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As the mystery over what happened to missing South Australian boy Gus Lamont stretches into a sixth week, a leading private investigator reveals how the search could have gone differently. The four-year-old is believed to have wandered off while on his grandparents' remote Outback sheep station near Yunta on September 27. His grandmother, Shannon Murray, was the last person to see him, when he was playing in a mound of sand outside the family homestead around 5pm. No sign of him has been seen since, despite multiple land, air and waterway searches by SA Police, the SES, and the army. Ken Gamble - one of Australia's top private investigators - said one change early on during the search could have shed light on the boy's whereabouts. When police first attended the property the evening Gus went missing, they commenced a search within a radius of 2km. This search was then scaled back within six days, but authorities later returned and expanded the radius to 5km. Mr Gamble told The Daily Mail the little boy's abilities may have been underestimated and that if it were up to him, he would have launched a wide-scale, grid-based search with a 7km to 8km radius in the crucial first hours. He noted police have their work cut out of them as they desperately try to locate the missing child, explaining there was a 'concerning lack of evidence' over Gus' disappearance. Mr Gamble has assisted in several missing persons cases, and is currently working pro bono for the mother of Belgian tourist Celine Cremer, who went missing while hiking in the Tasmanian wilderness in June 2023. Police have long insisted that Gus simply wandered off, and do not believe there was foul play. 'You would think in that terrain that there would be footprints if he'd walked off,' Mr Gamble said, noting that one lone footprint matching a boot Gus was thought to be wearing was discovered in the red dust. 'It is unusual behavior for a child to just run off into the bush. It's not normal, but if he did go and do that, he could have gone in any direction, and he could've gone a significant distance,' he said. 'People can underestimate just how far someone would walk, especially an energetic little boy like that.' Since Gus' disappearance hit headlines more than six weeks ago, social media disinformation - including fake AI images of a little boy with his likeness being placed in a ute by a strange man - has spread like wildfire. Baseless rumours, accusations, and theories abounded on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram - largely against Gus' loved ones. The boy's family - which includes parents Josh Lamont and Jessica Murray, grandmother Shannon Murray, and transgender grandparent Josie Murray - have refused to speak publicly. Instead, they shared a brief statement delivered by family friend Bill Harbison, and only released one picture of Gus when police were forced to admit the likelihood of his survival was dwindling. Mr Gamble suggested the family could have avoided the rampant social media interest and speculation by addressing the public. 'People generally in Australia believe that if there's a child missing, parents should be jumping straight in front of the cameras and making a public appeal for information (and) sharing the photos,' he said. 'When they don't, it fuels speculation that something is not quite right.' Daily Mail does not suggest Gus's family had anything to do with his disappearance - they have been cooperating with police enquiries. 'Some people are just very private... there may be legitimate reasons why they didn't go public,' Mr Gamble said. 'If he was located, that photo would have been on the internet forever.' With extensive searching of the remote scrubland surrounding the Murrays' Oak Park Station already completed with no results, hopes are fading that Gus will be found. But Mr Gamble said there is still an option available to searchers. 'I would be expanding the search radius to 8km and using the LiDAir radar system, and mapping out with exact grids,' he said. LidAir is a laser based mapping system that specialises in precise terrain imaging via drone technology. Daily Mail approached police for a response to this story, and asked whether they had deployed LiDAir technology in the search for Gus. They refused to comment. '(LiDAir) takes a lot of effort and a lot of people to do it, but if he's not there within that range, it raises the question... was he taken away? If so, by whom?' Mr Gamble said. 'It's very unusual, the circumstances of this disappearance and I think police would be keeping an open mind about everything. They may have no evidence that foul play was involved, they can never rule that out, and they shouldn't.' On October 31, police returned to Gus' family's property to drain 3.2 million litres of water from a dam on the property, but heartbreakingly, they found 'nothing of significance'. Last week, SA Police commissioner Grant Stevens revealed there had been independent reviews of their search for Gus. 'We've done a minimum of two reviews in relation to the searching exercise from the moment we were advised that Gus had gone missing,' he said. 'Peer-reviews by experts who have taken an objective view of whether or not things could have gone differently. 'Those reviews have identified opportunities to enhance what we've done but there's been no criticism of the search effort.' He has not ruled out returning to Oak Park Station for a fourth search. 'We've been acting on the advice of survivability experts, doctors, medical staff, in relation to how far Gus might travel and how long he would be able to survive without any support or assistance,' he said. 'That was a factor that dictated how far we would search and how long. 'We are continuing to go back because we are still committed to recovering Gus for the family, so everybody has some sense of closure in relation to what's occurred up in Yunta.
