The family of missing four-year-old August ‘Gus’ Lamont are holding onto the small chance that he might be found, as the child’s grandparent shared their thoughts publicly for the first time.

The young boy disappeared nearly two weeks ago while playing outside at the remote Oak Park homestead, located in the rugged South Australian outback, 300 kilometers north of Adelaide.

Vast air and land searches have been unsuccessful in locating any sign of him, except for a lone footprint discovered in the desert scrub since his disappearance on the evening of September 27.

Police have now given up all hope of finding him alive and said last week the search had now been scaled back into body recovery mode.

On Wednesday, the property, situated within an expansive area of flat, unremarkable desert, was ominously quiet with no visible police activities, after teams from the Defence Force, SES, and indigenous trackers left the location.

However, Gus’ grandparent, Josie Murray—a transgender woman who is well-known among locals for transitioning many years ago—shared with the Daily Mail that the family remains hopeful.

‘We’re still looking for him,’ she insisted, while declining any offers of assistance in the search effort.

‘You can’t help. We are still dealing with this.’

Locals have now urged even well-meaning volunteers to stay away from the remote station as the grieving family grapples with their loss and contends with wild theories online. 

‘I know this family very well and they don’t want people turning up and having to just deal with that,’ one neighbour told the Adelaide Advertiser.

‘Even if the people are well-meaning and sympathetic, they just want peace and quiet and to try and work out for themselves what’s actually happened.’

It is understood Josie Murray lives with Gus’ grandmother Shannon Murray, and that the child’s mother Jess is also on the property where Gus went missing. 

Locals have told the Daily Mail that Jess and Gus’ father Joshua Lamont also share a one-year-old son, Ronnie, who is also believed to live on the station.

However Mr Lamont himself lives two hours’ drive away, 100km to the west in Belalie North, near Jamestown.

The Daily Mail has been told that Josh and Jess remain a couple but he does not live on the station because of clashes with Josie.

‘Josh doesn’t think it’s safe for the kids to be out there, it’s dangerous,’ a family friend revealed.

It is understood Mr Lamont only found out his child was missing when police woke him up at his home, hours after Gus had vanished.

Local experts who helped with the search say they are baffled by the disappearance and their inability to find any clues to the little boy’s fate.

Gus was last seen playing in a mound of dirt about 5pm but had vanished when his grandmother went to call him inside half an hour later.

The boy had been wearing a grey broad-brimmed hat, a distinctive blue long-sleeved shirt with a Minion picture from the movie Despicable Me on the front, with light grey pants and boots. 

Despite the vast, flat, featureless landscape surrounding the property, there had been no sight of the boy alive or dead, raising questions about where he could be.

‘I personally am very doubtful he is on the property,’ said Jason O’Connell, an SES member for 11 years, who covered more than 1,200km as part of the search team.

After days of hunting for the boy, Mr O’Connell and his partner Jen had expected to see birds of prey if there was a lifeless body on the property.

‘No birds of prey means he’s not there,’ he added.  

‘It’s just wide, open land. There’s really not much there, and I’m surprised because we just didn’t find anything.

‘He’s not on that property.’

The only trace of Gus found was a single footprint discovered about 500 metres from the homestead – and police have since cast doubt on that.

Local tracker Aaron Stuart told the media it was unusual to find one footprint as you would usually find ‘tracks’.

‘You’d find the next one, and the one after that,’ the former policeman told the Adelaide Advertiser. ‘You don’t find one track, you find tracks.’

Another Yunta local, Alex Thomas, said Gus’ family had been the target of ‘online vitriol’ accusing them of being involved in the little boy’s disappearance.

‘I really want to gently inform people about the realities of rural life and ask them for their compassion and understanding,’ Ms Thomas said.

‘Because this gentle and loving family – they’re not headlines, they are not a spectacle.

‘They are real people who are hurting beyond belief.’

Assistant Police Commissioner Ian Parrott said his team were ‘confident that we have done all we can to locate Gus’.

‘The determination of every individual involved to find Gus has never wavered,’ he said.

‘Like every member of the community who has been following this sad event, they too have been very much affected by what has happened.