The grandfather of a four-year-old boy who went missing in outback South Australia last year has said she believes he was abducted and still alive, while police have denied targeting him as a suspect because he is “transgender”.
Gus Lamont when missing from his family’s remote property near Yunta on September 27, and police last month said one of his grandparents remained a suspect in the investigation into the disappearance.
Josie Murray, 75, a male who claims to be a female, revealed in an interview with 7News’ Spotlight program on Sunday night that he was the “main suspect”, and also claimed police have a “ludicrous” theory that she buried Gus after a grandson.
“We haven’t got a body, we have no idea but we feel he has been taken,” he said, calling it a “benign abduction” and saying he believes “he’s still out there somewhere”.
“I know that I’ve been accused of taking him from where he had an accident and died and taking him out and burying him,” he said.
“But to think that I could actually go out there and do something like that, to think that I would be stupid enough to do it for a start is ludicrous. To think that I could face up to the trauma of doing that would also be ridiculous.”
Mr Murray also said the ground on Oak Park Station, which is 320km north of Adelaide, was so dry and dusty it would be impossible to hide signs of a burial.
Friend Bill Harbison claimed Mr Murray has been the victim of “discrimination” but that police were “mortally offended” when he challenged them about targeting Mr Murray because of his “transgender situation”.
But Deputy Police Commissioner Linda Williams described the claims as “nonsense”, and said: “When we conduct any investigation, we always do it impartially, and I’m very proud of the professionalism shown by our officers.”
Mr Harbison has also shared a theory that Gus was snatched by a wedge-tailed eagle.
“A wedge-tailed eagle can pick up a 20–25-kilogram kangaroo and take it without much difficulty; Gus was 13 or 14kg so a mature wedge-tailed eagle would find that quite comfortable,” he said.
South Australia Police have carried out 11 large-scale searches of the property since Gus’s disappearance, with ADF members, indigenous trackers and local community groups also joining the efforts to find the missing boy.
Header image: Left, Josie Murray (Spotlight). Right, Gus Lamont (supplied).
