After weeks of exhaustive searching, investigators have confirmed the discovery of a crucial item belonging to missing 9-year-old Gus Lamont, found deep in the wooded area nearly six kilometers from his family home.
The object — which authorities are not yet describing publicly — was identified late Thursday evening by a volunteer searcher following a faint trail of disturbed soil near a creek bed.
“We all stopped when we saw it. There was no mistaking who it belonged to,” said one search team member, visibly shaken.
Police have since cordoned off the site, calling it “the most significant find” since Gus disappeared. Forensic units were seen collecting samples and photographing a small hand-drawn symbol on a nearby tree, which investigators say appears to have been made with the same marker found in Gus’s backpack recovered days earlier.
Family sources describe the discovery as “utterly heartbreaking.” Gus’s parents, who were present at the scene when investigators confirmed the item’s identity, reportedly collapsed in tears after recognizing it.
“It’s something only Gus would have left,” a family friend said. “But the meaning behind it… that’s what’s haunting them now.”
Authorities are now analyzing whether the find was a message, a sign of struggle, or something else entirely. Investigators are remaining tight-lipped, but one insider called it “the first real clue that changes everything about the timeline.”
The search perimeter has since expanded by another two miles, and police have requested aerial thermal scans of the area — suggesting that what they found may not have been alone.
