It would be hard to make up a scenario that was more haunting, more spooky, more Elfred Hitchcock than this real life case. It's possible that Desi Freeman hid in a cave in Uo or a min in UOV and that he's just gone to sleep and been poisoned by poison. Gas Beth Barnard was found and the letter A had been carved into her Torso I mean Andrew Rule.
This is life and crimes.
As we put this podcast to here. Today things are happening into state with one of the bigger cases of recent years in South Australia and probably nationwide, and that is the latest development in the case of the missing child. Gas La Motte and little Gus, just four years old, went missing from Oak Park Station September twenty twenty five and Gus, little blonde boy, big wide smile. He was living on that station, which is a very remote and vast property right out in the sort of dry semi
desert country near the district of Junta. Gus vanished in late September on a particular day and searches were mounted and the mystery deepened with every passing day. It has come to pass that there have now been eight separate searches of a very large area, a radius of five and a half kilometers, which, when you do the calculation, is something like almost one hundred square kilometers of area searched very diligently on foot and by air and all
the ways that you can search. Not one midgeon of evidence has been found of the little boy, the missing boy. No footprints. There was one print found. They thought it might have been a print, but now they're thinking it wasn't. No clothing, no sign of a struggle, no blood, no body, no nothing, complete mystery. They've dragged dams, they've looked in creek beds, They've done everything they could. They've looked at the possibility of dingoes or wild pigs and whatever, or
of some sort of abduction by an outsider. And it turns out that after all these options have been looked at and discounted, that the police have decided with a heavy heart that really the most likely answer to the mystery of Gaslamont is closer to home.
The police, as.
Of the fifth of February, have declared that it is a major crime and a major person of interest is one of the people in Guss's circle. This is not his parents, It's not his mother or his father Josh Lamont,
it is someone else. The senior police person who conducted a very long and thorough media briefing on February the fifth, pointed out that there were certain anomalies and contradictions which had cropped up when police had interviewed family members and done timelines and tried to trace what each member of the family had done at a certain time, etc.
Etc.
That these anomalies and contradictions had become so obvious that the police had questioned the family members about them. It shows you that that case is now regarded by the police as possibly solvable, and that the one area of investigation, after exhausting all the others, they were at Haines to
point out how much searching had gone on. Eight separate searches over four months have revealed nothing that after all that they have no other conclusion than to investigate anomalies and contradictions inside the family circle.
We will look forward to.
Finding out more about the mysterious disappearance of Gaslamont in the coming days and weeks. However, there are other cases in Victoria. We have the ongoing search for Desi Freeman, the man who allegedly shot dead to police and injured a third police officer at Poor Punka in the northeast
at the end of last winter. Now, in recent days police have had a good look once more at reports that there was a single gunshot heard at a particular time on the day of the killings, and it is understood that they have a specific time, like a particular time the afternoon when this gunshot was heard, which leads some people who were involved in covering the.
Case to deduce the police.
Have been able to tap into some form of closed circuit camera or something that recorded an audio shot in the distance at a particular time of day, and.
That that recording is possibly.
Given them some technical way of comparing that sound with similar shots that they could do as a test run as a way of trying to pinpoint where this supposed single shot could have been, to pinpoint approximately where that shot occurred, because obviously they're looking at the possible that Desi Freeman having done allegedly the terrible crime that he did, I mean two police were shot dead, that he's run into the bush and within two or three hours perhaps
killed himself by shooting himself with one of the firearms that he was known to possess. Now that is a valid theory. And the undergrowth in that area is thick, there are a lot of mind shafts, there's a lot
of rough country. It's extraordinarily rough. One of our own photographers, Jason Edwards, who's covered this case in great depth, is a rock climber in his spare time, and he and his mates have been up there and he said it's an incredibly difficult country, even for fit people well prepared with ropes and so on and so on, and he said would be a very onerous task to search each square meter of it thoroughly, as good a job as
the police obviously done. However, there is another possibility, and it's a possibility that no doubt the police have entertained but not spoken about, at least not publicly, And that is this.
And this was brought to my.
Attention by the eminent historian and writer, doctor John Watson, and he points out correctly that in a district which has so many mine shafts, which it has, that area has hundreds, if not thousands of mine shafts, most of them lost overgrown, They are left over from the gold rushes of the mid nineteenth century. The countryside is riddled with them, and there is no doubt that someone who walked around the district like Dezzy Freeman did or was known to do, would have known of the existence of
various mine shafts. Now, not all mine shafts drop straight down into the ground. Some of them go traverse inwards into a hill site. They are known as drives. They drive relatively horizontally and then they can go along like that, and then they can drop into a shaft downwards. There's all different permutations of mines. Dom Watson pointed out, as is relatively well known in mining circles. Mines are dangerous because gases can be trapped in them.
It is always the great.
Fear of miners that they will be poisoned by a gas that is imperceptible to them until it's too late. And that is why we have that saying the canary
in the mind shaft. That old time miners would carry canaries in cages down to deep mines, so that if there were dangerous and deadly gases, the canary, a very vulnerable small creature, would feel it the effects of it before the miners did before the humans did, and a canary would stop whistling or making a noise and would be unconscious or dead before humans felt the effects of dangerous gases. Now there is more than one form of potentially deadly gas found in minds. The main one, but
not the only one, is carbon monoxide. And carbon monoxide.
Is odorless, it's tasteless, it's invisible.
And if you are in a space, a room, or a cave or anything else where, there is carbon monoxide. And this can happen at home, in your own garage. If you start a car in a closed garage that's relatively air tight, you can just go to sleep and die. It's very deadly because it just quietly knocks you out and then you die. And it is on the cards. It's possible that if Desi Freeman sought shelter in a mind shaft, he might have known one or two or
three that he had his eye on. And even if he'd visited such a mind shaft in the past for twenty minutes, half an hour, an hour, even if he'd done that and perhaps even puts some supplies there, you know, some baked beans and a blanket or whatever that sort of stuff that he may not realize the potential for dangerous gases. These gases can be produced by rotting vegetation. They can be produced by rotting timber that the old
timbers that the miners put in the mind shafts. When they've rot they give off gases which if trapped, if they dissipate into the air, no problem. But if they're trapped in a pocket, you can breathe them in and die.
John Watson's hypothesis, which he put together in an excellent essay on this whole case, is that it's possible that Desi Freeman hid in a cave in or are Mine knew of, and that he's just gone to sleep and been poisoned by poison gas, by carbon monoxide or one of the other forms of gas, such as I think sulfide is one, and there are others, most of them produced by nature, but some of course could come from the chemicals or substances used in the early days by
the old time miners. They might have left tins of stuff down there, and as it's rusted and rotted away, these dangerous gases could form and then be suspended at a certain level underground, So that the unsuspecting visitor hits them and he's poisoned by them. It's no more far fetched than any other scenario.
It's probably less far fetched.
Than the idea that Desi Freeman hit shiked his way out of the area, or that somebody knew he was on the run immediately and put him in their boot and drove him away. I think at this point of time, after all these months, after this amount of time, and we're looking at least five months.
That the police will probably have ruled out.
Any chance that Desi Freeman was helped by other people and he's being harbored by other people. Because the one thing that modern police forces are very good at a superb at, is using electronic surveillance techniques telephones, cameras, etc. In order to pick up any clues that might give
away what people are up to. And I think it's fair to say that if any one of dozens of people in any way associated with Desi Freeman or his sympathizers, if any one of them had said or done anything in the last five months that they knew.
That Desi was alive, the police.
Would know about it and they would have acted on it. That has clearly not happened. The theory that Desi is dead, either by his own hand or by misadventure, he's gathering strength with every passing week. Now, while we're still in Victoria, let's have a look at the case of the Lonely Bones at Phillip Island. Now back in January, January the fifteenth a plumber working on the sulage line as they call it, for a septic tank behind a house in an.
Estate called Silver Leaves Estate.
On Phillip Island. This plumber stumbled over some bones. Down he's digging a hole and he found some bones. Now, initially, the thought immediately was could this be evidence from a modern cold case? And what everybody wanted on that first day was could it be the remains of the missing woman Vivian Cameron. Now, Vivian Cameron is the person at the center really of what he's known as the Philip
Island Murder. The Philip Island murder happened forty years ago, and that was a notorious case where it was discovered that Vivian Cameron's husband, local landholder, farmer and sort of quite an important person on Philip Island, a low called Fergus Cameron.
It was discovered well, she discovered that he had.
Been having an affair with a young woman who worked on the property. That young woman was called Beth Barnard. She was twenty three, She was the daughter of a Melbourne lawyer, and she decided that she'd worked down at Phili Violin on this property for a while, et cetera, and she'd formed this illicit casual relationship with the older man. Fergus Cameron. Missus Cameron, mother of two or three kids, found out about it and was greatly distressed, as she
might be. And the result was forty years ago that Beth Barnard was found stabbed. She's found killed and the letter A had been carved into her torso and that some people concluded, and it's understandable that they would conclude this, that it was a symbol. It was a for adulteress. And this was something that had cropped up in a fairly famous novel. It had a literary allusion to it,
this a for adulteress. And what added to the mystery was that Vivian Cameron, the wronged wife, disappear at the same time that Beth Barnard was murdered on the same night Vivian Cameron disappeared and the vehicle she drove I think it was a fool drive or something. It was found on or near the big bridge that leads from
Philip Island over to San Remo. And the assumption was, and it's a very fair assumption, that she had done the murder in a fit of rage and then done away with herself by throwing herself off the bridge into the fast flowing channel when the tides are turning there the water runs fast, and it is an area because of seals and other things, that does have its share
of sharks, white point of sharks. And if you throw yourself in the water there and you aren't a good swimmer, or you actually want to die, there's every chance that you'd be swept out to see and then you would perhaps never be found because you be eaten by sea creatures.
So that was a scenario that presented itself for years.
The Philip Island Murder threw up at least one factual book written by Vicky Petratus and Paul Day, I think the first version of it, and it threw up a novel, a novel written by Chloe Hooper, which is I think called the Children's Book of True Crime, and it is an interesting, rather experimental novel which brought Chloe Hooper attention as one of our emerging writers a couple of decades ago,
and she's now one of our better known writers. And in fact, I understand that she's finishing a new novel, albeit not one about Philip Island this time. So the point I'm making about writers and the Philip Island case is that it's a case that captures the imagination. It would be hard to make up scenario that was more haunting, more spooky, more Alfred Hitchcock than this real life case. So the bones, the bones that were found on January the fifteenth, Huban.
What are they?
Well, my sources on Phillip Island, and my source there is a good source, because he's a person who knows a lot of people, including probably the local law enforcement people, and they would be abreast of the latest developments in DNA searches and forensic searches and all the rest of it. And he tells me that the assumption now is that the bones found were of a young female, but that they are not modern bones that are the subject of
an abduction or murder. Or kidnapped case. We don't think that these bones are the answer.
To a cold case such as let's.
Say bung Siriburn disappearing Baronia in the Eastern Suburbs in twenty and eleven, or a girl called Sharie Westall who was fifteen years old vanished after a dentist's appointment out in the far eastern suburbs of Melbourne, and no one's ever seen her again, and it's not known if she's alive or dead, but you would assume she's probably dead,
but her body was never found or identified. It would appear that the police have ruled out those possibilities, and it's looking increasingly likely that the bones are very old, and they probably belong to a teenage Indigenous person or First Nations person from a long time ago, and by that, you know, possibly even the century before last, or something of that nature, in which case it'll be an interesting piece of archaeology and there'll be a lot of and
throying about where to take those bones and to reinter them with the appropriate ceremonies. Let's have a look at another case now, fifteen years ago. Herald's some photographer David Cared and myself went to Dubbo in New South Wales, and then we went towards the coast to a bush township called Gloucester, and to surrounding areas I think in what might be called the Upper Hunter some of it. And we were interested in what was then the pointy
end of the manhunt for Australia's most wanted man. Now this guy was called Malcolm John Naden, infinite Aden. Malcolm John Naden.
Was basically a fruit loop.
Really, I think, although he's now serving a very long sentence, it's probable that he should be in some sort of mental institution. Malcolm John Naden wasn't in pigenous guy who came from a Dubbo. He was a strange cat, I think, all his life. And he went on the run after coming under suspicion for the violent death of a young Indigenous woman who was known to him, and also over the disappearance of his own cousin, a girl called Nolan. Her surname was Nolan. And also he was under suspicion
for sexual assaults of at least one teenage girl. And so this man Naden, who was wanted over a murder, a suspected murder, and over a sexual assault. He bolted, He bolted and he went bush. Now it was a case that was strange because outside that patch of New
South Wales, not many people knew about it. His victims were people sort of known to him, and the story didn't get a lot of currency until much later, when people realized this bloke has been wandering out in the countryside, living on the fat of the land, essentially, you know, hunting for his food and basically stealing food and all this sort of thing, breaking into holiday houses and farmhouses and so on, and doing the.
Best he could. And he did this for years.
And it might be that if he hadn't done a very rash thing, he could still have been living up in the bush. But what he did, some police went in looking for him, and he had stolen a twenty two rifle from a farmhouse and he took a shot at a policeman. I think he wounded a policeman and that wasn't good because then the New South Wales police got very very keen on finding him because once you shoot a police they take it very personally, and so
they really cranked up the search. They sent in the tactical response guys and the search and rescue and helicopters and the dogs and everybody else, and the manhunt for Malcolm Naden became quite a big deal. And indeed they grabbed him, they got him, and I'm told on good authority that they could smell him before they saw him. He'd been out in the bush for months and months without any form of hygiene or washing.
And he was very whiffy. Was probably a relief.
For Malcolm Naden to be taken into custody and given three square meals a day and the chance to have.
A bath or a shower or both.
He got many, many years in jail, I think something. I think something like close to forty years. And the smart money says he's never coming out because he is one bent unit that leads us into who the final chapter of our Around the Grounds podcast today and that is the ongoing case ongoing as we talk about it now.
Of Justin Ingram. Now, Justin Ingram.
Is the man who is the subject of a manhunt right now in February twenty twenty six in the area outside.
Lake car Galligho.
Lake cark Gallagher is right out in central New South Wales, out in the dry country.
It's the way out northwest of Griffith.
So you're out in small town New South Wales, where the properties are very big, very vast, the populations very thin, and a local boy like Julian Ingram, who's born and bred up that way, worked as a gardener on the local council, he would be able to use his local knowledge to say one step ahead of the law. And what happened is on January the twenty second, that is just recently justin Ingram obtained a firearm. I don't think he was a registered shootor but he's out in the
bush and there's plenty of guns about. He went to a properly known to him and there he shot his former fiance, twenty five year old Sophie Quinn, a young woman who was pregnant at the time of her shooting. He also shot her male friend who's with her, and he then went around to another address and shot her aunt.
He shot this girl, Sophie Quinn's aunt. He went around and he shot her aunt, Narrator Quinn, who was known to him, and he also wounded a young man, I think another relative, a young man who was there at that time and who bolted but still was hit by shotgun pellets, I think, and he survived. He's out of hospital and he's okay. But that's three dead, one wounded. And then Justin Ingram, the alleged shooter in this case, escapes in his council utility.
It's a white Ford.
Ranger I think, with the lights on top of the roof, such as council workers use for roadworks and so on. And he's headed out into the wild blue yonder beyond Lake car Gallagher, and no one knows where he is. The police have mounted big searches, they've got helicopters, they've
got the lot, they can't find him. He does have local knowledge, like Malcolm Nayden, and it could be that if he is getting some help, if he's getting the sort of help that people allege Desy Freeman got, which I don't believe Deesy Freeman did get, Justin Ingram may well have been taken out of the area by someone related to him or known to him. And he could
be a long way from Lake Carl Gallagher. He might be just out in a patch of bush on a big property doing the best he can, living on rabbits, or he might be in a state by now no one knows, but there's no doubt that this year we will find out more about Justin Ingram and that he'll probably be found and like Malcolm Naden will end up facing the courts for the crimes that he is allegedly committed. So there we have it, a round up from state
to state of all the current mysteries. Where's Justin, where's the little Gusslermont, the little boy in South Australia? Whose are the bones of Phillip Island? And most of all, did Desi Freeman shoot himself? Or did he hide in a mind shaft and run into a bit of poison gas?
Thanks for listening.
Life and Crimes is a Sunday Herald Sun production for True crime Australia. Our producer is Johnty Burton. For my columns, features and more, go to Heroldsun dot com dot au, forward slash Andrew rule one word. For advertising inquiries, go to news.
Podcasts sold at.
News dot com dot au. That is all one word news podcasts sold And if you want further information about this episode, links are in the description. Eight