When news broke that a little boy was missing from his home in South Australia and his family was mysteriously anonymous, it all sadly seemed far too familiar.

Eleven years apart, William Tyrrell and Gus Lamont vanished from their grandmothers’ houses.

From the very outset, the striking parallels and coincidences with the Tyrrell case were obvious.

As the days rolled by with the boy still unnamed, still no photo of him, no distraught parents fronting the media, and no trace of the child, the comparisons kept coming…

1. NOT FRONTING THE MEDIA – SENDING IN THE FAMILY FRIEND

The Australian public is used to scenes of trauma and grief: a family member has vanished and, particularly when it is a child with no reason to disappear, the parents go on television.

But that’s not what happened when William Tyrell vanished. Instead of a tearful couple, we got family friend Nicole, who released photos of him, but imparted unsatisfactory information.

Nicole, who went on Nine’s Today show four days after the toddler’s disappearance, said that William’s family was ‘completely distressed’ but couldn’t say who they were.

When William Tyrrell vanished, the public was left on the dark about who he or his family actually were, which worked against the investigation

The sole photo of missing Gus Lamont was not released until days after he vanished, and his family background was suppressed. Hopefully the little boy or more probably his remains will be located and the secrecy will not become a fatal flaw in the investigation

Interestingly, the sandpit where Gus was last spotted is next to a trommel (circled with the sandpit), a machine used for sorting earth and gold prospecting, and a mine shaft which has no doubt been searched

In the early days of William Tyrrell’s disappearance, police, SES and volunteers searched within a small radius of his grandmother’s house where he was last seen

SES and army personnel on the ground south of Yunta SA, where Gus Lamont was last seen just before nightfall and where the search was called off after a week and then resumed

She said William ‘did not have a tendency to wander off’ but added cryptically that the boy ‘didn’t live here [in Kendall] so he wasn’t in the bush but he was definitely outdoorsy’.

‘He loved being outside but he knew the limits, he knew the perimeters, he knew where to go and where not to go. He was taught really well about the places that he could play,’ Nicole said.

Like millions of children.

In the case of Gus Lamont, it was again four days afterwards that a family friend  appeared before the media.

Bill Harbison said the boy’s family was ‘devastated’, adding that they were still coming to terms with what had happened.

‘It has come as a shock to our family and friends and we’re struggling to comprehend what has happened,’ he said.

‘Gus’s absence is felt by all of us and we miss him more than words can express. Our hearts are aching and we are holding on to hope that he will be found safe and well,’ Mr Harbison, an equine veterinarian, said.

A photo of the missing boy was, however, yet to be released.

No parents to be seen, instead family friend Nicole fronted up with police days after William Tyrrell, whose mysterious background was kept secret at the time

It wasn’t until four days after the initially unnamed missing boy vanished that a family friend, vet Bill Harbison, fronted the media to appeal for information about a kid called Gus, with no further details of his background or relatives

2. GRANDMA’S HOUSE AND WEALTHY FOLK

WILLIAM TYRRELL

William vanished from his foster grandmother’s house on Benaroon Drive, Kendall, on the NSW Mid-North Coast, on the morning of September 12, 2014.

According to information released via Nicole by William’s foster parents and police after he vanished, William’s grandmother was ‘an active and well-liked member of the tight-knit Kendall community and had recently been in hospital.

‘His grandfather died earlier this year and his grandmother needed someone to care for her in the house, so William’s family had travelled from their home in Sydney to stay with her.’

This sparked a tsunami of conspiracy theories which were only partly extinguished when some facts were finally revealed: his foster parents were rich Sydney North Shore professionals, unlike his formerly drug-affected birth parents.

William Tyrrell’s foster grandmother (above with a police officer) at the house where the toddler mysteriously vanished on the morning of September 12, 2014, off her back verandah

The wealthy North Shore couple who fostered William Tyrrell, who was taken from his dysfunctional birth parents aged eight months

Family tree of Gus Lamont, starting with his great-grandparents Vincent and Clair Pfeiffer, who inherited the Oak Park property from her family

Gus’s grandmother, Shannon Murray, with her daughter Jess as an infant. Jess is the mother of missing Gus Lamont, who disappeared on the evening September 27

GUS LAMONT

Gus vanished from his grandmothers’ 60-square-kilometre rural property in Far Northern South Australia on the evening of September 27, 2025.

Gus was staying with Shannon and Josie Murray – his grandmother and trans grandmother, respectively – at Oak Park, a remote sheep station inherited from Shannon’s parents.

Josie used to be Robert Murray, but began identifying as a woman later in life. Robert and Shannon had married and welcomed a daughter, Jess, Gus’ mother. It’s unclear if their marriage is still intact after Josie’s transition, but they do still live together.

Citizens of Yunta speak highly of the Murrays. Shannon’s late father, Vincent Pfeiffer, who ran the farm until his death in the 2010s, was a famously tough man who survived three years in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp during World War II.

Gus Lamont’s other grandmother, trans woman Josie Murray, is seen at the Oak Park property where Gus was last sighted playing on a sand heap next to a gold prospecting machine

After returning to Australia, he married Shannon’s mother, Clair Jones, and began working on the farm. A pillar of the community, he was an active member of the town’s rifle shooting club.

In more recent times, the family has been involved in the Yunta Race Club, which stages amateur ‘gymkhanas’ at which competitors race everything from horses to motorbikes.

3. A BLACK EYE?

The last time William Tyrrell’s birth mother saw her son alive was on an access visit, before which she had been warned the three-year-old had a black eye which he had sustained ‘from an accidental fall’ at his foster parents’ home.

It was not the first time William had fallen over and detectives would later theorise the little boy had died accidentally falling from his grandmother’s verandah.

William Tyrrell had a black left eye – as confirmed by carers – just before he vanished in September 2014, with child welfare workers saying it had been sustained during an accidental fall at his foster parents’ home

The area below Gus’s right eye looks to be swollen and slightly darker than the corresponding area under his left eye, leading to online speculation it is a black eye

In the case of Gus Lamont, there have been no statements from his family about the young boy’s life on the station, or about any incidents that might have caused the black eye seemingly visible in the only publicly available photograph of him.

That image, released by his family six days after he vanished, is of publicly unknown vintage, but would seem to depict a boy of about four.

The area below Gus’s right eye looks to be swollen and slightly darker than the corresponding area under his left eye, leading to online speculation that it is a black eye caused by unknown means.

4. ICONIC PHOTO

The iconic photo of William Tyrrell is said to be one of the last images of him ever taken before he mysteriously vanished from his foster grandmother’s verandah.

The last photos, taken on a camera the foster mother bought in Bali just weeks before William went missing, were considered as the final ‘proof of life’ of William.

They hold time stamps which themselves have become the subject of dispute over just when the boy vanished.

The iconic photo of William Tyrrell roaring for the camera on the morning he went missing in 2014. No trace of the three-year-old has ever been found

The only photo of Gus Lamont, four, released to the public days after the boy vanished from his grandmother’s homestead on the Oak Park property in northern South Australia

The photograph of Gus Lamont with his long wavy blond hair is the sole image of the missing four-year-old released since he disappeared.

Child protection activist Allanna Smith finds this odd: ‘Wouldn’t you put out every photo of your kid that you could find?’ she asked.

‘There could be a number of factors which inhibited them from distributing photos of their child for whatever reason.’

5. THE MISSING HOURS

The iconic photo of William emitting a playful roar photo was used as crucial ‘proof of life’ evidence by investigators to establish a time frame for his disappearance.

The ‘proof of life’ timeframe was based on when the image was taken (9.37am) and when his foster mother called the police (10.57am).

However, that timeline was thrown into doubt by the photo’s digital metadata which suggested the picture may have been taken earlier.

The image has a ‘created time’ of 7.39am and a ‘corrected time’ of 9.37am, a document from the 2000-page evidence brief showed in 2021.

Time stamp on the final photos of William Tyrrell on his grandmother’s verandah show ‘created’ and ‘corrected’ times with a two hour discrepancy

With the sun starting to sink, concern quickly turned to panic as darkness engulfed the property. The family did not call police for a further three hours

Gus was last seen outside by his grandmother at 5pm, then was absent when she went to call him in for dinner around 5:30pm.

With the sun starting to sink, concern quickly turned to panic.

Sunset on September 27 was officially 6.11pm and for the next three hours, family members told police, they frantically explored the rambling homestead, shouting Gus’s name into the twilight.

An hour after twilight fell into complete darkness, at 8.30pm, they called the police. The three-hour time gap between Gus’s disappearance has caused curiosity.

6. FAMILY TIES

William, born on his mother’s 23rd birthday, was removed from his biological parents, who both have drug convictions, aged just seven months, in early 2012.

The birth mother was preparing to fight a move by William’s foster parents to adopt him when he disappeared.

When William vanished, police and welfare authorities turned up immediately at the birth parents’ Sydney home to see if they had abducted him, but found nothing.

William Tyrrell’s foster parents and grandmother gather on the verandah of the home from where he went missing in the wake of the foster mother calling police about William. The boy’s foster father (right) at the scene

Jess and Josh Lamont, the parents of missing Gus, have had their identities kept private by SA Police, even thought it is policing 101 in missing child cases to have the families front the press

Gus parents, Jess and Josh Lamont, have remained largely a mystery in the wake of their son’s disappearance.

The couple also have a second son, one-year-old Ronnie, but have lived apart recently after a family dispute, with Josh keeping a home two hours drive away.

Josh was the frontman of country rock ’n’ roll band The Cut Snakes which performed in rural South Australian bars and pubs in 2019, winning a local music award.

Late on September 27, on the night Gus vanished, police found Josh asleep in his home. They are believed to have ruled out any involvement in the disappearance.

William’s birth father (left) told his missing son’s inquest that the NSW child welfare bureaucrats ‘f**ked up’ and his birth mother (right) rolls her eyes at suppression orders over names, saying ‘they know who we are anyway’.

Gus’s dad Josh Lamont reportedly said of the vast Oak Park property where his son went missing, that he ‘doesn’t think it’s safe for kids to be out there. He thinks it’s dangerous’

7. TRAMPLING THE CRIME SCENE & NEW SEARCHES  

It’s the classic dilemma which later can be considered a bungle.

When there’s a lost boy in the bush, get the boots on the ground to find him before sunset on the same day, or in the case of Gus Lamont, on the second day after a shivering night in the open.

When police fail to find any trace of the kid they will mount a wider search and when that fails, doubt and suspicion will set in – but by that time, what could have been secured as a crime scene, is a trampled mess.

The initial search for Gus was similar to that for William 11 years previously, in a relatively small radius of 2km and involving helicopters, drones, infrared cameras, trail bikes, and teams of divers who explored the farm’s water tanks, ponds and reservoirs.

 SES and police do a lie search on the vast property where the four-year-old vanished on September 27

The search for for William in the days after he disappeared near Kendall on the NSW Mid-North Coast in 2014 soon turned form a missing child probe to possible abduction

With William, police dogs were deployed on the properties up and down Benaroon Drive, Kendall, the street from which he disappeared which had been overrun by authorities and volunteers scouring it for the boy.

When sniffer and cadaver dogs failed to pick up the three-year-old’s scent, Superintendent Paul Fehon admitted: ‘We do have grave concerns. To disappear that quickly absolutely bewilders us.’

Police contacted known local sex offenders and widened the already massive search.

Within six days, it shifted from bushland around grandma’s street to the Middle Brother State Forest 5kms away.

Police search the former grandmothers house at Kendall in 2021, one of several searches which have failed to find any trace of little William

Forever young: William Tyrrell in what was the last year of his life after a NSW Supreme Court judge found the boy was most likely dead since someone disposed of him in 2014

Gary Jubelin the since removed strike force commander in his trademark black suit and tie, leads bushland search in 2018 which found nothing

In the years since, second, third and further searches – the last major one was in 2021 – have failed to find anything of little William.

With hindsight, failing to secure Benaroon Drive as a crime scene has been described as a police failure.

Following Gus’s disappearance, for a week investigators scoured the enormous Oak Park Station. It covers an astonishing 6000 hectares of scrubland and desert.

Every morning, convoys of trucks negotiated the 29km dirt drive bringing teams from the outskirts of the local town, Yunta, population 60.

They scoured rocky landscape covered with salt bushes and other shrubs which make it all too easy for a child to disappear, but after a week it was scaled back and then halted.

‘Significant’ searches, with a drone, or of a dam, continued, then on Tuesday, October 14 the search resumed.

The search resumes for missing Gus Lamont, with the police saying they were now looking outside of the original location

South Australian Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said: The search area that was originally canvassed was established on the basis of expert advice regarding just how far a four-year-old child was likely to travel, the implications of being alone and unprotected in the environment, survivability factors and medical advice as well.

‘The location we’re now searching is outside of the original … location.’

By Wednesday, police said the renewed search had so far yielded ‘no new evidence’ but continued in hot windy conditions as temperatures were tipped to soar to 36 degrees.

‘More than 100 search team members, including SA Police, ADF members and SES volunteers, have each been walking between 20 and 25km each day in hot, harsh conditions,’ SA Police said in a statement on Wednesday.

8. ABDUCTION?

When William Tyrrell disappeared, people’s minds turned to his possible abduction.

This was fuelled early on by his foster mother saying she believed he had been ‘taken’, followed by her later descriptions of two ‘dirty old’ cars, an element which police could not corroborate and residents of the quiet street disputed.

Detectives interviewed several know child sex offenders in the region, but eventually discounted them, and pursued alleged sightings of William in a fleeing car.

None of the clues came to anything, and no-one has been charged with William’s disappearance.

William was a lively boy but did not venture far on his own, casting doubts on the suggestion he would have wandered or gone quietly with any potential abductor

The situation for Gus Lamont was different in that he vanished from a remote station onto which no known strangers had driven that afternoon.

Rescue workers are said to have discounted several theories that might explain the four-year-old’s disappearance.

While dingos have been known to abduct small children, there are precious few in the land around Yunta as the local sheep farmers tend to shoot them on sight.

The region is also protected by a 2000km dog fence designed to safeguard livestock. Crocodiles, which inhabit more tropical northern regions of Australia, are not found in the south.

Gus is too big to be taken by an eagle, and if he had been attacked by a wild pig, searchers would almost certainly have discovered evidence of a struggle.

9. SEARCH ERRORS & AN ENDURING MYSTERY

The William Tyrrell investigation was flawed by police mistakes meaning the mystery of what happened to him may never be solved.

Key Tyrrell figure, Allanna Smith, said defensive police, operational errors, protective relatives and family secrets all obstructed the hunt for the child.

Smith described the Gus Lamont case as ‘in some ways a carbon copy of William Tyrrell’.

She said in contrast to Tyrrell, for whom there has never been any trace, a child-sized footprint had been found, although since dismissed by police, and as far as she was concerned: ‘I’m not buying it.

‘That property is covered with fine dust, you can see it blowing around in footage of the search,’ she said.

‘I don’t care if you are four, or a mouse or a rat, you leave some impression in that  powdery red dust.

‘So the cops went on the property and basically destroyed the crime scene. It wasn’t treated as suspicious and it always needs to be treated as suspicious – was the child taken, what actually happened? – until it’s not.

Child advocate Allanna Smith, who is the reason it is legally possible to even publish the fact that William was a foster child, said defensive police, operational errors, protective relatives and family secrets all served to obstruct the path to bringing Gus back

Smith said the fine dirt at the Oak Park property meant some trace of Gus must have been left: ‘I don’t care if you are four, or a mouse or a rat, you leave some impression in that powdery red dust’

‘We always seem to be selling out the child and gaslighting the general public. Why have the police encouraged the name of the child and the identity of the boy’s family to be suppressed?

‘Who’s best interests are being protected? How about Gus’s best interests? The child is the most expendable person it seems.

‘We can appreciate the desire by people to remain private but it may transpire in the end that their anonymity hasn’t helped the child’s protection.

‘In this latest case, police errors and other factors may prevent us ever knowing, and  hope for Gus’s sake that doesn’t eventuate.’

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15189809/Two-little-boys-lost-two-shattered-families-two-mysteries-unsolved-eerie-coincidences-Gus-Lamont-William-Tyrrell-run-deeper-darker.html