, outside his family’s property, Oak Park Station. (Credit: AAP)
“The mind is built to seek resolution and close loops, yet in these cases, resolution never arrives,” she explains.
“Instead, families tend to exist in a state of perpetual emotional suspension, caught between hope and despair, acceptance and resistance. This experience is often described as ‘ambiguous loss’, a form of grief in which there is no definitive confirmation of life or death.
“Unlike bereavement following a confirmed death, ambiguous loss prevents the normal grieving process from unfolding. Families cannot fully mourn because hope persists. Equally, they cannot fully hope because reality continually intrudes.
“Their nervous system can remain in a cycle of vigilance, constantly scanning for new information, revisiting memories, and imagining countless possible outcomes. Over months and years, this chronic uncertainty can reshape a person’s identity.
“The role of family members becomes inseparable from the search. Every day, milestones become painful reminders of what should have been.”
What has Josie Murray said about Gus Lamont’s disappearance?
Josie believes Gus may have been abducted, pointing to what she claims were overlooked clues near the area where he was last seen.
She told Spotlight that an old bed frame and a weather station appeared to have been moved, and she noticed tyre tracks from what she believed was a medium-sized passenger vehicle.
“I thought that was strange too, and I started to think almost immediately, ‘I wonder if someone’s come in?’ and all the time I was thinking there’s a chance he’d been taken by someone.”
Josie also claims she found what appeared to be a footprint near a dam that matched one of Gus’ boots, but says it was dismissed during the investigation.
She says the lack of answers is one of the reasons she continues to believe Gus may still be out there somewhere.
“We haven’t got a live body; we haven’t got a dead body,” she said. “We have no idea where he is, but we feel that, yes, he has been taken.”
Meanwhile, Josie says the suspicion hanging over her family has only added to their pain.
“You’d suddenly be hit by the horror, the enormity of this,” she said. “And then to be accused of doing something like this – you could not wish a more horrible experience on anyone.”
Gus, whose golden curls became one of his most recognisable features, was, Josie said, a happy little boy who loved books, playing on the swing beside the house, and riding his pushbike down the hill.
Josie Murray, who police have identified as a “main suspect” in the investigation, strongly denies any involvement in Gus’ disappearance (Credit: Spotlight)
“He was happy most of the time,” she said. “He loved sitting in the lounge being read to or reading his books.”
Josie said she is reminded of Gus every day.
“A lot of his toys are still around,” she revealed. “We bought him a little pushbike with training wheels on … There is all sorts of stuff that reminds me of him.”
Gus was last seen at Oak Park Station, near Yunta in South Australia’s far north, on September 27, 2025.
According to Josie, he vanished within a 30-minute window that afternoon.
“[Gus’ other grandmother] Shan said that Gus was just down near what we call the bomb shelter plane, and when we had a look, no sign,” she recalled.
“We said to Shannon, ‘When did you last see him?’ And she said, ‘Five o’clock.’ So in that half-an-hour timeframe, he disappeared.”
As daylight faded, family members searched dams, sheds and paddocks before police were called at 8pm.
“We’ve got 45 minutes of daylight; we’d better get on with it,” Josie recalled.
In February, police upgraded the case to a Major Crime investigation after extensive searches failed to uncover any trace of Gus.
South Australia Police say the investigation remains ongoing, with detectives examining possibilities including that Gus was abducted, was harmed by someone known to him, or was taken by wildlife.
So far, no charges have been laid. Yet Josie refuses to lose faith.
“We live in the hope that this is a benign abduction and he’s still out there. At some stage, hopefully soon, someone’s going to see him and notify the authorities,” she added.
