Gus Lamont’s parents had split up just months before the toddler vanished from his grandparents’ outback sheep station, a family friend has revealed.
On Thursday South Australia Police said they believed the four-year-old was dead, declared his disappearance a major crime, and revealed they had identified a suspect within his family.
Detective Superintendent Darren Fielke said detectives suspected that a family member living at Oak Park Station – a 60,000ha South Australian property about 40km south of Yunta – was involved in Gus’s disappearance on September 27.
However they stressed that Gus’s mother and father, Jessica Murray and Joshua Lamont, were not suspects.
It can now be revealed the couple had separated before Gus vanished, with Ms Murray and her newborn son, Ronnie, living with her parents, Shannon and Josie Murray, on the remote station.
Mr Lamont had moved into a ramshackle farmhouse which he was renovating in Belalie North, near Jamestown, 130km west of the Murrays’ station.
A family friend told the Daily Mail their relationship broke down shortly after Ronnie’s birth, but before Gus disappeared.
‘I haven’t seen Josh since it (Gus’s disappearance) happened, and I don’t know where he is now,’ said the local. ‘But (Josh and Jessica) weren’t together when it happened.’
Gus Lamont’s parents, Jessica and Joshua, pictured in 2019
Gus’s September 27 disappearance has now been declared a major crime
The friend revealed the couple had never married, as new details of Gus’s mother’s own childhood were also revealed for the first time.
Several sources have told the Daily Mail that Mr Lamont attended Oak Park station two days after his son vanished.
The family friend claims Mr Lamont got into a furious row with Jessica’s father, Josie, now a transgender woman, during the desperate search, after previous disputes.
Gus’s devastated mother, Jessica, 39, has never spoken or appeared publicly since her son vanished, but locals say she is ‘shocked’ by the police statement last week.
Locals say she is shy, quietly spoken, and was rarely seen in the area even before Gus went missing.
Ms Murray grew up in Jamestown, population 1400, where the Murrays once owned a home, two hours’ drive from the sheep station her parents later inherited from Ms Murray’s grandparents Vincent and Clair Pfeiffer.
Publicly available yearbooks at the town’s library showed Jessica attended Jamestown Community School until at least 2002, when she was in year 10.
The source added that Jessica’s biological father Josie – formerly known as Robert and nicknamed ‘Snow’ – began her gender transition while they were living in Jamestown.
Joshua has been living in Adelaide since his son vanished; seen in November
Gus’s grandparent Josie Murray pictured in Jamestown in November
Locals said that before inheriting Oak Park Station from wife Shannon’s family, Josie was a builder, but would ‘do bits of everything, like tiling, bricklaying and roofing’.
While at school, Ms Murray was a member of the Year 8 and 9 touch football side in 2000 and 2001.
Yearbook pictures showed she had the same blond curls as her son, Gus.
On a page dedicated to Year 9 students in 2001, Ms Murray posed on the edge of a group of four other students with a thought bubble graphic attributed to her which read: ‘Look, can you hurry up and take the photo before my face breaks the lens.’
In Year 8, she wrote that enjoyed dance workshops, and was pictured on school excursions and in a home economics class.
In a 2002 Year 10 class photo, she was listed as absent.
In the 2003 and 2004 editions of the yearbooks, when she would have been in years 11 and 12, there was no mention of her.
When Vincent Pfeiffer died in 2004, Josie and Shannon Murray took over the farm.
A class picture shows Gus’s mother Jessica in year nine at Jamestown Community School
Jessica posed with students, overlaid with a thought-bubble graphic
She was a member of the school’s year eight and nine touch football team
It’s believed Ms Murray – who was described as ‘very clever’ – may have completed her high school education early and gone on to university in Adelaide.
On Friday, Jamestown and Yunta locals spoke of their sympathy for the bereaved mum, but none had seen her in many years.
One local station owner said he hadn’t seen her since she was a child, though he added that her parents were well-known and well-respected.
Some Yunta and Jamestown locals recalled seeing Gus some time ago, but only in the company of his grandmother, Shannon, whose hand he would hold.
Ms Murray re-emerged in 2019 when she was pictured alongside Mr Lamont at the South Australian Music Awards.
He was the frontman of country group The Cut Snakes, who were popular on the SA pub and rodeo circuit and won the People’s Choice Country Award.
Images from the event showed Jessica, dressed in black and with at least eight piercings in one ear, smiling shyly at his side.
But locals also claimed Ms Murray’s parents did not believe Mr Lamont, who had worked on their property, was a suitable match for her.
Jessica attended Jamestown Community School until at least year 10
Jessica appeared in the school’s yearbook in 2000, when she was in year eight
Jessica in a year eight home economics class
Throughout the investigation into Gus’s disappearance, there has been confusion over the nature of his parents’ relationship, which in October was described by a friend as a ‘commuter relationship’.
A neighbour at an Adelaide home owned by Shannon Murray which was used by Mr Lamont told the Daily Mail the young couple and their sons at times lived in the city.
The neighbour said he would often see Mr Lamont and Ms Murray walking with their children and kelpie dogs to a nearby playground, and said he saw Gus just weeks before he vanished from the station.
He described Gus as a ‘lovely little boy’, and he said hello to the youngster as he made his way to the park.
The local said the family split their time between the outback station and the home in Adelaide.
Mr Lamont has since left his Jamestown farmhouse to move to Adelaide, and in November, he verbally lashed out at a reporter for approaching him.
A neighbour said he was renovating the farmhouse so Jessica, Gus and their one-year-old son Ronnie could move in.
But the Belalie North home now stands empty, with unshorn sheep taking refuge under a verandah where Gus once stored his bicycles.
Josh’s Belalie North farmhouse has been sitting abandoned since early October
Gus’s disappearance sparked a massive search in September, which included the army
Police seized a vehicle, motorcycle and electronics from Oak Park Station in January
Last week’s police bombshell came after detectives swooped on the Oak Park station in mid-January and seized a vehicle, a motorbike and electronic devices.
‘We have identified a number of inconsistencies and discrepancies,’ said Det Supt Fielke, in charge of the state’s Major Crime Division.
‘It relates to timelines and the version of events provided to us by the family members.
‘As a result of these inconsistencies, and investigations into them, a person who resides at Oak Park Station has withdrawn their support for police and is no longer cooperating with us.
‘I can’t give you any more information about the suspect, or where the suspect is, or why that person is a suspect.’
Since police attended their property on January 14, both Shannon and Josie have been going about business as usual in South Australia’s Mid North.
Shannon was seen running errands in Jamestown, two hours from Oak Park, last week, while Josie was spotted grabbing a cappuccino and a slice of red velvet cake from a Peterborough cafe in recent days.
While Mr Lamont and Josie and Shannon Murray have all been seen attempting to return to daily life after the tragic loss of Gus, Jessica has not yet been seen in public.
South Australia Police revealed they believe Gus is dead, and have a suspect
Disposable nappies were seen on the clothesline at Oak Park in October
Emergency services scoured the bush for months looking for Gus
Shannon and Josie Murray have both retained high-profile Adelaide defence lawyers after police implied one was now a suspect and had stopped helping with inquiries.
They said they were ‘devastated’ by the police announcement and insisted they were still cooperating with the investigation.
It is not suggested the couple have committed a crime.
Josie Murray has hired Adelaide criminal lawyer Andrew Ey, while Shannon Murray has sought the legal services of Casey Isaacs, also from Adelaide.
Mr Ey is a partner at Mangan Ey & Associates and has been involved in a number of high-profile criminal cases throughout his 15-year-plus career.
Mr Isaacs is from Caldicott + Isaacs law firm and is also the president of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law.
The partner confirmed he had been engaged by Shannon, telling The Advertiser: ‘We have been co-operating but we won’t be commenting.’
Shannon Murray attended a cafe in Peterborough in November
On Friday, the gate to Oak Park remained firmly shut to outsiders
On Friday, Josie and Shannon made their first official joint statement through their lawyers to slam police, and said they want ‘nothing more than to find Gus and return him to his mum and dad’.
They insisted they had ‘cooperated fully with the investigation’.
