Nate Higgs
kiwifarms.net
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- 27 de Sep, 2021
Cops going with it was an "accident" and they buried him.
I'm going with Tranpa "accidentally" stuck his feminine penis in poor little Gus and raped him to death, then buried him.
The Disappearance of Gus Lamont - The strange case of the Australian 4yo with a tranny grandfather
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Cops going with it was an "accident" and they buried him.
I'm going with Tranpa "accidentally" stuck his feminine penis in poor little Gus and raped him to death, then buried him.
- Registrado
- 27 de Ene, 2020
Última edición:
- Registrado
- 11 de Sep, 2019
just got a notice for jury duty in a couple of months, would of been nice if they held it til transpa goes back on trial
Screamer_2
kiwifarms.net
- Registrado
- 6 de Nov, 2022
Wanna know how I got these scars?
From the way he talks, he seems certain Gus's remains aren't on the property. While at times still trying to have it both ways. Cops missed a footprint in some mud, even though he's adamant Gus didn't end up in the dam.
Cops destroyed any potential evidence that someone entered the property, which is hard to navigate on its roads with multiple gates. Someone who entered from the one entrance without camera footage. In the 30 minute window Gus was playing at the bomb shelter. While the dogs weren't there to alert anyone. With no one hearing anything. It's just too far-fetched and unlikely.
Clearly, there's something the cops haven't disclosed to the public. My guess will be the Transpa timeline of events just completely off. I'm sure them telling Transpa they think there was an accident and he disposed of the body is just a tactic to try and get him to reveal information.
Of course the, Trans card get used in why he's suspected by his friend. I wonder if that's his lover. I do suspect a third party was involved.
Another odd thing is he mentions Gus was last seen near the bomb shelter. Then states there was no sign of him there. Saying, "No blood." Which is an odd thing to say. Later on in the interview, he references signs of something that happened at the bomb shelter. As if that's where he was abducted from.
His level of acting isn't up to fake crying and he at one point wipes away a non-existent tear.
From the way he talks, he seems certain Gus's remains aren't on the property. While at times still trying to have it both ways. Cops missed a footprint in some mud, even though he's adamant Gus didn't end up in the dam.
Cops destroyed any potential evidence that someone entered the property, which is hard to navigate on its roads with multiple gates. Someone who entered from the one entrance without camera footage. In the 30 minute window Gus was playing at the bomb shelter. While the dogs weren't there to alert anyone. With no one hearing anything. It's just too far-fetched and unlikely.
Clearly, there's something the cops haven't disclosed to the public. My guess will be the Transpa timeline of events just completely off. I'm sure them telling Transpa they think there was an accident and he disposed of the body is just a tactic to try and get him to reveal information.
Of course the, Trans card get used in why he's suspected by his friend. I wonder if that's his lover. I do suspect a third party was involved.
Another odd thing is he mentions Gus was last seen near the bomb shelter. Then states there was no sign of him there. Saying, "No blood." Which is an odd thing to say. Later on in the interview, he references signs of something that happened at the bomb shelter. As if that's where he was abducted from.
His level of acting isn't up to fake crying and he at one point wipes away a non-existent tear.
- Registrado
- 13 de Mayo, 2023
the interview with Tranpar has been put on YouTube
Hongourable Madisha
You see, some of us don't know English properly.
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net
- Registrado
- 9 de Ene, 2019
He's very self-pitying, isn't he? Banging on about how the police suspecting him is THE WORST THING that anyone can do to someone... as if abducting/murdering a kid isn't a worse thing, and as if Gus isn't going through worse than he is. Assuming he's still alive, of course, perhaps Tranpa knows he's dead and no longer suffering.
Peter Hyatt, the language analyst, said people with guilty knowledge often do act as if they don't care about the victim, not necessarily because they had anything to do with the crime, but because they know what happened, they know the victim's dead and they've already done all the grieving and processing of their feelings. And that's for normal people, self-absorbed troons probably would act that way anyway.
ETA: he also said people can leak truth with the words they choose, I'm not sure how reliable that method is, but when Tranpa was talking about driving around looking for Gus, he kept going on about how he had to be careful in case he suddenly appeared in the road and he didn't want to run him over by accident. It makes me wonder if that's what happened, and he covered it up for a variety of reasons (not wanting to lose contact with the other kids in the family, evidence of abuse on Gus's body that doctors or coroners would find, a habit of hiding secret shit like his troon fetish, whatever). That's the least terrible thing I can think of with Tranpa, at least that'd be an accident and not murder or dying from physical abuse.
Peter Hyatt, the language analyst, said people with guilty knowledge often do act as if they don't care about the victim, not necessarily because they had anything to do with the crime, but because they know what happened, they know the victim's dead and they've already done all the grieving and processing of their feelings. And that's for normal people, self-absorbed troons probably would act that way anyway.
ETA: he also said people can leak truth with the words they choose, I'm not sure how reliable that method is, but when Tranpa was talking about driving around looking for Gus, he kept going on about how he had to be careful in case he suddenly appeared in the road and he didn't want to run him over by accident. It makes me wonder if that's what happened, and he covered it up for a variety of reasons (not wanting to lose contact with the other kids in the family, evidence of abuse on Gus's body that doctors or coroners would find, a habit of hiding secret shit like his troon fetish, whatever). That's the least terrible thing I can think of with Tranpa, at least that'd be an accident and not murder or dying from physical abuse.
Última edición:
UvaUvamVivendoVariaFit
kiwifarms.net
- Registrado
- 11 de Feb, 2026
Narrator: The desperate search for a missing 4-year old boy near Yunta. Little Gus Lamont was last seen playing in the front yard of his grandparents’ property.
Darren Fielke, SAPOL: The person who has withdrawn their cooperation is now considered a suspect.
Random Reporter: Are you hopeful Gus will be found? Do you have to say anything about the disappearance of your grandson?
Robert “Josie” Murray, aka Tranpa: 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. But to think that I could actually go out there, um, and do something like that...
Michael Usher, 7NEWS Spotlight: That's an emotional Josie Murray speaking for the first time. Good evening. I'm Michael Usher and welcome to Spotlight.
Everyone has wanted to hear from Gus Lamont's...grandmother...since the 4-year old disappeared from the family's outback farm in September last year. Everyone, including South Australia police, since they named a suspect. Josie is angry, frustrated, and devastated.
7 News Adelaide crime reporter Hannah Foord joins Spotlight this week as we go inside the untold story of Gus Lamont.
Hannah, this is a story that has all of Australia intrigued. Obviously a child is missing, but what makes it more intriguing, do you think?
Hannah Foord, 7NEWS Adelaide: I think the vastness of where this has happened. It is so remote. How does a child go missing and just vanish without even a trace? Not a hat, not a t-shirt. There's no spot of blood. There's no piece of hair. There is nothing. It's just like Gus has vanished into thin air.
(GETTING TO THE POINT)
2:22 Tranpa: Um...
Some Guy: I'm recording.
Hannah Foord: Can you tell me anything more about him, his personality...?
2:35 Tranpa: He was fairly quiet. He would get upset occasionally, um, like all kids. Um, that's normal. Um, he loved being on the swing out the -- the side of the house there. He loved, um, his push bike, pushing that around and just letting it roll down the hill with (him) seated on it. Happy, almost -- perhaps not more than you'd expect, but he was happy most of the time. And again, for -- you know, he was just a normal, happy 4-year old child.
3:06 He loved sitting in the lounge, um, being read to or reading his own books. He used to have a pile of books there. He'd drag them all out on the floor and go through them and read -- read whatever he could understand from them. Um, I'm not sure it was more than the pictures, but yeah. He was a bookish kid you'd almost call him as well.
3:30 He was quite happy to go and play on his own a lot of the time. You -- you'd often hear him down at the shed, you know, he'd got a fixation on opening and closing the Hilux doors at one stage and you'd hear this bang bang bang bang. We just said, ‘Well, if that's what he wants to do, he can do it. He's not going to hurt anything terribly much and it doesn't matter. It's a work vehicle, so -- so what?’
3:54 (CLOSE UP ON EMOTION FACE, DRY EYES)
Hannah Foord: Josie and Gus, they were close, and she saw Gus as the child who could take over the property they love so much and keep it in the family. You know, Gus was the apple of their eyes.
Michael Usher: And that bond is certainly backed up by family friend Bill, who you've sat down and spoken with as well.
4:20 Hannah Foord: That's right.
How would you describe Josie? You've known her for 60 years?
4:26 Bill Harbison, family friend: “I guess you'd have to say a bit quiet, a bit reserved, pretty athletic, pretty studious. (CUT TO CLOSE-UP ON TRANPA PUSHING HIS PEDO GLASSES UP FOR SOME REASON) You'd have to work very hard to find someone that would say anything against her.
Hannah Foord: How would you describe Oak Park Station?
Bill Harbison: Well, it's open, remote, distant, lonely, beautiful. It's a big place. Very hard to get your head around the size of it.
Hannah Foord: There's a town before it called Yunta, which is about 300 km 400 km from Adelaide.
Marilee Burtt, Yunta local: It’s in the middle of nowhere. I call it ‘nowhere land.’ We have a post office, one hotel, two petrol stations. We had a flood last month and the road traffic and the road trains were all stuck here for a whole week. We only have Telstra here. Hi, Telstra. Um, without that, we -- we’re sort of buggered.
Hannah Foord: And then from that town, it's another 40 minutes to Oak Park Station. There are six gates that you have to open and -- and close to get through. You say middle of nowhere, but it -- it really is. You can't see anything. And you could hear a pin drop. That's how it feels out there.
Michael Usher: Who are the members of -- of Gus's family?
Hannah Foord: Josie Murray is the grandparent of Gus. Jess is her daughter. Shannon Murray, she is the former partner of Josie Murray and the other grandparent to little Gus. And there is also another child in in this that some people might not realize, but there is -- there's a baby, baby Ronnie, who was 1.
Michael Usher: And where was Gus's dad on that day?
Hannah Foord: Gus's dad wasn't at the property.
Michael Usher: And -- and for clarity, we should explain, um, that Josie transitioned in the early '90s.
Hannah Foord: Shannon and Josie, they were married. Um...
Michael Usher: Husband and wife on the property.
Hannah Foord: Yes. And then things changed. Josie transitioned to a -- to a woman, and they are no longer together, but they are really good friends and they run a business together and they are business partners and they run the farm together
Michael Usher: And -- and share grandparent responsibilities of little Gus and -- and his brother.
Hannah Foord: That's right.
Michael Usher: Just talking about Gus as a little character, as a little kid, I think it's fair to say he was a free spirit on that farm. This is a kid who didn't know the city.
Hannah Foord: From what I've been told, he was adventurous. Big smile. Uh, loved to explore. The land was -- was his playground.
Marilee Burtt: People leave one another alone here. It's pretty good. You want a nice peaceful life. You got children and you're worried about the city, what's going to happen. It's a good place, I suppose, to bring up kids if -- it's safe. You know that the kids can play out in the yard, nobody's going to hurt ‘em.
8:21 Tranpa: He often would go for a walk around the property, but he -- or around the homestead, but he would stick to the road. He wouldn't -- wouldn't (? - it sounds like he says something like ‘victator’ here) off it. He'd never go very far, but he he would certainly walk around, um, the homestead to the far reaches of the house paddock, if you want to call it that. I've never bothered to check it, but it's probably 5 or 10 acres and -- and he would cover all that, um, um, no problem. I -- I've used to see him down the cattle yards occasionally and -- and places like that.
8:59 Hannah Foord: I understand that he -- he has wandered off before, as he does, but there was never any panic because they knew how well he knew the land.
9:10 Tranpa: Shan had taken him down to the shearers’ quarters while Jess and I and I were out mustering, and he had wandered off and Shan couldn't find him when she was gonna come home. So she came home and told us, you know, Gus has gone for a walk somewhere. Jess and I thought, well, we better get on the motorbike and just go and find him. So we did that, and -- and I was the one who found him and he was probably 120 meters away from where he walked off from, and he was walking back, straight to where -- and he was -- I sung out to him and he just looked over at me and just said, ‘Yeah, no problem.’ And just walking back to the shearers’ quarters. Jess went over on the motorbike and picked him up and he wasn't concerned so he wasn't lost or anything. He'd just gone for a walk.
Michael Usher: in September last year, the scenario was very different. Gus had wandered off and this time hadn't come back.
Hannah Foord: That's right. The family knew this time this was out of character and there was possibly something very wrong.
10:31 Tranpa: I remember looking at my watch when we put the sheep through into the right paddock and it was 10 past, so, um -- and we drove straight back without any holdups. So, yeah, right back there at 5:30. We were on the front veranda and Shan said that Gus was just down near what we call the bomb shelter playing, and when we had a look, no sign. And we said to Shan, ‘When did you last see him?’ and she said ‘5 o’clock,’ and so in that half an hour time -- half hour time frame he disappeared
11:12 And we immediately -- we were a little bit concerned about the cellar we were building because it was possible he could have fallen down there. So that's one of the first things we did. We looked, there was no sign that he'd been down there, no blood on the concrete floor, nothing.
11:29 (LOOK AT THIS FACE HE PULLS)
11:33 And so then Jess and I walked around all the buildings on the property and checking all the -- like, the swimming pool, just in case he'd managed to somehow open the gate, which is -- he'd have to be 6' tall to do it -- and checked whatever else we could and still couldn't find him. So we had a quick conference and decided what to do and we decided we better jump on the bikes and go and look.
12:01 I remember saying to Jess at one stage, we've got 45 minutes of daylight that (night). So, what that time was, I don't know, but it -- after we'd searched on foot, but I remember saying, we've got 45 minutes of daylight. We better get with it.
12:17 We were concentrating within probably 3/4 of a K or a K of the -- kilometer of the homestead and just searching where the tanks were, the dams, um, down by the cottage. I think we went to the shearing shed, (about) -- I'd be surprised if we didn't. And so Jess and I were in contact with the radio or visually pretty well the entire time. Even though we might have been separated by 300 or 400 meters, we could see each other. We knew where we were. And we kept that up until it was getting to the dark stage.
12:58 Um, and then we went home, went into the kitchen, and I think the question was (arraised) -- was raised how soon do we notify the authorities that we might have a missing child and we need to do something about it? And I seem to recall it was sometime around 8 o’clock that we actually made the call.
13:29 Michael Usher: So it's dark. It's getting later and later. When do the police first arrive? Because distance is a tyranny out there.
Hannah Foord: Yeah. So, we understand that an officer named Luke was the first one to arrive from -- from a nearby town. After that officer arrived, there was a second one on his way.
13:51 Tranpa: Luke and I were sitting on the hill outside the house trying to spot his flashing lights. And this went on for some time, trying to describe how he should get to the property. And I kept saying, ‘Look, go back to Paratoo Homestead and come in on the road.’ Eventually, he just gave up and went back to Orroroo. So, he actually never arrived on the property.
14:18 While Luke was there, I got in the vehicle with him and went down to the cottage and we searched that and the shearer's quarters, all the buildings down there, the sheds, and then up to the shearing shed and checked all that. And I'm pretty sure we did the tanks and everything and the dam. Um, because everyone automatically jumps to conclusions that he could be there, even though we'd already checked them two or three times by that stage.
14:44 Bit later that night, Shan and I went out in the buggy again and we -- very carefully because it was an issue with vehicles running around, if Gus was actually out there and walking around, if he blundered onto the road in front of a vehicle coming in, he could get cleaned up and run over very easily. So we were being very careful and just quietly -- probably 15 -- 10, 15ks an hour moving along the roads just checking along the roads, because as Jess said, and we're all fairly sure, that if he had gone for a walk, um, he would have walked along the road, because that's what he did.
15:34 Narrator: A remote family sheep station, now the center of a major police operation.
Michael Usher: Let's talk about the very first search. The terrain, the temperatures, the size, and the scale that we're dealing with here.
Hannah Foord: So the first search they covered 60,000 hectares. There were at least 300 police officers and volunteers involved. They covered so much area of the land, and they searched all day.
Darren Fielke: The scale of the air and ground search as part of this investigation is unprecedented.
Hannah Foord: Certainly the family at the very beginning believed it was just a matter of time before he was found. But by the next day when the sun was rising, that hope started to fade and I got a sense that panic was starting to set in.
Narrator: Up next, are there new clues in the disappearance of Gus Lamont?
16:46 Tranpa: A child would not be able to shift it and this bedstead had been moved
Narrator: Later.
Hannah Foord: Have police told you that you're a main suspect in the case of Gus's disappearance?
17:00 Tranpa: I'm going to do it now. (EMOTION FACE)
17:20 That's what Shan and I say nearly -- nearly every night when we knock off work. We go and sit on that back veranda with the dogs while they're having their dinner and we say, ‘How? Why?’ We just can't believe it.
17:48 Michael Usher: And Gus’s grandmother, Josie, told you something extraordinary about what she saw the day after young Gus disappeared. What was that?
Hannah Foord: It seemed that in the hours before police arrived, there was possible evidence of -- of someone else being on that property. We've never heard this before.
18:10 Tranpa: I remember looking out the window, ‘cuz it was starting to get light by that stage. And there was a bedstead there that we'd set up to put (stone) on to wash. And that bedstead had been moved, not quite 180°, but certainly a -- quite a substantial amount from when I last saw it. And I thought, "What the hell's happened there?" And it was reasonably heavy. A child would not be able to shift it. And this bedstead had been moved. And I also saw what we called the weather station had been moved. I'm not sure when that happened, but it -- it was -- there appeared to be something had happened there. And I then walked up past where the bedstead was and thought, well, I better not move it ‘cuz this could be -- this could be an indication of something.
Then I saw wheel tracks going down past where the bedstead was and past where the weather station was. And these wheel tracks were small tire, medium-size car, and not much tread on them. Not a off-road type tread. It was definitely a passenger-type, and I thought that's strange, too. And I started to think almost immediately, I wonder if someone's come in? And all the time I was thinking, you know, there's a chance that he's been taken by someone.
19:51 I was frankly horrified at the number of vehicles that were parked around our house, ‘cuz we hadn't actually seen them come in. My immediate thought was, my god, they’ve destroyed any chance of tracking him, um, if he'd walked out on the road or anything because the road was already pounded up and starting to get dusty and they'd made a mess.
20:21 One instance we have -- and again the -- the police apologized it to us afterwards, because I saw footprints in one of the dams. The dam was nearly dried, it was mostly mud. And I found these footprints in the dam, and I took photographs of it and we actually took one of Gus's boots out there and I took laid it next to this footprint and took a photograph of it and I said, "It's got to be him. It's got to be him ‘cuz it's the right size." And the police kept on saying that, no, that it was a police diver. Yeah, this guy must have had a size -- well someone said it's smaller than a size four lady's footprint and he must have had tiny feet, and the superintendent (listened to me) that was a mistake.
21:15 Michael Usher: So, in the race to search for Gus, perhaps early uh evidence, early signs about someone else being on the property might have been lost.
Hannah Foord: That is what her concern is now.
Michael Usher: It is fair to say that Josie doesn't have a lot of time for South Australia police.
Hannah Foord: She's told me she's not happy with how this investigation has gone or the case of her grandson has been handled.
21:47 Tranpa: It was admitted to me later that they think that that was a mistake to come in with all those vehicles so early when they should have actually got the tracker guy from Port Augusta who'd been on our place tracking dogs and trapping them. And we needed to get him there while there was still a chance to find the tracks, but he didn't get there ‘til two or three days after Gus went missing.
22:13 I'm pretty sure I talked to Luke McCoy and said, ‘Look, don't rule out abduction. There's signs that something has occurred in front of the bomb shelter.’ And that was where Gus was when we last saw him. And we're suspicious. And I couldn't rule out that he'd walked off and I couldn't walk -- rule out that he'd actually been taken. I said, you know, I don't know. And so that's the way I left it.
22:54 Hannah Foord: What are you leaning towards now?
22:57 Tranpa: Oh, abduction.
23:02 There was supposedly 700 people were on our property at any one time. Now, the important people in all that are the locals. It's our job to find things out there. This is what we do. And as time went on, I was getting more and more convinced when we couldn't find anything, we couldn't find a shoe, a hat, any sign of a top, nothing. We could not find a thing. And everyone said the same thing. This is ridiculous. There would be something out here. There has to be something.
23:45 Michael Usher: This now leads us to a range of theories and possibilities. What has been speculated about what happened to Gus?
Hannah Foord: Well, the possibilities are sort of endless at this stage because there is -- the only evidence is no evidence. So, abduction is a possibility. Wildlife, being taken by wildlife, is a -- is a possibility.
24:14 Bill Harbison: If wildlife is a possibility, my bet would be wedge-tailed eagles. Wedge-tailed eagle can pick up a 20, 25 kg kangaroo and take it without much difficulty. Gus was 13 or 14 kg, so a mature wedge-tailed eagle would find that quite comfortable.
24:50 Hannah Foord: But we've also had theories, wild theories from across the world. Police have had tips from Syria.
Michael Usher: Are you kidding?
Hannah Foord: That's been -- that's been one of the phone calls they've had, so many. And the sightings from overseas have been discounted. But because there is nothing, you do, you have to follow up every tip, and there are hundreds. It is -- it is a huge amount of work for police.
25:23 Marilee Burtt: If he died of exhaustion, you would have seen the -- the eagles, the hawks, the ravens all around the area. You would you -- would have seen it.
25:35 Bill Harbison: I think somebody's taken him. Whether he's alive or he's dead, God only knows. But the only good thing about it is that if someone has taken him, then there's a thread of a possibility that he may still be alive.
26:06 Hannah Foord: February this year, police hold a press conference and they declare his case a major crime, telling us that he was likely killed or his body disposed of after an accident.
Michael Usher: What evidence did they have to support that?
Hannah Foord: They did not disclose any evidence that they may or may not have.
Michael Usher: To your knowledge, has there been forensic evidence found to support that major crime theory?
Hannah Foord: Not to my knowledge.
Michael Usher: But this is a big development. They're putting it squarely back on involvement within the family.
Hannah Foord: That's right. In in that press conference, abduction, unlikely. Every -- taken by wildlife, unlikely. So back to the family we go.
27:03 Darren Fielke: The person who has withdrawn their cooperation, uh, is now considered a suspect in the disappearance of Gus. (CUT TO TRANPA MAKING WEIRD OLD MAN CHEWY FACES) I do want to stress, however, that Gus's parents are not suspects in his disappearance.
27:23 Michael Usher: So they declare a major crime, but they don't announce any charges. They don't prosecute anyone.
Hannah Foord: And at this stage, we still have no charges. A main suspect, but no charges.
27:40 Hannah Foord: How do you think South Australian police have handled this investigation?
27:45 Bill Harbison: To me, they just seem to have tunnel vision, and it's -- it's getting to the point of almost being vindictive now.
27:57 Hannah Foord: And do you think there's been any discrimination against (Jos)?
28:02 Bill Harbison: Well, I do. Um, you know, as everybody knows, Josie is a transgender. I challenged the police about this, you know, that they were targeting her because of her transgender situation, and they were mortally offended that I should say that.
Some Guy: (Over there) with the hat?
28:38 Hannah Foord: So when police declared this a major crime, the family stopped speaking to them. They both hired high-profile lawyers and haven't spoken to them directly since. They haven't been happy with how the search was handled in the first place. And -- and now they're being targeted as possible killers.
Michael Usher: All of them or just Josie?
Hannah Foord: Just Josie.
Narrator: Up next
29:11 Tranpa: They think that I buried him. Took him out and buried him.
Narrator: Later.
Hannah Foord: Do you think he's still alive?
29:33 Narrator: Nine months on from Gaza's disappearance, his grandmother, Josie Murray, remains a suspect. Now, for the first time, what police have told her and what she wants to say to police.
30:04 Hannah Foord: Have police told you that you're a main suspect in the case of Gus's disappearance?
30:12 Tranpa: They have said that they don't think I hurt him. They think that I buried him. That's one of the theories they're working on. And, um, as I say, that's -- for so many reasons it's ludicrous. It just -- yeah, doesn't make sense. Why would you do that to yourself when you know that, okay, if he'd had an accident, you just go, well -- you know, as much as we hate it and everything, you know, he's had an accident, right? You know we've got to deal with it.
30:50 Hannah Foord: Gus was who you were going to hand over the farm to eventually?
30:54 Tranpa: Oh yeah, that was -- I mean that's the other thing why it's ludicrous. I mean why would a 70-year old like myself and like Shan be working -- which we are, I tend to probably work close to 70 hours a week. I don't stop for weekends or anything. I just keep working every daylight hour there is. Why would I do that at this age if I don't intend to try and (handle) the property over to Jess and the two boys in the best possible condition I can do it?
31:22 And I know that I've been accused of, um, taking him from where he had an accident and died and taking him out and burying him. But to think that I could actually go out there, um, and do something like that, um, to think that I would be stupid enough to do it, for a start, is ludicrous. Um, and to think that I could face up to the trauma of doing that would also be ridiculous.
31:57 There's no way in -- under those -- when it's so dry and dusty like that, there's no way you can bury something without leaving evidence that the ground has been disturbed. And the amount of searching that went on, aerial, um, with a helicopter, with the fixed wing, with the drones, with everything, you would see signs of someone being buried.
32:24 I mean, obviously they were thinking about the dam and I, um -- I had several neighbors who said to me afterwards, it would be, again, ridiculous to think that he'd gone into the dam because there was a -- weed all around the dam, and if anything had gone in there, if we'd put him in the dam or if he'd walked into the dam or anything, you would disturb that weed and it would be damn obvious.
32:50 Michael Usher: Have police ruled out abduction?
32:53 Hannah Foord: Almost certainly. They believe it is so unlikely that a stranger would be so opportunistic to go into a property so remote.
33:10 Tranpa: The one that is so laughable is the one that -- the head of the major lot said that, um, there was only four-wheel drive access to Oak Park. So, um, there was no chance of abduction. And I mean that's absurd because the Hilux they've taken down there to do tests on is a two-wheel drive. Shan's got a two-wheel drive. Jess has got a two-wheel drive. The buggies are two-wheel drive. I mean, it's laughable.
33:41 The other thing that they said was that, um, the footage on the security cameras on the property next door, where you come in from Yunta Road, um, showed that no one had come out to Oak Park in that time frame. So I identified all the sites and there was one I wasn't 100% sure of until I got a better view of it and then I could see the trees and I said, ‘Oh, and that's the one that's on the road in from Yunta at what we call Breakneck Creek.’ And this bloke said, ‘Oh, well, um, that wasn't working at the time.’ And I thought again, lie. Because they had told me that he couldn't have been taken because no one had came in and no one showed up on the cameras and then they tell me the camera wasn't working.
34:28 So again, just false. There's just been so much of this just, um, falseness over all this and mistakes that have been made. Um...
34:41 Hannah Foord: What about the noise? Can you hear cars come in inside your house?
34:46 Tranpa: Uh, it can be difficult. If it's windy, you're not going to hear them. It's as simple as that. But usually we've got the dogs there on the loose and they would alert someone if someone else drove into the house. You'd hear them barking. But of course we were doing sheep work so we had all the dogs with us. Um, just bad luck.
35:11 Marilee Burtt: Look, everybody here is concerned. They are concerned. And they're not only just concerned about the little one missing, but they're concerned about the family as well. I just -- I don't know. I don't know how they -- they could handle it because it's -- wouldn't be an easy thing.
35:32 Tranpa: You know, we haven't got a body. We haven't got a live body. We haven't got a dead body. We have no idea, um, of quite where he is, but we feel that, yes, he has been taken.
35:48 Michael Usher: How would you describe, um, her emotions, and then to when you sit down with her, her emotions in this intervie? ‘Cuz they're very different.
35:57 Hannah Foord: Very. So throughout the search she's been incredibly hostile, only ever swearing at the media and sneering even. I haven't seen any emotion from her during the searches, and there's been 11. But it's clear she's very sad and she is broken. And the pressure this family has been under, the toll that it's taken is unfathomable.
36:27 (CUT TO TRANPA EMOTION FACE)
36:45 Tranpa: Sorry.
Hannah Foord: Okay. Take as long as you want.
36:56 Tranpa: You'd just suddenly be hit by the horror, the enormity of this, and Jess probably more so, but Jess is not quite so prone to talk about it, particularly to me, if you like. Um, but yeah, it's just -- and then to be accused of doing something like this is just -- you could not wish a more horrible experience on anyone.
37:31 Hannah Foord: Does it just break your heart?
37:40 Tranpa: And I guess we live in the hope that this is a benign abduction and he's still out there somewhere. And it just -- one -- some stage is hopefully soon someone's going to see him and go, ‘right,’ and notify the authorities and -- yeah, it's -- to go from -- sorry -- to go from, um, living a quiet time up there, which is what I've said to a lot of people that we tend to have a quiet time up there away from all the nonsense that goes on in the rest of the world, and then to have something thrust on us like this is -- yeah, it's -- I cannot describe how we feel about it.
38:35 Narrator: Next. What does a forensic criminologist make of this interview?
38:44 Dr. Sarah Yule, Forensic Psychologist: Well, you wouldn't do that if you were innocent or you wouldn't do that if you were guilty.
39:01 Michael Usher: Months after Gus Lamont vanished in South Australia, we're still no closer to knowing what happened. Now, for the first time, we're hearing from one of the last people to see him, his grandmother, Josie Murray. And we've shown the interview to a criminal psychologist for fresh insight into this mystery.
39:23 In what you help police with, what might they look at in Josie's interview in terms of their investigation?
39:31 Dr. Sarah Yule: The investigation team know the materials that they've gathered in this investigation. And a tiny fraction of that, I'm sure, is what is publicly available, for good reason. They would be interested in looking at the account that Josie gives in this interview, looking at how that compares to other information they have gathered. They would presumably be looking at -- at how she presents as well.
39:54 But something that I've focused on in the detective's training that I provide is not to make any assumptions about body language. It is notoriously flawed in producing any conclusions about whether somebody is truth-telling or potentially deceptive. So something I've focused a lot is ensuring that people focus more on the quality of the evidence that they can extract from an interview.
40:20 Michael Usher: How important is it, then, that that the investigators, I guess to put it simply, don't judge a book by its cover?
40:26 Dr. Sarah Yule: It's extremely important that investigators keep an open mind. And I think for the community as well, because we're in a world where there is a lot of public judgment and immediate decision-making, and it may turn out in the end that certain avenues are confirmed. It may turn out that they're very wrong. And if they're wrong, what's the harm that's been done in the meantime?
40:51 Michael Usher: Until now, we haven't seen emotion in Josie, and she's been identified as the main suspect. In fact, we've seen hostility. She's barged media outside of court. She's been very angry with, uh, a lot of people on her property. From an investigator's point of view, do you have to be careful about judging that character or those characteristics in the context of this case, a missing child?
41:18 Dr. Sarah Yule: Absolutely. And look, I think you know for the general public as -- as humans, it's our tendency to see every event through our filter of what our experience has been and what we've been previously exposed to. And so we can be very quick to judge, well, you wouldn't do that if you were innocent or you wouldn't do that if you were guilty. But if we haven't lived through that experience, we can't really say that.
41:40 Tranpa: There was no sign that he'd been down there. No blood on the concrete floor, nothing.
41:45 Michael Usher: In your expert opinion, you've had a look at Josie's interview. Broadly, what are your impressions of -- of her and what she's saying?
41:53 Dr. Sarah Yule: I think to put oneself out there and address questions and there can be different motivations for that, but it -- regardless of the situation, I think it's pretty brave because you're putting yourself out there for further public commentary and debate and speculation.
42:12 Michael Usher: Josie Murray has told us that she has concerns that perhaps early evidence was missed or lost in the rush to find Gus. What was the priority of police then, from an investigative point of view, at the time when they arrived?
42:28 Dr. Sarah Yule: Certainly I know from many, many missing persons invest in investigations that I've assisted the police with, we have to keep in mind that priority of people are desperate to find a child and as quickly as possible. But there are also those protocols of anyone who is missing, as police would be trying to ensure, evidence preservation needs to be a top consideration as well from the very beginning, because evidence can be lost very quickly. But it is a -- I know it is a real challenge for investigators or responding police to manage both of those priorities.
43:04: Tranpa: We’re on the front veranda and Shan said that Gus was just down near, what we call the bomb shelter, playing.
43:14 Michael Usher: Given they have no forensic evidence that we're aware of, we finally have words and in those words are emotions. Um, does this help police now? Have they got a bit more to go on than they had last week?
43:27 Dr. Sarah Yule: Well, I'm hopeful that this might actually enable Josie to feel that she's been able to have her say and that potentially doors may be opened on both sides for more information from Josie to be explored, and potentially, if Josie feels that she has been listened to and been able to put her perspective, or the family's perspective, or both, then potentially there's an avenue for more discussion with investigators that would help find out what's happened to Gus.
44:06 Hannah Foord: What would your message be to the public and to authorities now?
44:43 Darren Fielke: All right. Whenever you're ready, I suppose.
Some Guy: Good to go. Yeah.
Darren Fielke: Good to go. Uh, it -- Detective Chief Superintendent Darren Fielke from Major Crime Investigation Branch. Gus's grandparents, uh, who continue to reside here at Oak Park Station, are represented by solicitors. All communications that Task Force Horizon are having with Gus's grandparents are through the solicitors. One of the grandparents of Gus remains a suspect in this investigation.
45:18 Hannah Foord: What would your message be to the public and to authorities now?
45:23 Tranpa: Keep looking for any sign that a child is Gus. Don't take any notice of his hair. His hair is his crowning glory. But it's also the thing that everyone remembers about him the most. And you have to take that hair away from that face and look at that face. And if I just saw the eyes of Gus, I would know him instantly because it's the way you are.
45:53 Michael Usher: Do you think we will ever find out what happened to Gus?
Hannah Foord: I think there is a real possibility that this case will never be solved and we'll never know. And sadly, it could end up like a case like William Tyrrell or Madeleine McCann. It's -- as heartbreaking as it is to say, it's a very real possibility.
Michael Usher: A cold case with no answers, no clues.
Hannah Foord: That's how it might stay.
46:22 Hannah Foord: Is it hard being in the house?
46:24 Tranpa: A lot of his toys still around. We bought him a little two-wheel push bike for pedaling around with trainer wheels on. We thought he'd -- just about at that stage, that's still sitting in the lounge and every time I walk past I go, ‘Oh my god.’ There's all sorts of stuff that um reminds me of him.
46:47 Bill Harbison: This situation won't finish until they find either a boy or a body. And you know, ultimately, if Josie is proven innocent, they've already wrecked her life.
47:07 Marilee Burtt: We're devastated about what's happened. I mean, you go for a drive on any part of the Barrier Highway and you do think about that little boy, Gus. I don't stop thinking about him. I pray that, you know, somewhere along the line, he's still -- he's still around. He's still alive somewhere. That's what I think.
47:26 Tranpa: We don't feel that this is, um, a horror story, if you like. Um, and if you think about it, nothing else makes sense. Nothing else makes sense.
Hannah Foord: Do you think he's still alive?
47:43 Tranpa: I do. I do.
47:52 Michael Usher: We asked South Australia police for an interview in relation to Josie's allegations. They told us...
AI Teleprompter thing: Sadly, despite 11 individual large-scale searches of Oak Park Station, no evidence relating to Gus Lamont's disappearance has been located. Task Force Horizon has and will continue to investigate any and all information, including information provided by Gus's family that could assist in identifying what has happened to Gus. As the investigation is ongoing, it is not appropriate for SA police to discuss specific aspects of the investigation that could compromise any potential future court proceedings.
48:30 Michael Usher: I'm Michael Usher. Until next week, good night.
Darren Fielke, SAPOL: The person who has withdrawn their cooperation is now considered a suspect.
Random Reporter: Are you hopeful Gus will be found? Do you have to say anything about the disappearance of your grandson?
Robert “Josie” Murray, aka Tranpa: 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. But to think that I could actually go out there, um, and do something like that...
Michael Usher, 7NEWS Spotlight: That's an emotional Josie Murray speaking for the first time. Good evening. I'm Michael Usher and welcome to Spotlight.
Everyone has wanted to hear from Gus Lamont's...grandmother...since the 4-year old disappeared from the family's outback farm in September last year. Everyone, including South Australia police, since they named a suspect. Josie is angry, frustrated, and devastated.
7 News Adelaide crime reporter Hannah Foord joins Spotlight this week as we go inside the untold story of Gus Lamont.
Hannah, this is a story that has all of Australia intrigued. Obviously a child is missing, but what makes it more intriguing, do you think?
Hannah Foord, 7NEWS Adelaide: I think the vastness of where this has happened. It is so remote. How does a child go missing and just vanish without even a trace? Not a hat, not a t-shirt. There's no spot of blood. There's no piece of hair. There is nothing. It's just like Gus has vanished into thin air.
(GETTING TO THE POINT)
2:22 Tranpa: Um...
Some Guy: I'm recording.
Hannah Foord: Can you tell me anything more about him, his personality...?
2:35 Tranpa: He was fairly quiet. He would get upset occasionally, um, like all kids. Um, that's normal. Um, he loved being on the swing out the -- the side of the house there. He loved, um, his push bike, pushing that around and just letting it roll down the hill with (him) seated on it. Happy, almost -- perhaps not more than you'd expect, but he was happy most of the time. And again, for -- you know, he was just a normal, happy 4-year old child.
3:06 He loved sitting in the lounge, um, being read to or reading his own books. He used to have a pile of books there. He'd drag them all out on the floor and go through them and read -- read whatever he could understand from them. Um, I'm not sure it was more than the pictures, but yeah. He was a bookish kid you'd almost call him as well.
3:30 He was quite happy to go and play on his own a lot of the time. You -- you'd often hear him down at the shed, you know, he'd got a fixation on opening and closing the Hilux doors at one stage and you'd hear this bang bang bang bang. We just said, ‘Well, if that's what he wants to do, he can do it. He's not going to hurt anything terribly much and it doesn't matter. It's a work vehicle, so -- so what?’
3:54 (CLOSE UP ON EMOTION FACE, DRY EYES)
Hannah Foord: Josie and Gus, they were close, and she saw Gus as the child who could take over the property they love so much and keep it in the family. You know, Gus was the apple of their eyes.
Michael Usher: And that bond is certainly backed up by family friend Bill, who you've sat down and spoken with as well.
4:20 Hannah Foord: That's right.
How would you describe Josie? You've known her for 60 years?
4:26 Bill Harbison, family friend: “I guess you'd have to say a bit quiet, a bit reserved, pretty athletic, pretty studious. (CUT TO CLOSE-UP ON TRANPA PUSHING HIS PEDO GLASSES UP FOR SOME REASON) You'd have to work very hard to find someone that would say anything against her.
Hannah Foord: How would you describe Oak Park Station?
Bill Harbison: Well, it's open, remote, distant, lonely, beautiful. It's a big place. Very hard to get your head around the size of it.
Hannah Foord: There's a town before it called Yunta, which is about 300 km 400 km from Adelaide.
Marilee Burtt, Yunta local: It’s in the middle of nowhere. I call it ‘nowhere land.’ We have a post office, one hotel, two petrol stations. We had a flood last month and the road traffic and the road trains were all stuck here for a whole week. We only have Telstra here. Hi, Telstra. Um, without that, we -- we’re sort of buggered.
Hannah Foord: And then from that town, it's another 40 minutes to Oak Park Station. There are six gates that you have to open and -- and close to get through. You say middle of nowhere, but it -- it really is. You can't see anything. And you could hear a pin drop. That's how it feels out there.
Michael Usher: Who are the members of -- of Gus's family?
Hannah Foord: Josie Murray is the grandparent of Gus. Jess is her daughter. Shannon Murray, she is the former partner of Josie Murray and the other grandparent to little Gus. And there is also another child in in this that some people might not realize, but there is -- there's a baby, baby Ronnie, who was 1.
Michael Usher: And where was Gus's dad on that day?
Hannah Foord: Gus's dad wasn't at the property.
Michael Usher: And -- and for clarity, we should explain, um, that Josie transitioned in the early '90s.
Hannah Foord: Shannon and Josie, they were married. Um...
Michael Usher: Husband and wife on the property.
Hannah Foord: Yes. And then things changed. Josie transitioned to a -- to a woman, and they are no longer together, but they are really good friends and they run a business together and they are business partners and they run the farm together
Michael Usher: And -- and share grandparent responsibilities of little Gus and -- and his brother.
Hannah Foord: That's right.
Michael Usher: Just talking about Gus as a little character, as a little kid, I think it's fair to say he was a free spirit on that farm. This is a kid who didn't know the city.
Hannah Foord: From what I've been told, he was adventurous. Big smile. Uh, loved to explore. The land was -- was his playground.
Marilee Burtt: People leave one another alone here. It's pretty good. You want a nice peaceful life. You got children and you're worried about the city, what's going to happen. It's a good place, I suppose, to bring up kids if -- it's safe. You know that the kids can play out in the yard, nobody's going to hurt ‘em.
8:21 Tranpa: He often would go for a walk around the property, but he -- or around the homestead, but he would stick to the road. He wouldn't -- wouldn't (? - it sounds like he says something like ‘victator’ here) off it. He'd never go very far, but he he would certainly walk around, um, the homestead to the far reaches of the house paddock, if you want to call it that. I've never bothered to check it, but it's probably 5 or 10 acres and -- and he would cover all that, um, um, no problem. I -- I've used to see him down the cattle yards occasionally and -- and places like that.
8:59 Hannah Foord: I understand that he -- he has wandered off before, as he does, but there was never any panic because they knew how well he knew the land.
9:10 Tranpa: Shan had taken him down to the shearers’ quarters while Jess and I and I were out mustering, and he had wandered off and Shan couldn't find him when she was gonna come home. So she came home and told us, you know, Gus has gone for a walk somewhere. Jess and I thought, well, we better get on the motorbike and just go and find him. So we did that, and -- and I was the one who found him and he was probably 120 meters away from where he walked off from, and he was walking back, straight to where -- and he was -- I sung out to him and he just looked over at me and just said, ‘Yeah, no problem.’ And just walking back to the shearers’ quarters. Jess went over on the motorbike and picked him up and he wasn't concerned so he wasn't lost or anything. He'd just gone for a walk.
Michael Usher: in September last year, the scenario was very different. Gus had wandered off and this time hadn't come back.
Hannah Foord: That's right. The family knew this time this was out of character and there was possibly something very wrong.
10:31 Tranpa: I remember looking at my watch when we put the sheep through into the right paddock and it was 10 past, so, um -- and we drove straight back without any holdups. So, yeah, right back there at 5:30. We were on the front veranda and Shan said that Gus was just down near what we call the bomb shelter playing, and when we had a look, no sign. And we said to Shan, ‘When did you last see him?’ and she said ‘5 o’clock,’ and so in that half an hour time -- half hour time frame he disappeared
11:12 And we immediately -- we were a little bit concerned about the cellar we were building because it was possible he could have fallen down there. So that's one of the first things we did. We looked, there was no sign that he'd been down there, no blood on the concrete floor, nothing.
11:29 (LOOK AT THIS FACE HE PULLS)
11:33 And so then Jess and I walked around all the buildings on the property and checking all the -- like, the swimming pool, just in case he'd managed to somehow open the gate, which is -- he'd have to be 6' tall to do it -- and checked whatever else we could and still couldn't find him. So we had a quick conference and decided what to do and we decided we better jump on the bikes and go and look.
12:01 I remember saying to Jess at one stage, we've got 45 minutes of daylight that (night). So, what that time was, I don't know, but it -- after we'd searched on foot, but I remember saying, we've got 45 minutes of daylight. We better get with it.
12:17 We were concentrating within probably 3/4 of a K or a K of the -- kilometer of the homestead and just searching where the tanks were, the dams, um, down by the cottage. I think we went to the shearing shed, (about) -- I'd be surprised if we didn't. And so Jess and I were in contact with the radio or visually pretty well the entire time. Even though we might have been separated by 300 or 400 meters, we could see each other. We knew where we were. And we kept that up until it was getting to the dark stage.
12:58 Um, and then we went home, went into the kitchen, and I think the question was (arraised) -- was raised how soon do we notify the authorities that we might have a missing child and we need to do something about it? And I seem to recall it was sometime around 8 o’clock that we actually made the call.
13:29 Michael Usher: So it's dark. It's getting later and later. When do the police first arrive? Because distance is a tyranny out there.
Hannah Foord: Yeah. So, we understand that an officer named Luke was the first one to arrive from -- from a nearby town. After that officer arrived, there was a second one on his way.
13:51 Tranpa: Luke and I were sitting on the hill outside the house trying to spot his flashing lights. And this went on for some time, trying to describe how he should get to the property. And I kept saying, ‘Look, go back to Paratoo Homestead and come in on the road.’ Eventually, he just gave up and went back to Orroroo. So, he actually never arrived on the property.
14:18 While Luke was there, I got in the vehicle with him and went down to the cottage and we searched that and the shearer's quarters, all the buildings down there, the sheds, and then up to the shearing shed and checked all that. And I'm pretty sure we did the tanks and everything and the dam. Um, because everyone automatically jumps to conclusions that he could be there, even though we'd already checked them two or three times by that stage.
14:44 Bit later that night, Shan and I went out in the buggy again and we -- very carefully because it was an issue with vehicles running around, if Gus was actually out there and walking around, if he blundered onto the road in front of a vehicle coming in, he could get cleaned up and run over very easily. So we were being very careful and just quietly -- probably 15 -- 10, 15ks an hour moving along the roads just checking along the roads, because as Jess said, and we're all fairly sure, that if he had gone for a walk, um, he would have walked along the road, because that's what he did.
15:34 Narrator: A remote family sheep station, now the center of a major police operation.
Michael Usher: Let's talk about the very first search. The terrain, the temperatures, the size, and the scale that we're dealing with here.
Hannah Foord: So the first search they covered 60,000 hectares. There were at least 300 police officers and volunteers involved. They covered so much area of the land, and they searched all day.
Darren Fielke: The scale of the air and ground search as part of this investigation is unprecedented.
Hannah Foord: Certainly the family at the very beginning believed it was just a matter of time before he was found. But by the next day when the sun was rising, that hope started to fade and I got a sense that panic was starting to set in.
Narrator: Up next, are there new clues in the disappearance of Gus Lamont?
16:46 Tranpa: A child would not be able to shift it and this bedstead had been moved
Narrator: Later.
Hannah Foord: Have police told you that you're a main suspect in the case of Gus's disappearance?
17:00 Tranpa: I'm going to do it now. (EMOTION FACE)
17:20 That's what Shan and I say nearly -- nearly every night when we knock off work. We go and sit on that back veranda with the dogs while they're having their dinner and we say, ‘How? Why?’ We just can't believe it.
17:48 Michael Usher: And Gus’s grandmother, Josie, told you something extraordinary about what she saw the day after young Gus disappeared. What was that?
Hannah Foord: It seemed that in the hours before police arrived, there was possible evidence of -- of someone else being on that property. We've never heard this before.
18:10 Tranpa: I remember looking out the window, ‘cuz it was starting to get light by that stage. And there was a bedstead there that we'd set up to put (stone) on to wash. And that bedstead had been moved, not quite 180°, but certainly a -- quite a substantial amount from when I last saw it. And I thought, "What the hell's happened there?" And it was reasonably heavy. A child would not be able to shift it. And this bedstead had been moved. And I also saw what we called the weather station had been moved. I'm not sure when that happened, but it -- it was -- there appeared to be something had happened there. And I then walked up past where the bedstead was and thought, well, I better not move it ‘cuz this could be -- this could be an indication of something.
Then I saw wheel tracks going down past where the bedstead was and past where the weather station was. And these wheel tracks were small tire, medium-size car, and not much tread on them. Not a off-road type tread. It was definitely a passenger-type, and I thought that's strange, too. And I started to think almost immediately, I wonder if someone's come in? And all the time I was thinking, you know, there's a chance that he's been taken by someone.
19:51 I was frankly horrified at the number of vehicles that were parked around our house, ‘cuz we hadn't actually seen them come in. My immediate thought was, my god, they’ve destroyed any chance of tracking him, um, if he'd walked out on the road or anything because the road was already pounded up and starting to get dusty and they'd made a mess.
20:21 One instance we have -- and again the -- the police apologized it to us afterwards, because I saw footprints in one of the dams. The dam was nearly dried, it was mostly mud. And I found these footprints in the dam, and I took photographs of it and we actually took one of Gus's boots out there and I took laid it next to this footprint and took a photograph of it and I said, "It's got to be him. It's got to be him ‘cuz it's the right size." And the police kept on saying that, no, that it was a police diver. Yeah, this guy must have had a size -- well someone said it's smaller than a size four lady's footprint and he must have had tiny feet, and the superintendent (listened to me) that was a mistake.
21:15 Michael Usher: So, in the race to search for Gus, perhaps early uh evidence, early signs about someone else being on the property might have been lost.
Hannah Foord: That is what her concern is now.
Michael Usher: It is fair to say that Josie doesn't have a lot of time for South Australia police.
Hannah Foord: She's told me she's not happy with how this investigation has gone or the case of her grandson has been handled.
21:47 Tranpa: It was admitted to me later that they think that that was a mistake to come in with all those vehicles so early when they should have actually got the tracker guy from Port Augusta who'd been on our place tracking dogs and trapping them. And we needed to get him there while there was still a chance to find the tracks, but he didn't get there ‘til two or three days after Gus went missing.
22:13 I'm pretty sure I talked to Luke McCoy and said, ‘Look, don't rule out abduction. There's signs that something has occurred in front of the bomb shelter.’ And that was where Gus was when we last saw him. And we're suspicious. And I couldn't rule out that he'd walked off and I couldn't walk -- rule out that he'd actually been taken. I said, you know, I don't know. And so that's the way I left it.
22:54 Hannah Foord: What are you leaning towards now?
22:57 Tranpa: Oh, abduction.
23:02 There was supposedly 700 people were on our property at any one time. Now, the important people in all that are the locals. It's our job to find things out there. This is what we do. And as time went on, I was getting more and more convinced when we couldn't find anything, we couldn't find a shoe, a hat, any sign of a top, nothing. We could not find a thing. And everyone said the same thing. This is ridiculous. There would be something out here. There has to be something.
23:45 Michael Usher: This now leads us to a range of theories and possibilities. What has been speculated about what happened to Gus?
Hannah Foord: Well, the possibilities are sort of endless at this stage because there is -- the only evidence is no evidence. So, abduction is a possibility. Wildlife, being taken by wildlife, is a -- is a possibility.
24:14 Bill Harbison: If wildlife is a possibility, my bet would be wedge-tailed eagles. Wedge-tailed eagle can pick up a 20, 25 kg kangaroo and take it without much difficulty. Gus was 13 or 14 kg, so a mature wedge-tailed eagle would find that quite comfortable.
24:50 Hannah Foord: But we've also had theories, wild theories from across the world. Police have had tips from Syria.
Michael Usher: Are you kidding?
Hannah Foord: That's been -- that's been one of the phone calls they've had, so many. And the sightings from overseas have been discounted. But because there is nothing, you do, you have to follow up every tip, and there are hundreds. It is -- it is a huge amount of work for police.
25:23 Marilee Burtt: If he died of exhaustion, you would have seen the -- the eagles, the hawks, the ravens all around the area. You would you -- would have seen it.
25:35 Bill Harbison: I think somebody's taken him. Whether he's alive or he's dead, God only knows. But the only good thing about it is that if someone has taken him, then there's a thread of a possibility that he may still be alive.
26:06 Hannah Foord: February this year, police hold a press conference and they declare his case a major crime, telling us that he was likely killed or his body disposed of after an accident.
Michael Usher: What evidence did they have to support that?
Hannah Foord: They did not disclose any evidence that they may or may not have.
Michael Usher: To your knowledge, has there been forensic evidence found to support that major crime theory?
Hannah Foord: Not to my knowledge.
Michael Usher: But this is a big development. They're putting it squarely back on involvement within the family.
Hannah Foord: That's right. In in that press conference, abduction, unlikely. Every -- taken by wildlife, unlikely. So back to the family we go.
27:03 Darren Fielke: The person who has withdrawn their cooperation, uh, is now considered a suspect in the disappearance of Gus. (CUT TO TRANPA MAKING WEIRD OLD MAN CHEWY FACES) I do want to stress, however, that Gus's parents are not suspects in his disappearance.
27:23 Michael Usher: So they declare a major crime, but they don't announce any charges. They don't prosecute anyone.
Hannah Foord: And at this stage, we still have no charges. A main suspect, but no charges.
27:40 Hannah Foord: How do you think South Australian police have handled this investigation?
27:45 Bill Harbison: To me, they just seem to have tunnel vision, and it's -- it's getting to the point of almost being vindictive now.
27:57 Hannah Foord: And do you think there's been any discrimination against (Jos)?
28:02 Bill Harbison: Well, I do. Um, you know, as everybody knows, Josie is a transgender. I challenged the police about this, you know, that they were targeting her because of her transgender situation, and they were mortally offended that I should say that.
Some Guy: (Over there) with the hat?
28:38 Hannah Foord: So when police declared this a major crime, the family stopped speaking to them. They both hired high-profile lawyers and haven't spoken to them directly since. They haven't been happy with how the search was handled in the first place. And -- and now they're being targeted as possible killers.
Michael Usher: All of them or just Josie?
Hannah Foord: Just Josie.
Narrator: Up next
29:11 Tranpa: They think that I buried him. Took him out and buried him.
Narrator: Later.
Hannah Foord: Do you think he's still alive?
29:33 Narrator: Nine months on from Gaza's disappearance, his grandmother, Josie Murray, remains a suspect. Now, for the first time, what police have told her and what she wants to say to police.
30:04 Hannah Foord: Have police told you that you're a main suspect in the case of Gus's disappearance?
30:12 Tranpa: They have said that they don't think I hurt him. They think that I buried him. That's one of the theories they're working on. And, um, as I say, that's -- for so many reasons it's ludicrous. It just -- yeah, doesn't make sense. Why would you do that to yourself when you know that, okay, if he'd had an accident, you just go, well -- you know, as much as we hate it and everything, you know, he's had an accident, right? You know we've got to deal with it.
30:50 Hannah Foord: Gus was who you were going to hand over the farm to eventually?
30:54 Tranpa: Oh yeah, that was -- I mean that's the other thing why it's ludicrous. I mean why would a 70-year old like myself and like Shan be working -- which we are, I tend to probably work close to 70 hours a week. I don't stop for weekends or anything. I just keep working every daylight hour there is. Why would I do that at this age if I don't intend to try and (handle) the property over to Jess and the two boys in the best possible condition I can do it?
31:22 And I know that I've been accused of, um, taking him from where he had an accident and died and taking him out and burying him. But to think that I could actually go out there, um, and do something like that, um, to think that I would be stupid enough to do it, for a start, is ludicrous. Um, and to think that I could face up to the trauma of doing that would also be ridiculous.
31:57 There's no way in -- under those -- when it's so dry and dusty like that, there's no way you can bury something without leaving evidence that the ground has been disturbed. And the amount of searching that went on, aerial, um, with a helicopter, with the fixed wing, with the drones, with everything, you would see signs of someone being buried.
32:24 I mean, obviously they were thinking about the dam and I, um -- I had several neighbors who said to me afterwards, it would be, again, ridiculous to think that he'd gone into the dam because there was a -- weed all around the dam, and if anything had gone in there, if we'd put him in the dam or if he'd walked into the dam or anything, you would disturb that weed and it would be damn obvious.
32:50 Michael Usher: Have police ruled out abduction?
32:53 Hannah Foord: Almost certainly. They believe it is so unlikely that a stranger would be so opportunistic to go into a property so remote.
33:10 Tranpa: The one that is so laughable is the one that -- the head of the major lot said that, um, there was only four-wheel drive access to Oak Park. So, um, there was no chance of abduction. And I mean that's absurd because the Hilux they've taken down there to do tests on is a two-wheel drive. Shan's got a two-wheel drive. Jess has got a two-wheel drive. The buggies are two-wheel drive. I mean, it's laughable.
33:41 The other thing that they said was that, um, the footage on the security cameras on the property next door, where you come in from Yunta Road, um, showed that no one had come out to Oak Park in that time frame. So I identified all the sites and there was one I wasn't 100% sure of until I got a better view of it and then I could see the trees and I said, ‘Oh, and that's the one that's on the road in from Yunta at what we call Breakneck Creek.’ And this bloke said, ‘Oh, well, um, that wasn't working at the time.’ And I thought again, lie. Because they had told me that he couldn't have been taken because no one had came in and no one showed up on the cameras and then they tell me the camera wasn't working.
34:28 So again, just false. There's just been so much of this just, um, falseness over all this and mistakes that have been made. Um...
34:41 Hannah Foord: What about the noise? Can you hear cars come in inside your house?
34:46 Tranpa: Uh, it can be difficult. If it's windy, you're not going to hear them. It's as simple as that. But usually we've got the dogs there on the loose and they would alert someone if someone else drove into the house. You'd hear them barking. But of course we were doing sheep work so we had all the dogs with us. Um, just bad luck.
35:11 Marilee Burtt: Look, everybody here is concerned. They are concerned. And they're not only just concerned about the little one missing, but they're concerned about the family as well. I just -- I don't know. I don't know how they -- they could handle it because it's -- wouldn't be an easy thing.
35:32 Tranpa: You know, we haven't got a body. We haven't got a live body. We haven't got a dead body. We have no idea, um, of quite where he is, but we feel that, yes, he has been taken.
35:48 Michael Usher: How would you describe, um, her emotions, and then to when you sit down with her, her emotions in this intervie? ‘Cuz they're very different.
35:57 Hannah Foord: Very. So throughout the search she's been incredibly hostile, only ever swearing at the media and sneering even. I haven't seen any emotion from her during the searches, and there's been 11. But it's clear she's very sad and she is broken. And the pressure this family has been under, the toll that it's taken is unfathomable.
36:27 (CUT TO TRANPA EMOTION FACE)
36:45 Tranpa: Sorry.
Hannah Foord: Okay. Take as long as you want.
36:56 Tranpa: You'd just suddenly be hit by the horror, the enormity of this, and Jess probably more so, but Jess is not quite so prone to talk about it, particularly to me, if you like. Um, but yeah, it's just -- and then to be accused of doing something like this is just -- you could not wish a more horrible experience on anyone.
37:31 Hannah Foord: Does it just break your heart?
37:40 Tranpa: And I guess we live in the hope that this is a benign abduction and he's still out there somewhere. And it just -- one -- some stage is hopefully soon someone's going to see him and go, ‘right,’ and notify the authorities and -- yeah, it's -- to go from -- sorry -- to go from, um, living a quiet time up there, which is what I've said to a lot of people that we tend to have a quiet time up there away from all the nonsense that goes on in the rest of the world, and then to have something thrust on us like this is -- yeah, it's -- I cannot describe how we feel about it.
38:35 Narrator: Next. What does a forensic criminologist make of this interview?
38:44 Dr. Sarah Yule, Forensic Psychologist: Well, you wouldn't do that if you were innocent or you wouldn't do that if you were guilty.
39:01 Michael Usher: Months after Gus Lamont vanished in South Australia, we're still no closer to knowing what happened. Now, for the first time, we're hearing from one of the last people to see him, his grandmother, Josie Murray. And we've shown the interview to a criminal psychologist for fresh insight into this mystery.
39:23 In what you help police with, what might they look at in Josie's interview in terms of their investigation?
39:31 Dr. Sarah Yule: The investigation team know the materials that they've gathered in this investigation. And a tiny fraction of that, I'm sure, is what is publicly available, for good reason. They would be interested in looking at the account that Josie gives in this interview, looking at how that compares to other information they have gathered. They would presumably be looking at -- at how she presents as well.
39:54 But something that I've focused on in the detective's training that I provide is not to make any assumptions about body language. It is notoriously flawed in producing any conclusions about whether somebody is truth-telling or potentially deceptive. So something I've focused a lot is ensuring that people focus more on the quality of the evidence that they can extract from an interview.
40:20 Michael Usher: How important is it, then, that that the investigators, I guess to put it simply, don't judge a book by its cover?
40:26 Dr. Sarah Yule: It's extremely important that investigators keep an open mind. And I think for the community as well, because we're in a world where there is a lot of public judgment and immediate decision-making, and it may turn out in the end that certain avenues are confirmed. It may turn out that they're very wrong. And if they're wrong, what's the harm that's been done in the meantime?
40:51 Michael Usher: Until now, we haven't seen emotion in Josie, and she's been identified as the main suspect. In fact, we've seen hostility. She's barged media outside of court. She's been very angry with, uh, a lot of people on her property. From an investigator's point of view, do you have to be careful about judging that character or those characteristics in the context of this case, a missing child?
41:18 Dr. Sarah Yule: Absolutely. And look, I think you know for the general public as -- as humans, it's our tendency to see every event through our filter of what our experience has been and what we've been previously exposed to. And so we can be very quick to judge, well, you wouldn't do that if you were innocent or you wouldn't do that if you were guilty. But if we haven't lived through that experience, we can't really say that.
41:40 Tranpa: There was no sign that he'd been down there. No blood on the concrete floor, nothing.
41:45 Michael Usher: In your expert opinion, you've had a look at Josie's interview. Broadly, what are your impressions of -- of her and what she's saying?
41:53 Dr. Sarah Yule: I think to put oneself out there and address questions and there can be different motivations for that, but it -- regardless of the situation, I think it's pretty brave because you're putting yourself out there for further public commentary and debate and speculation.
42:12 Michael Usher: Josie Murray has told us that she has concerns that perhaps early evidence was missed or lost in the rush to find Gus. What was the priority of police then, from an investigative point of view, at the time when they arrived?
42:28 Dr. Sarah Yule: Certainly I know from many, many missing persons invest in investigations that I've assisted the police with, we have to keep in mind that priority of people are desperate to find a child and as quickly as possible. But there are also those protocols of anyone who is missing, as police would be trying to ensure, evidence preservation needs to be a top consideration as well from the very beginning, because evidence can be lost very quickly. But it is a -- I know it is a real challenge for investigators or responding police to manage both of those priorities.
43:04: Tranpa: We’re on the front veranda and Shan said that Gus was just down near, what we call the bomb shelter, playing.
43:14 Michael Usher: Given they have no forensic evidence that we're aware of, we finally have words and in those words are emotions. Um, does this help police now? Have they got a bit more to go on than they had last week?
43:27 Dr. Sarah Yule: Well, I'm hopeful that this might actually enable Josie to feel that she's been able to have her say and that potentially doors may be opened on both sides for more information from Josie to be explored, and potentially, if Josie feels that she has been listened to and been able to put her perspective, or the family's perspective, or both, then potentially there's an avenue for more discussion with investigators that would help find out what's happened to Gus.
44:06 Hannah Foord: What would your message be to the public and to authorities now?
44:43 Darren Fielke: All right. Whenever you're ready, I suppose.
Some Guy: Good to go. Yeah.
Darren Fielke: Good to go. Uh, it -- Detective Chief Superintendent Darren Fielke from Major Crime Investigation Branch. Gus's grandparents, uh, who continue to reside here at Oak Park Station, are represented by solicitors. All communications that Task Force Horizon are having with Gus's grandparents are through the solicitors. One of the grandparents of Gus remains a suspect in this investigation.
45:18 Hannah Foord: What would your message be to the public and to authorities now?
45:23 Tranpa: Keep looking for any sign that a child is Gus. Don't take any notice of his hair. His hair is his crowning glory. But it's also the thing that everyone remembers about him the most. And you have to take that hair away from that face and look at that face. And if I just saw the eyes of Gus, I would know him instantly because it's the way you are.
45:53 Michael Usher: Do you think we will ever find out what happened to Gus?
Hannah Foord: I think there is a real possibility that this case will never be solved and we'll never know. And sadly, it could end up like a case like William Tyrrell or Madeleine McCann. It's -- as heartbreaking as it is to say, it's a very real possibility.
Michael Usher: A cold case with no answers, no clues.
Hannah Foord: That's how it might stay.
46:22 Hannah Foord: Is it hard being in the house?
46:24 Tranpa: A lot of his toys still around. We bought him a little two-wheel push bike for pedaling around with trainer wheels on. We thought he'd -- just about at that stage, that's still sitting in the lounge and every time I walk past I go, ‘Oh my god.’ There's all sorts of stuff that um reminds me of him.
46:47 Bill Harbison: This situation won't finish until they find either a boy or a body. And you know, ultimately, if Josie is proven innocent, they've already wrecked her life.
47:07 Marilee Burtt: We're devastated about what's happened. I mean, you go for a drive on any part of the Barrier Highway and you do think about that little boy, Gus. I don't stop thinking about him. I pray that, you know, somewhere along the line, he's still -- he's still around. He's still alive somewhere. That's what I think.
47:26 Tranpa: We don't feel that this is, um, a horror story, if you like. Um, and if you think about it, nothing else makes sense. Nothing else makes sense.
Hannah Foord: Do you think he's still alive?
47:43 Tranpa: I do. I do.
47:52 Michael Usher: We asked South Australia police for an interview in relation to Josie's allegations. They told us...
AI Teleprompter thing: Sadly, despite 11 individual large-scale searches of Oak Park Station, no evidence relating to Gus Lamont's disappearance has been located. Task Force Horizon has and will continue to investigate any and all information, including information provided by Gus's family that could assist in identifying what has happened to Gus. As the investigation is ongoing, it is not appropriate for SA police to discuss specific aspects of the investigation that could compromise any potential future court proceedings.
48:30 Michael Usher: I'm Michael Usher. Until next week, good night.
2:35 Talking about Gus in past tense right out of the gate.
3:06 Reveals his detachment from his grandson. Parents and probably grandma could tell you if he could read at all, seems tranpa didn’t care to know. But then it’s claimed they were ‘close’ at 3:57.
4:26 Family friend’s description of tranpa is fucking weird for a close friend of 60 years. Said you’d have to work hard to find anyone who’d say anything against him (I can name a few reporters, the SA police force, and the father of his grandsons, for a start), but he didn’t have anything particularly good to say about him when asked. No ‘great guy, always there for you when you need him, give you the shirt off his back.’ Nothing about being kind, generous, loyal, funny. His primary quality, so much so Bill named it twice, is that he keeps to himself. 60 years of not being pestered. Damning with faint praise indeed, and pretty much the same as how people usually describe that one neighbor who ended up surprising them by being a murderer.
12:01 Sunset in Yunta was at 6:11 PM that day and it gets true dark particularly fast after sunset in the Outback, so his math for searching here isn’t mathing (particularly because he says they kept looking until it was ‘getting to the dark stage.’ And by this timeline plus when the police received the call at around 8:30, this account of it makes it around 2 hours of sitting around in the kitchen not searching for their missing 4-year old and not calling the police. This three hours between realizing he was missing and calling for help was previously explained as being self-sufficient rural folk doing it themselves, but sounds like instead they were doing fuck-all for most of that time. Also notice the care taken here to establish his daughter as his alibi.
18:10 This is being presented as something that happened before the police arrived, but he says he noticed it when it was ‘starting to get light.’ The police arrived that night, in the dark, and searched all night. So this is a very clumsy effort on his part to shift suspicion to a mysterious third party coming in and abducting the kid instead of, say, one of the many searchers on the property tripping over it in the dark (if it was moved at all and isn’t a pure fabrication to give the public a false trail to pursue).
20:21 This print was reported on when it was found as something that was considered but ultimately ruled out. Could be a police fuckup, or...look at that deep footprint in that dried-out mud. One quick google and turns out tracks made in mud shrink as it dries, particularly in clay-heavy mud, up to about 40%. The dam itself was searched extensively and Tranpa later complains that it was a waste of time to do so, so does he actually believe this print by the water, made who knows when, is significant to the investigation? Or is it just another thing for him to throw out to muddy the waters and claim this extremely extensive, expensive investigation wasn’t good enough because they weren’t listening to him enough?
24:14 Actual consensus is wedge-tailed eagles can’t carry off anything over 5kg, and any larger prey they kill gets torn up and consumed on the ground or pieces carried off. Of course the statement that they can easily carry off four or five times that amount is aired here without being challenged by the hosts. Shoddy work.
27:45 ‘Family friend’ blaming ‘tunnel vision,’ as though they didn’t launch the largest search in the history of the area for a missing kid and haven’t looked into and ruled out like 300+ possible third party abductors.
30:04 This sounds like a ‘good cop’ line to me. ‘It’s ok, we don’t think you meant to hurt him, it was an accident, just tell us where he is, we’ll understand.’ I don’t take this to mean they actually don’t think he hurt him, but are luring him by giving him an opening that looks like an easy out. Also think Tranpa’s not falling for the bait. Notice though he says ‘why would you do that to yourself?’ and NOT ‘why would you do that to your family?’ This part he also seems weirdly cavalier towards the idea of his grandson dying in an accident.
30:54 Says handle instead of hand the property over to daughter and grandsons. Freudian slip from a control freak? Yes this is some petty over-analysis and I don’t care.
31:22- 32:50 Here he’s by far at his most animated and talkative...over how he wouldn’t be stupid enough to hide the body in the places they’ve been looking. He goes on for a minute on where evidence would have been left. Sounds like he’s given corpse-concealing some thought. He kind of throws in an ‘oh yeah, it would also be too traumatic for me to do.’ He tries to sound sympathetic but it sounds unconvincing and is still all about him, nothing about how he could never do such a terrible thing to his firstborn grandson, his only daughter, his whole family. Finding his demeaner interesting through all of this. To me he seems a little pleased with himself and channeling a little of that sort of sense of superiority that the police are on the wrong track that I’m used to seeing in interviews with perpetrators before they know they’ve been caught. Everything’s ‘ridiculous,’ ‘ludicrous,’ ‘laughable,’ ‘absurd.’ His contempt for their efforts is palpable, however all of this was done to investigate and rule out any alternate possibilities, however far-fetched, that something else had happened to his missing and presumed dead grandson before they finally turned their focus on him.
36:56 Basically indicates here that he doesn’t know how his daughter is coping with this and she isn’t comfortable talking to him about it. Estrangement confirmed? No mother-daughter girl talk bonding time, denied dude.
37:40 Complaining about this intruding on his domain.
40:51 This is just dumb and nitpicky, but host saying we haven’t seen emotion in Tranpa then talking about all of the aggressive, angry shit we’ve seen. Anger’s an emotion, dude. We’ve seen him be an emotionally unregulated prick for months.
41:53 Psychologist calls him brave for putting himself out there. Lol. Tranna O’Brien moment.
46:47 ‘Family friend’ says they’ve already wrecked tranpa’s life. He only publicly confirmed himself as the suspect in this interview, rather than what police have said, identifying the suspect as being one of the two and leaving it to public speculation which one it was. The police investigating the possibility he was responsible for this has not ruined his life after 75 years of living, and it’s batshit to me that that’s being presented as more impactful than the actual vanishing grandson, particularly given how he seems to be surrounded by sympathetic locals and had already mostly retreated from the larger outside world by preference. More pity party crap. And again, no word on if his daughter doubts his innocence, which you would think would be the main negative impact from being considered a suspect in this.
47:40 Tranpa says he thinks Gus was abducted and is alive after describing the kid in the past tense for the whole interview. Claims to believe it was an abduction but does not use this golden opportunity to make an appeal to the public to look for him or to the presumed abductor to return him, only to police to investigate any reported sightings.
Final thoughts:
The police have publicly stated that they named him a suspect at least in part due to inconsistencies in family testimonies, and this was entirely glossed over. Police may or may not have confronted him about these discrepancies, but did the reporters seriously not bother to even ask him what they were? ‘What do they think you didn’t tell them correctly?’ No? For that matter, no asking if being named a suspect has caused strain between the grandparents and Gus’s mother?
It’s annoying to me how the interviewer and so on keep speaking like Tranpa and ‘the family’ are one and the same, even to the point of needing to clarify that there’s only one suspect at 28:38. If they were unified, it would be one thing, but all signs point to no and so acting like he represents them feels pretty slimy. The parents by all accounts are still speaking freely with the police and if it comes to picking sides, they seem to be on team SAPOL instead of team Tranpa and Shannon; do they not count as ‘the family’? Feels like forced teaming, or like an extension of the trend since the beginning, even before he was declared a suspect, of making this the Josie Show, even through if he didn’t do it he’s the least relevant family member in this entire thing (not the parents, not the last to see Gus).
I really, really hate these choppy interviews. Lizard lady is the best character, but I don’t know why they spend so much time talking to her when as far as we know she’s just a random local. I want to see the whole damn interview with Tranpa, not selectively edited for a question and an EMOTION FACE here and there. Notice how much of this is Hannah Foord being questioned about what Tranpa has told her instead of just a normal interview with Tranpa himself. Why this by proxy shit? It’s weird. She also seems like an ‘ally.’ Gross. Guessing that’s why he’ll talk to her, she’s on his ‘team.’ Hope they at least shared the uncut footage with the police, since they did a little song and dance at the end of speculating that this interview could be helpful to them.
3:06 Reveals his detachment from his grandson. Parents and probably grandma could tell you if he could read at all, seems tranpa didn’t care to know. But then it’s claimed they were ‘close’ at 3:57.
4:26 Family friend’s description of tranpa is fucking weird for a close friend of 60 years. Said you’d have to work hard to find anyone who’d say anything against him (I can name a few reporters, the SA police force, and the father of his grandsons, for a start), but he didn’t have anything particularly good to say about him when asked. No ‘great guy, always there for you when you need him, give you the shirt off his back.’ Nothing about being kind, generous, loyal, funny. His primary quality, so much so Bill named it twice, is that he keeps to himself. 60 years of not being pestered. Damning with faint praise indeed, and pretty much the same as how people usually describe that one neighbor who ended up surprising them by being a murderer.
12:01 Sunset in Yunta was at 6:11 PM that day and it gets true dark particularly fast after sunset in the Outback, so his math for searching here isn’t mathing (particularly because he says they kept looking until it was ‘getting to the dark stage.’ And by this timeline plus when the police received the call at around 8:30, this account of it makes it around 2 hours of sitting around in the kitchen not searching for their missing 4-year old and not calling the police. This three hours between realizing he was missing and calling for help was previously explained as being self-sufficient rural folk doing it themselves, but sounds like instead they were doing fuck-all for most of that time. Also notice the care taken here to establish his daughter as his alibi.
18:10 This is being presented as something that happened before the police arrived, but he says he noticed it when it was ‘starting to get light.’ The police arrived that night, in the dark, and searched all night. So this is a very clumsy effort on his part to shift suspicion to a mysterious third party coming in and abducting the kid instead of, say, one of the many searchers on the property tripping over it in the dark (if it was moved at all and isn’t a pure fabrication to give the public a false trail to pursue).
20:21 This print was reported on when it was found as something that was considered but ultimately ruled out. Could be a police fuckup, or...look at that deep footprint in that dried-out mud. One quick google and turns out tracks made in mud shrink as it dries, particularly in clay-heavy mud, up to about 40%. The dam itself was searched extensively and Tranpa later complains that it was a waste of time to do so, so does he actually believe this print by the water, made who knows when, is significant to the investigation? Or is it just another thing for him to throw out to muddy the waters and claim this extremely extensive, expensive investigation wasn’t good enough because they weren’t listening to him enough?
24:14 Actual consensus is wedge-tailed eagles can’t carry off anything over 5kg, and any larger prey they kill gets torn up and consumed on the ground or pieces carried off. Of course the statement that they can easily carry off four or five times that amount is aired here without being challenged by the hosts. Shoddy work.
27:45 ‘Family friend’ blaming ‘tunnel vision,’ as though they didn’t launch the largest search in the history of the area for a missing kid and haven’t looked into and ruled out like 300+ possible third party abductors.
30:04 This sounds like a ‘good cop’ line to me. ‘It’s ok, we don’t think you meant to hurt him, it was an accident, just tell us where he is, we’ll understand.’ I don’t take this to mean they actually don’t think he hurt him, but are luring him by giving him an opening that looks like an easy out. Also think Tranpa’s not falling for the bait. Notice though he says ‘why would you do that to yourself?’ and NOT ‘why would you do that to your family?’ This part he also seems weirdly cavalier towards the idea of his grandson dying in an accident.
30:54 Says handle instead of hand the property over to daughter and grandsons. Freudian slip from a control freak? Yes this is some petty over-analysis and I don’t care.
31:22- 32:50 Here he’s by far at his most animated and talkative...over how he wouldn’t be stupid enough to hide the body in the places they’ve been looking. He goes on for a minute on where evidence would have been left. Sounds like he’s given corpse-concealing some thought. He kind of throws in an ‘oh yeah, it would also be too traumatic for me to do.’ He tries to sound sympathetic but it sounds unconvincing and is still all about him, nothing about how he could never do such a terrible thing to his firstborn grandson, his only daughter, his whole family. Finding his demeaner interesting through all of this. To me he seems a little pleased with himself and channeling a little of that sort of sense of superiority that the police are on the wrong track that I’m used to seeing in interviews with perpetrators before they know they’ve been caught. Everything’s ‘ridiculous,’ ‘ludicrous,’ ‘laughable,’ ‘absurd.’ His contempt for their efforts is palpable, however all of this was done to investigate and rule out any alternate possibilities, however far-fetched, that something else had happened to his missing and presumed dead grandson before they finally turned their focus on him.
36:56 Basically indicates here that he doesn’t know how his daughter is coping with this and she isn’t comfortable talking to him about it. Estrangement confirmed? No mother-daughter girl talk bonding time, denied dude.
37:40 Complaining about this intruding on his domain.
40:51 This is just dumb and nitpicky, but host saying we haven’t seen emotion in Tranpa then talking about all of the aggressive, angry shit we’ve seen. Anger’s an emotion, dude. We’ve seen him be an emotionally unregulated prick for months.
41:53 Psychologist calls him brave for putting himself out there. Lol. Tranna O’Brien moment.
46:47 ‘Family friend’ says they’ve already wrecked tranpa’s life. He only publicly confirmed himself as the suspect in this interview, rather than what police have said, identifying the suspect as being one of the two and leaving it to public speculation which one it was. The police investigating the possibility he was responsible for this has not ruined his life after 75 years of living, and it’s batshit to me that that’s being presented as more impactful than the actual vanishing grandson, particularly given how he seems to be surrounded by sympathetic locals and had already mostly retreated from the larger outside world by preference. More pity party crap. And again, no word on if his daughter doubts his innocence, which you would think would be the main negative impact from being considered a suspect in this.
47:40 Tranpa says he thinks Gus was abducted and is alive after describing the kid in the past tense for the whole interview. Claims to believe it was an abduction but does not use this golden opportunity to make an appeal to the public to look for him or to the presumed abductor to return him, only to police to investigate any reported sightings.
Final thoughts:
The police have publicly stated that they named him a suspect at least in part due to inconsistencies in family testimonies, and this was entirely glossed over. Police may or may not have confronted him about these discrepancies, but did the reporters seriously not bother to even ask him what they were? ‘What do they think you didn’t tell them correctly?’ No? For that matter, no asking if being named a suspect has caused strain between the grandparents and Gus’s mother?
It’s annoying to me how the interviewer and so on keep speaking like Tranpa and ‘the family’ are one and the same, even to the point of needing to clarify that there’s only one suspect at 28:38. If they were unified, it would be one thing, but all signs point to no and so acting like he represents them feels pretty slimy. The parents by all accounts are still speaking freely with the police and if it comes to picking sides, they seem to be on team SAPOL instead of team Tranpa and Shannon; do they not count as ‘the family’? Feels like forced teaming, or like an extension of the trend since the beginning, even before he was declared a suspect, of making this the Josie Show, even through if he didn’t do it he’s the least relevant family member in this entire thing (not the parents, not the last to see Gus).
I really, really hate these choppy interviews. Lizard lady is the best character, but I don’t know why they spend so much time talking to her when as far as we know she’s just a random local. I want to see the whole damn interview with Tranpa, not selectively edited for a question and an EMOTION FACE here and there. Notice how much of this is Hannah Foord being questioned about what Tranpa has told her instead of just a normal interview with Tranpa himself. Why this by proxy shit? It’s weird. She also seems like an ‘ally.’ Gross. Guessing that’s why he’ll talk to her, she’s on his ‘team.’ Hope they at least shared the uncut footage with the police, since they did a little song and dance at the end of speculating that this interview could be helpful to them.
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- 27 de Ene, 2020
That's normal wear and tear for an old man who has spent a lifetime working in the Australian sun. There are some very leathery-looking crispy dudes running around the outback. Australia has the world's highest melanoma rate, and is Australia's third most common cancer after prostate cancer and breast cancer.