Lansdowne Road near the home of missing kids Jack and Lilly Sullivan in Pictou County.Steve Wadden/The Globe and Mail
RCMP insist the case of two children who disappeared in rural Nova Scotia more than five months ago hasn’t gone cold, despite police cadaver dogs finding no evidence of human remains and all possibilities still under consideration in the investigation.
Jack and Lilly Sullivan’s mother told police her kids wandered away from home in the backwoods hamlet of Lansdowne on May 2. Malehya Brooks-Murray and Daniel Martell, her common-law boyfriend at the time, have said they awoke that morning to a quiet home and assumed the young siblings had put on their boots, opened the sliding back door and left the fenced-in backyard.
An extensive search for the children led by the Northeast Nova Major Crime Unit involved helicopters, drones, dogs and hundreds of search-and-rescue volunteers. In late September, RCMP cadaver dogs and their handlers covered 40 kilometres in Lansdowne, including the trailer and property where the children went missing from, along a pipeline and intersecting trails behind the property, and in an area where Lilly’s pink blanket was previously found.
But police say this doesn’t definitively rule out the presence of human remains in the areas that were searched. “It means either the odour is there and couldn’t be detected or the odour isn’t there,” Staff Sergeant Stephen Pike of the RCMP Police Dog Services Training Centre said in a public statement.
Staff Sergeant Rob McCamon, the acting officer in charge of Major Crime and Behavioural Sciences, said investigators have still not determined with certainty the circumstances of the children’s disappearance, but continue to follow the evidence and are using specialty units and technology to pursue all avenues to find Lilly, 6, and Jack, 4.
“This case will not go cold,” he said during an interview. “This is a case that we will continually grind through the information. And once we’re done and we’ve collected all the information, if we aren’t at a place where we need to be, we will go back and do it again.”
In a recent podcast interview, Mr. Martell said he believes the children are alive. He said he thinks someone has taken them and he suspects the person is known to the children’s mother, Ms. Brooks-Murray – information he says he passed on to police.
“Because I was with Malehya for three years, I think I may know the person that has the kids,” he said during a video interview on The Drunk Turkey Show last week.
Ms. Brooks-Murray ended her relationship with Mr. Martell the day after the children disappeared. Two weeks before their disappearance, Ms. Brooks-Murray was planning to break up with him, but then changed her mind, he said in the interview.
When asked about Mr. Martell’s tip, Staff Sgt. McCamon said he couldn’t speak to specifics, but that Jack and Lilly’s family is co-operating. He reiterated that there’s no evidence of an abduction by a stranger or known individual.
He also restated that the likelihood of Jack and Lilly being alive is low.
“The facts and evidence that we gathered have not indicated anything to take us past a missing-persons investigation at this point, but it definitely does raise concerns, and we’re trying to gather as much information as thoroughly as we can to address those concerns and be able to answer questions about what happened to Jack and Lilly,” he said.
Missing Nova Scotia children were assessed by child welfare agency months before disappearance
Prior to their disappearance, Jack and Lilly had been reported absent from school for two days. In the months prior, the children had been assessed by a child welfare social worker at the home because of concerns raised by the school. Referrals to child welfare are made when there is a suspected case of neglect or abuse.
In August, The Globe and Mail published a story with a December, 2024, photo of Jack at school with a black eye.
Mr. Martell said in the podcast interview that the child protection visit was unrelated to the injury, but to provide instruction and support for the children’s behaviour. He said Jack refused to comply at school and acted aggressively, while Lilly tried to pull out her hair in frustration.
“The black eyes was definitely not from me,” he said.
“Most of the black eyes were probably from Lilly, because, and I don’t want to say 100 per cent because Jack was really clumsy too. When we used to take him into the woods, he would fall a lot. I remember one time, too, Jack ran right into the doorknob on the door. They would throw stuff at each other. They were quite aggressive toward each other.”
Mr. Martell also told the podcaster that suggestions that he was doing drugs and had a meth lab on the property are untrue. “I’ll stay in the spotlight as long as it takes, because as long as I’m the target, individuals or groups or whoever has the kids, they’re going to feel more relaxed and that gives investigators a chance to strike.”
Neither Ms. Brooks-Murray nor Mr. Martell responded to a request for comment.
Staff Sgt. McCamon said forensic testing continues. Major-crime investigators have reviewed more than 8,000 video files and continue to assess and follow up on more than 860 tips. He appealed to the public to come forward with any information about the case.